New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 1–17. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0028688508000015
Spit in Your Eye: The Blind Man of Bethsaida and the Blind Man of Alexandria E R IC EVE Harris Manchester College, Oxford, OX1 3TD, England
The account of Vespasian’s use of spittle to heal a blind man at Alexandria has long been noted as a parallel to the use of spittle in Mark’s healing of the Blind Man of Bethsaida, but little has been made of the temporal proximity of these two stories. Vespasian’s healings formed part of the wider Flavian propaganda campaign to legitimate the new claimant to the imperial throne; to many Jewish ears this propaganda would have sounded like a usurpation of traditional messianic hopes. This article argues that Mark introduced spittle into his story of the Blind Man of Bethsaida to create an allusion to the Vespasian story as part of a wider concern to contrast the messiahship of Jesus with such Roman imperial ‘messianism’. Keywords: Mark 8, Vespasian, Blindman, Miracle, Messianism
1. Introduction
Two of the healing stories in Mark stand out as being peculiarly distinctive. Whereas in all the other Markan healing stories Jesus heals by word of command or mere touch, in those of the Deaf Mute (Mark 7.31–37) and the Blind Man of Bethsaida (8.22–26) he resorts to physical manipulations and the use of spittle. In the former pericope Jesus puts his finger into the man’s ears, spits and touches his tongue (7.33); in the latter he spits on the man’s eyes before touching them, and has to make a second attempt before the man’s sight is fully restored (8.23–25). These atypical elements have been variously identified as magical,1 medical,2 or simply typical of the (not least Hellenistic) healing techniques of the day.3 1 Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician (London: Victor Gollancz, 1978) 128; John M. Hull, Hellenistic Magic and the Synoptic Tradition (SBT 2nd series 28; London: SCM, 1974) 76–8. 2 Gerd Theissen, Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition (SNTW; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1983) 63, 93; John R. Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark (SP 2; Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier, 2002) 240. 3 Vincent Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark (London: MacMillan, 1952) 354; D. E. Nineham, Saint Mark (Harmondsworth: Penguin, rev. ed. 1969) 203–4; C. E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel According to St Mark (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1977) 251–2; Morna D.
1
2 eric eve There is no shortage of possible therapeutic, magical, exorcistic or apotropaic uses for spittle in an ancient healing story; the oddity is that spittle should appear in these two stories and no others in the synoptic tradition.4 Luke omits this section of Mark altogether, and to the extent that Matthew can be said to have any parallels to these Markan stories (Matt 9.27–31; 15.30–31) he omits any mention of spittle. The most commonly cited parallel to the use of spittle in the healing of a blind man is the story told about Vespasian in Tacitus Histories IV.81; Suetonius Vespasian 7.2; and Cassius Dio Roman Histories LXV.8, in which Vespasian heals two men in Alexandria in late 69 or early 70. Sometimes this is the sole parallel offered (apart from John 9.6).5 Sometimes reference is also made to Pliny, Galen or rabbinic sources, but usually for the healing use of spittle rather than as an additional narrative parallel.6 The most obvious narrative parallel to the use of spittle in the Blind Man of Bethsaida thus remains the Blind Man of Alexandria. But although this is commonly recognized, little is made of the temporal proximity of the two stories. If Mark wrote his gospel in or shortly after 70 ce then he did so when the account of Vespasian’s healings was current and topical.7 This raises the question whether the spittle in Mark’s stories is, as most commentators assume, simply something he took over from his source, or whether it is a deliberate allusion to the Vespasian story. The present paper will examine the
4 5 6
7
Hooker, The Gospel According to St Mark (BNTC; London: A. & C. Black, 1991) 186; Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993) 383, 389. There is also a non-synoptic parallel at John 9.6–7, where the use of spittle is slightly different. Taylor, Mark, 354; Nineham, Mark, 204; Hugh Anderson, The Gospel of Mark (NCB; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, softback ed. 1981) 193; Hooker, Mark, 198. Cranfield, Mark, 251; Robert A. Guelich, Mark 1–8.26 (WBC 34A; Dallas, TX: Word, 1989) 394–5; Donahue and Harrington, Mark, 240, 256; Joel Marcus, Mark 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 27; New York: Doubleday, 2000) 473 (variously citing Pliny Natural History XXVIII.7; and Galen Natural Faculties III.7); for a fuller list of potential parallels see Gundry, Mark, 389, and Hendrick van der Loos, The Miracles of Jesus (NovTSup 9; Leiden: Brill, 1965) 306–9. For the dating of Mark’s Gospel to around or possibly just after 70 ce, see, e.g., Nineham, Mark, 41–2; Hooker, Mark, 8; Udo Schnelle, The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings (London: SCM, 1998) 201–2; Donahue and Harrington, Mark, 41–7; Marcus, Mark 1–8, 37–9; and especially Gerd Theissen, The Gospels in Context: Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1992) 258–71. On the other hand, Taylor, Mark, 31; Cranfield, Mark, 8; Anderson, Mark, 24–26; and Martin Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark (London: SCM, 1985) 1–30 (among others) argue for a date shortly before 70, which would make the Gospel too early to have been influenced by the Vespasian story; Guelich, Mark, xxxi–xxxii, dates Mark in the range 67–70, which might just allow Mark to have become familiar with the Vespasian story.
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Vespasian story in the context of Flavian propaganda and then argue that Mark was responding to it.
2. Vespasian as Healer
Vespasian was sent to Judaea by Nero to put down the Jewish revolt. Nero subsequently committed suicide, thereby triggering a fierce competition for the imperial throne in which Galba, Otho and Vitellius each managed a reign of only a few months. On 1 July 69, the legions stationed in Egypt proclaimed Vespasian emperor, and his Judaean troops quickly followed suit. Vespasian’s main priority was then to consolidate his position, which in November 69 took him to Alexandria, apparently to secure the grain supply while Mucianus led an army on Rome.8 It was while Vespasian was at Alexandria that he reputedly performed a pair of healings. All three accounts of these healings agree that Vespasian healed a blind man making use of spittle. According to Tacitus, the blind man threw himself at Vespasian’s feet and begged Vespasian to moisten his cheeks and eyes with his spittle, claiming that he had been so directed by Sarapis. Suetonius similarly states that a blind man, who claimed to have been advised by Sarapis in a dream, begged the emperor to restore his sight by spitting on his eyes. Tacitus states that the blind man was accompanied by another man who asked Vespasian to cure his useless hand by stepping on it, and that Vespasian carried out both requests with initial reluctance but eventual success. Suetonius gives a similar account, except that instead of stepping on the second man’s hand, the emperor cured a lame man by touching his leg with his heel. The briefer account in Cassius Dio has the blind man accompanied by a man with a withered hand, but again states that Vespasian cured the latter by standing on his hand and the former by spitting in his eye. Tacitus and Suetonius differ over the timing of these events. Suetonius has Vespasian visit the temple of Sarapis prior to the healings, whereas according to Tacitus the healings came first, Vespasian being moved to consult Sarapis as a result of their success.9 Tacitus and Suetonius concur that Vespasian received a 8 For more detailed accounts of these events and of Vespasian’s strategy see P. D. L. Greenhalgh, The Year of the Four Emperors (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975); Kenneth Wellesley, The Year of the Four Emperors (London and New York: Routledge, 3rd ed. 2000); and Barbara Levick, Vespasian (London and New York: Routledge, 1999). 9 Guy E. F. Chilver, A Historical Commentary on Tacitus’ Histories IV and V: Completed and Revised by G. B. Townend (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985) 83, argues that neither order is to be preferred; P. Derchain and J. Hubaux, ‘Vespasien au Sérapéum’, Latomus 12 (1953) 38–52 (42–3), think it more likely that the visit to the Serapeum came first. Levick, Vespasian, 68, regards it as likely that in either event Vespasian would have consulted Sarapis soon after his arrival in Alexandria.
4 eric eve favourable omen in the temple, but disagree over its nature. They agree that while Vespasian was alone in the temple, he saw a man named Basilides, even though this Basilides was known to be some distance away.10 In Tacitus’s account Vespasian regards this as a favourable divine vision solely on the basis of the name ‘Basilides’, meaning the son of a king. According to Suetonius, however, Basilides offered Vespasian ‘sacred boughs, garlands and loaves’, and immediately after leaving the temple Vespasian received letters informing him of the death of Vitellius and the victory of the Flavian forces at Cremona.11 Nonetheless the import of Suetionus’s version is much the same as Tacitus’s, since the items his Basilides gave Vespasian were symbols of kingship.12 Two points stand out: whatever the precise sequence of events and whatever happened in the Serapeum, Tacitus and Suetonius are agreed that Vespasian’s healing miracles were closely associated with the god Sarapis and Vespasian’s visit to his principal temple, and that the vision granted Vespasian in that temple was a confirmation of his kingship. The two Roman historians also agree in suggesting that Vespasian’s healings helped legitimate his claim to the throne. Suetonius begins his account by remarking that ‘Vespasian as yet lacked prestige and a certain divinity, so to speak, since he was an unexpected and still new-made emperor; but these also were given him’. Tacitus states that ‘while Vespasian was waiting at Alexandria. . . many marvels occurred to mark the favour of heaven and a certain partiality of the gods toward him’.13 This prompts the question why a Roman emperor should
10 (Tacitus Hist. IV.82; Suetonius Vesp. 7.1) 11 The identity of this Basilides, variously described as Vespasian’s freedman (by Suetonius) or as ‘one of the leading men of Egypt’ (by Tacitus), has attracted much speculation in modern scholarship, as has the issue of whether the Basilides who appeared to Vespasian in the Serapeum was the same Basilides as the priest who gave Vespasian a favourable oracle on Mount Carmel (Tacitus Hist. II.78; Suetonius Vesp. 5.6); see Kenneth Scott, ‘The Role of Basilides in the Events of A.D. 69’, JRS 24 (1934) 138–40; idem, The Imperial Cult under the Flavians (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1936) 11–13; Derchain and Hubaux, ‘Vespasien au Sérapéum’, 40–41, 51–52; Léon Hermann, ‘Basilides’, Latomus 12 (1953) 312–15; Tacitus, who makes much of the name Basilides at Hist. IV.82, makes no attempt to identify him with the Basilides introduced at Hist. II.78 on Mount Carmel, so Chilver (Commentary, 83, 238), is probably correct in regarding the identification of the two men as no more than ‘just possible’. 12 Albert Henrichs, ‘Vespasian’s Visit to Alexandria’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 3 (1968) 51–80 (61); Franklin Brunell Krauss, An Interpretation of the Omens, Portents and Prodigies Recorded by Livy, Tacitus and Suetonius (Philadelphia, 1930) 159; Levick, Vespasian, 69; Brian W. Jones, Suetonius, Vespasian; Edited with Introduction, Commentary and Bibliography (London: Bristol Classical, 2000) 54. 13 Suetonius Vesp. 7.2; Tacitus Hist. IV.81. These and all further translations from Suetonius, Tacitus and Josephus are taken from the Loeb Classical Library editions of their respective works.
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seek to bolster his claim to the throne in this way, since there is nothing to suggest that any other emperor ever tried to legitimate his position by healing.14 The answer is quite complex. Part of it involves identifying what audience these acts were designed to impress. Another part relates to the precariousness of Vespasian’s situation as a newly proclaimed emperor at a time when emperors were losing their lives in quick succession.15 A further part concerns Vespasian’s propaganda as a whole. But perhaps the best place to start is with the significance of healing miracles performed at Alexandria in conjunction with the god Sarapis. Although Tacitus recounts a number of tales concerning the origins of Sarapis, the view adopted by most modern scholars is that Sarapis was largely an invention of the early Ptolemies, adding Greek features to an Egyptian cult originally based at Memphis. The Egyptian cult involved the worship of the sacred bull Osiris-Apis, or Osarapis, which became Sarapis in Greek translation. It may have been this god’s connections with the underworld and agricultural fertility that made him appear particularly suitable for the grafting on of Hellenistic elements. Sarapis took on the attributes of a number of Greek deities including first Dionysus and Hades, and subsequently Zeus, Helios and Asclepius. He may originally have been intended as a patron deity for the Greek citizens of Ptolemaic Alexandria, but he became particularly associated with the royal family, and thus, perhaps, with a ruler cult.16 Although Sarapis was probably intended to unite the Greek and Egyptian populations (of Alexandria, if not of Egypt), he failed in this purpose, since he never caught on with the native Egyptian population. He proved more popular with the Greek inhabitants, although his popularity declined towards the end of the Ptolemaic period.17 By the Roman period, Sarapis’s popularity seems to have been on the rise once more, and his cult had long since spread well beyond Egypt, aided, no doubt, by the fact that he was the consort of Isis; both deities had cults in Rome by the time of the late republic.18 That said, the major rise of the cult of Serapis was to come about through Flavian interest in the god.19 Vespasian 14 J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, ‘Religion’, CAH 11.984–1008 (986). 15 Richmond Lattimore, ‘Portents and Prophecies in Connection with the Emperor Vespasian’, The Classical Journal 29 (1934) 441–9 (446). 16 Tacitus Hist. IV. 83–4; Saratola A. Takács, Isis and Sarapis in the Roman World (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 124; Leiden: Brill, 1995) 28; P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1932) 1.202, 206, 211–12, 246–65; Siegfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion (trans. Anne E. Keep; London: Methuen, 1973) 245–6; George Hart, A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 189–91; Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (London: Thames & Hudson, 2003) 127. 17 Morenz, Egyptian Religion, 246; Wilkinson, Complete Gods, 128; Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 272–3. 18 Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 275; Takács, Isis and Sarapis, 29, 56, 70–75, 127–9. 19 Saratola A. Takács, ‘Alexandria in Rome’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 97 (1995) 263–76 (274–5); idem, Isis and Sarapis, 73–5.
6 eric eve arrived in Alexandria at a time when association with an aspiring emperor could benefit an aspiring god as much as the other way round; the Sarapis cult’s support for Vespasian helped both parties, and that may well have motivated the priests of Sarapis to play their part in the Flavian propaganda campaign.20 The healings carried out by Vespasian seem designed to demonstrate the close association between the new emperor and the god. Healing was one of the powers long attributed to Sarapis, and the first healing miracle to be attributed to him was restoring sight to a blind man, one Demetrius of Phaleron, an Athenian politician.21 Vespasian’s use of his foot to effect the other healing, whether by standing on the man’s hand (as in Tacitus) or touching the man’s leg with his heel (as in Suetonius) should be understood in light of the fact that a foot could be seen as a symbol of Sarapis.22 In some minds Vespasian’s two healings might be taken as a sign, not simply that Vespasian enjoyed Sarapis’s blessing, but that he was in some sense to be identified with the god.23 This is in part suggested by the ancient Egyptian myth that the kings of Egypt were sons of Re, the sun-god, and is further borne out by the fact that Vespasian was saluted as ‘son of Ammon’ as well as ‘Caesar, god’ when he visited the hippodrome only a short while later.24 Presumably the main targets of this propaganda were the population of Alexandria and the two legions stationed there, whose support Vespasian clearly needed to retain. No doubt different people will have understood this cluster of events in different ways. Some may have seen Vespasian as quasi-divine, others as a divinely aided thaumaturge and others as an exceptionally lucky man smiled on by fortuna and the gods.25 In any case the healing miracles and their association with Sarapis seem to have been designed more for eastern than western consumption.26 This is in part suggested by the way Tacitus and Suetonius describe them. Although Tacitus accepts that the healings took place, even going so far as to cite the continuing existence of eye-witnesses who would have nothing to gain by lying, he nevertheless plays down their miraculous nature, instead emphasizing that the reluctant Vespasian obtained expert medical opinion that the cures 20 Scott, Imperial Cult, 9–11; Levick, Vespasian, 79. 21 Henrichs, ‘Alexandria’, 66–7, 71; Takács, Isis and Sarapis, 97; Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 207, 256–8; Morenz, Egyptian Religion, 268. 22 Henrichs, ‘Alexandria’, 69; Jones, Suetonius, Vespasian, 56; J. Gagé, ‘L’empereur romain devant Sérapis’, Ktema 1 (1976) 145–66 (152); Levick, Vespasian, 69. 23 Takács, Isis and Sarapis, 96–7. 24 Henrichs, ‘Alexandria’, 59, 65; Levick, Vespasian, 69. 25 For this variety of interpretations see nn. 23 and 24 above and Lattimore, ‘Portents and Prophecies’, 446–7; Jones, Suetonius, Vespasian, 55; and Russell T. Scott, Religion and Philosophy in the Histories of Tacitus (Papers and Monographs of the American Academy in Rome 22; Rome: American Academy in Rome, 1968) 81. 26 So, e.g., Miriam Griffin, ‘The Flavians’, CAH 11.1–83 (5); Scott, Religion and Philosophy, 81; Greenhalgh, Four Emperors, 246; and Henrichs, ‘Alexandria’, 75.
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were possible by natural means before going on to attempt them. Again, while the two Roman historians suggest that these events indicate that Vespasian enjoyed divine favour and lent him considerable prestige, they show no awareness of the more extravagant significance his association with Sarapis would have had.27 What actually happened at Alexandria is another matter. The differences in details between Tacitus and Suetonius suggests that their two accounts are independent of each other and perhaps reliant on variant oral traditions.28 This, coupled with Tacitus’s appeal to eye-witnesses, make it quite likely that the accounts do go back to an actual event.29 It could well be that, as Tacitus’s account hints, this event was carefully stage-managed as a propaganda device, possibly without Vespasian’s prior knowledge.30 One suspects that Tiberius Julius Alexander, the prefect of Egypt, would have been one of the principal stage-managers, along, quite probably, with the priests of Sarapis.31 What matters for present purposes is not so much what actually happened as whether some such story started to be spread from the beginning of 70 ce, so that it would be recognized as a relatively fresh piece of imperial propaganda when Mark wrote. The evidence suggests this is likely: Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio, and for that matter Josephus all more or less agree on the dating and occasion of Vespasian’s visit to Alexandria, and it is difficult to see what other occasion would have given rise to this story. Moreover, if Vespasian (or his supporters) felt the need to legitimate his accession in this way, it is surely towards the beginning of his reign that such propaganda would have been most useful. There is, however, a problem: Josephus records Vespasian’s visit to Alexandria (J.W. IV.656) but says nothing about his performing any healings there. Yet if this was being widely promulgated as a piece of Flavian propaganda, Josephus can hardly have failed to hear about it. Josephus’s silence on this point could be explained simply by the fact that he is writing an account of the Jewish War, not of Vespasian’s elevation to the purple,32 so that having left Vespasian in Alexandria at J.W. IV.658, Josephus 27 So also Scott, Religion and Philosophy, 80. Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (London: SCM, 1998) 595, stress that Tacitus is writing from a sceptical, critical, ‘enlightened’ upper-class perspective. Ronald Syme, Tacitus (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1997 [1958]) 1.206, points out that the passage is characteristic of Tacitus’s irony. 28 So Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, 595–6; contra Henrichs, ‘Alexandria’, 57, who argues that Tacitus and Suetonius drew on a common source. 29 Although Henrichs, ‘Alexandria’, 66, 75, is justifiably cautious about the reliability of eye-witnesses; cf. Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (London: James Currey, 1985) 129: ‘Historical truth is also a notion that is culture specific. . . In many cultures truth is what is being faithfully repeated as content and has been certified as true by the ancestors’. 30 Henrichs, ‘Alexandria’, 65–6; Levick, Vespasian, 69. 31 Henrichs, ‘Alexandria’, 75–6; Scott, Imperial Cult, 9–11. 32 See Josephus J.W. IV.492–6.
8 eric eve follows Titus’s campaign in Judaea, which is more directly relevant to his subject, only returning to Vespasian at J.W. V.2.21 where he briefly records the emperor’s setting sail from Alexandria on his way to Rome. Nonetheless a variety of explanations have been offered why Josephus would positively want to avoid telling this story. According to Albert Henrichs, Josephus’s pro-Flavian stance would have left him ‘no room for the manifest propaganda staged by Tiberius Alexander’, since Josephus was anxious to play down any impression that Vespasian was thrusting himself forward as yet another self-seeking claimant to the throne.33 By itself this seems less than fully convincing, since Josephus could easily have given the story a pro-Flavian slant had he so desired. Barbara Levick suggests that Josephus omitted Vespasian’s healings because ‘the manipulation of gentile cults in a city notorious for virulent hatred of Jews was repugnant – and puts his own work in the shade’.34 But this still does not get to the heart of the matter. It was almost certainly a combination of religious and political factors that forced Josephus to omit this story. First, Josephus’s writings indicate that he regarded true miracles as being acts of Yahweh the God of Israel; any other would-be wonders would be the result of mere artifice at best or sorcery at worst.35 Josephus is happy enough to assign the Flavian success to the providence of Israel’s God, but the accounts of Vespasian’s healing associate them with the Egyptian god Sarapis, whom Josephus could not regard as a legitimate source of miraculous power. This leads to an even deeper reason why Josephus could not have included this story. One of the central problems Josephus had to wrestle with in the Jewish War was how God could have allowed the fall of Jerusalem, and the answer he came up with was similar to that of the prophets after the Babylonian destruction: God was using a pagan power to punish the Jews for their sins. If Rome had triumphed, it was because God was, for now, on the side of the Romans.36 To tell a story in which Vespasian was legitimated by an Egyptian god would therefore have been a theological impossibility; it would have undermined Josephus’s entire project. Conversely, to have represented the healings at Alexandria as a piece of staged-managed trickery would, as Henrichs suggests, have gone against
33 Henrichs, ‘Alexandria’, 77–9. 34 Levick, Vespasian, 69. 35 Eric Eve, The Jewish Context of Jesus’ Miracles (JSNTSup 231; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002) 24–33. 36 Per Bilde, Flavius Josephus between Jerusalem and Rome: His Life, His Works and Their Importance (Sheffield: JSOT, 1988) 182–6; James S. McLaren, Turbulent Times? Josephus and Scholarship on Judaea in the First Century CE (JSPSup 29; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998) 56–9; Tessa Rajak, Josephus: The Historian and His Society (London: Duckworth, 1983) 78–9, 99.
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Josephus’s loyalty to the Flavians. He thus had no option but to leave them out altogether.37 It seems reasonable to conclude that despite Josephus’s silence the story of Vespasian’s Alexandrian healings would have been known in the east (as J.W. IV.618 perhaps suggests) from early in 70 ce, and in Rome not much later. For one thing, as the next section will discuss in more detail, the Flavian party was actively engaged in disseminating its propaganda. For another, ships regularly transported grain from Alexandria to Rome, and it would be surprising if their crews did not convey news of significant events; any events concerning the claims of a rival emperor would certainly be thought significant in Rome, especially after Flavian forces under Antonius Primus invaded Italy (in September 69).38 Again, Vespasian himself made the journey from Alexandria to Rome in 70 while Titus was still engaged in the siege of Jerusalem (J.W. VII.21), and it would again be surprising if news of events in Alexandria did not travel with him, assuming they had not already done so before. Moreover, the letters of Paul (to Rome) and Clement (from Rome) illustrate how Roman Christians were in correspondence with Christians elsewhere in the empire, and this suggests yet another route by which news of Alexandrian events could have reached a Roman Mark.39 Yet Mark need not have written quite as early as 70 ce and, despite the traditional view that he penned his gospel in Rome, he may well have been situated somewhere in the east, rather closer to events in Alexandria.40 Thus if Mark wrote his gospel in the aftermath of the Jewish War, it is highly probable that he would have been aware of the stories concerning Vespasian. But before examining Mark’s story of the Blind Man of Bethsaida in light of this, it will be useful to put the Alexandrian stories in the context of other Flavian propaganda. 3. Vespasian, Propaganda and Prophecy
Here the issue is not the later propaganda put about after 70 once Vespasian had secured his throne,41 but the stories circulating in and around 69 37 Although Henrichs, ‘Alexandria’, 79–80, argues that hints of these Alexandrian events survive at J.W. IV.618 and VII.123, the first alluding to Tiberius Alexander’s propaganda efforts on Vespasian’s behalf and the second to the fact that Vespasian and Titus spent the night before their Triumph in the temple of Isis in Rome. 38 Wellesley, Four Emperors, 132. 39 For an elaboration of many of these points, and a wider discussion of communications between Christians and other groups around the Roman Empire, see Michael B. Thompson, ‘The Holy Internet: Communication Between Churches in the First Christian Generations’, The Gospel for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences (ed. Richard Bauckham; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998) 49–70. 40 For a post-war Syrian provenance for Mark, see Theissen, Gospels in Context, 258–71. 41 On which see John Nicols, Vespasian and the Partes Flavianae (Historia 28; Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1978) 95–6.
10 eric eve when he was still trying to gather support. That such stories were being deliberately spread for propaganda purposes is illustrated by the rumour that Vitellius intended to swap the postings of the legions assigned to Syria and Germany, a change that would have been highly unpopular with the troops currently stationed in the east. This rumour was almost certainly false, but it was just as certainly effective in helping to secure the loyalty of the eastern legions.42 Of more immediate interest, however, are the various prophecies and portents associated with Vespasian’s rise to power; here there is space only for a brief description of the most relevant.43 Of these, the only one from around this time that Tacitus narrates is an oracle from the god of Carmel, expounded by a priest named Basilides.44 The god of Carmel promised Vespasian success in whatever he might be planning, and according to Tacitus, this was soon being widely talked about among Vespasian’s troops; it was presumably effective in helping to persuade them that fate was on Vespasian’s side.45 It may also be that in consulting the oracle of a local deity Vespasian was trying to wrap himself in the mantle of Alexander the Great, who had consulted an oracle at Siwah in the Libyan desert four hundred years before.46 Another prophecy of Vespasian’s success was that of Josephus, who prophesied that Vespasian would become emperor.47 Josephus himself tells us so at J.W.III.399–404; IV.623, but this prophecy is also mentioned by Suetonius Vesp. 5.6 and Cassius Dio Rom. Hist. XV.4.48 Josephus’s purpose in making the prophecy, or at least in telling his readers about it, seems to have been to justify his change of sides and to demonstrate that he was a true prophet who foretold the Roman victory in advance of the fall of Jerusalem.49 At the time, Josephus may have been more concerned to ingratiate himself with his captors; but whatever Josephus’s motives, another indication that Vespasian enjoyed divine favour would certainly 42 Greenhalgh, Four Emperors, 130; Nicols, Partes Flavianae, 96. 43 For a fuller treatment see Lattimore, ‘Portents and Prophecies’; Nicols, Partes Flavianae, 96–8; and Scott, Imperial Cult, 3–19. 44 Tacitus Hist. II.78; cf. Suetonius Vesp. 5.6. On the issue of whether this was the same Basilides who subsequently appeared to Vespasian in the Serapeum at Alexandria, see n. 11 above. 45 Scott, Imperial Cult, 8. 46 So Takács, Isis and Sarapis, 98, and idem, ‘Alexandria in Rome’, 273. Henrichs, ‘Alexandria’, 55–8 more plausibly argues that this function was fulfilled by Vespasian’s visit to the temple of Sarapis in Alexandria. 47 The timing of this prophecy is disputed; Suetonius places it after the oracle at Carmel, contrary to Josephus’s own assertion. Levick, Vespasian, 43, 67, argues that despite what his account suggests Josephus cannot have made this prophecy as early as 67, when Nero was still alive, since this would have led to his execution; cf. Rajak, Josephus, 186–7, and Nicols, Partes Flavianae, 93. 48 For possible reasons why Tacitus is silent on Josephus’s prophecy, see M. Gwyn Morgan, ‘Vespasian and the Omens in Tacitus “Histories” 2.78’, Phoenix 50.1 (1996) 41–55 (45). 49 Rajak, Josephus, 188.
Spit in Your Eye 11
have suited the Flavian public relations agenda in 69, and the Flavian party would surely have circulated it. Neither Cassius Dio nor Suetonius appear to be dependent on Josephus’s account, so the story of his prophecy clearly did circulate independently of the Jewish War.50 It was clearly apparent to the Jewish revolutionary authorities who had despatched Josephus to Galilee that he had changed sides and that he was being well treated by his captors, and this is further circumstantial evidence for the early circulation of this tale.51 Although distinct from it, Josephus’s own prophecy is not unrelated to his claim that many of his fellow countrymen had been misled into revolt by an oracle ‘to the effect that at that time one from their country would become ruler of the world’ (J.W. VI.312). In fact, Josephus goes on to say, this oracle referred not to a Jewish ruler, but to Vespasian, who was acclaimed emperor while he was on Jewish soil (J.W. VI.313–14); becoming ‘ruler of the world’ is much the same thing as becoming ‘master of. . .land and sea and the whole human race’, which is what Josephus claims to have prophesied for Vespasian in J.W. III.402. Beyond a general reference to sacred scripture, Josephus does not specify what oracle he has in mind; on the face of it he appears to be referring to Jewish messianic expectations.52 In any case, Josephus was not alone in this reinterpretation, since something very similar can be found in Tacitus Hist. V.13 and Suetonius Vesp. 4.5. The question again arises how early this interpretation of events became current. Two considerations would suggest a date around 69. The first is again that Tacitus and Suetonius preserve accounts that look independent of Josephus. The second is that it was precisely then that the Flavian cause needed surrounding with the aura of divine approval. Once Vespasian was safely installed in Rome, reports of portents and prophecies ‘abruptly cease[d]’.53 Conversely, while Vespasian was still making his bid for the throne, the Flavian party did all it could to ensure that such favourable propaganda was widely spread, as the Mount Carmel oracle illustrates.54 This suggests both that the accounts of Vespasian’s healings at Alexandria were circulated in the context of portents and prophecies purporting to show that 50 Rajak, Josephus, 191. 51 J.W. III.438–42. That Josephus’s change of sides was well known is indicated by the care with which he justifies his actions; see Rajak, Josephus, 171–2. 52 This is how it appears to be taken by Scott, Imperial Cult, 8; and Greenhalgh, Four Emperors, 130; a contrary view is taken by Rajak, Josephus, 191–4 and Per Bilde, ‘Josephus and Jewish Apocalypticism’, Understanding Josephus: Seven Perspectives (ed. Steve Mason; JSPSup 32; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998) 35–61. Rajak argues convincingly that Josephus did not regard Vespasian as the Jewish Messiah, but that is not to say that the oracles he accuses his fellow countrymen of misunderstanding were not understood by them as messianic. 53 Scott, Imperial Cult, 19. 54 On the spread and success of Flavian propaganda in general, see Nicols, Partes Flavianae, 96–8; Scott, Imperial Cult, 7–79; and Takács, Isis and Sarapis, 95–6.
12 eric eve Vespasian enjoyed divine favour, and that to Jewish ears, at least some of this Flavian propaganda would have sounded quasi-messianic, in the sense of a usurpation of Jewish messianic hopes.
4. The Blind Man of Bethsaida (Mark 8.22–26)
Responding to Flavian propaganda is clearly not the sole purpose of Mark 8.22–26. The pericope clearly performs several other functions. For one thing, it forms a pair with the story of Blind Bartimaeus, thus framing the Markan travel section.55 It also forms a pair with the other spittle story, the deaf-mute at Mark 7.31–37, exhibiting striking similarities in both structure and vocabulary.56 As a pair, these two stories may be intended to indicate fulfilment of Isa 35.5–6.57 They also seem to relate to the continuing deafness and blindness of the disciples (Mark 8.17–18).58 Finally, the two-stage healing of the blind man immediately precedes Peter’s Confession (Mark 8.27–30), and is often seen as both commenting on that story and sharing structural features with it, the point being that Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah is analogous to the blind man’s perception of people as walking trees.59 At first sight, the similarities between the healing of the Blind Man of Bethsaida and that of the Blind Man of Alexandria are not great, the most striking being that spitting on the blind man’s eyes is part of the cure in each case. Both stories also have in common the fact that the healing was carried out because it was requested of the healer, but that is hardly an unusual feature of ancient healing stories. The responses to the request are almost antithetical: Vespasian is initially reluctant to carry out the healings, but is persuaded to do so publicly with
55 Hooker, Mark, 197, 200; Donahue and Harrington, Mark, 258; Bas M. F. van Iersel, Mark: A Reader-Response Commentary (trans. W. H. Bisscheroux; JSNTSup 164; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998) 79–80. 56 See Taylor, Mark, 368–9; Cranfield, Mark, 263; and Robert M. Fowler, Loaves and Fishes: The Function of the Feeding Stories in the Gospel of Mark (Chico, CA: Scholars, 1981) 105–7. 57 Taylor, Mark, 352; Nineham, Mark, 202, 217; Cranfield, Mark, 254; Guelich, Mark 1–8.26, 398–9; Marcus, Mark 1–8, 476–7; Donahue and Harrington, Mark, 242, 258; but note the suggestion made by Hermann, ‘Basilides’, 315, that Vespasian’s healings of a blind man and a lame man could also be taken as a fulfilment of Isa 35.5–6. 58 Taylor, Mark, 370; Cranfield, Mark, 254; Hooker, Mark, 184, 198; Guelich, Mark 1–8.26, 391, 399, 430, 433–4; Fowler, Loaves and Fishes, 107–12; Karl Kertelge, Die Wunder Jesu im Markusevangelium: Eine redaktionsgeschichliche Untersuchung (Studien zum alten und neuen Testament 23; Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1970) 164. 59 The structural parallels between Mark 8.22–26 and Mark 8.27–30 are set out in R. H. Lightfoot, History and Interpretation in the Gospels (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935) 90–1. For various views on what Mark intended by the juxtaposition of these two passages, see Johnson, ‘Blind Man’, 379–83; Nineham, Mark, 218; Anderson, Mark, 204; Hooker, Mark, 198.
Spit in Your Eye 13
the possibility of gaining credit for them; Jesus shows no reluctance but is careful to carry out the healing in private. This could be a deliberate contrast on Mark’s part, but need not be so, since both Jesus’ willingness and his desire for privacy are common Markan themes. For Mark to be responding to Flavian propaganda he would have to have included the spittle for that purpose, even if he based the pericope on his tradition or another source. Many commentators simply assume without argument that the Blind Man of Bethsaida was taken over from tradition.60 Sometimes, this may be due to an interest in discovering an underlying historical miracle in Jesus’ ministry.61 Sometimes the similarities between the two spittle stories (Mark 7.31–37 and 8.22–26) is given as grounds for supposing that they were drawn from an earlier source.62 It is, however, characteristic of Mark to deploy pairs of stories exhibiting a similar structure and vocabulary. Within Mark 4–8 the other obvious examples would be the two feeding stories and the two sea-crossing miracles.63 Later in Mark similar parallels can be seen between Jesus sending two disciples to fetch a colt (Mark 11.1–7) and Jesus sending two disciples to prepare for the Passover meal (Mark 14.12–16).64 Perhaps the main reason for supposing that Mark took the Blind Man of Bethsaida from a source is the alleged ‘lack of characteristic Markan vocabulary’ in 8.22b–25.65 Yet each verse of the pericope contains at least some vocabulary that is reasonably common in Mark.66 Again, in each verse one can discern language
60 Cranfield, Mark, 263–4; Anderson, Mark, 202–3; Gundry, Mark, 420; Guelich, Mark, 429, 435–6. 61 John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Vol. 2. Mentor, Message, and Miracles (New York: Doubleday, 1994) 690–4; Twelftree, Miracle Worker, 300–301; Twelftree’s principal argument for historicity is the application of the criterion of embarrassment to the use of spittle. 62 Marcus, Mark 1–8, 476–7; Kertelge, Wunder Jesu, 163. 63 On which see Fowler, Loaves and Fishes. 64 See Taylor, Mark, 536. 65 Johnson, ‘Blind Man’, 374. 66 With the overall Markan frequencies shown in brackets: 8.22: e[rcomai (84), fevrw (15), tuflov~ (5), parakalevw (9), a[ptomai (11); 8.23: ceivr (24), tuflov~ (5), e[xw (10), kwvmh (7), ejpitivqhmi (7), ejperwtavw (25), blevpw (15); 8.24: ajnablevpw (6), levgw (204), blevpw (15), a[nqrwpo~ (56), oJravw (7 ⫹ 43 ⫻ ei\don), peripatevw (9); 8.25: pavlin (28), ejpitivqhmi (7), ceivr (24), ojfqalmov~ (7); 8.26: ajpostevllw (20), oi\ko~ (13), levgw (204), kwvmh (7), eijsevrcomai (30). 67 For example, Mark often uses fevrw (8.22) in the sense of people bringing someone to Jesus for healing (Mark 1.32; 2.3; 7.32; 9.17, 19, 20). Those who come to Jesus for healing often beseech (parakalevw) him for help (Mark 8.22; cf. 1.40; 5.23; 6.56; 7.32). The same word (ajnablevpw) is used of recovery of sight both at Mark 8.24 and in the Healing of Blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10.51, 52). The combination of oJravw/ei\don ⫹ the participle of peripatevw to describe someone seeing someone else walking (Mark 8.24) is used also at Mark 6.49, while
14 eric eve being used in a way that Mark uses it elsewhere.67 Moreover, the passage is hardly lacking in characteristically Markan parataxis. That said, the passage also contains words that are very rare or even hapaxes in Mark. Some, such as devndron in 8.24 may be explicable on the basis of subject-matter; similarly diablevpw and thlaugw`~ in 8.25 may be used because the writer wants to stress that after Jesus’ second attempt at healing him the man can now see clearly at a distance.68 But o[mma and ejpilambavnomai ⫹ ceivr in 8.23 are harder to explain, given that the more usual Markan usages would be ojfqalmov~ and kratevw ⫹ ceivr (Mark 1.31; 5.41; 9.27). For present purposes there is no need to establish that Mark lacked a source, but only that he is likely to have redacted or rewritten whatever source he used to create the parallel with the Vespasian story.69 Such a source would conform to the normal miracle-story pattern far better if it contained a single-stage healing involving only the laying-on of hands; the need for two stages to the healing is unique in the surviving Jesus tradition. Since this two-stage healing serves to prefigure the following pericope, it is likely to be the product of Mark’s redaction, resulting in the distribution of his source’s non-Markan vocabulary between 8.23 and 8.25. What the blind man asks for in 8.22 is simply to be touched; if the original healing consisted purely of Jesus laying his hands on the man’s eyes then his action would correspond precisely to the request. On the second attempt Jesus repeats the laying on of hands but not the spitting, and this is sufficient to bring about complete success. The spitting thus seems curiously redundant. This is equally true of the spitting at 7.33. As Guelich observes, ‘The text does not say why Jesus spit [sic] or what he did with the spittle’.70 It might be supposed that Mark could have strengthened the contrast with Vespasian’s healings by making more of the spittle here, but this would not have suited his purpose. The Alexandrian spittle healing was paired with that of a man with a disabled limb, not a speech or hearing impediment, so having spittle applied to the man’s tongue or ears in 7.33 would not have created a particularly clear allusion to Vespasian (Mark 3.1–6 would form a closer parallel to Vespasian’s other healing, and contains a implicit critique of royal power with its closing reference to the Herodians; see
the contrast between seeing and perceiving used by the alternation of blevpw and oJravw (Mark 8.24) is reminiscent of the same contrast at Mark 4.12 (cf. the juxtaposition of the same two verbs at Mark 8.15). 68 See Taylor, Mark, 372. For alternative accounts of the vocabulary of seeing in this passage, see Johnson, ‘Blind Man’, 376–8, and Joel Marcus, ‘A Note on Markan Optics’, NTS 45 (1999) 250–6. 69 Kertelge, Wunder Jesu, 162, argues that Mark has transferred to Jesus features of a story of healing a blind man otherwise used in a Hellenistic environment; this suggests the intriguing possibility that Mark’s source was a version of the Vespasian healing story, its closest known Hellenistic parallel. 70 Guelich, Mark, 394.
Spit in Your Eye 15
also 8.15). The fact that Jesus’ spitting at 7.33 is so inconsequential strengthens the case for its being a redactional insertion to maintain the parallelism with the Blind Man of Bethsaida, but it is only in the context of the healing of a blind man that Mark’s audience could be expected to make the link with Vespasian. Moreover, Mark’s purpose is better served by creating the Vespasian allusion just before Peter’s Confession; the point of the allusion is to contrast messianic claims, not healing prowess (see below). It thus appears that wherever the other details of the Deaf Mute and the Blind Man of Bethsaida came from, spitting in the blind man’s eye was introduced by Mark to create an allusion to the contemporary story of the Blind Man of Alexandria, and the same word ptuvsa~ used at Mark 8.23 was inserted into Mark 7.33 to maintain the parallelism between the two stories. This suggestion is reinforced by the parallel functions of the Blind Men of Bethsaida and Alexandria. The story of the Blind Man of Alexandria is part of a propaganda effort designed to legitimate Vespasian as a royal figure favoured by the gods, identified with Sarapis and as son of Ammon. The story of the Blind Man of Bethsaida leads straight into Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah, followed not long after by the Transfiguration at which God declares Jesus to be his son. The similarity between the two stories thus lies not only in the common use of spittle to cure blindness, but also in the ideological contexts of which these stories form a part. Over the course of the travel section framed by the two healings of blind men, it becomes clear to Mark’s audience, if not to the still partially sighted disciples, that Jesus’ kingship is not to be of the worldly kind exemplified by Vespasian. This is already hinted at by the mutual rebuke of Peter and Jesus at Mark 8.31–32; it becomes more explicit in the rebuke Jesus gives in response to the request of James and John to have the places of highest honour in his kingdom: ‘You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you’ (Mark 10.42–43a). The saying could well apply to Roman or Roman-appointed authorities in general,71 but in the immediate aftermath of the Jewish War the Flavians would surely be the most obvious target. The contrast in healing styles between Jesus and Vespasian in the first healing of a blind man is thus mirrored in the contrast between their ways of being messianic or quasi-messianic sons of a god in material between Mark’s two blind man stories.72 71 See, e.g., Klaus Wengst, Pax Romana and the Peace of Jesus Christ (London: SCM, 1987) 55–7. 72 This would also be congruent with the suggestion of R. S. Sugirtharajah, ‘Men, Trees, and Walking: A Conjectural Solution to Mk 8.24’, ExpT 103 (1995) 172–4, that seeing men as trees walking in Mark 8.24 may be an allusion to Jotham’s parable in Judg 9.7–15, the only OT passage that mentions trees moving about. The Jotham parable is a satire on Abimelech’s kingship over Shechem and is, Sugirtharajah suggests, critical of the institution of kingship in general. It may be, however, that the proposed allusion is too subtle to be plausible, since
16 eric eve There are traces of an implicit Jesus–Vespasian contrast elsewhere in Mark’s Gospel. Mark’s opening words certainly echo earlier Christian tradition and the Hebrew Scriptures, but they also echo the language of imperial propaganda. In particular, the word eujaggevlion was used of announcements of victories in battle or the accession of emperors; in the plural it is the word Josephus uses of the good news of Vespasian’s accession at J.W. IV.618. If the words uiJo~ qeou` are original to Mark 1.1 then it may or may not be significant that they are the Greek equivalent of the title divi filius often applied to Roman emperors;73 it surely is significant, however, that the only human being to apply these words to Jesus is the centurion in charge of Jesus’ crucifixion. Vespasian’s army crucified many Jews in the course of its campaign;74 in contrast Jesus dies on a Roman cross, at which point the centurion declares not the emperor but Jesus to be uiJo~ qeou` (Mark 15.39).75 Gerd Theissen fastens on precisely the aspects of Vespasian’s propaganda identified above in arguing that Mark 13 fits the background of events in 70 ce. According to Theissen: Vespasian could be regarded in the East as a ruler who usurped messianic expectations and legitimated himself through prophets and miracles. It made no difference that he himself was a modest man. As a usurper, he had to rely on loud and vigorous propaganda. The warning against pseudomessiahs in Mk 13.21–22 could have been formulated against the background of such a ‘propaganda campaign’ for the victorious new emperor, who created peace by subduing the Jews and whose legitimacy was supported by signs and wonders. In that case, the pseudo-messiahs would not have been leaders of the revolt against the Romans, nor would they represent expectations based on memories of those leaders. On the contrary, what was being criticized was the usurpation of religious hopes by the Roman ruler who demolished the uprising.76
If Mark was indeed writing in or shortly after 70 and responding to imperial propaganda in this way, then he was surely aware of the stories about Vespasian’s stay in Egypt. In that context, to include a story about Jesus healing blindness by spitting in someone’s eye was to invite comparison with the similar story being told
73 74 75
76
there is a complete absence of any verbal similarity: Mark’s walking trees are described as devndra. . .peripatou`nta~, whereas the movement of Jotham’s trees is indicated by the phrase poreuovmena ejporeuvqh ta; xuvla (Judg 9.8 lxx). So van Iersel, Mark, 91. Josephus, J.W. V.446–52; Life 420–1. Mark would hardly be alone among NT authors in taking a critical stance towards imperial Rome; quite apart from the obvious case of Revelation this has also been claimed, for example, for Matthew and Paul. See, e.g., John Riches and David C. Sim, ed., The Gospel of Matthew in Its Roman Imperial Context (JSNTSup 276; London, New York: T&T Clark International, 2005); and Richard A. Horsley, Paul and the Imperial Roman Order (Harrisburg, London, New York: Trinity Press International, 2004). Theissen, Gospels in Context, 266–8.
Spit in Your Eye 17
about Vespasian. This is not to suggest that the allusion to Vespasian was the main point of Mark’s healing story, or the only factor that shaped it. But it is striking, not simply that both stories employ the spit motif, but that they operate within similar yet contrasting and competing symbolic universes.
5. Conclusion
That stories about healing blind men with spittle should independently arise around 70 ce in both Mark’s Gospel and Roman propaganda would be something of a coincidence. The coincidence becomes all the more striking given the parallel function of the stories: the Blind Man of Alexandria is a story that served to help legitimate Vespasian’s claim to the imperial throne, a claim also supported by various prophecies including Josephus’s reinterpretation of Jewish messianic expectations. The Blind Man of Bethsaida leads into Peter’s confession of Jesus as the messiah, but a messiah apparently misconceived in emperor-like terms. Even if this were mere coincidence it seems likely that Mark’s audience would hear one story in terms of the other, but it seems even more likely that there is no coincidence and that Mark deliberately shaped the Blind Man of Bethsaida with the Blind Man of Alexandria in mind.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 18–41. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0028688508000027
Progymnastic Topic Lists: A Compositional Template for Luke and Other Bioi? M ICHAE L W. MARTI N 7607 Baylor St., Lubbock, Texas 79416, USA
The study examines bioi by two Greco-Roman authors (Plutarch and Philostratus), two Jewish authors (Philo and Josephus), and finally, the Third Gospel, in the light of the progymnastic topic lists, arguing that all the bioi employ topic lists as a compositional template, guiding the narrative in its overall structure and content. The study shows, moreover, that the Third Evangelist employs the lists with rhetorical skill comparable to the most educated of the biographers surveyed, Plutarch and Philo. Keywords: Luke, Bioi, Progymnastic Topoi, Plutarch, Philo
Progymnastic Topic Lists: A Compositional Template for Luke and Other Bioi?
The thesis that the Gospels are ancient Mediterranean bioi has gained increasing support since the publication of Charles Talbert’s What Is a Gospel?,1 and in the wake of Richard Burridge’s What Are the Gospels?, has arguably become the majority view in NT scholarship.2 As noted in recent discussion of the Gospel genre debate,3 Philip Shuler played an important role in this development, as his attempt to show a number of broad similarities between the Gospels and what he called ‘encomium biographies’ constituted one of the earliest challenges to the prevailing sui generis thesis of form criticism.4 One aspect of Shuler’s thesis, how-
18
1 C. H. Talbert, What Is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977); cf. idem, ‘Biographies of Philosophers and Rulers as Instruments of Religious Propoganda in Mediterranean Antiquity’, ANRW 16.2:1619–51; idem, ‘Once Again: Gospel Genre’, Semeia 43 (1988) 53–73; idem, ‘Ancient Biography’, ABD 1.745–9. 2 See R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) 252–307. 3 See Burridge, What Are the Gospels, 3–24. 4 P. L. Shuler, ‘The Synoptic Gospels and the Problem of Genre’ (PhD diss., McMaster University, 1975); revised for publication as A Genre for the Gospels: The Biographical Character of Matthew (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982); idem, ‘The Genre(s) of the Gospels’, The Interrelations of the Gospels (ed. D. L. Dungan; Leuven: Leuven University, 1990) 459–83.
Progymnastic Topic Lists 19
ever, has found little support – namely, his claim that encomiastic topic lists like those described by Quintillian, Theon, and Ps. Hermogenes have shaped the topical content of the Gospels and other ‘encomium biographies’. This claim has been criticized on the grounds that the topic lists, at least as they are handled in Shuler’s analysis of the Gospels, do not cover ‘the full range of Jesus’ life and ministry’, but instead only account for materials related primarily to Jesus’ ‘birth and death/resurrection’.5 Also, it has been argued that the topic lists were ‘designed for school use in rhetorical and encomiastic exercises, rather than for writing’, and so should be used with caution.6 For these reasons Richard Burridge in his classic study of the bios genre abandons the topic lists altogether and instead accounts for the full content of bioi on a purely descriptive basis, identifying six ‘motifs’ or ‘topics’ typically treated in the genre: ancestry, birth, boyhood and education, great deeds, virtues, and death and consequences.7 Because of the importance of Burridge’s work for the question of Gospel genre, any attempt to revisit Shuler’s thesis must address Burridge’s objections. This study does so in support of a thesis similar to and at the same time more encompassing than Shuler’s, namely, that progymnastic topic lists are employed in bioi generally and Luke specifically as a compositional template, guiding the narrative
5 Burridge, What Are the Gospels, 85. The comment is regarding Shuler’s study of Matthew, but Burridge subsequently states that similar criticisms could be made of Shuler’s analysis of Mark and Luke in his PhD dissertation. 6 Burridge, What Are the Gospels, 200. I answer this argument below. I agree with Burridge, however, in his accompanying claim that the topic lists should only be used with caution since ‘they are later than most of our works’ (200). The exercises have pre-Hellenistic origins and began to take a form very similar to that attested in the extant sources in the Hellenistic period (G. A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003] xi; cf. S. F. Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny [Berkeley: University of California, 1977) 250–1; R. F. Hock and E. N. O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric: Vol. 1. The Progymnasmata [Atlanta: Scholars, 1986] 10; R. Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001] 8). Hence the cautious use of exercises attested only in these later sources is justified and potentially fruitful, as indeed several studies have shown; see, e.g., B. L. Mack, ‘Teaching in Parables: Elaboration in Mark 4:1–34’, Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels (B. L. Mack and V. K. Robbins; Sonoma, Calif.: Polebridge, 1989) 143–60; idem, ‘Decoding the Scripture: Philo and the Rules of Rhetoric’, Nourished with Peace: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism in Memory of Samuel Sandmel (ed. F. E. Greenspahn, E. Hilgert, and B. L. Mack; Scholars Press Homage Series 9; Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1984) 81–115; M. W. Martin, ‘Philo’s Use of Syncrisis: An Examination of Philonic Composition in the Light of the Progymnasmata’, PRSt 30 (2003) 271–97; and M. C. Parsons, ‘Luke and the Progymnasmata: A Preliminary Investigation into the Preliminary Exercises’, Contextualizing Acts: Lukan Narrative and Greco-Roman Discourse (ed. T. Penner and C. V. Stichele; SBLSymS 20; Atlanta: Scholars, 2004) 43–63. 7 Burridge, What Are the Gospels, 141–2, 173–5, 200–2, 224–5.
20 michael w. martin in its overall structure and content.8 The study examines three Greco-Roman bioi, two Jewish bioi, and Luke in the light of the topic lists and attempts to show more clearly than does Shuler that they not only account for the ‘full range’ of the life portrayed in each narrative, but they do so even more fully than Burridge’s six ‘motifs’.9
The Progymnastic Topic Lists and Their Purpose
Burridge’s claim, contra Shuler, that the encomiastic topic lists were ‘designed for school use . . . rather than for writing’10 presents a false dichotomy, as they were actually designed for both.11 Mastery of the lists and all the progymnastic forms was regarded as essential preparation not only for the practice of declamation (hence the name, progymnasmata, or ‘preliminary exercises’),12 but also for written composition, a point about which Theon is emphatic. Now I have included these remarks, not thinking that all are useful to all beginners, but in order that we may know that training in exercises is absolutely useful not only to those who are going to practice rhetoric but also if one wishes to undertake the function of poets or historians or any other writers. These things are, as it were, the foundation of every kind (idea) of discourse, and depending on how one instills them in the mind of the young, necessarily the results make themselves felt in the same way later. (Theon 70 [Kennedy])13 8 The claim is more encompassing than Shuler’s in two regards: it pertains to the bios genre as a whole and not just the ‘encomium biography’ subgenre (the existence of which is questionable; see Burridge, What Are the Gospels, 83–6); and it addresses the sequential topical structure of the bios genre and not just its topical content. 9 Though the study focuses on Luke as a test case, the thesis holds for the remaining Gospels, as I intend to show in a forthcoming study. 10 What Are the Gospels, 200. 11 At least, that is, in the case of the progymnasmata. The same may not be said for handbooks of rhetoric, which were designed strictly for declamation. Hence this study attends to all four extant progymnasmata (Theon, Ps. Hermogenes, Aphthonius, and Nicolaus), in contrast to Shuler’s study, which takes as its sources one handbook of rhetoric (Quintillian) and only two progymnasmata (Theon and Ps. Hermogenes). 12 On the progymnasmata, see H. I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity (trans. George Lamb; London: Purnell & Sons, 1956) 150–205; Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome, 250–76; Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 202, 221–30; R. Webb, ‘The Progymnasmata as Practice’, Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity (ed. Yun Lee Too; Boston: Brill, 2001) 289–316; Kennedy, Progymnasmata, ix–xvi. 13 All translations of the progymnasmata are from Kennedy, Progymnasmata; citations for Theon and Aphthonius refer to the page numbers of the critical editions in L. Spengel, ed., Rhetores Graeci (3 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1854–56), citations for Ps. Hermogenes to the page numbers of H. Rabe, ed., Hermogenis Opera (Leipzig: Teubner, 1931), and citations for Nicolaus to the page numbers of J. Felten, ed., Nicolai Progymnasmata (Leipzig: Teubner, 1913; repr., Osnabrück: Zeller, 1968).
Progymnastic Topic Lists 21
The preliminary exercises, in fact, constituted the highest level of training for written composition in Greco-Roman education, as all subsequent training focused strictly on oratory. The forms taught in the exercises were drawn from classical literature, to which the theorists frequently appeal for exemplary models.14 Once mastered, the forms could be incorporated into new compositions, as Nicolaus’s instruction concerning encomion and syncrisis expects: ‘the use of syncrisis takes many forms, as does that of encomion, both when employed by itself as a whole discourse and when part of something else’ (62). In short, the forms taught in the progymnasmata functioned as nothing less than the building blocks of ancient Greek literature, beginning with the classics. As George Kennedy observes, they were ‘combined in different ways to create epics, dramas, histories, and the genres of lyric poetry’, and so ‘are comparable to structural features of classical architecture that were artistically utilized in the great public buildings of the Greco-Roman period’.15 Both of the exercises mentioned by Nicolaus, encomion and syncrisis, are (together with invective) our sources for the topic lists, which are arranged below in Tables 1a and 1b by theorist and exercise.16 The ‘topics’ (or ‘headings’ or ‘divisions’) were, from the perspective of the theorists, the essential components of a life, and so were deserving of consideration when praising, censuring, or comparing lives. Hence lists such as these lent themselves well to the genre wholly devoted to a single life, the ancient Mediterranean biography.17 A cursory comparison of the lists reveals there is general agreement about the kinds of topics to be considered, but a divergence of opinion regarding the method of their arrangement. Ps. Hermogenes, Aphthonius, and Nicolaus attest a sequential arrangement, wherein topics are dealt with in an order that follows the contours of a life chronologically, from origins to death and beyond. Theon (Table 1b), by contrast, attests an arrangement according to the three traditional goods: external goods (which are arranged sequentially from birth to death), bodily 14 See, for example, the ‘syncrisis’ Nicolaus cites from the Iliad (Nicolaus 61). Because the comparison is but a single line and employs only one of the topics Nicolaus recommends, it illustrates what Nicolaus means when he speaks of syncrisis taking many forms when part of another discourse. Indeed, the biographical syncrises surveyed below show far more conformity to Nicolaus’s instruction concerning syncrisis than does his own example of the form. 15 Kennedy, Progymnasmata, ix. 16 In their discussions of invective and syncrisis, the theorists usually instruct the reader to use the same topic list used in encomion. Ps. Hermogenes, however, describes in his syncrisis exercise a topic list that is sufficiently different from that of his encomion exercise to warrant its inclusion in the chart. 17 The use of encomiastic topic lists in bioi does not necessarily imply, however, that the work has an encomiastic purpose. Their use in invective and comparison shows they are neutral categories reflecting cultural notions of the essential components of personhood.
2. Family
–
4. Marvelous Occurrences at
4. Pursuits and Deeds
5. Externals
–
6. Manner of Death
–
9. Pursuits and Deeds
10. Externals
11. Time
12. Manner of Death
13. Greatness of the One Who
7. Events after Death
–
–
14. Events after Death
15. Comparison
–
Killed the Subject
4a. mind (⫽ virtues)
4a. mind (⫽ virtues)
–
8. Mind (⫽ virtues)
6. Epilogue
–
– 6. Comparison
–
–
–
–
5. Deeds (referred to virtues)
training)
5. Comparison
–
Not listed, but modeled
–
4c. fortune ( ⫽ externals)
goods)
4. Deeds (referred to all 3
4b. body
4b. body
–
7. Body
4. Activities in Youth ( ⫽
–
Upbringing (⫽ nurture)
training)
6. Upbringing ( ⫽ training)
3. Circumstances of
3. Upbringing (⫽ nurture and
2. Circumstances of Birth
2c. ancestors
2b. native city
2a. nationality
3. Nurture
–
2d. parents
2c. ancestors
2b. homeland
2a. nation
1. Origin
a heading proper)
Virtues
3. Goods of the Mind (Virtues), and Actions Referred to
2. Bodily Goods
h. good death
g. good children
f. wealth
e. official position
d. reputation
c. friendship
b. education
ii. ancestors and other relatives
i. city, tribe, constitution
a. good birth ( ⫽ origin)
1. External Goods (arranged chronologically)
Prooemion (not numbered as
1. Prooemion
2. Origin
Prooemion (not numbered as a heading proper)
Invective, Syncrisis
Invective, Syncrisis
Table 1b. Theon’s Arrangement by Goods
Nicolaus: Encomion,
Apthonius: Encomion,
5. Nurture
Birth
1. City
3. Family
Ps. Hermogenes: Syncrisis
2. City
1. National origin
Ps. Hermogenes: Encomion
Table 1a. Chronological Arrangements of Ps. Hermogenes, Aphthonius, and Nicolaus
22 michael w. martin
Progymnastic Topic Lists 23
goods, and goods of the mind (or virtues).18 Nicolaus shows, moreover, not only an awareness of both methods of arrangement, but claims theorists generally preferred the sequential method19 – a claim supported by the fact that three of the four extant Greek progymnasmata teach this method. This divergence of opinion regarding method of arrangement is overlooked in Shuler’s study, which does not consult Nicolaus or Apthonius. Its importance is seen, however, in the fact that the sequential lists cover the ‘full range’ of a life in the order it is typically portrayed in a bios. Indeed, it is instructive to note that Burridge’s six-topic list (ancestry, birth, boyhood and education, great deeds, virtues, and death and consequences), which he derives strictly on a descriptive basis from extensive reading in the bios genre, bears a remarkable resemblance both in content and order to the sequential lists, which as we have said were prescriptive for composition. Provided Burridge’s description of the topical content of the bios genre is accurate, such a correspondence by itself suggests that the lists, given their prescriptive nature, have influenced biographical composition. At the same time, all the lists describe additional topics and subtopics not appearing in Burridge’s list, and these, together with the tensions and divergences among the lists, can potentially lend more detail and texture to a description of the topical structure and content of the bios genre. For example, all the theorists subdivide origins according to familial and geographical origins, and the same practice is reflected in many bioi. Two theorists also join Burridge in listing birth among the three pre-career topics, while two do not.20 The same ambivalence regarding the importance of this topic may be reflected in the fact that only two of the four canonical Gospels have birth stories. Similarly, only two of the four theorists join Burridge in treating deeds and virtues (also known as goods of the mind) as the major motifs of a subject’s career, while the remaining two describe a career in terms of deeds and all three goods, not just virtues;21 here again, a similar diversity of practice is seen in biographical writing. Two of the theorists also attest to 18 The three-fold division of goods is widely attested in Hellenistic literature; cf. J. R. Butts, ‘The “Progymnasmata” of Theon: A New Text with Translation and Commentary’ (PhD diss., The Claremont Graduate School, 1985) 481 n. 7. 19 Explaining his use of the sequential method, Nicolaus states, ‘The godlike Plato in Phaedrus and others of ancient times divided subjects of praise into goods of the mind, goods of the body, and external goods. Those of the mind are divided into prudence, justice, temperance, and courage; those of body into beauty, strength, size, and speed; external goods are divided into origin, friends, wealth, and such. We, however, shall not follow this division but the prevailing one’ (50). 20 Theon’s subdivisions of the topic ‘good birth’ show that he has in mind what the other theorists call ‘origins’. 21 Aphthonius refers all three goods to deeds, while Ps. Hermogenes deals with deeds and the three goods as separate topics.
24 michael w. martin pursuits/official positions, a topic not seen in Burridge’s list, as a major career motif, and several bioi likewise treat it as such (see especially Philo’s De vita Mosis below). The theorists’ extended discussions of the topic of syncrisis – another topic not appearing in Burridge’s list, and the only topic to which the theorists devote an entire exercise – are also a potentially valuable resource for any examination of the bios genre’s topical structure and content. All the theorists teach that syncrises are conducted using a full set of topics (minus, of course, the topic of syncrisis itself22), and as the survey below shows, many bioi, Luke included, handle the topic accordingly. That is, not only do such bioi describe their subject via a full list of topics, but they also compare their subjects via the same. This fact eludes Shuler, who argues for the use of syncrisis in Gospels and other bioi without reference to syncrisis’s place among the topics nor its division by the topics.23 And yet, the two-fold use of topic lists for structuring both the narrative itself and syncrises within the narrative is perhaps the clearest evidence for progymnastic influence on biographical composition. The theorists’ examples, too, of individual topics can potentially shed additional light beyond that which Burridge supplies on the topical content of the bios genre. In some instances, biographical treatment of individual topics follows closely if not exactly actual examples of the same in the progymnasmata. In sum, the lists can potentially provide a great deal of insight into biographical composition. Indeed, as the survey below shows, close conformity to the lists is evident in the bios genre with regard to (a) the number and order of topics covered in the narrative as a whole, (b) the number and order of topics covered in syncrises within the narrative, and (c) the manner in which individual topics are handled. Such conformity shows that the cultural conceptions of personhood attested in the lists quite naturally influenced biographical composition. More importantly, it shows that the lists themselves, given that they were prescriptive for written composition, influenced biographical composition.24 Progymnastic Topics Lists and Bioi Because Shuler’s study of the Gospels in light of the topic lists focuses on ‘birth and death/resurrection topoi’ and not ‘the full range of Jesus’ life and ministry’, it fails to be convincing, in Burridge’s estimation. The following section 22 As Aphthonius observes, ‘There is no comparison in it, since the whole exercise is a comparison’ (43). 23 Burridge questions Shuler’s claim that the Gospels employ syncrises on account of their dissimilarity to Plutarch’s syncrises (What Are the Gospels, 85). 24 This is not to say that every biographer surveyed is individually influenced. Rather, the direct influence is upon the bios genre, and in cases of less-educated authors, the influence is mediated indirectly through the genre.
Progymnastic Topic Lists 25
attempts to supply the lack and show that the topic lists not only account for the ‘full range’ of the life portrayed in each of several bioi, Luke included, but that they do so more fully than Burridge’s six-topic list. The bioi selected as the background against which Luke will be read derive from a time close to that of Luke. Three are by Greco-Roman authors, Plutarch and Philostratus, and two are by Jewish authors, Josephus and Philo. And all, like Luke, display a close conformity to the lists. Plutarch Alcibiades and Marcius Coriolanus Since the work of H. Erbse,25 the consensus opinion in Plutarch scholarship has been that syncrisis in the Parallel Lives occurs not only explicitly in the concluding syncrises attached to most of the bios pairs, but also implicitly via the parallel narrative structure of each pair.26 Building on this consensus, this study observes that the parallel structure of Plutarch’s bios pairs can be described in terms of a common topical template. Plutarch’s Alcibiades and Marcius Coriolanus are typical. These are structured using an identical set of topics that closely resembles the topic lists of the extant progymnasmata: origins (Alc. 1.1; Cor. 1.1–2), nurture and training (Alc. 1.2–7.4; Cor. 1.2–4.2), body (Alc. 1.3–4; Cor. 2.2b), externals (Alc. 8–9; Cor. 4.3–4), pursuits and deeds (Alc. 10–36; Cor. 5.1–38.4), manner of death (Alc. 37.1–39.3, 39.4b–5; Cor. 39.1–4), and events after death (Alc. 39.4a; Cor. 39.5–6). This parallel topical structure itself invites comparison of the Greek, Alcibiades, to the Roman, Coriolanus, and serves what is evidently the larger apologetic purpose of the entire project, namely, to show Plutarch’s native Greece to be the equal of Rome in the political and military realms.27 Such a purpose, like the structure itself, can likewise be described in terms of progymnastic theory. In repeatedly juxtaposing outstanding Greek with Roman, Plutarch has employed what Theon refers to as syncrisis of genera, or comparison of groups by their ‘outstanding members’.28 Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, seen in the light of Theonic theory, 25 ‘Die Bedeutung der Synkrisis in den Parallelbiographien Plutarchs’, Hermes 84 [1956] 398–424. 26 See, e.g., D. H. J. Larmour, ‘Making Parallels: Synkrisis and Plutarch’s “Themistocles and Camillus”’, ANRW 33.6:4159, 4162–200; C. Pelling, ‘Synkrisis in Plutarch’s Lives’, Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London: Duckworth, 2002) 349–63; and J. Geiger, ‘Nepos and Plutarch: From Latin to Greek Political Biography’, ICS 13 (1988) 245–56. 27 On this apologetic purpose, see B. Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives (11 vols. trans. B. Perrin; LCL; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1914–26) 1:xiii; A. Wardman, Plutarch’s Lives (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California, 1974) 243; D. A. Russell, ‘On Reading Plutarch’s Lives’, Essays on Plutarch’s Lives (ed. B. Scardigli; Oxford: Clarendon, 1995) 73–98, esp. 78; idem, Plutarch (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973) 109. 28 ‘We usually compare more than one thing to more than one in two ways. One way is when we take extreme examples of the things being compared and put these beside each other and
26 michael w. martin thus emerge as nothing less than a grand genus syncritical project juxtaposing two genera, Greeks and Romans. Plutarch’s treatment of individual topics, too, shows a remarkable correspondence to progymnastic instruction. For example, in the parallel sections concerning the origins of both Alicibades and Marcius Coriolanus, Plutarch describes each man’s familial origins in terms of two sub-topics prescribed by the theorists, relatives (Alc. 1.1a; Cor. 1.1) and father (Alc. 1.1b; Cor. 1.2). Geographical origins, meanwhile, are implied from the larger project’s structure. That is, the reader knows Plutarch is setting Greek beside Roman in every pairing; hence there is no need to describe in every narrative the homeland of each subject.29 Plutarch’s sections on nurture and training describe, per progymnastic requirements, the subjects’ upbringing (Alc. 1.2; Cor. 1.2) and youthful exploits (Alc. 1.2–7.4; Cor. 1.2–3.3; corresponding to Nicolaus’s broader construal of the topic as ‘activities in youth’).30 The brief sections devoted to the body mention the beauty (Alc. 1.3–4) and strength (Cor. 2.2b) of Alcibiades and Coriolanus respectively, qualities frequently mentioned as examples of bodily goods by the theorists. In the sections devoted to externals, Plutarch relates the story of each man’s marriage and resulting children (Alc. 8; Cor. 4.3–4) – and in Alcibiades’ case, a brief story concerning his beautiful dog (Alc. 9). Such content is typical of the topic as it is described by the theorists (cf. Ps. Hermogenes 16: ‘[externals] include relatives, friends, possessions, servants, luck, and the like’). In the large sections devoted to each man’s career, Plutarch describes each man’s actions as a statesman and general (Alc. 10–36; Cor. 5.1–38.4) – the latter being among the pursuits actually listed by Ps. Hermogenes as an example of the topic. And in treating the deeds of each man in connection with their pursuits, Plutarch reflects the practice endorsed by Ps.
in the comparison of these we think to find the whole genus (of one group) in comparison with the whole genus (of the other). For example, if we wanted to compare the genus of males to that of females (to find) which of them is braver, by comparing the bravest man to the bravest woman; whichever we find better, we would conclude that the whole of that genus is better than the other’ (Theon 114). Theon later summarizes this method of genus syncrisis as ‘comparing one or two of the most outstanding to the most outstanding’ (Theon 114). 29 Allusion may be made in passing to the subject’s home city. For example, in the opening words of Marcius Coriolanus, the subject’s family is characterized as ‘The patrician house of the Marcii at Rome . . .’. Even here, though, it seems that the reader is being told something he or she is expected to know already, that Coriolanus himself is Roman. 30 The treatment of Alcibiades’ youthful exploits mirrors that of Coriolanus’s. That is, material devoted to each man as a boy (Alc. 1.2–6.4; Cor. 1.2–2.1) is followed by material devoted to each man as a ‘stripling’ (Alc. 7.1–9.1; Cor. 3.1–4.2). The ‘stripling’ sections, moreover, tell how each man was honored (mistakenly, in Alcibiades’ case) after his first military campaign for defending a wounded fellow soldier.
Progymnastic Topic Lists 27
Hermogenes that ‘deeds [be] included among the pursuits’ (16).31 Following these sections are corresponding sections devoted to each man’s manner of death, and in keeping with Ps. Hermogenes’ instruction concerning the topic, ‘unusual’ events surrounding the death (Ps. Hermogenes 16) are narrated in both cases. That is, Plutarch tells of the conspiracy against each man (Alc. 37.1–39.3; Cor. 39.1–4; cf. the alternate version of Alcibiades’ death in Alc. 39.4b–5) and, moreover, notes in Alcibiades’ case the man’s premonition of his own death (39.1–2). Finally, Plutarch mentions in both cases the reclamation of the body after death and the subsequent ‘honourable burial’ (Alc. 39.4a; Cor. 39.5–6), and in Coriolanus’s case, the women who mourned him for ten months, as well as the loss felt by the Volscian state (Cor. 39.5–6). Such content is typical of the topic, events after death, as it is described by Ps. Hermogenes (cf. 16: ‘you will examine events after death: if they held games in his honor, as for Patroclus’). In two respects, Plutarch’s method of syncrisis is exceptional in biographical composition. That is, no other biographer compares two subjects via parallel bioi devoted to each, nor does any other biographer attach as an addendum or postscript to a bios or bios pair a self-contained syncrisis. Rather, most biographers simply introduce comparisons at various points within the narrative of a single bios.32 Hence it would be unfair to discount Lukan syncrisis (or any other biographical syncrisis) for its lack of similarity to Plutarch’s syncrisis, as does Burridge.33 In one respect, however, Plutarch’s method of syncrisis is not exceptional, namely, his use of a full list of progymnastic topics to make the comparison. The same technique is seen in some of the bioi surveyed below (Luke included) and is, moreover, a tell-tale sign of progymnastic influence on the genre and perhaps even the writer,34 as there are no precedents in classical composition for syncrises covering a full list of progymnastic topics. Indeed, though the progymnastic theorists believed they were merely mediating classical standards of syncritical composition, none of the classical examples of ‘syncrisis’ that they cite (the comparison of Conon and Theistocles in Demosthenes Against Leptines 71–74,
31 In the opening lines of the syncrisis that follow both works, Plutarch characterizes the bioi just narrated as an account primarily of each man’s ‘deeds’ (‘Now that all the deeds of these men are set forth . . .’, 1.1) – an explicit allusion to a standard encomiastic topic. Plutarch implies that the bioi are primarily concerned with this topic and so reflects the theorists’ opinion that ‘deeds’ are the ‘most important’ of the topics (Ps. Hermogenes 16). 32 Variation in methods of incorporation is anticipated by Nicolaus’s comment, cited above, that ‘the use of syncrisis takes many forms . . . both when employed by itself as a whole discourse and when part of something else’ (62). 33 Burridge, What Are the Gospels, 85. 34 Plutarch is, it should be noted, a known graduate of the progymnasmata; see, e.g., F. Focke, ‘Synkrisis’, Hermes 58 (1923) 327–68.
28 michael w. martin and the comparison of the love of the soul to the love of the body in Xenophon Symposium 8.12, cited by Theon 68–69; and the comparison of Hector and Achilles Iliad 20.158, cited by Nicolaus 61) covers a list of topics that remotely resembles either in range or number the lists they are commending. In citing these ‘examples’, the theorists betray the extent of their own influence on the form – and, specifically, on the form as employed in the bios genre. If Plutarch’s topic-by-topic approach to syncrisis potentially sheds light on the Third Gospel, so too does his treatment of individual topics. Plutarch’s concern, for example, to identify the subject’s parents or ancestors in the sections on familial origins – in other bioi, he gives full genealogies (e.g. Agis 3.1) – is mirrored in Luke. Also, Plutarch’s praise for the subjects’ ancestors (‘The patrician house of the Marcii at Rome furnished many men of distinction . . .’, Marcius Coriolanus 1.1) and parents (‘His father, Cleinias, fitted out a trireme at his own cost and fought it gloriously at Artemisium’, Alcibiades 1.1), required by the theorists, is likewise mirrored in Luke’s praise of the parents of John (‘Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord’ [1.6]) and Jesus (Mary finds ‘favor with God’ [1.30], is a ‘servant of the Lord’ [1.38], and is ‘blessed among women’ [1.42]). Plutarch’s account of the conspiracies against each man, too, is mirrored in the Lukan treatment of Jesus’ manner of death (22.1–6). The account of Alcibiades’ premonition of his own death in this section, moreover, has parallels in Luke’s accounting of Jesus’ premonitions of his own death (9.21–22, 43–45; 18.31–34). Also, in the sections on events after death, Plutarch describes the reclamation of the body of Alcibiades after his death by Lais’s mother, Timandra, the honorable burial of both Alcibiades and Coriolanus, and the activities of mourning women in the case of Coriolanus. Similar events, of course, are depicted in Luke’s section on events after death (especially 23.50–56). Philostratus Vita Apollonii Philostratus’s Vita Apollonii is likewise structured using a set of topics that closely resembles the lists of the theorists and particularly Ps. Hermogenes’: prooemion (1.1–3), origins (1.4), marvelous occurrences at birth (1.5–6), body (1.7) nurture and training (1.7–8), pursuits and deeds (1.9–8.28), time (8.29), manner of death (8.29–30), events after death (8.31), and comparison (passim; e.g. to Pythagoras, 1.1–2, his family to others, 1.4; to Heraclitus, 1.9, etc.).35 In the treatment of individual topics, too, conformity to progymnasmatic instruction is evident throughout. For example, Philostratus signals the beginning of the section on origins with explicit allusion to the topic (‘By origin Apollonius came from . . . , 1.4) and, moreover, describes Apollonius’s origins both in terms of 35 Cf. Shuler, A Genre for the Gospels, 82–5.
Progymnastic Topic Lists 29
geography (both city and homeland) and family (both father and family), the procedure endorsed by all the theorists. In his subsequent treatment of marvelous occurrences at birth, which is again signaled with explicit allusion to the topic (‘Apollonius’s birth is said to have occurred’, 1.5), Philostratus describes both a portentous dream and some portentous signs accompanying the birth. In this regard he conforms remarkably to Ps. Hermogenes’ instructions regarding the topic: ‘You will mention also any marvelous occurrences at birth, for example from dreams or signs or things like that’ (Ps. Hermogenes 15). The subsequent description of Apollonius’s education (1.7–8), insofar as it names his teachers and describes the nature of his training, reflects the twofold interest in nurture and training seen among the theorists.36 Specifically, the description of Apollonius’s diet is reminiscent of Ps. Hermogenes’ example of nurture: ‘for example, in the case of Achilles, that he was nurtured on Lion’s marrow and by Cheiron’ (Ps. Hermogenes 16). Within this section, too, is brief mention of Apollonius’s beauty (‘All eyes were turned upon him, for he was, moreover, conspicuous for his beauty’, 1.6), a characteristic commonly cited by the theorists as belonging to the topic, body. The majority of the work is dedicated to Apollonius’s career as a prophet and philosopher, the latter being among the pursuits Ps. Hermogenes lists as examples of the topic (Ps. Hermogenes 16). Apollonius’s many deeds are also narrated in this part of the work. Hence Philostratus conforms to Ps. Hermogenes’ instruction that deeds be ‘included among pursuits’ (Ps. Hermogenes 16). The work’s subsequent discussion of Apollonius’s age (‘Neither has Damis told us anything about the age of our hero; but there are some who say that he was eighty, others that he was over ninety, others again who say that his age far exceeded a hundred’, 8.29), too, conforms to Ps. Hermogenes’ instruction concerning the heading of time: ‘from the topic of time comes how long he lived’ (Ps. Hermogenes 16). And the work’s description of Apollonius’s ‘manner of death’ (8.29), with its alternate accounts of a disappearing or ascending body (8.29–30), conforms remarkably with Ps. Hermogenes’ instruction that mention be made of the death ‘if there was anything unusual about it, as in the case of Callimachus, because his corpse remained standing’ (Ps. Hermogenes 16). Finally, Philostratus’s account of Apollonius’s postmortem appearances and honorable burial (8.31) constitutes standard reflection on the topic of events after death as Ps. Hermogenes describes it. Philostratus’s treatment of individual topics, like Plutarch’s, provides valuable parallels for Third Evangelist’s treatment of the same. For example, the Vita Apollonii’s description of dreams and signs in connection with Apollonius’s birth
36 Though the theorists use conflicting terminology, they generally show a two-fold interest in sources of nourishment for the body/mind in infancy/youth (⫽ nurture) and educational experiences or activities in youth/early adulthood preparatory for a career (⫽ training).
30 michael w. martin is reminiscent of Luke, which describes similar omens in connection with the births of John (1.8–58) and Jesus (1.26–45; 2.8–20). Moreover, the Vita’s account of Apollonius’s education describes both a precocious youth who amazes his elders and an ascetic period of training preparatory for a public career, events with obvious parallels in Luke (2.41–52; 4.1–13). In the same section of the Vita, Apollonius’ ascetic diet is described (he renounces meat, partaking only of dried fruits and vegetables). This, too, has an obvious parallel in the Lukan description of Jesus’ ascetic diet (4.2–4) during his wilderness experience. Philostratus’s description, moreover, of Apollonius’s ascension is reminiscent of the Lukan account of Jesus’ ascension in its corresponding treatment of events after death (Acts 1.10–11). Finally, the Vita’s account of Apollonius’s appearance to a doubting disciple has obvious parallels with the Gospels’ appearance stories generally and (though it is beyond the purview of this study) with the Fourth Gospel’s story of Jesus’ appearance to Thomas specifically. These and other parallels are best explained not as the result of direct, anti-Christian borrowing from the Gospels by Philostratus, as some Christian apologists in the past have argued,37 but rather, as stock treatments of biographical topics in the ancient Mediterranean world. Philo De vita Mosis Philo’s biography of Moses is structured using a number of headings typical of the progymnastic topic lists: prooemion (1.1–4), origins (1.5–7), circumstances of birth (1.8–19), body (1.8–19), nurture (1.8–19), training (1.20–31), mind (1.27), pursuits and deeds (1.32–2.287), death (2.288–291a), events after death (2.291b), epilogue (2.292), and comparison (passim).38 Philo’s own summations of material at various points in the narrative explicitly cite some of these topics as headings for major sections of the biography. For example, in the introduction to the second volume, Philo states: The first volume of this treatise dealt with the birth and nurture of Moses; also with his education and career as a ruler, in which capacity his conduct was not merely blameless but highly praiseworthy; also with the works which he performed . . . The present treatise is concerned with matters allied and consequent to these. If the first described Moses’ kingly and philosophical faculties, the second will describe three others, one of which is concerned with law-giving, the second with the high priest’s office, and the last with prophecy. (2.1–2; italics mine)
This summation, with its allusions to the topics of birth, nurture, education, and four career offices (ruler, lawgiver, priest, and prophet), shows that Philo not only 37 On this point, see F. C. Conybeare, Philostratus: The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (3 vols. LCL; London: Heinemann, 1917) 1.xv. 38 Cf. Shuler, A Genre for the Gospels, 69–74.
Progymnastic Topic Lists 31
consciously used the kinds of topics taught in the progymnasmata to arrange and order the narrative, but also that he expected his hearers to have some degree of familiarity with the topics as standard biographical fare. A correspondence to progymnastic instruction, moreover, is likewise evident in Philo’s treatment of each of the topics. For example, in the discussion of Moses’ origins Philo begins with geographical origins, describing Moses’ ethnicity and homeland (1.5–6), and proceeds to familial origins, describing Moses’ ancestry and parents (1.7) – again the procedure taught by all the theorists. Philo also describes the circumstances surrounding Moses’ birth, namely, his preservation from royally sanctioned infanticide (1.8–19). Nicolaus cites similar legendary material concerning famous births in his examples of the topic (cf. Nicolaus 51–52). Philo’s description in this section, too, of Moses’ ‘nurture’ on his Hebrew mother’s milk is reminiscent of the example of this topic taken from Achilles’ life and cited both by Ps. Hermogenes and Nicolaus, ‘that he was nurtured on lion’s marrow and by Cheiron’ (Ps. Hermogenes 16). And the multiple allusions to Moses’ physical beauty in this section (‘Now the child from his birth had an appearance of more than ordinary goodliness’, 1.9; ‘Thereupon, surveying him from head to foot, she approved of his beauty and fine condition’, 1.15; ‘And he grew and thrived without a break, and was weaned at an earlier date than they had reckoned’, 1.18; ‘He was noble and goodly to look upon; . . . so advanced beyond his age’, 1.18–19) reflect standard progymnastic treatment of the topic of body. The account that follows of Moses’ progress from prodigy to philosopher (1.20–31) is typical treatment, too, of the topic of training or education as described by all the theorists and is undoubtedly the section on ‘education’ Philo mentions in 2.3. This section includes brief praise of Moses’ ‘mind’ (‘Naturally, therefore, his associates and everyone else, struck with amazement at what they felt was a novel spectacle, considered earnestly what the mind which dwelt in his body like an image in its shrine could be, whether it was human or divine or a mixture of both’, 1.27), conforming to Ps. Hermogenes’ instruction concerning the topic (‘You will say . . . about his mind that it was just, temperate, wise, brave’, 16). Most of the work is devoted to Moses’ pursuits/offices, narrating his deeds in connection with each.39 Philo arranges this material in four sections devoted respectively to Moses’ four offices: king (1.32–334), legislator (2.1–65), high priest (2.66–198), and prophet (2.187–287).40 The description of Moses’ king-
39 Cf. 1.334: ‘We have now told the story of Moses’ actions in his capacity as king. We must next deal with all that he achieved by his powers as high priest and legislator, powers which he possessed as the most fitting accompaniments of kingship’. 40 Cf. the summation of 2.3: ‘For Moses, through God’s providence, became king and lawgiver and high priest and prophet; and in each function he won the highest place’.
32 michael w. martin ship as an ‘office’ (2.2 – another explicit allusion to an encomiastic topic) has parallels in Aphthonius’s textbook, which treats Philip’s kingship as an example of this heading in the model invective against Philip (‘his first act as king . . .’, 41). At the work’s conclusion is a short account of Moses’ death and divinization (2.288–291a). Inclusion of these materials conforms to Ps. Hermogenes’ instruction that mention be made of the death ‘if there was anything unusual about it, as in the case of Callimachus, because his corpse remained standing’ (Ps. Hermogenes 16). Also included are materials devoted to Moses’ burial and postmortem honors (2.291b), exactly the kind of materials Ps. Hermogenes commends for the topic, events after death.41 The final sentence, too, of Philo’s biography (‘Such, as recorded in the Holy Scriptures, was the life and such the end of Moses, king, lawgiver, high priest, prophet’, 2.292) is similar in its brevity and form to the epilogues Aphthonius models for his students.42 Conformity to progymnastic instruction is also seen in Philo’s treatment of the topic of syncrisis, or comparison. Throughout the work, Philo introduces comparisons of Moses with other great figures, conforming to Nicolaus’s instruction to use comparisons everywhere. That the comparisons are with great figures of other nations (1.21; 2.12) shows that Philo is employing ‘genus syncrisis’, or comparison of groups by their ‘outstanding members’ (Theon 114). In essence, Philo is attempting to demonstrate the superiority of his native Jewish nation to others. Philo’s comparisons, moreover, take up many of the same encomiastic topics prescribed by the theorists and in generally the same order.
41 According to Philo, Moses was ‘told how he was buried with none present, surely by no mortal hands but by immortal powers; how also he was not laid to rest in the tomb of his forefathers but was given a monument of special dignity which no man has ever seen; how all the nation wept and mourned for him a whole month and made open display, private and public, of their sorrow, in memory of his vast benevolence and watchful care for each one of them and for all’ (2.291b). Cf. Ps. Hermogenes’ instruction, ‘You will examine also events after death: if they held games in his honor, as for Patroclus; if there was an oracle about his bones, as with Orestes; if he had famous children, as did Neoptolemus’ (16–17). 42 Aphthonius provides four examples: (1) ‘Many other things could be said about Thucydides, if the mass of his praises did not fall short of telling everything’ (from ‘An Encomion of Thucydides’); (2) ‘Many other things could be listed about wisdom, but it is impracticable to go into them all’ (from ‘An Encomion of Wisdom’; (3) ‘When Philip was alive he know not when to stop, but the one who is describing him must stop somewhere’ (from ‘An Invective against Philip’); and (4) ‘There are many other things that could be said about the virtue of both, if it were not that both had nearly equal fame from their deeds’ (from ‘A Comparison of Achilles and Hector’).
Progymnastic Topic Lists 33
Table 2. Syncrisis of Moses and Others Topic
Syncrisis
Origins
Superior parents: ‘He had for his father and mother the best of their contemporaries’ (1.7)
Training
Superior in training: ‘Teachers at once arrived from different parts, some unbidden from the neighboring countries . . . But in short time he advanced beyond their capacities’ (1.21)
Mind
Superior mind: ‘Naturally, therefore, his associates and everyone else, struck with amazement at what they felt was a novel spectacle, considered earnestly what the mind which dwelt in his body like an image in its shrine could be, whether it was human or divine or a mixture of both, so utterly unlike was it to the majority, soaring above them and exalted to a grander height’ (1.27)
Pursuits and Deeds
Superior shepherd: ‘he became more skilled than any of his time in managing flocks’ (1.63) Superior king: ‘In solitary contrast to those who had hitherto held the same authority, he did not treasure up gold and silver, did not levy tributes, did not possess houses or chattels or livestock or a staff of slaves or revenues or any other accompaniment of costly and opulent living, though he might have had all in abundance’ (1.152) Superior legislator: ‘That Moses himself was the best of all lawgivers in all countries, better in fact than any that have ever arisen among either the Greeks or the barbarians, and that his laws are most excellent and needful, is shewn most clearly by the following proof’ (2.12) Superior priest: ‘Thus he came to love God and be loved by Him as have been few others’ (2.67) Superior king, priest, and prophet: ‘I have discussed the first three, and shewn that Moses was the best of kings, of lawgivers and of high priests, and will go on to shew in conclusion that he was a prophet of the highest quality’ (2.187) Superior prophet: ‘Moses, the holiest of men ever yet born’ (2.192)
Events after Death
Superior burial: ‘he was not laid to rest in the tomb of his forefathers but was given a monument of special dignity which no man has ever seen’ (2.291)
34 michael w. martin Conformity of this kind to the topic lists suggests that progymnastic compositional training has had its intended effect on Philo, a known graduate of the progymnasmata.43 Noteworthy, too, are the many parallels that exist between Philo’s treatment of various headings and the Third Evangelist’s treatment of the same. For example, in the section on Moses’ ‘education’, Philo describes Moses as a precocious youth instructing teachers older than he. The story has an obvious parallel in the Lukan account of Jesus as a precocious youth (2.40–52). Also, in his treatment of the topic of death, Philo describes Moses’ prophesy of his own death and subsequent ascension to heaven, details that are again paralleled in Luke (Luke 9.21–22, 43–45; 18.31–34; and Acts 1.10–11). Philo’s account, moreover, of events after death includes description of Moses’ burial in an honorable tomb and of followers who mourned him; similar materials, of course, are seen in Luke (23.50–56). Josephus Vita Josephus’s autobiography is structured using a fairly standard set of progymnastic topics: origins (1–8a), nurture and training (8b–27), pursuits and deeds (28–413), externals (414–429), epilogue (430), and comparison (336–367). Jerome Neyrey similarly describes the Vita in terms of four encomiastic categories, (a) origin and birth, (b) nurture and training, (c) accomplishments and deeds, and (d) comparison, and concludes largely on this basis that the Vita is an encomion.44 Such topical content, however, is also characteristic of the bios genre, with which the Vita appears to have numerous other generic features in common (e.g. title, allocation of space, mode of representation, size and length, etc.).45 Thus the work probably falls within the ‘overlap of the genres’ of bios and encomion.46 A close correspondence to progymnastic theory is evident, too, in Josephus’s handling of each of the topics. The section devoted to origins is divided into geographical and familial origins, the division taught by all the theorists and reflected in most of the bioi surveyed. In this section, Josephus identifies and praises his ancestors/relatives (1–6) and his father (7), and thereafter his home city (8a) (cf. the theorists’ subdivisions of origins). Similarly the section on nurture and train43 On Philo’s training in composition and rhetoric, see B. L. Mack, ‘Decoding the Scripture’, 81–115; cf. T. M. Conley, Philo’s Rhetoric: Studies in Style, Composition and Exegesis (Center for Hermeneteutical Studies 1; Berkeley, Calif.: Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 1987); and M. Alexandre, Jr., Rhetorical Argumentation in Philo of Alexandria (BJS 322; Studia Philonica Monographs 2; Atlanta: Scholars, 1999). 44 J. H. Neyrey, ‘Josephus’ Vita and the Encomium: A Native Model of Personality’, JSJ 25 (1994) 177–206. 45 On generic features typical of the bios genre, see Burridge, What Are the Gospels, 129–40. 46 This is Burridge’s phrase for bioi such as Isocrates’ Evagoras that occupy a middle ground shared by both genres (Burridge, What Are the Gospels, 145); cf. Shuler, who regards the Vita as a bios (A Genre for the Gospels, 80–2).
Progymnastic Topic Lists 35
ing (8b–27), focusing as it does on a series of educational experiences, is in obvious conformity with the theorists’ instructions regarding the headings.47 The majority of the work focuses on Josephus’s deeds as a military commander in Galilee (28–413), reflecting the theorists’ view that deeds are the most important topic. In the ‘appended account’ (413) that follows this section (414–429), Josephus tells of his wives and sons (414–416; 427–428), friends who have honored him such as Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, and Domitia (414–426, 429), possessions he acquired in the course of his career (417–420; 422–423; 425–426; 429), his servants (415, 424), and his ‘good fortune’ in general (425). Thus the ‘appended account’ addresses exactly the subheadings identified by Ps. Hermogenes of the topic, external goods (‘As for externals, they include relatives, friends, possessions, servants, luck, and the like’; Ps. Hermogenes 16). Moreover, in treating external goods immediately after pursuits and deeds, Josephus has followed the order prescribed by Ps. Hermogenes.48 Likewise the epilogue (‘Such are the events of my whole life; from them let others judge as they will of my character’, 430) resembles in its brevity and tone the examples offered by Aphthonius. Finally, the comparison Josephus introduces of himself and Justus toward the end of his narrative (336–367) employs two topics prescribed by the theorists in the syncrisis exercises, pursuits and deeds. That is, the comparison demonstrates that Josephus’s deeds as both an historian and a leader were vastly superior to Justus’s.49 And in introducing the comparison after narrating events from the war, Josephus has followed the Ps.-Hermogenean practice of introducing comparisons as the occasion suggests. 47 Josephus charts his ‘progress’ by age. Age 14: ‘I won universal applause for my love of letters; insomuch that the chief priests and the leading men of the city used constantly to come to me for precise information on some particular in our ordinances’. Age 16: ‘I determined to gain personal experience of the several sects into which our nation is divided (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes)’. Age 16: Josephus becomes a ‘devoted disciple’ for three years of Bannus, ‘who dwelt in the wilderness, wearing only such clothing as trees provided, feeding on such things as grew of themselves, and using frequent ablutions of cold water, by day and night, for purity’s sake’. Age 19: ‘I began to govern my life by the rules of the Pharisees, a sect having points of resemblance to that which the Greeks call the Stoic school’. Age 24: Josephus narrates events from his early manhood. 48 In Neyrey’s reading, Josephus treats external goods in connection with deeds, as Aphthonius and Theon advise, rather than after deeds, as Ps. Hermogenes advises. 49 Whereas Justus’s account of the Jewish War is false, Josephus’s account is true (336–9). Whereas Justus caused the Tiberians to revolt, Josephus did not (340–4). Whereas Sepphoris, one of the largest Galilean cities, remained loyal to Rome, Justus’s native Tiberius did not (345–54a). Whereas Justus claims falsely to have sought the king out of loyalty, Josephus claims truthfully that Justus sought the king out of fear of Josephus (354b–5a). Whereas Justus claims falsely that Josephus was a knave, Josephus claims truthfully that Justus was a knave (355b–6). And whereas Justus’s account of the Jewish War was belated and untruthful, Josephus’s account was not (357–67).
36 michael w. martin As with Philo, Josephus’s treatment of individual topics sheds light on the Third Gospel, which often treats the same topics in similar ways. Josephus’s description of his origins, for example, both in terms of geography and family per progymnastic instruction is paralleled in Luke (1.26–27). The genealogical description, specifically, of Josephus’s own familial origins has an obvious parallel in the Lukan genealogy (3.23–38). Josephus’s treatment of the topics of nurture and training, too, is particularly noteworthy. In this section Josephus uses a verb, prokovptein, to describe his own progress as a student. This word, a technical term often used for the advancement of a student in philosophical studies,50 is the same term the Third Evangelist uses to describe Jesus’ progress (2.52) in the corresponding section on Jesus’ nurture and training (2.41–52). Noteworthy, too, are some of the examples of training Josephus provides in his treatment of the topic. Josephus lists among a series of educational experiences an ascetic period in the wilderness that is preparatory for and immediately preceding his public career. The Third Evangelist likewise describes Jesus undergoing an ascetic, wilderness experience that is preparatory for and immediately preceding his public career (4.1–13). Also, Josephus’s description of himself as a precocious youth instructing his elders, like the similar story cited above in De vita Mosis, has obvious parallels to the Lukan description of an adolescent Jesus amazing his elders (2.40–52). Luke Like all the bioi surveyed above, Luke is structured using a fairly standard set of progymnastic topics: prooemion (1.1–4), origins (1.26–38; 3.23–38), marvelous occurrences at birth (2.1–39; 3.21–22), nurture and training (2.41–52; 4.1–13), pursuits and deeds (4.14–22.46), manner of death (22.47–23.46), events after death (23.47–24.53), and comparison (see Table 3 overleaf).51 As with the other bioi surveyed, Luke’s treatment of individual topics also conforms closely to progymnastic instruction concerning the same. Jesus’ origins, for example, are first described both in terms of geography and family (Luke 1.26–31), just as the theorists require. The opening verses (1.26–27) name Jesus’ homeland (Galilee), city (Narareth), presumable father (Joseph), and ancestors (house of David) in exactly the order Aphthonius commends (for the sub-topics of homeland, city, father, and ancestor respectively, see Table 1). The story that follows these opening sentences (1.28–38) reveals, however, that Jesus will be the Son of God conceived by the Holy Spirit – and yet, the story makes clear, he will be an heir through Joseph’s line to his ancestor David’s rule of the house of Jacob. The
50 This term is used in philosophy for the beginner’s advancement, both moral and spiritual, toward perfection; see G. Stählin, ‘prokophv, prokovptw’, TDNT 6.703–19; cf. C. H. Talbert, ‘The Way of the Lukan Jesus: Dimensions of Lukan Spirituality’, PRS 9 (1982) 237–49. 51 Cf. Shuler, ‘The Synoptic Gospels’, 259–98; idem, ‘The Genre(s) of the Gospels’, 474–9.
Progymnastic Topic Lists 37
opening story thus clarifies all of Jesus’ rightful ancestral claims. Next the story of Jesus’ birth is told (2.1–39), and a number of associated marvelous occurrences, including visions, oracles, and signs, are related by the author (1.28–56; 2.1–39; cf. Ps. Hermogenes 15: ‘You will mention also any marvelous occurrences at birth; for example, from dreams or signs or things like that’). A section on nurture and training (2.40–52) then follows, a section framed by statements reporting the child Jesus’ growth in wisdom and favor: ‘The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him’ (2.40); ‘And Jesus increased (proevkopten; see the discussion above of Josephus) in wisdom and in stature, and in divine and human favor’ (2.52). Within the frame is a story of a precocious Jesus who at the age of twelve amazes everyone with ‘his understanding and his answers’ while conversing with Temple teachers (cf. the similar portraits of precocious youths in the sections devoted to nurture and training in Philo’s De vita Mosis, Josephus’s Vita, and Philostratus’s Vita Apollonii). Having described the child Jesus’ origins, birth, and nurture and training, the author returns to these same topics a second time in 3.21–4.13. Evidently, the arrival of the Spirit’s empowering presence in the life of Jesus is cause for further reflection on these topics, warranting the innovative second treatment. That is, the Spirit’s arrival accompanies the ‘begetting’ of Jesus by God (‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you’52) – an episode (3.21–22) that functions topically in this Gospel as a second birth story, complete with ‘marvelous occurrences’ and specifically ‘signs’ (the heavens opening, the voice from heaven, the Spirit’s descent in bodily form like a dove) in accordance with Ps. Hermogenes’ instruction concerning the topic (Ps. Hermogenes 15). The Spirit’s arrival also accompanies the announcement of Jesus’ familial origins to Jesus himself: ‘You are my Son’. This announcement, together with the genealogy Luke inserts immediately after it (genealogies are commonplace in bioi’s sections on origins; cf. Plutarch Agis 3.1; Josephus Vita 1.1–5; and Matt 1.1–17), functions as the Gospel’s second treatment of the topic of origins, showing that God can be regarded as both a father and ancestor of Jesus (cf. Aphthonius, who in modeling the topic of familial origins traces both Achilles’ and Hector’s ancestry to Zeus, 43). The Spirit’s arrival also leads to a forty day period of training in the wilderness (‘Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit . . . was led by the Spirit into the wilderness’, 4.1) during which Jesus fasts (though he is nurtured by something other than bread, 4.4) and is tested by the devil. Here it should be remembered that stories of ascetic experiences are standard fare in bioi’s sections on nurture and training (Philostratus Vita Apollonii 1.8; Josephus Vita 8b–27; cf. Mark 1.12–13; Matt 4.1–17). Josephus’s account of a three-year period of ascetic training under Bannus in the wilderness, listed as it is among other 52 On the superiority of this variant reading, see B. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, 62–7.
38 michael w. martin clearly educational experiences preparatory for and immediately preceding the public career, provides an especially strong parallel. Following the pre-career sections devoted to origins, birth, and nurture/training is the account of Jesus’ public career (4.14–22.46). Described in this section are Jesus’ pursuits (he is the Messiah; cf. Aphthonius’s ‘Invective against Philip’ and Philo’s De vita Mosis for kingship as a standard pursuit) and deeds (evidencing his Messiahship; cf. Ps. Hermogenes 16: ‘deeds are included among pursuits’). Like similar sections in the bioi surveyed above, and in keeping with the theorists’ opinion that deeds is the most important topic (Aphthonius 36, calls deeds ‘the greatest heading of the encomion’; Ps. Hermogenes 16, similarly states: ‘Most important are deeds’), this section comprises the majority of Luke. Next Jesus’ manner of death is depicted (22.47–23.56).53 Like many of the bioi surveyed above, Luke describes premonitions of the death (9.21–22, 43–45; 18.31–34). Luke also reports, as Ps. Hermogenes instructs, some other ‘unusual’ events accompanying the death: ‘darkness came over the whole land’ (23.44); ‘the curtain of the temple was torn in two’ (23.45). Luke concludes with description of several praiseworthy events after death, the topic attested by Ps.-Hermogenes. A centurion declares Jesus to be a ‘just man’ (23.47). Another ‘good and just man’, Joseph, claims Jesus’ body and buries him ‘in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid’ (23.53; cf. the reclamation of Alcibiades’ body by his mother and the honorable burials of Alcibiades, Coriolanus, Apollonius). Women also prepare spices and perfumes for Jesus’ body (24.55–56; cf. Plutarch, Coriolanus, which describes in its section devoted to events after death women mourning Coriolanus for ten months). Two men in dazzling clothes suddenly appear to the women at the empty tomb and report that Jesus is alive in fulfillment of his own earlier prophecies (24.1–11; cf. Ps. Hermogenes 16–17: ‘You will examine also events after death . . . if there was an oracle about his bones, as with Orestes’). Jesus appears to two disciples on the road to Emmaeus, and later to all the disciples (24.13–53; Acts, passim; cf. Philostratus, who similarly describes the postmortem appearances of Apollonius). Jesus ascends (Acts 1.6–11; cf. the account of Moses’ ascension in Philo’s De vita Mosis). Finally, Luke’s use of the topic of comparison is seen in a remarkably detailed, running syncrisis of Jesus and John the Baptist via the topics of origins, marvelous occurrences at birth, nurture and training, pursuits, deeds, manner of death, and events after death. The syncrisis is illustrated in greater detail in Table 3.
53 Jesus’ death, it should be noted, is portrayed here as in all the Gospels as undergone willingly and for the benefit of others. Cf. this portrayal to Theon’s instruction concerning the encomion exercise, that one is to praise actions ‘done for others rather than ourselves; and done for the sake of the honorable, not the expedient or the pleasant; and in which the toil is that of the doer but the benefit is common; and through which the populace experiences
Progymnastic Topic Lists 39
Table 3. Syncrisis of Jesus and John Topic of Syncrisis
John
Jesus
Judea (1.5a) Jerusalem (implied by father’s status as ‘priest’, 1.5b)
Galilee (1.26a) Nazareth (1.26b) – but born in Bethlehem (2.4)
father
Zechariah (1.5b)
ancestors
Zechariah from the priestly order of Abijah (1.5b) Zechariah’s wife a descendent of Aaron (1.5c) ‘Her name was Elizabeth’ (1.5c)
Joseph (1.27a) – but conceived by Holy Spirit as God’s son (1.35; cf. 3.21–38) Joseph from the house of David (1.27b)
Origins homeland city
mother Marvelous Occurrences at Birth
Zechariah’s vision of an angel (1.11–12) Angel’s oracle to Zechariah concerning birth, name, and career (⫽ preparer figure) of son (1.13–17) Zechariah does not believe oracle; receives another oracle concerning his punishment for his unbelief (1.18–23) Oracle’s fulfillment celebrated by Elizabeth: the Lord ‘looks favorably upon her’ (⫽ she conceives despite barrenness) (1.24–25) Oracle’s fulfillment: Elizabeth bears a son (1.57) Neighbors/relatives told of birth (1.58)
Neighbors/relatives witness, report marvelous events that occurred immediately after birth, fear ensues (1.59–66) Portentous distancing from Zechariah: neighbors/relatives want to name child after father or father’s relatives, but Zechariah and Elizabeth refuse (1.59–64) Oracle’s fulfillment: the child is named John at his circumcision (1.59–64) All who hear neighbors’/relatives’ report ponder marvelous events that occurred after birth (1.66) Zechariah’s concluding oracles concerning the children, Jesus and John (1.67–79) Nurture and Training
Pursuits
The child grows and becomes strong (1.80a) [‘The child grew and became strong in spirit’]
‘The virgin’s name was Mary’ (1.27c) Mary’s vision of an angel (1.28–29) Angel’s oracle to Mary concerning birth, name, and career (⫽ Messiah) of son (1.30–37) Mary believes oracle; receives another oracle – from Elizabeth – blessing her and praising her for her belief (1.38–45) Oracle’s fulfillment celebrated by Mary: the Lord ‘looks favorably upon her’ (5 she conceives despite virginity) (1.46–56) Oracle’s fulfillment: Mary bears a son (2.1–7) Shepherds told of birth (2.8–13) through visions (2.9, 13) and oracles (2.10–12, 14); given a ‘sign’: ‘you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger’ (2.12) Shepherd’s witness, report marvelous events that occurred immediately after birth, amazement ensues (2.8–20) Portentous distancing from Joseph: Jesus dedicated as firstborn to his ‘Father’s house’ (cf. 2.49), but not sacrificially redeemed by Joseph54 Oracle’s fulfillment: the child is named Jesus at his circumcision (2.21) Mary, hearing the shepherd’s report, ponders marvelous events that occurred after birth (2.19) Three concluding oracles concerning the child, Jesus (2.25–39)
Was in wilderness prior to beginning public career (1.80b)
The child grows and becomes strong (2.40–52) [‘The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him’ Was in wilderness prior to beginning public career (3.21–23; 4.1–13)
John’s public career as the preparer figure (3.1–18; cf. esp. vv. 3–6)
Jesus’ public career as the Messiah (4.1–22.46; cf. esp. 9.18–20)
40 michael w. martin Table 3. Continued Topic of Syncrisis
John
Jesus
Deeds
Who is the Messiah? John baptizes with water (3.15–17) Who is the bridegroom? John’s disciples fast and pray (5.33–35) Who is the One to Come? (7.18–20) John prepares Jesus’ way (7.24–27)
John taught disciples to pray (11.1) John proclaimed good news (16.16; cf. 3.18) Implied: John’s authority is from heaven (20.1–8)
Who is the Messiah? Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit (3.15–17) Who is the bridegroom? Jesus’ disciples eat and drink (5.33–35) Who is the One to Come? (7.18–20) Jesus gives sight to the blind, makes the lame walk, cleanses lepers, gives hearing to the deaf, raises the dead, and brings good news to the poor (7.21–23) ‘Yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he’ (7.28b) ‘the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”’ (7.34) Jesus taught disciples to pray (11.2–4) Jesus proclaimed good news (16.16; cf. 4.18) Implied: Jesus’ authority is from heaven (20.1–8)
Manner of Death
John is arrested (3.19–20) John is beheaded (9.7–9)
Jesus is arrested and crucified (22.47–23.56)
Events after Death
John mistakenly thought to be resurrected. Herod mistakes Jesus for a resurrected John (9.7–9). Some of the people mistake Jesus for a resurrected John (9.18–20)
Jesus is resurrected (24.1–53)
‘Among those born of women no one is greater than John’ (7.28a) ‘John the Baptist came eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say he has a demon’ (7.33)
Though the syncrisis is occasionally accomplished through explicit comparison of the subjects (as in Philo’s De vita Mosis), it is primarily carried out implicitly through parallel narration (as in Plutarch’s Alcibiades and Marcius Coriolanus). The comparison may also be intended as a polemical ‘genus syncrisis’ proving the superiority of followers of Jesus to followers of John.55 If so, it is comparable to the biographical genus syncrises seen in Plutarch (the Greek Alcibiades vs. the Roman Coriolanus) and Philo (Moses vs. other nations’ leaders/legislators).
benefits’ (110); and Theon’s instruction concerning the syncrisis exercise, that one gives ‘preference to things done by choice rather than necessity or chance’ (113). 54 B. Reicke, ‘Jesus, Simeon, and Anna (Luke 2:21–40)’, Saved by Hope (ed. J. I. Cook; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978) 96–108; cf. Talbert, ‘The Way of the Lukan Jesus’, 237–49. 55 The Recognitions show that such a rivalry existed in the third century (see, e.g., R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John [AB 29, 29A; 2 vols.; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966 and 1970] 1.lxvii–lxx.); if a similar rivalry existed in the first century, it could account for the concern to show Jesus’ superiority to John in Luke and other gospels.
Progymnastic Topic Lists 41
On the whole, the Third Gospel displays a close conformity in several regards to progymnastic topical instruction, and in this respect it is no different from other bioi of its time. Conformity such as this suggests that the topic lists have been used merely as they were intended, as guides for composition. It also suggests that the Third Evangelist is a graduate of the progymnasmata. Certainly the Third Evangelist employs the skills of describing and comparing a life topically with no less rhetorical sophistication than any of the other biographers surveyed, including Plutarch and Philo, known graduates of the progymnasmata and of declamation. This sophistication is apparent from the overall structure of the narrative, which covers a range of progymnastic topics as broad as any of the bioi surveyed. It is apparent, too, from the Gospel’s individual treatment of topics, which at a number of points conforms as well as any of the bioi surveyed to progymnastic standards. The evangelist’s rhetorical skill is most evident, though, from the syncrisis of Jesus and John. Again, syncrises such as this that cover a range and order of topics typical of the progymnastic topic lists are not found in classical literature, nor are they often found even in bioi of Luke’s time. Of the biographical syncrises surveyed, only Plutarch’s rivals Luke’s in both its detailed treatment of individual topics and its coverage of a full range of topics. Judged by progymnastic rhetorical standards, then, the Third Evangelist displays more rhetorical sophistication in his handling of syncrisis than most of the biographers surveyed, Philo included. Such rhetorical skill is most naturally explained as the product of rhetorical training.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 42–59. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0028688508000039
La signification eschatologique de Jean 3.29 MYLÈN E KE M PTE R Le Rameau de Sion, Monastère-Ermitage des Clarisses, 9 rue Notre-Dame, 54330 Saxon-Sion, France
L’attention de la majorité des commentateurs qui se sont penchés sur l’étude de Jn 3.29 a été focalisée par le contenu de l’expression oJ fivlo~ tou` numfivou, expression souvent rapprochée du « garçon d’honneur » ( ˜ybiv]wOv) de la tradition juive, et la signification théologique profonde du verset s’en est souvent trouvée occultée. Le présent article se propose de montrer – notamment à travers un examen des prédéterminations et du schéma eschatologiques de ce verset – que la joie accomplie du Baptiste apparaît ici comme étant le résultat du salut effectif, opéré par la révélation plénière et définitive apportée par Jésus. En ce sens, il constitue l’une des expressions de l’eschatologie inaugurée du quatrième Évangile. Keywords: John 3.29, Eschatology, John the Baptist, ‘Friend of the bridegroom’ Introduction
L’expression de la joie en Jn 3.29 est fort surprenante. C’est ici qu’elle apparaît pour la première fois dans le quatrième évangile et elle est mise dans la bouche du Baptiste. Celui-ci affirme que sa joie est accomplie (à l’indicatif), alors que dans les trois autres textes de l’évangile où l’expression de joie accomplie apparaît, elle est vue comme une fin, un but, une promesse: la conjonction i{na est utilisée, suivie du subjonctif (Jn 15.11; 16.24; 17.13. Voir aussi 1 Jn 1.4 ; 2 Jn 12). L’affirmation de la joie accomplie du Baptiste en Jn 3.29 est d’autant plus étonnante qu’elle précède ces promesses de joie accomplie. En outre, aux versets 15.11 et 17.13, la joie accomplie est directement liée aux paroles de révélation de Jésus, ce que signifient les expressions tau`ta lelavlhka uJmi`n i{na et tau`ta lalw` [. . .] i{na, et Jn 16.24 se trouve également dans un contexte où Jésus explique le but de ses paroles de révélation. Or, tel n’est apparemment pas le cas dans le contexte proche de Jn 3.29. D’autre part, l’insistance sur le fait que la joie évoquée dans ce verset est la joie de Jean-Baptiste, alors qu’en Jn 15.11; 17.13, c’est la joie de Jésus qui est promise aux disciples, est tout aussi surprenante. Enfin, l’expression hJ cara; hJ ejmhv attire d’autant plus l’attention qu’elle n’apparaît jamais dans la Septante, tandis que dans le Nouveau Testament, elle ne se trouve qu’en Jn 3.29; 15.11 et 17.13: seuls Jean-Baptiste et Jésus parlent de la joie qui est la leur, et qui plus est, d’une joie accomplie. L’attention des commentateurs qui se sont penchés sur l’étude de Jn 3.29 a été 42 largement focalisée par le contenu de l’expression ‘ami de l’époux’ (oJ fivlo~ tou`
La signification eschatologique de Jean 3.29 43
numfivou), expression souvent rapprochée du ‘garçon d’honneur’ (˜ybiv]wOv, translittéré shoshebin) de la tradition juive.1 Significative à cet égard est l’affirmation de R. Infante: ‘Gli esegeti concordano nel ritenere che sullo sfondo del philos tou nymphiou (Gv 3,29) si debba scorgere l’istituto dello shoshbin delle usanze matrimoniali giudaiche, tramandate dalla Mishnah e dal Talmud’.2 Parmi les auteurs ayant exploité l’image de façon allégorique, la plupart ont considéré que l’époux et l’ami de l’époux représentaient respectivement Jésus et Jean-Baptiste. À partir de cet élément commun, ils ont interprété l’image en mettant l’accent sur des aspects différents. Dans une contribution récente, M. et R. Zimmermann3 ont fait remarquer que le rapprochement entre l’ami de l’époux et le garçon d’honneur est forcé. Le premier argument avancé par les auteurs est d’ordre linguistique: d’une part, l’expression oJ fivlo~ tou` numfivou est inconnue, en tant que telle, aussi bien de la tradition juive que de la littérature grecque; d’autre part, des termes techniques étaient disponibles pour désigner le garçon d’honneur – notamment numfagwgov~, paravnumfo~, pavroco~ – termes attestés dans le judaïsme hellénistique. Or, aucun de ces termes n’est utilisé ici, mais bien l’expression originale oJ fivlo~ tou` numfivou. Le second argument est d’ordre sémantique: la tâche et le rang du garçon d’honneur dans la tradition juive ne semblent pas recouvrir ceux de l’ami de l’époux dont il est question dans notre verset: c’était le rôle du garçon d’honneur que de s’occuper de la joie des époux et non l’inverse; par ailleurs, le garçon d’honneur était d’un rang habituellement plus élevé que l’époux.4 Ayant établi le caractère douteux du rapprochement sur lequel reposent la majorité des interprétations du verset, M. et R. Zimmermann proposent, dans leur article, d’exploiter les ‘formules théologiquement marquées’ telles ‘entendre la voix de l’époux’, ‘être l’ami de Jésus’, ‘la joie accomplie’. Ils en concluent que Jean est décrit dans les formulations d’un disciple de Jésus, témoin des noces de l’épouxmessie. En 1966 déjà, F.-M. Braun5 avait ouvert la voie à l’analyse des termes de Jn 3.29 jugés significatifs d’un point de vue théologique. Mais cette voie n’aura trouvé un 1 Il semble qu’il faille attribuer la paternité du rapprochement entre l’ami de l’époux et le garçon d’honneur de la tradition juive à I. Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1917) 213. Voir M.-E. Boismard, ‘L’ami de l’époux’, À la rencontre de Dieu: Mémorial Albert Gelin (éd. Xavier Mappus; Le Puy: Collectif, 1961) 290–5, particulièrement 291 n. 3. 2 R. Infante, ‘La voce dello sposo: Gv 3, 29’, VetChr 33 (1996) 301–8; cit., 302. 3 M. Zimmermann, R. Zimmermann, ‘Der Freund des Bräutigams (Joh 3, 29): Deflorationsoder Christuszeuge?’, ZNW 90 (1999) 123–30. 4 Nous n’avons fait que reprendre ici les arguments développés par les auteurs qui nous ont paru les plus probants. Pour le détail de l’argumentation, voir M. et R. Zimmermann, ‘Freund’, 123–6. 5 F.-M. Braun, Jean le théologien 3/1 (Paris: Gabalda, 1966).
44 mylène kempter aboutissement qu’avec deux études récentes, à savoir celles d’E. Puthenkandathil6 et de M. et R. Zimmermann.7 Le rapprochement entre ‘l’ami de l’époux’ et le shoshebin, sur lequel reposent la majorité des interprétations de Jn 3.29 a, certes, sans doute occulté l’originalité de l’expression oJ dev fivlo~ tou` numfivou oJ eJsthkw;~ kai; ajkouvwn aujtou` cara`/ caivrei dia; th;n fwnh;n tou` numfivou. au{th ou\n hJ cara; hJ ejmh; peplhvrwtai. Les trois études auxquelles nous venons de faire référence ont le mérite d’avoir exhumé la densité théologique des expressions de Jn 3.29, et les conclusions auxquelles elles ont abouti offrent un intérêt certain. Un point de ces trois contributions pose cependant question: la dimension eschatologique des expressions de Jn 3.29 y est certes évoquée, mais n’y est guère exploitée. En outre, l’un des arguments sur lesquels repose l’étude de M. et R. Zimmermann demanderait à être reconsidéré: en effet, dans l’Ancien Testament comme dans les textes du judaïsme tardif, si la métaphore des épousailles entre Dieu et son peuple est courante, elle n’est jamais utilisée pour désigner la relation entre le messie et la communauté messianique.8 Elle renvoie, en contexte vétérotestamentaire, à l’accomplissement des promesses eschatologiques, d’où l’intérêt d’étudier Jn 3.29 sous cet aspect. Un certain nombre d’autres études évoquent, à juste titre, la signification eschatologique de ce verset. Ainsi en est-il, par exemple, de G. Zevini9 et de R. Infante.10 Mais ces deux auteurs appuient leurs conclusions sur la base du fragile rapprochement entre l’ami de l’époux et le shoshebin de la tradition juive. Nous proposons quant à nous d’une part de montrer la signification éminemment eschatologique de Jn 3.29 sans le recours à ce rapprochement spécieux, d’autre part de préciser le type d’eschatologie auquel nous avons ici affaire. Il est difficile de poser d’entrée de jeu une définition précise de l’eschatologie telle que nous l’entendrons; celle-ci s’affinera au cours de notre étude. Cependant, nous soulignons d’emblée que nous ne retiendrons comme eschatologiques que les événements portant les traits du définitif et du dépassement qualitatif. Notre étude s’articulera autour de trois points. D’abord, nous montrerons que Jn 3.29 fait appel à un vocabulaire qui porte de fortes connotations eschatologiques. Ensuite, nous essaierons de définir la façon dont est présenté le Baptiste, non seulement dans ce verset mais, de façon plus générale, en Jn. Ceci nous aidera finalement à tenter de définir plus précisément le type d’eschatologie auquel le lecteur est ici confronté. 6 E. Puthenkandathil, Philos: A Designation for the Jesus–Disciple Relationship; An ExegeticoTheological Investigation of the Term in the Fourth Gospel (Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang, 1993). 7 M. et R. Zimmermann, ‘Freund’. 8 Voir J. Jeremias, art. ‘nuvmfh, numfivo~’, ThWNT 4.1092–9. 9 G. Zevini, ‘Gesù lo sposo della communità messianica (Gv 3.29)’, PSV 13 (1986) 105–17. 10 R. Infante, ‘Voce’.
La signification eschatologique de Jean 3.29 45
I. Les prédéterminations eschatologiques de Jn 3.29
A. La symbolique des noces dans l’Ancien Testament L’Ancien Testament déploie la symbolique analogique des noces11 pour évoquer les relations entre Yahvé et son peuple. Cette symbolique s’exprime soit à travers des comparaisons, Yahvé étant ‘comme un époux’ (Ps 19.6),12 soit à travers des métaphores, l’époux étant alors Dieu lui-même (Is 54.5). L’examen de cette symbolique vétérotestamentaire nous éclairera quant aux connotations eschatologiques qu’elle véhicule lorsqu’elle est utilisée dans le Nouveau Testament. i) Entre réalisation et promesse La symbolique nuptiale visant à évoquer les relations entre Yahvé et son peuple Israël est utilisée pour la première fois dans l’Ancien Testament par le prophète Osée.13 Celle-ci est empruntée aux mythes cananéens mais offre une nouveauté radicale dans son traitement en ce que, à la différence de l’emphase mise sur le cycle de la nature dans les mythes cananéens, le mariage est considéré en Os – comme dans l’ensemble du corpus biblique – en termes d’histoire linéaire.14 Cette conception linéaire de l’histoire permet d’envisager le mariage entre Yahvé et son peuple à la fois comme un fait accompli et passé, et comme une promesse d’avenir. En effet, la symbolique du mariage permet au prophète de procéder à une transposition symbolique de l’histoire.15 Cette symbolisation lui donne de discerner dans les aléas de l’histoire d’Israël le dessein du Dieu fidèle. La sainteté même de Dieu fait que le mariage entre Yahvé, Époux fidèle et saint,16 et son infidèle épouse Israël, ne pouvait se solder par un échec dû à la prostitution
11 Nous reprenons ici la terminologie de P. Grelot, Le langage symbolique dans la Bible (Paris: Cerf, 2001), qui distingue quatre catégories de symboles dans le langage biblique: les symboles analogiques, mythiques, figuratifs et existentiels. Nous parlons de symbolique des noces plutôt que d’‘image nuptiale’ (voir le titre de l’ouvrage de R. A. Batey, New Testament Nuptial Imagery [Leiden: Brill, 1971]), afin de bien mettre en lumière le pouvoir suggestif plus que descriptif du symbole. 12 Sauf indication contraire, nous citons les Psaumes selon le système de numérotation du TM. 13 Une allusion à cette symbolique est déjà faite en Am 5.2 mais n’est pas développée. 14 A. Neher, ‘Le symbolisme conjugal : expression de l’histoire dans l’Ancien Testament’, RHPhR 34 (1954) 30–49, particulièrement 34. 15 Ainsi Grelot, Langage, 48. 16 Ce n’est pas le lieu de développer, dans le cadre restreint de ce travail, toutes les harmoniques déployées par la symbolique nuptiale dans l’Ancien Testament. Nous noterons cependant qu’il est clair que celle-ci vise non seulement à suggérer par quels types de relations Dieu est uni à son peuple, mais tend aussi à dévoiler la sainteté même de Yahvé. Ceci apparaît notamment en Os.
46 mylène kempter d’Israël.17 Les noces entre Yahvé et Israël sont un fait accompli, passé, mais Israël s’est détourné de son ‘premier mari’ (Os 2.9: ˜wvarih; vyai), pour aller à la suite de ‘ses amants’ (Os 2.15: h;yb,h}aæm)] . Cependant, cet échec va donner lieu à une promesse de jugement et de salut, et le mariage entre Yahvé et Israël va être exprimé dans les termes d’une promesse eschatologique. Les annonces de jugement et de salut structurent le texte. Les trois grandes unités discernables du livre ont en effet en commun de s’ouvrir chacune sur l’accusation et l’annonce du jugement d’Israël, et de finir sur une annonce de salut (3.5 ; 11.8–11 ; 14.2–9). Or, la promesse nuptiale est intimement liée à l’annonce du salut et s’exprime à travers des expressions et des schémas eschatologiques.18 C’est ‘en ce jour-là’ (Os 2.18, 20, 23: aWhh’AμwOYb’), expression à fortes connotations eschatologiques,19 qu’Israël n’appellera plus Yahvé ‘mon Baal’, mais ‘mon mari’. D’autre part, l’alliance est décrite à travers des expressions qui deviendront autant de lieux communs servant à désigner la communion avec Dieu s’étendant à toute la création dans un état de parfaite tranquillité eschatologique: ‘avec la bête des champs’ (Os 2.20; voir Is 43.20: ‘Les bêtes sauvages m’honoreront’), ‘coucher en sécurité’ (Os 2.20; voir Is 32.18: ‘mon peuple habitera dans un séjour de paix’). En outre, elle a pour conséquence un complet retournement de situation (Os 2.25: ‘et je dirai à LôAmmi: tu es Ammi’), et porte les traits du définitif (μl;wO[l] yli JyTic]r’aew,“ Os 2.21). Si cette nouvelle alliance est décrite dans des termes de fiançailles plutôt que d’épousailles, ceci ne remet pas en cause ce trait du définitif. En effet, c’est au moment des fiançailles qu’ont lieu les tractations qui lient les deux conjoints de manière définitive. Mais le vocabulaire des fiançailles est lui-même significatif quant à la qualité eschatologique de l’union désignée. Il souligne la totale nouveauté de cette alliance, puisque le terme ‘fiancer’ ne s’applique normalement qu’à une jeune fille vierge, et non à une femme qui a déjà été mariée – emploi qui se situe ici en contraste avec ce qui vient d’être dit de Gomer. Ces noces eschatologiques ne sont donc pas une simple restauration des relations anciennes qui liaient Yahvé à son peuple: ‘Dieu abolit [. . .] totalement le passé adultère d’Israël, 17 Nous nous contenterons de signaler ici qu’en Os, la racine du mal d’Israël relève de la nonconnaissance de Dieu (voir 4.1, 6; 5.4). Nous exploiterons cette donnée lorsque nous traiterons la question de la désignation du Baptiste comme fivlo~. 18 A. Neher, ‘Symbolisme’, 44, discerne en Os 1–3 un schéma eschatologique inséré dans le symbolisme conjugal, où ‘le temps viendrait soudain se jeter dans un gouffre pour y disparaître, et une tranche de Non-Histoire permettrait la surgescence d’une histoire nouvelle.’ Cette ‘Non-Histoire’ eschatologique serait exprimée aussi bien par les noms précédés de négations en Os 1.6, 9, que dans la suspension des fonctions politiques et religieuses d’Israël, évoquée en Os 3.4–5. Elle serait à considérer ‘comme le prélude nécessaire à la réconciliation’ (Neher, ‘Symbolisme’, 45). 19 L’utilisation de cette expression dans la petite apocalypse d’Isaïe (Is 24–27), comme un leitmotiv et comme en crescendo est tout à fait caractéristique. Voir Is 24.21; 25.9; 26.1; 27.1, 2, 12, 13.
La signification eschatologique de Jean 3.29 47
qui est comme une créature nouvelle’.20 Cette nouveauté s’exprime également à travers les biens offerts par Dieu; ce sont non plus des biens matériels, comme dans l’ancienne alliance (voir Os 2.10), mais les dispositions intérieures requises pour que le peuple d’Israël soit désormais fidèle à cette nouvelle alliance: justice et droit, tendresse et miséricorde, fidélité (Os 2.21–22). Nous avons longuement insisté sur la symbolique nuptiale telle qu’elle apparaît en Os, car celle-ci porte en germe tout ce qui sera développé par les prophètes ultérieurs dans la reprise de cette symbolique. Ainsi, la tension entre la conception des noces entre Dieu et son peuple à la fois comme un événement passé et comme une promesse future en contexte eschatologique est particulièrement claire en Is 54.5 et 62.5 où le verbe l[b est au participe qal actif dans le premier cas, et à l’inaccompli qal actif dans le second cas.21 Comme en Os, l’annonce des noces futures se situe dans le cadre de la promesse eschatologique du salut: ce sera la fin des exactions étrangères (Is 62.8), le rassemblement et l’afflux des Judéens dispersés (Is 60.4), le nouvel état de Sion peuplée par la foule des bénéficiaires du salut (Is 62.11–12). ii) La symbolique des noces liée à la joie: une expression des réalités eschatologiques Dans l’Ancien Testament, chaque fois que la symbolique des noces entre Dieu et son peuple est associée à la joie, la dimension eschatologique est prégnante. C’est le cas notamment en Is 61.10; 62.4–5 où le contexte vise à exprimer les réalités eschatologiques liées au salut apporté par Yahvé. C’est Yahvé, le fiancé, qui se fait entendre pour annoncer le salut (Is 62.11), comme en Jn 3.29, la voix de l’époux se fait entendre par Jean-Baptiste. Dans le contexte large du trito-Isaïe, la dimension eschatologique est exprimée notamment à travers le motif de la création de cieux nouveaux et d’une terre nouvelle (Is 65.17; 66.22), ainsi qu’à travers le motif récurrent de la joie (Is 61.7; 62.5; 66.14). Cette joie est l’effet d’un retournement de situation (Is 61.7), et elle est une donnée définitive et éternelle (61.7: μl;wO[ tj’m]ci). Le verset 61.10 est particulièrement remarquable en ce qu’il associe la thématique de la joie liée à celle du salut et des noces. Dans le contexte d’Isaïe, il est clair que le salut se situe dans le cadre d’une promesse pour l’avenir. Cependant, nous noterons le jeu sur l’aspect verbal: tantôt accompli (en 61.10: ly[im] [v’y±
48 mylène kempter savoir que celle-ci est particulièrement adéquate pour exprimer une réalité qui se situe en tension entre un événement passé et accompli et une promesse de réalisation plénière encore à venir. Il en va de même pour la thématique du salut qui lui est étroitement associée. iii) Analyse de l’expression ‘entendre la voix de l’époux et de l’épousée’ dans l’Ancien Testament Parmi les interprétations faisant appel à la catégorie du shoshebin pour éclairer la signification de Jn 3.29, aucun consensus ne se dégage quant au sens de l’expression ‘la voix de l’époux’ (hJ fwnh; tou` numfivou). Ceci est sans doute lié au fait que, ainsi que l’indiquent M. et R. Zimmermann, il n’existe aucun document identifiant la voix de l’époux aux cris d’allégresse provenant de la chambre nuptiale.22 Par contre, ainsi que l’indiquent les mêmes auteurs, il existe une tradition bien attestée dans l’Ancien Testament qui utilise l’expression en un sens métaphorique. En effet, l’expression ‘la voix de l’époux et de l’épousée’ est, dans le livre de Jérémie, comme un topos utilisé soit dans des annonces de malheur (de façon prépondérante, mais avec une négation), soit, en Jr 33.10–11 (LXX 40.10–11), dans le cadre d’une promesse de salut. Or, dans ces deux versets du livre de Jérémie, les parallèles de vocabulaire et les parallèles thématiques avec notre verset sont extrêmement clairs. Dans le cadre de la promesse de restauration pour Jérusalem que Yahvé adresse au prophète, il est annoncé que sera encore entendue (ajkousqhvsetai) ‘le cri de l’allégresse et le cri de la joie, le chant de l’époux et le chant de l’épousée’ (fwnh; eujfrosuvnh~ kai; fwnh; carmosuvnh~ fwnh; numfivou kai; fwnh; nuvmfh~). En outre, la promesse de salut est suivie, dans le texte massorétique, de l’annonce d’un germe de justice issu de la race de David (hq;d;x] jm’x, dwId;l] j'ymix]a)' , formule qui, dans le judaïsme ancien, est associée au messie.23 Sur la base de ces rapprochements avec les textes vétérotestamentaires, nous pouvons émettre l’hypothèse selon laquelle l’expression hJ fwnh; tou` numfivou en Jn 3.29 est à comprendre comme une expression lourdement prédéterminée et à forte charge théologique. À travers elle, allusion est faite à l’accomplissement de la promesse eschatologique de salut (voir TM: Jr 33.10–11 ⫽ LXX: Jr 40.10–11). Ce premier élément de conclusion vaut d’autant plus que le motif de l’écoute de la voix de l’époux (et de l’épousée) était couramment utilisé dans les textes du judaïsme du 1er siècle avant – 1er siècle après J.C., et a même été explicitement adopté dans les écrits johanniques24 (Ap 18.23). Mais cette réalisation s’inscrit dans le cadre d’une tension, attendant un plein achèvement, l’utilisation de la symbolique nup-
22 M. et R. Zimmermann, ‘Freund’, 126. 23 M. et R. Zimmermann, ‘Freund’. 24 M. et R. Zimmermann, ‘Freund’, 127. La question de l’appartenance de l’Apocalypse aux écrits johanniques pourrait être discutée.
La signification eschatologique de Jean 3.29 49
tiale se prêtant de manière privilégiée à l’expression d’une eschatologie inaugurée. B La joie et la joie accomplie dans l’Ancien Testament L’expression ‘joie accomplie’ n’apparaît pas en tant que telle dans l’Ancien Testament, mais la joie a une forte connotation eschatologique, notamment dans les deuxième et troisième Isaïe (Is 55.12; 66.10). D’une manière générale, si nous mettons à part les simples occasions de joie humaine, la joie est liée à la reconnaissance et à l’attente dans la foi de l’intervention de Dieu dans l’histoire, plus particulièrement à son activité salvatrice, à la fois reconnue et attendue, expérimentée et espérée dans la foi. L’examen de quelques occurrences significatives de la joie dans l’Ancien Testament devrait nous permettre de préciser la valeur eschatologique de cette notion dans le corpus vétérotestamentaire. i) Paix et joie La paix est, dans l’Ancien Testament, l’un des biens eschatologiques par excellence. La racine hébraïque μlv, dont est dérivé le substantif μwOlv;, recouvre la notion d’intégrité ou de plénitude.25 Ainsi, la paix est-elle un des éléments essentiels de la prédication eschatologique: les oracles même les plus menaçants des prophètes se terminent généralement par une annonce de restauration plantureuse (Os 2.20). Isaïe annonce un ‘prince de la paix’ (Is 9.5) qui procurera une ‘paix sans fin’ (Is 9.6). Les deux royaumes séparés d’Israël et de Juda se réconcilieront, les nations vivront en paix (Is 2.2 ; 32.15–20; 65.25). Dieu enfin fera ‘couler sur Jérusalem la paix comme un fleuve’ (Is 66.12).26 Or, la joie apparaît en plusieurs des contextes proches des références que nous venons de citer, notamment dans le contexte d’Is 9.6 et dans celui d’Is 66.12. Bien plus, la paix est clairement associée à la joie en Is 55.12. Dans ce chapitre conclusif du deutéro-Isaïe, paix et joie vont de pair dans une promesse de salut décrivant l’éclat du nouvel Exode, préfiguration eschatologique. Enfin, nous noterons que la Septante pose, en Is 48.22 et 57.21, une équivalence entre la paix et la joie (Is 48.22 et 57.2, TM: μwløv; ˜yae traduit par LXX : oujk e[stin caivrein). ii) La joie du salut Dans l’Ancien Testament, la joie est fréquemment une conséquence du salut de Dieu. Ainsi, les verbes ou substantifs relevant du champ lexical de la joie apparaissent-ils souvent en corrélation avec les verbes ou substantifs appartenant
25 Voir G. Wigoder, art. ‘paix’, Dictionnaire Encyclopédique du Judaïsme (S.-A Goldberg, dir.; Paris: Robert Laffont, 1993) 842–5. 26 Voir X. Léon-Dufour, art. ‘paix’, Vocabulaire de Théologie Biblique (P. Grelot, éd.; Paris: Cerf, 1988) 878–84, particulièrement 882.
50 mylène kempter au champ lexical du salut.27 Or, le salut s’inscrit, dans l’Ancien Testament, dans le cadre d’une tension entre ce qui a déjà été expérimenté et ce qui est attendu et espéré. Significative à ce titre est la bipartition de chacun des deux chapitres consacrés au salut dans l’Ancien Testament dans le Vocabulaire de Théologie Biblique:28 ‘L’expérience historique’ et ‘Les promesses eschatologiques’ pour le premier chapitre, ‘Les certitudes de foi’ et ‘Les appels au Dieu sauveur’ pour le second. La joie relative au salut est donc, à l’instar du salut lui-même, tantôt une donnée effective (Ps 118.15), tantôt un bien promis, constitutif du salut eschatologique (Ps 14.7). Elle peut même être considérée comme une conséquence effective d’un fait encore à venir, attendu et espéré. Ainsi en est-il en Ba 4.22: ‘car j’espère votre salut de l’Éternel, et une joie m’est venue du Saint pour la miséricorde qui vous arrivera bientôt de l’Éternel, votre Sauveur’. Dans le texte grec, la tension est rendue par l’aoriste h\lqevn moi cara; [. . .] et le futur h} h{xei uJmi`n ejn tavcei. Peut-être pouvons-nous parler en ce dernier cas de joie proleptique: le salut eschatologique promis, bien que non encore réalisé dans sa plénitude, se manifeste dès maintenant à travers l’effet qu’il produit, la joie, qui en est comme la réalisation inchoative. Ainsi que nous avons essayé de le montrer, les ‘formules théologiquement marquées’29 mises en exergue par M. et R. Zimmermann nous orientent vers une interprétation fortement eschatologique du verset. En effet, le vocabulaire auquel il est fait appel – aussi bien celui des noces que celui de la joie – est fortement prédéterminé de par son utilisation dans l’Ancien Testament notamment. La symbolique vétérotestamentaire des noces, lorsqu’elle est utilisée pour suggérer la relation entre Yahvé et son peuple, est particulièrement propre à exprimer une eschatologie en tension, les noces étant à la fois une ‘réalité’ et une promesse pour le futur, promesse qui laisse entrevoir une situation nouvelle, dépassant tout ce qui a pu être expérimenté jusqu’alors. En contexte vétérotestamentaire, la joie est également particulièrement apte à exprimer une eschatologie en tension, de par son rapport inductif à l’action salvatrice de Dieu. Bien plus, quand elle apparaît corrélativement à la symbolique des noces, elle est l’une des expressions privilégiées permettant d’évoquer les réalités eschatologiques. Nous proposons d’étudier maintenant la façon dont est présenté le Baptiste en Jn 3.29 – et plus généralement en Jn. Ceci devrait nous conduire à préciser les conditions et la qualité de la joie qui est la sienne.
27 Voir, par exemple, Pss 9.15; 13.6; 19.6; 35.9; Is 25.9; Ha 3.18. 28 P. Grelot, art. ‘salut’, Vocabulaire de Théologie Biblique (P. Grelot, éd.), 1186–91. 29 M. et R. Zimmermann, ‘Freund’, 126.
La signification eschatologique de Jean 3.29 51
II La présentation du Baptiste en Jn 3.29
A Jean-Baptiste disciple de Jésus i) Le terme fivlo~: une désignation de la relation entre Jésus et ses disciples dans le quatrième évangile Le rapprochement entre l’ami de l’époux de Jn 3.29 et le garçon d’honneur de la tradition juive est sans doute séduisant et offre de multiples possibilités d’exploitations, en témoigne la diversité des interprétations s’appuyant sur ce rapprochement, mais il est étonnant qu’aucun des termes grecs désignant le garçon d’honneur (numfagwgov~, paravnumfo~, pavroco~) ne soit utilisé ici,30 tandis qu’on trouve à la place l’expression unique dans toute la Bible oJ fivlo~ tou` numfivou. Or, l’exploitation du terme fivlo~ s’avère extrêmement féconde en Jn. Dans le quatrième évangile, en effet, ce terme ‘est une désignation par excellence de la relation Jésus-disciple’.31 Nous proposons de nous arrêter quelque peu sur la signification de ce terme en Jn, dans la mesure où les harmoniques théologiques de l’expression oJ fivlo~ tou` numfivou ont souvent été passées sous silence au profit de l’analyse de la fonction du shoshebin, posé comme équivalent de l’ ‘ami de l’époux’. La plupart des études ne faisant pas appel à la catégorie du shoshebin n’ont elles-mêmes prêté que peu d’attention à l’expression que nous nous proposons d’étudier.32 Il est intéressant d’étudier ce terme dans le contexte de Jn 15.1–17, ce texte pouvant être considéré, selon l’expression d’E. Puthenkandathil, comme ‘le climax de l’enseignement johannique sur ce thème’,33 le terme fivlo~ y apparaissant trois fois, employé dans ses différentes nuances.34 D’autre part, ce texte est fort intéressant pour notre propos, puisque le terme fivlo~ y apparaît corrélativement au substantif carav. Jn 15.1–17 forment une péricope délimitée par l’inclusion de l’expression karpovn fevrw aux versets 2 et 16. Le fait que la première partie du texte traite du mashal de la vigne et des sarments tandis que la seconde partie constitue l’application de ce mashal est également un argument en faveur de l’unité de la péricope. La signification théologique du terme en Jn 15.13–15 doit donc être dégagée en considération de l’arrière-fond du mashal qui en constitue le contexte 30 M. et R. Zimmermann, ‘Freund’, 124. 31 Puthenkandathil, Philos, 347. Telle est la formule conclusive de l’étude. 32 À l’exception notable de Braun, Jean 3/1, Puthenkandathil, Philos, et de M. et R. Zimmermann, ‘Freund’. 33 Puthenkandathil, Philos, 155. Nous citons les textes de Puthenkandathil selon notre traduction. 34 Nous reprendrons ici en partie l’analyse du terme en Jn 15.1–17 réalisée par Puthenkandathil, Philos, 155–243. Nous ne partageons cependant pas le point de vue de l’auteur qui accorde, selon nous, une importance trop marquée à l’emploi des formules en ejgwv eijmiv en Jn 15.1–17. En effet, ces formules ne sont jamais employées, dans la péricope, à l’absolu. Dès lors, il nous semble excessif d’y voir une stratégie littéraire visant à souligner la théologie de l’évangéliste.
52 mylène kempter proche. En nous appuyant sur l’étude d’E. Puthenkandathil, nous retiendrons les deux grands axes de signification du terme fivlo~ dégagés par l’auteur. Auparavant, nous remarquerons que nous assistons ici à un transfert théologique où ce qui désignait Israël désigne maintenant le Christ, à savoir la vigne.35 Bien plus, la désignation du Christ comme vigne véritable établit un contraste entre le Christ et l’Israël infidèle, vigne dégénérée (voir LXX de Jr 2.21: ejgw; de; ejfuvteusav se a[mpelon karpofovron pa`san ajlhqinhvn). C’est en prenant en considération ce transfert théologique que nous pouvons comprendre les deux axes de signification de l’amitié entre Jésus et les disciples apparaissant en Jn 15.1–17. D’abord, cette amitié désigne une relation réciproque entre le Père, le Fils et les disciples.36 Ensuite, elle renvoie à une relation de maître à disciples, et c’est ce second aspect, concernant directement notre propos, que nous voudrions développer ici. La relation d’amitié entre Jésus et les disciples n’est pas une relation entre partenaires égaux. En effet, elle n’est pas comparée à la relation entre deux sarments, mais à la relation entre les sarments et la vigne:37 les disciples ne pourront porter du fruit qu’à la condition de demeurer en Jésus. Ainsi que l’indique le verset 15.2, il ne suffit pas d’être ‘en Jésus’ pour porter du fruit, il faut ‘demeurer’ en lui (15.4), le verbe mevnein utilisé avec la préposition ejn ayant en Jn la signification de ‘demeurer activement dans le Seigneur, dans la forme d’une relation permanente’ et pointant vers ‘quelque chose de tenace et de vigoureux’.38 Or, ‘demeurer en Jésus’ ou ‘demeurer dans son amour’ équivaut à garder les commandements (15.10), commandements qui sont assumés et résumés dans le commandement de l’amour mutuel (15.12, 17), et cet amour s’exprime de façon sublime dans le don de sa vie pour ses amis (15.13), à la suite du Christ.39 Ainsi que l’indique la particule kaqwv~ en 15.10, c’est la propre obéissance de Jésus qui constitue le modèle et la source de l’obéissance des disciples. Enfin, ce qui caractérise l’ami, c’est qu’il a part à la révélation du Christ, à sa connaissance, par opposition au serviteur qui, par contraste, est caractérisé par la non-connaissance. Cette opposition est évoquée à travers le parallélisme du verset 15.15 établi par les deux propositions introduites par o{ti:40
35 Puthenkandathil, Philos, 165–6: ‘En ajoutant l’adjectif ajlhqinh; [. . .], [Jean] exprime l’authenticité de Jésus en tant que vigne, et en présentant les disciples comme les sarments, il indique la formation du “nouveau peuple d’Israël”.’ 36 Nous ne développerons pas ici cet aspect et renvoyons, pour le détail, à l’étude de Puthenkandathil, Philos, 207–43. 37 En Jn 15.4, la comparaison est marquée par les termes ‘kaqw;~ . . . ou{tw~’. 38 Puthenkandathil, Philos, 192 n. 97. 39 Voir Puthenkandathil, Philos, 212: ‘La préposition grecque uJpevr exprime la dimension sotériologique de l’auto-sacrifice de Jésus.’ 40 Nous reproduisons ici la structure établie par Puthenkandathil, Philos, 217.
La signification eschatologique de Jean 3.29 53
a oujkevt i levgw uJma`~ douvlou~, b o{t i oJ dou`lo~ oujk oi\den tiv poiei` aujtou` oJ kuvrio~∑ a' uJma`~ de; ei[rhka fivlou~, b' o{t i pavnta a} h[kousa para; tou` patrov~ mou ejgnwvrisa uJmi`n.
Ce qui apparaissait comme la racine du mal en Os, la non-connaissance de Dieu, est donc désormais écarté par la révélation apportée par Jésus. Enfin, ce ne sont pas les disciples qui choisissent d’être ‘amis’: l’initiative appartient à Jésus seul, ce qu’indique l’expression emphatique41 du verset 15.16, oujc uJmei`~ me ejxelevxasqe, ajllΔ ejgw; ejxelexavmhn uJma`~. Cette expression fait bien apparaître le lien entre le fait d’être disciple et le fait d’être ami, puisque nous trouvons le même aoriste du verbe ejklevgw pour la désignation du choix des Douze (voir Jn 6.70; 13.18). Ainsi, cette analyse sommaire du terme fivlo~ en Jn 15.1–17 corrobore-t-elle la conclusion générale de l’étude d’E. Puthenkandathil selon laquelle en Jn, ce terme est ‘une désignation par excellence pour exprimer la relation Jésus-disciple’.42 ii) Le verbe ajkouvw caractérise l’attitude du disciple face à Jésus Si, ainsi que nous l’avons montré, dans le quatrième évangile, l’ami – disciple de Jésus – se distingue du serviteur en ce qu’il a part à la révélation du Christ, il est logique que le verbe ajkouvw soit utilisé de façon privilégiée pour désigner l’attitude du disciple à l’égard du maître. Ceci n’est certes pas propre à Jn: dans l’Ancien Testament déjà, l’injonction à écouter est omniprésente, aussi bien dans la Torah (Dt 6.4), que dans les Prophètes (Is 46.3) et les Écrits (Ps 81.9). Cette injonction est naturellement reprise dans les évangiles synoptiques (ainsi en Mt 17.5 par.). Mais Jn va plus loin en posant une équivalence entre le fait d’écouter et le fait de devenir disciple, au verset 9.27. Nous proposons de montrer le lien qui apparaît dans le quatrième évangile entre ‘écouter’, ‘croire’ et ‘avoir la vie éternelle’. Le verbe ajkouvw entretient un lien très étroit avec le verbe pisteuvw. La variante textuelle du verset 9.2743 est, de ce point de vue, tout à fait significative, en ce que l’hésitation entre ‘écouter’ et ‘croire’ manifeste une certaine proximité sémantique entre les deux verbes, voire une certaine interchangeabilité. Ce lien étroit apparaît également en Jn 5.24, où 41 Ainsi que le note Puthenkandathil, Philos, 222 n. 180, l’emphase est marquée ici par la construction en ‘oujk . . . ajllav’, qui reflète la particularité sémitique d’exprimer une chose négativement pour donner plus d’importance à l’autre chose. Voir M. Zerwick, Biblical Greek (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963) § 445. 42 Puthenkandathil, Philos, 347. L’auteur parvient à cette conclusion après avoir étudié toutes les occurrences du terme en Jn. 43 Voir R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I (2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1966) 374: ‘Certains témoins lisent “cru”, essayant ainsi d’interpréter l’écoute.’
54 mylène kempter ‘écouter’ et ‘croire’ sont posés comme les deux conditions pour avoir la vie éternelle, ainsi qu’en 10.26–28, où ceux qui ne sont pas les brebis de Jésus sont ceux qui n’écoutent pas, par opposition aux brebis, qui écoutent sa voix et à qui Jésus donne la vie éternelle. Au verset 10.27, l’expression th`~ fwnh`~ mou ajkouvousin, avec le verbe ajkouvw suivi du génitif, a le sens d’obéir.44 Les brebis, désignées comme celles qui suivent Jésus (ajkolouqevw), sont les disciples. Jésus leur donne la vie éternelle (hJ zwh; aijwvniov~). Ceux qui écoutent – c’est-à-dire qui obéissent – sont donc clairement identifiés comme étant les disciples de Jésus, qui croient, et à qui Jésus donne, dès maintenant, la vie éternelle (10.28: kajgw; divdwmi aujtoi`~ zwh;n aijwvnion). B Jean-Baptiste: un personnage charnière incarnant l’aboutissement du judaïsme Plusieurs éléments nous invitent à rapprocher Jn 3.22–30 de la péricope des noces Cana: la symbolique des noces, le substantif kaqarismov~ qui ne se trouve, dans le quatrième évangile, qu’en 2.6 et 3.25, ainsi que le verbe ejlattovw qui ne se trouve qu’en 3.30 et, sous sa forme adjectivale, en 2.10. Dans la péricope de Cana (Jn 2.1–11), le premier point de focalisation porte, comme dans toute narration johannique, sur Jésus en tant qu’envoyé du Père venu apporter le salut au monde.45 Eu égard au thème constant du remplacement des institutions, coutumes et fêtes juives qui parcourt les chapitres 2 à 10,46 il paraît évident qu’en introduisant le signe de Cana comme le premier d’une série de signes à suivre, l’évangéliste entende aussi attirer l’attention sur le remplacement de l’eau prescrite pour la purification juive par le bon vin.47 Le thème du remplacement est d’ailleurs intimement lié à la présentation de Jésus comme Sauveur. En effet, le remplacement est lui-même un signe indiquant qui est Jésus: l’unique chemin vers le Père, en la présence duquel toutes les institutions, cou-
44 Voir BDR, § 173/5. 45 Ainsi Brown, Gospel, I.103–4. 46 La thèse du remplacement a été largement argumentée par Brown, Gospel, I, auquel nous renvoyons, et pourrait ouvrir à un débat qui dépasserait largement le cadre de cet article. Nous préciserons simplement que le remplacement auquel nous nous référons est toujours corrélatif de l’accomplissement de la tradition authentique opéré par le Jésus du quatrième évangile. Voir, sur ce point, P. Grelot, Qui sont les Juifs de l’Évangile de Jean? (Paris: Gabalda, 1995). Nous insistons sur le fait qu’il n’est jamais question du remplacement du judaïsme en tant que tel – le Jésus de Jn apparaît bien plutôt comme l’accomplissement du judaïsme et, ce faisant, comme incarnant le judaïsme authentique - mais bien des pratiques de celui-ci. 47 Brown, Gospel, I.104. L’auteur ne réduit évidemment pas la signification de la péricope de Cana à cet aspect. Ce texte mériterait d’être analysé en détail mais, dans le cadre de cette recherche, nous nous contenterons d’exploiter le thème du remplacement lié à la présentation de Jésus comme Sauveur, thème très significatif pour notre propos.
La signification eschatologique de Jean 3.29 55
tumes et fêtes religieuses précédentes sont désormais vides de sens. À la lumière de ce thème du remplacement, l’affirmation de la mère de Jésus en 2.3, ‘Ils n’ont plus de vin’, peut être interprétée comme une réflexion sur la stérilité des purifications juives, par opposition à la réflexion du verset 2.10, ‘toi, tu as gardé le bon vin jusqu’à maintenant’, qui peut être comprise comme la proclamation de la fin des temps. Cette interprétation s’appuie notamment sur le fait que, dans l’Ancien Testament, l’une des images évoquant la joie des derniers temps est l’abondance de vin (ainsi en Am 9.13–14; Os 14.8; Jr 31.12).48 Si, ainsi que nous l’avons mentionné plus haut, les similitudes de vocabulaire nous invitent à rapprocher les versets 3.22–30 de 2.1–11, nous pouvons lire dans la réplique du Baptiste de 3.30 une adhésion au plan divin du salut réalisé à travers la personne de Jésus. La signification de ce verset semble être une pleine adhésion du Baptiste au fait du remplacement par Jésus des purifications juives comme condition et moyen d’accès au Père. Jean-Baptiste va jusqu’à considérer le déclin des pratiques du judaïsme comme intégré dans le plan divin, plan signifié par le dei` introduisant le verset 3.30. Dès lors, la discussion au sujet de la purification (kaqarismov~) perd tout son sens et la réponse du Baptiste opère un total déplacement de l’intérêt désormais placé sur la personne même de Jésus. À la différence des Synoptiques, le Baptiste apparaît donc, dans le quatrième évangile, non pas comme le précurseur de Jésus, mais comme son témoin et même comme son disciple, ce qu’indique notamment la désignation fivlo~. Ce rôle de disciple n’est possible qu’au prix d’une relecture et d’une intégration des paroles du Baptiste dans l’économie d’ensemble de l’évangile. Jean-Baptiste apparaît en effet comme bénéficiant déjà – alors que le ministère public de Jésus ne fait que commencer – d’une compréhension de l’ensemble du ministère de Jésus, incluant la mort-résurrection de ce dernier. Comme Abraham se situait au seuil de l’histoire d’Israël, Jean-Baptiste se situe au moment de l’accomplissement de cette même histoire. Si nous avons essayé de dégager les connotations et la signification eschatologiques de Jn 3.29, nous allons maintenant tenter de préciser plus avant les contours de cette eschatologie à laquelle nous avons ici affaire.
48 Brown, Gospel, I.105. 49 Nous n’avons aucunement l’intention de proposer une réponse définitive à la question de l’eschatologie dans cette dernière partie, qui n’a d’autre ambition que de poser des jalons susceptibles d’être repris dans une étude ultérieure.
56 mylène kempter III Quel type d’eschatologie? 49
A Une eschatologie qui porte le trait du définitif i) La notion d’accomplissement dans les écrits johanniques Dans les écrits johanniques, le verbe plhrovw relaté au substantif carav renvoie au caractère effectif du salut eschatologique.50 La joie peut être qualifiée d’accomplie parce qu’elle est donnée par la plénitude du salut accordée par l’exaltation de Jésus. En ce sens, le verbe plhrovw procure à la joie qu’il qualifie un caractère définitif. ‘Par la révélation, ‘tout’ est reçu, le ‘plein accomplissement’ du salut lui-même’.51 De fait, le passage dans lequel se trouve Jn 3.29, à savoir 3.22–30, se situe entre deux discours de révélation qui sont – au moins le premier – comme des mises en abîme du quatrième évangile. La joie accomplie du Baptiste peut être entendue comme un sceau certifiant la véracité et l’efficacité des paroles de Jésus. ii) L’utilisation du parfait En Jn 3.29, dans l’expression hJ cara; hJ ejmh; peplhvrwtai, le verbe plhrovw est au parfait. Or, en Jn, l’utilisation du parfait a une fonction théologique importante. En effet, dans le quatrième évangile, l’utilisation du parfait fait partie de ces possibilités d’expression de la langue permettant d’exprimer ‘die fortbestehende Bedeutsamkeit und Wiksamkeit sowie die Endgültigkeit der geschehenen Offenbarung, der Worte und Taten Jesu, ihrer Wahrnehmung durch die Zeugen sowie des Zeugnisses von Jesu Christus [. . .]. In dieser Verwendung bringt das Perfekt auch temporale Bezüge zum Ausdruck, es trägt bei zum Ausdruck der Verknüpfung zwischen der Zeit des Auftretens und Wirkens Jesu und der Zeit der vom definitiven Werk Jesu lebenden und auf die Wahrnehmung und das Wort der Zeugen angewiesen Gemeinde’.52
Cette fonction théologique de l’utilisation du parfait en Jn étaie les premières conclusions auxquelles nous avions abouti au terme de la première partie de notre travail consacrée aux prédéterminations eschatologiques de Jn 3.29. À travers l’expression hJ cara; hJ ejmh; peplhvrwtai, le Baptiste témoignerait que, déjà, il jouit des conséquences du salut eschatologique apporté par la révélation du Verbe incarné. Le fait que Jn 3.22–30 est inséré entre deux discours de révélation est de première importance: cette position témoigne de ce que la joie, en 3.29 comme en 15.11; 16.24 et 17.13, est intimement liée à la révélation apportée par Jésus. 50 Ainsi G. Delling, art. ‘plhrovw’, ThWNT 5.285–96. 51 Delling, ‘plhrovw’, 298. 52 Telles sont les conclusions générales de l’étude de J. Frey, Die johanneische Eschatologie II. Das johanneische Zeitverständnis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998) 114, sur la fonction théologique de l’utilisation du parfait en Jn. C’est l’auteur qui souligne.
La signification eschatologique de Jean 3.29 57
B Jean 3.29: une prolepse manifestant le caractère inauguré de l’eschatologie? Si, ainsi que nous venons de le constater, le Baptiste est présenté comme rejoignant et réalisant les perspectives de l’évangéliste (le premier se situant au niveau intra-diégétique et le second, au niveau extra-diégétique, selon la terminologie de G. Genette53), nous pouvons émettre l’hypothèse selon laquelle ce personnage serait un personnage type – le disciple-témoin idéal – utilisé aux fins de servir la stratégie du croire mise en œuvre par l’évangéliste. i) Une ‘expression limite’54 L’expression de Jn 3.29 pourrait relever de ce que P. Ricœur qualifie d’ ‘expression limite’ dans les paraboles,55 lorsque la forme narrative subit une ‘torsion métaphorique’ sous la pression d’expressions telles que ‘le Royaume de Dieu’, par exemple. Ce trait extravagant qui, selon P. Ricœur, nous conduit à considérer les paraboles comme des métaphores d’une autre réalité que ce dont elles parlent apparemment et qui, de ce fait, font surgir de l’extraordinaire dans une narration au premier abord banale, pourrait être, en Jn 3.29, l’expression de la joie accomplie. En effet, cette expression est, en elle-même, extravagante, au sens où elle manifeste un excès par rapport à ce qui était attendu comme réalité eschatologique: ainsi que nous l’avons vu plus haut, c’était simplement la joie qui était promise et attendue pour la fin des temps dans l’Ancien Testament. La joie accomplie que le Baptiste dit posséder présentement en Jn 3.29 est donc en situation d’extravagance par rapport à ce qui était attendu. En outre, l’expression fait subir une torsion à la narration, dans la mesure où la joie accomplie ne sera promise par Jésus aux disciples que dans les discours d’adieu. Or, ici, alors que – au plan de la narration évangélique – nous nous trouvons au début du ministère de Jésus, le Baptiste affirme posséder cette joie accomplie de manière effective. L’expression de cette joie est doublement renforcée en Jn 3.29: par la tournure comportant un datif de manière, cara`/ caivrei, équivalant à l’infinitif absolu hébraïque et mettant l’emphase sur la notion de joie exprimée par le verbe,56 et par la notion d’accomplissement dénotée par le verbe plhrovw.
53 G. Genette, Figures III (Paris: Seuil, 1972). 54 La notion d’ ‘expression limite’ a été développée à plusieurs reprises par P. Ricœur. Voir, notamment, P. Ricœur, ‘Biblical Hermeneutics’, Semeia 4 (1975) 27–148. 55 En Jn 3.29, nous ne sommes pas en présence d’une parabole développée telles que celles que nous trouvons dans les évangiles synoptiques, mais nous avons affaire à une ‘similitude’, Gleichnis, qui relève du sous-genre de la parabole. Voir C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (Londres: Nisbet, 1935). 56 Voir Zerwick, Greek, 21.
58 mylène kempter ii) Jn 3.29: Une prolepse qui s’inscrit dans le cadre de la stratégie narrative du quatrième évangile Ce que nous venons de qualifier de torsion faite à la narration relève sans doute de la stratégie du quatrième évangéliste. En effet, l’expression de la possession de la joie accomplie par Jean-Baptiste peut être considérée comme une prolepse,57 et ce à double titre: d’une part, elle renvoie, de manière anticipée, au niveau intra-diégétique, à l’ensemble du ministère de Jésus, incluant la mortrésurrection-exaltation; d’autre part, elle accomplit par avance les promesses de joie et de joie accomplie faites par Jésus aux disciples dans les discours d’adieu (15.11; 16.22, 24; 17.13). Comme toute anticipation, la prolepse est ‘une marque d’impatience narrative’.58 Plus précisément, nous avons ici affaire à une prolepse mixte, c’est-à-dire, toujours selon la terminologie de G. Genette, renvoyant à un événement qui commence avant la fin de la narration et se poursuit après sa fin, l’événement en question étant ici la joie des disciples, suscitée par la résurrection de Jésus, comme cela apparaît de manière obvie en Jn 20.20. Selon R.A. Culpepper, la prolepse mixte aurait la fonction particulière d’établir un lien entre le temps de Jésus et le temps de la communauté, autrement dit, de les inscrire dans une sorte de continuum. Elle permet ainsi à l’auteur implicite de se dégager des contraintes temporelles imposées à lui par la narration et lui offre la possibilité de faire allusion à la période de temps située au-delà de la mort-résurrection de Jésus et de montrer la continuité de celle-ci avec le temps de l’incarnation. En outre, la prolepse, d’une manière générale, serait une expression de l’emphase johannique sur l’eschatologie réalisée:59 à travers le brouillage de la distinction entre le présent et le futur qu’elle opère, les attentes eschatologiques purement futures perdraient ainsi de leur poids au profit de leur accomplissement dans le présent. Enfin, peut-être pouvons-nous aller plus loin et émettre l’hypothèse selon laquelle, à travers l’affirmation de la possession de la joie mise dans la bouche du Baptiste bien avant la mort-résurrection-exaltation de Jésus (étant entendu que nous nous situons toujours au plan de la narration évangélique), l’accent serait mis, dans le quatrième évangile, sur l’importance de l’incarnation dans le salut.
57 Nous entendons ici le terme de prolepse selon la définition large donnée par G. Genette, Figures III, 82 : ‘Toute manœuvre narrative consistant à raconter ou évoquer d’avance un événement ultérieur.’ 58 Genette, Figures III, 110. L’étude d’ A. Reinhartz, ‘Jesus as Prophet: Predictive Prolepses in the Fourth Gospel’, JSNT 36 (1989) 3–16, présente un intérêt évident lorsqu’elle dégage la signification christologique de l’accomplissement des prolepses prédictives de Jésus en Jn. Cependant, elle passe totalement sous silence Jn 3.29 qui, selon la terminologie qui est la sienne, serait plutôt à classer dans l’accomplissement des prolepses prédictives de la joie. 59 Voir R.A. Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphie: Fortress Press, 1983) 54–70.
La signification eschatologique de Jean 3.29 59
Conclusion
Ainsi que nous avons tenté de le montrer, notamment à travers l’étude des prédéterminations eschatologiques de Jn 3.29, la joie accomplie que le Baptiste affirme posséder apparaît comme étant le résultat du salut effectif, opéré par la révélation plénière et définitive apportée par Jésus. La venue de Jésus en ce monde conduit le disciple (fivlo~) à vivre dès maintenant une existence eschatologique, dont la joie accomplie est l’effet et le signe, moyennant l’écoute de la voix de Jésus, c’est-à-dire l’obéissance à ses commandements et la foi en lui. Cependant, l’eschatologie exprimée en ce verset ne peut pas pour autant être simplement qualifiée d’eschatologie réalisée. En effet, le vocabulaire utilisé se prête particulièrement, tant dans l’Ancien que dans le Nouveau Testament, à l’expression d’une eschatologie en tension ou d’une eschatologie future selon les cas. En outre, il convient de lire Jn 3.29 en tension avec les autres versets du quatrième évangile où la joie accomplie est vue comme une promesse, une fin, un but (Jn 15.11; 16.24; 17.13). Les conclusions auxquelles nous avons abouti au terme de cette étude consacrée à l’eschatologie exprimée en Jn 3.29 laissent apparaître une constante: la joie accomplie renvoie à un don effectif et réel en même temps qu’à une promesse future et eschatologique. Il vaudrait de vérifier si cette constante apparaît également dans les autres passages johanniques évoquant la joie accomplie. Faute d’avoir trouvé une expression plus adéquate, nous avons utilisé la formule ‘eschatologie inaugurée’ qui a l’avantage d’inclure les deux aspects, présent et futur. Cependant, la tension n’est pas résolue pour autant, et la question se pose de la signification de l’expression de cette double eschatologie apparaissant dans les énoncés relatifs à la joie accomplie. Cette double eschatologie a largement attiré l’attention des commentateurs là où elle apparaît de manière beaucoup plus nette, dans des déclarations concernant ‘l’heure’ eschatologique du salut (Jn 2.4; 5.25) ou ‘la vie éternelle’ (3.36; 4.14) par exemple. Sans doute, l’étude de l’eschatologie exprimée à travers les motifs de la joie et de l’accomplissement dans le quatrième évangile pourrait-elle permettre d’affiner la compréhension de la spécificité de l’eschatologie johannique.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 60–73. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0028688508000040
Paul of Tarshish: Isaiah 66.19 and the Spanish Mission of Romans 15.24, 28 A . AN DR EW DAS Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, IL 60126, USA
Interpreters of Paul’s Letter to the Romans frequently identify preparations for the Spanish mission—mentioned within only two verses at the end of the letter—as the primary reason for writing. Paul’s extensive use of Isaiah suggests to some that he viewed Spain as the fulfillment of the reference to ‘Tarshish’ in Isa 66.19. The Hebrew Bible, however, does not provide any evidence that Tarshish is in Spain rather than in Cilicia. Evidence is lacking in the Hellenistic and Roman eras for a Spanish Tartessos–Tarshish connection. The Spanish mission thesis also overemphasizes the importance of Rom 15.24, 28. Keywords: Paul, Tarsus, Tarshish, Letter to the Romans, Isaiah 66
Robert Jewett’s recent Hermeneia volume has been heralded as the first major commentary that takes as its starting point Paul’s enlistment of Roman support for his anticipated work in Spain (15.28).1 When Paul requests that the Romans offer Phoebe whatever help she might need in 16.2, he has the Spanish mission in mind. The greetings in ch. 16 serve to recruit support from key individuals. Since Erasmus in the sixteenth century, the letter’s apologetic elements have been considered a crucial component of the preparations for
60
1 The interpretive starting point for ‘each verse and paragraph’ is that Paul is seeking support for his mission to Spain in uniting the divided Roman congregations (R. Jewett, Romans: A Commentary [Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007] 1, 3). Jewett therefore devoted significant space to describing the history, the cultural and linguistic situation, as well as the ethnic composition of Spain (pp. 74–79). See also R. Jewett, ‘Romans as an Ambassadorial Letter’, Int 36 (1982) 5–20, esp. 14, 17–18; idem, ‘Ecumenical Theology for the Sake of Mission: Romans 1:1–17 ⫹ 15:14–16:24’, Pauline Theology. Vol. 3. Romans (ed. D. M. Hay and E. E. Johnson; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) 89–108, esp. 89–92; idem, ‘Paul, Phoebe, and the Spanish Mission’, The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism: Essays in Tribute to Howard Clark Kee (ed. J. Neusner, P. Borgen, E. S. Frerichs, and R. Horsley; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) 142–61, esp. 142–7. Jewett’s thesis is not original; see D. Zeller, Juden und Heiden in der Mission des Paulus: Studien zum Römerbief (FB 1; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1973) 38–77; A. J. Dewey, ‘EIS THN SPANIAN: The Future and Paul’, Religious Propaganda & Missionary Competition in the New Testament World: Essays Honoring Dieter Georgi (ed. L. Bormann, K. Del Tredici, and A. Standhartinger; NovTSup 74; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994) 321–49.
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Spain.2 Opposition at Rome could undermine Paul’s credibility and jeopardize the Roman launching point.3 Angelika Reichert affirmed not only an apologetic function for the letter but also an instructional purpose in the case that Paul should be prevented from undertaking the Spanish mission, with the responsibility for that mission then falling to the Romans.4 Jewett’s recent magnum opus has built on previous scholarship in its emphasis on Spain. Nevertheless, one struggles to comprehend why the Spanish mission should be given such a central place in the interpretation of Romans. Certainly, as Jewett rightly indicated, Spain was a land of genuine ‘barbarians’ (cf. Rom 1.15), resistant to Greco-Roman culture, and without a significant Jewish presence.5 Spain was at the ‘end of the earth’, the conclusion of the northern circuit of the Mediterranean. The real inspiration for Jewett’s thesis, however, was Roger Aus’s 1979 article, to which Jewett referred in his discussion of Rom 15.24 and 28.6 Aus noted that Paul quotes Isa 52.15 in Rom 15.20–21, just before mention of Spain. Although Paul does not actually cite Isa 66.19, Aus thought that the apostle’s fondness for Isaiah in Romans lends credence to the possibility that he viewed his ministry as a fulfillment of Isa 66.19 with its mention of ‘Tarshish’.7 Biblical commentators have often identified Tarshish with the southern Spanish town known in non-biblical Greek as Tarthssov~.8 Jewett confidently pronounced: ‘There is no 2 F. Godet, Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1883) 53. Adherents of the Spanish mission therefore often emphasize multiple Reasons for Romans, to borrow the title of A. J. M. Wedderburn’s book (SNTW; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988); so also F. F. Bruce, ‘The Romans Debate—Continued’, BJRL 64 (1981–82) 334–59; repr. in The Romans Debate (ed. K. P. Donfried; rev. and enl. ed.; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991) 175–94. 3 P. Vielhauer, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur: Einleitung in das Neue Testament, die Apokryphen und die Apostolischen Väter (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1975) 181–4; M. Kettunen, Der Abfassungszweck des Römerbriefes (Annales Academiae Scientarum Fennicae: Dissertations Humanarum Litterarum 18; Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1979); J. C. Miller, The Obedience of Faith, the Eschatological People of God, and the Purpose of Romans (SBLDS 177; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000) 17; M. Theobald, Römerbrief. Vol. 1. Kapitel 1–11 (3rd ed.; Stuttgarter Kleiner Kommentar 6; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2002) 21–3. 4 A. Reichert, Der Römerbrief als Gratwanderung: Eine Untersuchung zur Abfassungsproblematik (FRLANT 194; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001). 5 Jewett, Romans, 924. 6 R. D. Aus, ‘Paul’s Travel Plans to Spain and the “Full Number of the Gentiles” in Rom. XI 25’, NovT 21 (1979) 232–62. 7 For a similar line of thought, see R. Riesner, Paul’s Early Period: Chronology, Mission Strategy, Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 245–53. On Isaiah in Romans, see J. R. Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul in Concert in the Letter to the Romans (Leiden: Brill, 2002), although Wagner did not treat Aus’s argument from Isa 66.19 since Paul does not actually draw upon Isa 66.19 as such. 8 E.g., J. Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (2nd ed.; ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1930), 198–9; U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (2 vols. Jerusalem:
62 a. andrew das doubt that Tarshish was the city of Tartessos in Spain, near the Pillars of Hercules (i.e. the Straits of Gibraltar) that in antiquity were considered the end(s) of the earth’.9 ‘Tartessos’ was on the mouth of the Guadalquivir River on the Atlantic side of the Straits of Gibraltar. Jewett concluded from the mention of Tarshish in Isa 66.19 that gentile offerings would have to come from Spain. Paul’s plans for Spain must therefore be viewed through the lens of Isaianic expectation. The apostle viewed his ministry as fulfilling biblical prophecy. Several considerations call into question Jewett’s contention that Tarshish is in Spain; this, in turn, undermines the thesis that a prophetic rationale served as the driving force behind the Spanish mission in Paul’s letter. The Hebrew Bible does not provide evidence for a Tarshish/Spain connection (I). The full range of evidence in the Hebrew Bible points to Cilicia as the location of Tarshish (II). No viable evidence is available that anyone in the Hellenistic or Roman eras identified Spanish Tartessos as Tarshish (III). Finally, proponents of the Spanish mission thesis have overemphasized its importance for the interpretation of Paul’s Letter to the Romans (IV).
I. The Dearth of Evidence for a Tarshish/Spain Connection in the Hebrew Bible
‘Ships of Tarshish’ are characteristic of Tyre’s commerce (Isa 23.1, 14; Ezek 27.25) and Phoenicio-Israelite commerce (1 Kings 10.22; 2 Chron 9.21). In one instance ‘ships of Tarshish’ is used for Judean commerce (1 Kings 22.49). The ships appear capable of traveling across the Mediterranean (1 Kings 10.22; 22.49; 2 Chron 9.21), presumably also to Tarshish. Friedrich Schmidtke thought that a ‘Tarshishship’ must be capable of reaching the distant shores of the Mediterranean, including Spain.10 On the other hand, 1 Kings 22.49 describes ‘ships of Tarshish’ sailing the shorter distance from Ezion-geber to Ophir. Their cargos in 1 Kings 10.22 and
Magnes, Hebrew University, 1964) 2.193 (tentatively); B. Treumann-Watkins, ‘Phoenicians in Spain’, BA 55/1 (1992) 28–35; M. Koch, Tarschisch und Hispanien: Historisch-Geographische und Namenkundliche Untersuchungen zur Phönikischen Kolonisation der Iberischen Halbinsel (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut: Madriger Forschungen 14; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1984). 9 Jewett, Romans, 924. He also cited in support M. E. Aubet (The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade [Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1987] 176–9) on the ‘popular’ equation of Tarshish with Tartessos in Spain. Aubet (p. 178) actually raised several rather serious problems for such an equation: ‘The idea of placing Tarshish in Spain surfaces in post-biblical historiography and above all in the mediaeval lexicons to the Bible. But the Tarshish–Tartessos equation does not gather strength until the seventh century [C.E.]’. 10 F. Schmidtke, Die Japhetiten der biblischen Völkertafel (Breslauer Studien zur historischen Theologie 7; Breslau: Müller & Seiffert, 1926) 71.
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2 Chron 9.2 are gold, silver, ivory, monkeys, and peacocks from the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. The ships were simply capable of significant sea travel, but not necessarily of travel from the eastern Mediterranean all the way to Spain. William F. Albright raised the question whether Tartessos was even in existence at the time of Solomon and Hiram’s ‘Tarshish-ship’ ventures.11 Albright, for his part, reasoned that since tarshish meant ‘smelting plant, refinery’, many Phoenician settlements must have had the name ‘Tarshish’, even as there were several ‘New Towns’ (Qart-hadasht ⫽ Carthage).12 If so, the biblical ‘Tarshish-ships’ may have been ships capable of sailing to these settlements. The extensive use of the ‘Tarshish-ship’ by Hiram of Tyre may explain how ‘Tarshish’ came to function as a synonym for the city of Tyre in Isa 23.1, 6, 10, 14; cf. Isa 2.16. ‘Tarshish’ could also be used as a general term signifying the West as in Ezek 38.13; Ps 72.10. The ‘kings of Tarshish’ and the ‘kings of Saba and Sheba’ are the kings of the West and East.13 Some have therefore doubted whether ‘Tarshish’ referred to a place, let alone Tartessos.14 The evidence for a Spanish Tarshish is actually surprisingly tenuous. Andre Lemaire’s list of ten competing locations identified by various scholars as Tarshish belies Jewett’s conclusion that there is ‘no doubt’ that the biblical Tarshish was Tartessos.15 The identification of ‘Tarshish’ with ‘Tartessos’ is philologically doubtful. The second t in Tartessos would not represent the first š.16 As Brigette Treumann-Watkins, an enthusiastic advocate of the Tarshish–Tartessos equation, was forced to concede: ‘The linguistic approach to the Tarshish/Tartessos problem has complicated more than it has resolved’.17 She 11 W. F. Albright, ‘New Light on the Early History of Phoenician Colonization’, BASOR 83 (1941) 14–22, esp. 22; W. F. Albright, ‘The Role of the Canaanites in the History of Civilization’, The Bible and the Ancient Near East (ed. G. E. Wright; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1979) 328–62, esp. 348–9. 12 Albright, ‘Role of the Canaanites’, 346–7. 13 So G. W. Ahlström, ‘The Nora Inscription and Tarshish’, Maarav 7 (1991) 41–9, esp. 46. 14 Aubet, Phoenicians and the West, 177. 15 The locations span from India (with J. M. Blazquez) to Ethiopia (Origen), Carthage (with P.R. Berger), Asia Minor, to an indeterminate region in the far west or the seas; A. Lemaire, ‘Tarshish-Tarsisi: Problème de Topographie Historique Biblique et Assyrienne’, Studies in Historical Geography and Biblical Historiography Presented to Zecharia Kallai (ed. G. Galil and M. Weinfeld; Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 2000) 44–62, esp. 44–7. Most of the locations are arguably less than viable. Jonah’s flight from Joppa across the Mediterranean to the concrete location of Tarshish is problematic for an identification with India, Ethiopia, the Red Sea region, or a generic designation. The Esarhaddon inscription (see below) is problematic for Carthage or Sardinia or the Italian Etruscans, since Assyrian rule did not extend that far and the Etruscans were not present in Italy during Assyrian ascendance; Lemaire, ‘TarshishTarsisi’, 51–3. 16 Ahlström, ‘Nora Inscription’, 48–9; so also Lemaire, ‘Tarshish-Tarsisi’, 52. 17 Treumann-Watkins, ‘Phoenicians in Spain’, 33; note the series of conjectures that follow.
64 a. andrew das nevertheless concluded that ‘a linguistic leap of faith turns tar-si-si/Tarshish into Tartessos’.18 Until the end of the Persian Empire the Hebrew Bible remained preoccupied with the eastern Mediterranean world. The Hebrew Bible does not employ the names for Spain, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, or Carthage.19 As Gösta Ahlström put it: ‘From a biblical point of view the west is, as a matter of fact, the eastern part of the Mediterranean world. The biblical psalmist [Ps 72.10] was referring to the world he knew. Spain cannot be introduced in this connection’.20 Although Spain’s Tartessos was geographically 3000 kilometers from Palestine, the distance was 4000 kilometers by the sea routes of the day. Brandenstein dismissed Tartessos as largely unknown in the biblical period: ‘Von Tartessos hätte man in einem Land etwas wissen sollen, dem die Welt des Mittelmeeres so gut wie verschlossen war (s.o.). Tartessos hätte bekannt sein sollen, aber alle mindestens ebenso bedeutenden und unerläßlichen Zwischenstationem, wie Sizilien, Sardinien, Marseille nicht!’21
II. Tarshish’s Cilician Location in the Assyrian and Persian Periods
The skepticism as to whether ‘Tarshish’ designates a particular place may be unwarranted. Tarshish is the explicit goal of a voyage by boat (2 Chron 9.21; 20.36, 37; Isa 23.6; Jonah 1.3 [from Joppa]; 4.2). In Ps 72.10 Tarshish is a kingdom with rulers and is associated with the ‘isles’. Genesis 10.2–4 lists the descendants of Japheth. The children of Japheth inhabited the northern countries from Medes in the northeast to Javan/Ionia in Asia Minor in the northwest.22 Interpreters have associated Japheth’s son Javan with the Ionians of Asia Minor.23 Javan’s sons were Elisha, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. Elisha has been typically identified with Alashia, on the island of Cyprus.24 Kittim was Kition, also on Cyprus. Dodanim
18 19 20 21
Treumann-Watkins, ‘Phoenicians in Spain’, 33. Lemaire, ‘Tarshish-Tarsisi’, 53. Ahlström, ‘The Nora Inscription’, 47. W. Brandenstein, ‘Bemerkungen zur Völkertafel in der Genesis’, Sprachgeschichte und Wortbedeutung: Festschrift Albert Debrunner gewidmet von Schülern, Freunden und Kollegen (Bern: Francke, 1954) 57–83, esp. 78. 22 J. Simons, ‘‘The Table of Nations’ (Gen. X): Its General Structure and Meaning’, OTS 10 (1954) 155–84, esp. 177–8; A. van der Kooij, The Oracle of Tyre: The Septuagint of Isaiah XXIII as Version and Vision (VTSup 71; Leiden: Brill, 1998) 41. 23 É. Lipinski, ‘Les Japhetites selon Gen 10,2–4 et 1 Chr 1,5–7’, ZAH 3 (1990) 40–53, esp. 45. 24 Mentioned in the Amarna tablets; D. Neiman, ‘The Two Genealogies of Japheth’, Orient and Occident: Essays Presented to Cyrus H. Gordon (ed. H. A. Hoffner, Jr.; AOAT 22; NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener, 1973) 119–26, esp. 121 n. 13. G. J. Wenham (Genesis 1–15 [WBC 1; Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1987] 218) pointed out that a Mycenaean colony was established on Cyprus in the mid-second millennium bce, and this could explain Elisha being related as a son of Javan. P.-R. Berger (‘Ellasar, Tarschisch und Jawan, Gn 14 und 10’, WO 13 [1982] 50–78, esp. 59)
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(‘Rodanim’ in 1 Chron 1.7) may have been Rhodes, i.e. the vicinity of Asia Minor and the islands just to the south.25 Elisha, Kittim, and Dodanim were therefore associated with Greek-influenced Asia Minor and the islands just off its coast in the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean.26 Ahlström concluded: ‘For the writer of Genesis 10 Tarshish thus belonged to the Greek world. If this reflects an old tradition it would be impossible to see Tarshish as being located in Spain’.27 Gordon J. Wenham also objected: ‘Nor is it probable that Gen 10 would have regarded the Phoenician colony at Tartessos as a descendant of the Greeks’.28 Tarshish, listed between Elisha and Kittim in Gen 10, must likewise have been in the vicinity of Asia Minor.29 Isaiah 66.19 lists Tarshish, Pul, Lud, Tubal, Javan, and the distant isles. Pul occurs only in Isa 66.19. The Septuagint translates the Hebrew Pul as Put (Put and Lud are associated in Jer 46.9; Ezek 27.10; 30.5). 1QIsaa and 1QIsab, however, support the MT with the more difficult reading lwp.30 If ‘Pul’ is the correct reading, its location is uncertain. Arie van der Kooij wondered if Pamfuliva, the Greek name for the southern part of Asia Minor, was a variant form of the biblical Pul.31 Lud, Tubal, and Javan all referred to locations in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, if not Asia Minor. Isaiah 66.19 (LXX) lists Tharsis, Put, Lud, Mosoch, and Thobel. Put and Lud are identified by Jdt 2.23–24 with Cilicia. The Septuagint and Josephus
25
26 27 28 29 30 31
identified Elisha with a city in the foothills of Crete (Haghio Kyrko). Wenham preferred Berger’s approach since this approach leaves Kittim as the only name associated with Cyprus. A. H. Sayce disagreed with the identification of Elisha-Cyprus in favor of the Aleian plains in southeastern Cilicia, again, because Kittim is already associated with Cyprus (‘The Tenth Chapter of Genesis’, JBL 44 [1925] 193–202, esp. 196). W. Horowitz, ‘The Isles of the Nations: Genesis X and Babylonian Geography’, J. A. Emerton, Studies in the Pentateuch (VTSup 41; Leiden: Brill, 1990) 35–43, esp. 38–9; E. A. Speiser, Genesis (AB 1; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964) 66, who noted the graphic similarity of ‘D’ and ‘R’ in the ‘square’ Hebrew script; Brandenstein, ‘Bemerkungen zur Völkertafel’, 70–81; Ahlström, ‘Nora Inscription’, 47; Lemaire, ‘Tarshish-Tarsisi’, 48–9. P.-R. Berger (‘Ellasar, Tarschisch und Jawan’, 60–1) and Neiman (‘Two Genealogies of Japheth’, 121) disagreed with this consensus and followed the MT in taking ‘Dodanim’ as the Hebraicized form of the Greek dodonaioi, the inhabitants of Dodone in Epirus. Wenham (Genesis 1–15, 219) wondered if ‘Dodanim’, as the more difficult reading, should be identified with the Amarna letters’ land of Danuna, just north of Tyre. Inscriptions from Rameses III mention the Dnn among the invading sea peoples. Homer refers to Danaeans, who besieged Troy. Certainty is not possible. W. Horowitz thought all the descendants of Japhet, and not just those through his son Javan, were on land masses accessible by sea routes; ‘Isles of the Nations’, 35–43. Ahlström, ‘Nora Inscription’, 47–8. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 218. Brandenstein, ‘Bemerkungen zur Völkertafel’, 70–6. D. Barthélemy, Critique Textuelle de L’Ancien Testament (2 vols. OBO 50; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986) 2.464–5. Kooij, Oracles of Tyre, 42 n. 11; also tentatively Lemaire, ‘Tarshish-Tarsisi’, 49.
66 a. andrew das identify Put with Libya (Jer 26.9 [MT Jer 46.9]; Ezek 27.10; 30.5; 38.5; Nah 3.9; Ant. 1.132). Josephus identifies Lud (Gen 10.22) as the ancestor of the Lydians in Asia Minor (Ant. 1.144).32 Mosoch/Meshech was likely the same as the movscoi, identified in Greek sources as central and eastern Anatolia. Herodotus identified the Meschenians as Phrygians (1.14; cf. 7.78). Josephus identifies the Meschenians as the Cappadocians (Ant. 1.125). Tubal and Meshech, juxtaposed in Herodotus (3.94; 7.78: Moschoi and Tibarenoi), are both located in eastern Asia Minor in Akkadian texts.33 Ezekiel 27.12–14 mentions Tarshish along with Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Togarmah. Persian documents associate Javan with the Greeks on the coast of Asia Minor. Late OT sources identify all Greeks with Javan (Dan 8.21; 10.20; 11.2; so also Josephus, Ant. 1.127). Togarmah’s location has been difficult to determine.34 In any case, the Ezekiel 27 names all refer to locations in the eastern Mediterranean and especially Asia Minor. The western Mediterranean and Spain were well beyond the horizon for the authors of the Hebrew Bible. An inscription of Esarhaddon from the year 671 bce reads: ‘All the kings from (the islands [i.e. the region]) amidst the sea—from the country Iadanna (Cyprus), as far as Tarsisi, bowed to my feet and I received heavy tribute (from them)’.35 The inscription confirms that ‘Tarshish’ was a particular place. Esarhaddon’s Tarshish could not have been in Spain. The inscription mentions Cyprus and Javan with Tarshish. Since Cyprus and Javan were in the region of Asia Minor, so also most likely was Tarshish.36 No ancient evidence exists that would suggest that Esarhaddon’s exploits ever reached west of Cilicia.37 Shortly thereafter in the year 669 bce, Ashurbanipal took the city of Tyre, and, consequently, terror spread to the neighboring territories. Other Assyrian inscriptions record the kings of Arvad, Tabal, and Cilicia (Hilakku) submitting to Ashurbanipal in Ninevah.38 As was the case in 671 bce, the events of 669 took place in Asia Minor, the westernmost reach of the Assyrian Empire. Maria Aubet commented: ‘Asarhaddon’s text shows complete ignorance of Mediterranean geography beyond Iadnana (Cyprus). What is more, if we accept that Tarsisi was Tartessos, we should have to allow that the frontiers of the 32 Symmachus has Luvdou~ in Isa 66.19. Lud in Gen 10.22 is to be distinguished from the Ludim of Gen 10.13 (usually identified with Libya, although with Persia in Ezek 27.10). 33 D. W. Baker, ‘Tubal’, ABD 6.670; Lipinski, ‘Les Japhétites’, 45–7; Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 217: the cuneiform texts place Mushki and Tabal in central and eastern Anatolia. The Mushki capital was at Mazaca, modern Kayseri. Tabal was the region north of Cilicia. The remains of these two groups were eventually incorporated into the nineteenth satrapy of Persia in northeast Anatolia. 34 Neiman, ‘Two Genealogies of Japheth’, 121. 35 ANET, 290. 36 On Javan as Ionia in Asia Minor, see also C. Westermann, Genesis 1–11: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984) 505; Ahlström, ‘Nora Inscription’, 48. 37 Lemaire, ‘Tarshish-Tarsisi’, 52. 38 Kooij, Oracle of Tyre, 43.
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Assyrian Empire extended to the Iberian peninsula, which would be ridiculous’.39 Spain was far beyond Esarhaddon’s reach and concern. A Tarshish–Tarsus identification would explain the association of Tarshish with Cyprus and Ionia in the biblical texts and in the Esarhaddon inscription: ‘L’identification avec Tarse semblerait donc tout à fait convenir!’40 When scholars identify Tarshish with Spain on the sole basis of its ancient silver mines (cf. Ezek 27.12; 28.13; Jer 10.9), they ignore the more likely source of silver in the legendary Taurus Mountain range with its port at Tarsus.41 The Greeks and Assyrians jockeyed fiercely for control of Tarsus and the Cilician region.42 Tarsus’ historic strategic value and commercial activity matches remarkably Tarshish’s prominence in biblical texts. In the late ninth-century bce Nora stele, ‘Tarshish’ parallels ‘Sardinia’ as a place name.43 The stele is fragmented and the first two lines are missing. ‘Tarshish’ has been severed from its full context. Frank Moore Cross presumed that ‘at Tarshish’ is possibly the location of a battle described in the ensuing lines of the stele. Cross located ‘Tarshish’ in Sardinia on the basis of the Semitic root of ‘Tarshish’ as ‘to smelt’ but believed, following Albright, that it was also a common name for several locations.44 André Lemaire objected that ‘at Tarshish’ is only one
39 Aubet, Phoenicians and the West, 178; contra J. B. Tsirkin, ‘The Hebrew Bible and the Origin of Tartessian Power’, AuOr 4 (1986) 179–85, who simply assumed that the Esarhaddon text must be proffering an east–west description reaching from Cyprus (Iadnana) to the very west of the Mediterranean (Tarshish). 40 Lemaire, ‘Tarshish-Tarsisi’, 53. 41 P. Bordreuil, F. Israel, and D. Pardee (‘King’s Command and Widow’s Plea: Two New Hebrew Ostraca of the Biblical Period’, Near Eastern Archaeology 61/1 [1998] 2–5, 7, 9–13, esp. 5) favored Tarshish = Spain citing as the sole rationale several classical sources that refer to the high quality of silver production in Spain. On large-scale economic relations between the Anatolian and Phoenician regions, see Y. Ikeda, ‘Solomon’s Trade in Horses and Chariots in Its International Setting’, Studies in the Period of David and Solomon and Other Essays: Papers Read at the International Symposium for Biblical Studies, Tokyo, 5–7 December, 1979 (ed. T. Oshida; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1992) 215–38; G. M. A. Hanfmann, ‘The Iron Age of Pottery of Tarsus’, Excavations at Gözlü Kule, Tarsus. Vol. 3. The Iron Age (ed. H. Goldman; Princeton: Princeton University, 1963) 154–60; J. Garstang, Prehistoric Mersin: Yümük Tepe in Southern Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University, 1953) 253–5; K. A. Yener, ‘Taurus Mountains’, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, vol. 5 (ed. E. M. Meyers; New York: Oxford, 1997) 155–6. 42 On the history of Assyrian attempts to exert control over Tarsus and Cilicia, see Lemaire, ‘Tarshish-Tarsisi’, 54–62; Kooij, Oracles of Tyre, 43–6; J. D. Bing, ‘Tarsus: A Forgotten Colony of Lindos’, JNES 30 (1971) 99–110; L. W. King, ‘Sennacherib and the Ionians’, JHS 30 (1910) 327–5; A. Goetze, ‘Cuneiform Inscriptions from Tarsus’, JAOS 59 (1939) 1–16; P. Desideri and A. M. Jasink, Cilicia: Dall’età di Kizzuwatna alla conquista macedone (Università Degli Studi di Torino Fondo di Studi Parini-Chirio 1; [Firenze]: Casa Editrice Le Lettere, 1990) 113–63. 43 Ahlström, ‘Nora Inscription’, 41–2. 44 J. G. Scheur, ‘Searching for the Phoenicians in Sardinia’, BAR 16/1 (1990) 52–60, esp. 58–60; W. F. Albright, ‘New Light’, 17–22, esp. 21.
68 a. andrew das among several possible translations. The location of Tarshish in the stele is difficult to determine. Tarshish may have been the origin of the boat with Sardinia as a stopping point or destination.45 In the inscription, Milkaton experienced conflict in Tarshish and moved on to Sardinia where he and his crew enjoyed peace. The ninth century was the period of Assyria’s emergence as a power in the eastern Mediterranean region. During that period Shalmaneser III put Jehu on the throne of Israel and required tribute from him as well as from Balimazzer of Tyre and Sidon. Gösta Ahlström thought that the Phoenicians paid Shalmaneser III tribute in raw materials, including gold and silver, from Anatolia. Ahlström concluded from the Nora inscription’s mention of turmoil that this Tarshish was most likely east of Sardinia and should not be identified with Tartessos in Spain.46 The book of Jonah refers to the prophet’s flight to a destination west of Israel. Aus surmised that Jonah was fleeing as far away from God and Ninevah as possible (Jonah 1.3). He therefore sought a ship departing for Tarshish.47 Tsirkin argued that since Yahweh was viewed after the sixth century bce as God of all peoples and races, Jonah could only have escaped by going to the ends of the earth. Neighboring Cilicia would not qualify.48 Tsirkin, for his part, did not provide any evidence for a dawning knowledge of the western Mediterranean region in the sixth century on the part of Jewish authors.49 The end of the earth for the author of Jonah would likely have been Asia Minor. Jonah (1.3) simply wanted to leave the land of Israel and thereby escape Yahweh’s presence.50 ‘All we can be sure of is that he was going west, and that he thought he would be leaving his God behind’.51 The book of Jonah never expresses the idea that Jonah was trying to flee as far away from Israel or Ninevah as possible. Jonah’s rationale for his Tarshish destination remains unstated, but the most likely reason was that it was a regular, Mediterranean trade partner. Jonah could be confident of escape from the land of Israel by means of one of the many ships bound for Tarshish. Similarly, Tyre’s inhabitants were urged in Isa 23.6 to ‘cross over to Tarshish’. Tarsus was within a
45 46 47 48 49
Lemaire, ‘Tarshish-Tarsisi’, 50–2. Ahlström, ‘Nora Inscription’, 44–5. Aus, ‘Paul’s Travel Plans’, 245. Tsirkin, ‘Origin of Tartessian Power’, 180. Phoenician activity in Spain does not automatically translate into Israelite knowledge of that region of the world; contra Tsirkin, ‘Origin of Tartessian Power’, 181. Such knowledge may only be demonstrated from those authors themselves. Solomon’s Tyrian ships are never described as traveling that far west (cf. 1 Kings 9.27–28; 10.11, 22: the cargo suggests travel in the Red Sea and to Ophir). 50 Reed Lessing, ‘Just Where Was Jonah Going? The Location of Tarshish in the Old Testament’, Concordia Journal 28 (2002) 291–3, esp. 293. 51 D. W. Baker, ‘Tarshish’, ABD 6.331–3, esp. 333.
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reasonable distance for travel in escape. A Spanish location would have been a different matter.52 Although Tarsus was spelled in different ways in antiquity, that variation is not an objection to the Tarsus–Tarshish identification.53 Coins from the second half of the fifth century with the Aramaic legend TRZ correspond to three attestations of the village of Tarsus in neo-Assyrian texts: Tarzu/i. Simo Parpola demonstrated that KUR Tarsisi is a variant of URU Tarzu/i.54 Lemaire qualified Parpola’s data with the crucial observation that the word ‘village’ modifies Tarzu/i in the ancient sources whereas ‘country’ modifies Tarsisi.55 Lemaire concluded that Tarshish/Tarsisi designated the country while Tarsus/Tarzu/i designated the capital of that geographical region.56 Tarzu/i could therefore function as a variant of Tarsisi, and TRZ a variant of Tarsis/TRSS. The two sets of terms are geographically related but also distinct.
III. The Lack of Evidence for a Spanish Tarshish in the Time of Paul
During the Hellenistic period the names of several countries were applied to regions further to the west.57 Javan, which had previously referred to Ionia in Asia Minor, began to be used for Greece (note the LXX’s use of ÔEllav~ for Javan in Isa 66.19). Kittim, formerly Cyprus, began to refer to Greece and Italy.58 Tubal, which had referred to Asia Minor (Assyrian sources), eventually came to refer to Iberia.59 Tarshish, originally Tarsus, widened its geographical referent as well and began to refer to ‘the sea’ (Dan 10.6; Jerome; Origen) or Africa/Carthage (LXX Isa 23.1, 6, 10, 14; Ezek 27.12, 25; 38.13). This widening of geographical referents raises the question whether a first-century author such as Paul would have understood by Tarshish a location in Spain. The identification of Tarshish with Spain in the Hellenistic and Roman eras depends upon the work of Michael Koch and Édouard Lipinski. They linked Tarshish with Mastiva Tarshvion or qersi`tai. Polybius (3.24.2, 4) relates the Second Carthaginian treaty with Rome and employs the word Tarshvion in connection with the Spanish town of Mastia. Polybius also refers to qersi`tai in con-
52 Lessing, ‘Just Where Was Jonah Going?’, 293. Isaiah 23.10’s prophecy that ‘Tarshish will no longer have a harbor’ was fulfilled with the capture of their main trading partner, Tyre. 53 Contra K. Galling, ‘Tarsis’, Biblisches Reallexikon (ed. K. Galling; 2d ed.; Handbuch zum Alten Testament 1/1; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1977) 332–3, esp. 332. 54 S. Parpola, Neo-Assyrian Toponyms (AOAT 6; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1970) 349. 55 Lemaire, ‘Tarshish-Tarsisi’, 49–50. 56 Lemaire, ‘Tarshish-Tarsisi’, 49–54. 57 E.g., Jub. 8–9; Jos., Ant. 1.122–47. 58 First Maccabees 1.1 and 8.5 therefore apply Kittim to Macedonian Greeks. 59 Kooij, Oracle of Tyre, 46.
70 a. andrew das nection with Spaniards transferred to Africa (3.33.9–10).60 The critical flaw with Koch and Lipinski’s reasoning is that no one has provided direct evidence that Mastiva Tarshvion or qersi`tai should be identified with biblical ‘Tarshish’.61 A Greek list from the late Roman period offers more direct evidence with its mention of Qarsei`~ hJ Baitikhv. Kooij contended that the addition of hJ Baitikhv distinguished the Spanish Tharsis from the original Tharsis in Asia Minor. Kooij was blunt in his estimation of the evidence: ‘There is no textual evidence for the identification of Tarshish with Tartessos in Southern Spain. Nor the earlier tradition, neither the later application of the name Tharsis to more remote areas provides evidence for this identification’.62 Josephus explained that Tarshish was the city of qavrso~, which he added was spelled in his day Tarsov~ (Ant. 1.127 on Gen 10.4). When Jonah fled to Tarshish, Josephus explicitly identifies the city as the Cilician Tarsus (eij~ Tarso;n th`~ Kilikiva~, Ant. 9.208). The lack of direct evidence for a Tarshish–Tartessos connection has forced its proponents to rely on other lines of reasoning. In Ps 72 [LXX 71].8–11, the psalmist prays with respect to the king: May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. May his foes bow down before him, and his enemies lick the dust. May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles render him tribute, may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts. May all kings fall down before him, all nations give him service.
Since the ‘river’ of v. 8 was the Euphrates in the east, Aus concluded that Tarshish must have been ‘the farthest point in the west, the “ends of the earth”’.63 Tsirkin reasoned similarly that since Seba and Arabia were at the eastern edge of the world, Tarshish must have been in the far West.64 Jewett, following Aus, reasoned that since Pompey had come to Judea from Spain, the ‘end of the earth’ in Ps. Sol. 8.16, and since elsewhere the end of the earth is identified as Tarshish (Ps 72 [LXX Ps 71].8, 10), then Tarshish and Spain must be the same.65 On the other hand, while 60 Koch, Tarschisch und Hispanien, 109–26; E. Lipinski, ‘Carthage et Tarshish’, BO 45 (1988) 60–81, esp. 62; Tsirkin, ‘Origin of Tartessian Power’, 182. 61 Kooij, Oracle of Tyre, 46; contra Tsirkin and Koch. 62 Kooij, Oracle of Tyre, 46. 63 Aus, ‘Paul’s Travel Plans’, 245. 64 Tsirkin, ‘Origin of Tartessian Power’, 181. 65 Pompey had been active in Spain from 77–72 bce before his campaign in Jerusalem. Pss. Sol. 8.16–17 reads: ‘He [God] brought someone from the end of the earth, one who attacks in strength; he declared war against Jerusalem, and her land’ (trans. R. B. Wright, OTP 2.659). In this text, the end of the earth is Spain; Aus, ‘Paul’s Travel Plans’, 244. Note, however, that
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the biblical Psalmist does mention the ‘ends of the earth’, he never specifies the River, Sheba, Seba, or Tarshish as located at the ‘ends of the earth’. Sheba, Seba, and Tarshish were likely well within the imagined boundaries of the earth’s edge. Although Spain was conceived as at the ‘ends of the earth’ by the time of Ps. Sol. 8.16, Spain represents only one point along the more distant Greco-Roman boundary. Jewett and Aus’ reasoning is therefore flawed. Jewett and Aus both pointed to Isa 66.19 as the inspiration for Paul’s missionary itinerary. Isaiah 66.19 includes several of the sons of Japheth: Tarshish, Tubal, and Javan. Some scholars, such as J. M. Scott and R. Riesner, have contended that Paul’s ministry has been among the sons of Japheth.66 Isaiah 66.19, however, includes descendants of Shem and Ham as well, who were not associated with Asia Minor or Europe. Put, for instance, was most likely Libya and not Cilicia.67 The scope of Isa 66.19 is therefore broader than Paul’s itinerary in Rom 15, an itinerary which appears limited to the Japhethites.68 Isaiah 66.19 does not mention Jerusalem and Spain, the explicit geographical limits of Paul’s mission in Romans 15.69 The assumption that Paul’s travel to Spain was intended to fulfill the prophecy of Isa 66.19 therefore raises an unnecessary new set of problems. Although Riesner’s analysis otherwise paralleled the conclusions of Aus, Riesner, for his part, identified Tarshish with Tarsus in Cilicia.70 Riesner reasoned that since Tarshish is the first nation listed in Isa 66.19, Tarshish could not be the last destination on Paul’s missionary itinerary if Paul were attempting to fulfill the Isaianic prophecy.71
66
67
68 69 70 71
Psalms of Solomon is a Hellenistic era text! The end of the earth is not explicitly identified with Spain in Second Temple Jewish literature. On the possibility of Paul’s tracing the migration of the Japhethites and the Scriptural traditions of the Japhethites, see J. M. Scott, Paul and the Nations: The Old Testament and Jewish Background of Paul’s Mission to the Nations with Special Reference to the Destination of Galatians (WUNT 84; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1995) 44–7. Scott (pp. 5–8; also pp. 9–56) explained that Israel viewed itself as at the center of the earth and its nations. The family of Ham settled in Canaan and to its south and west in Egypt and North Africa. Shem’s descendants settled to the east in Mesopotamia and Arabia. The sons of Japheth settled to the north and northwest of Israel in Asia Minor and Europe. Although Rainer Riesner preferred to associate the various names of Isa 66.19 with Asia Minor or its immediate environs, the evidence he cited points strongly to North Africa for some of the names (see the discussion of Isa 66.19 above). Scott, Paul and the Nations, 146–7. Scott, Paul and the Nations, 147. Riesner, Paul’s Early Period, 245 n. 55. Scott, Paul and the Nations, 147. Aus (‘Paul’s Travel Plans’, 240) speculated that since Tarshish was mentioned first, it must be the most distant. The argument from Tarshish as the first location in Isa 66.19 can just as easily be interpreted otherwise. Riesner (Paul’s Early Period, 265), who identified Tarshish with Tarsus in Cilicia, wrote: ‘We cannot preclude the possibility that Paul ascribed special significance to the fact that his own place of birth (Acts 22.3) was mentioned in this prophetic oracle’ [Isa 66.19].
72 a. andrew das IV. Implications for the Spanish Mission as the Primary Rationale for Paul’s Letter
Paul refers to his plans for Spain very briefly in two verses within a single paragraph of Romans, and he does not in any way link the content of the letter with his future missionary endeavors.72 Whatever Paul’s reasons for writing, the Spanish mission does not appear to be his primary rationale for writing. These two verses cannot bear the weight that has been placed on them. The concrete issues that he tackles rather directly in Rom 14.1–15.13 far exceed what one would expect for a letter of self-recommendation or a letter of recommendation for Phoebe.73 Paul never claims that he was trying to unify the Roman church in order to create a unified base of operations for the Spanish mission. Such intentions are incapable of proof.74 J. Paul Sampley has questioned whether Roman divisiveness would waste resources or prevent Paul from securing the contacts he would need for the Spanish mission.75 The mention of Spain, like the mention of the upcoming Jerusalem collection trip, would enhance Paul’s apostolic authority with the Romans. The support Paul had received for the collection in his impressive journeys throughout the East, his impending visit to the very birthplace of Christianity in Jerusalem, as well as his ambitious upcoming trip to the furthest reaches of the West in Spain—Greece, Asia Minor, Jerusalem, Spain—offer a breathtaking view of his apostolic labors and ministry.76 Since his apostolic ministry would span all the way from the east to the west, how much more should the Romans, who have yet to meet Paul, hearken to the content of his letter.77 Mark Seifrid also explained that the mention of Spain responds to a potential objection to his failure to visit: ‘It should be remembered too, that Paul’s depiction of his visit to Rome as a “passing through on the way to Spain”, was necessary to his appearing consistent to his audience. If for years he had failed to come to Rome because of unevangelized 72 Cf. Reichert, Der Römerbrief, 26. 73 On the concrete issues at Rome, see A. A. Das, Solving the Romans Debate (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007). 74 The circularity that Heike Omerzu noted in Reichert’s work plagues Jewett’s thesis as well; H. Omerzu, review of A. Reichert, Der Römerbrief als Gratwanderung: Eine Untersuchung zur Abfassungsproblematik, JBL 123 (2004) 767–71, esp. 771. 75 J. P. Sampley, ‘Romans in a Different Light: A Response to Robert Jewett’, Romans (D. M. Hay and E. E. Johnson, ed.), 109–29, esp. 112. Sampley added: ‘Jewett’s conception of Paul’s mission focuses too much beyond Rome; it does not do justice to Paul’s mission in Rome’ (p. 112, emphasis his). Sampley argued that, if anything, Jerusalem is more prominent than Spain. 76 J. A. D. Weima, ‘Preaching the Gospel in Rome: A Study of the Epistolary Framework of Romans’, Gospel in Paul: Studies on Corinthians, Galatians and Romans for Richard N. Longenecker (ed. L. A. Jervis and P. Richardson; JSNTSup 108; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994) 337–66, esp. 357. 77 Weima, ‘Preaching the Gospel’, 337–66; L. A. Jervis, The Purpose of Romans: A Comparative Letter Structure Investigation (JSNTSup 55; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1991).
Paul of Tarshish 73
areas in the East, how could he ignore pioneering work in the West?’78 Paul’s subsequent request for welcome in Rome (15.30–33) is not subordinated or connected in any way to his plans for travel to Spain.79 ‘The [Spanish] mission is not mentioned directly until the conclusion of the letter, and then in a minor key’.80 Paul’s failure to draw a connection between biblical Tarshish and his plans for Spain undermine Jewett’s reasoning from Isa 66.19. No one would have identified Tarshish with southern Spain in Isaiah’s or Paul’s day. ‘The old theory that Tarshish was located in Spain must be given up’.81 Paul was not traveling to Tarshish. Tarshish is the first city that Isaiah mentions in his itinerary of gentiles streaming to Zion, not the last. The gentile gathering must begin in Tarshish. How appropriate, then, if the apostle to the gentiles should hail from none other than Tarshish (Acts 22.3).82
78 M. A. Seifrid, Justification by Faith: The Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme (NovTSup 68; Leiden: Brill, 1992) 194. 79 Seifrid, Justification By Faith, 194. 80 Seifrid, Justification By Faith, 194. 81 Ahlström, ‘Nora Inscription’, 49. Sayce (‘Tenth Chapter of Genesis’, 196) confidently declared already in 1925: ‘Tarshish is Tarsus, not Tartessos which was at the other end of the Mediterranean’. 82 In favor of Acts 22.3’s historicity, Luke emphasizes Paul’s ties to Jerusalem. He received his education there, was operating from there prior to his conversion, and regularly returns there after his conversion. Luke would likely have preferred that Paul hail from Jerusalem; see J. Knox, Chapters in a Life of Paul (rev. ed.; Macon, Ga.: Mercer University, 1987) 20–1.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 74–89. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0028688508000052
Romans 8.19–22 and Isaiah’s Cosmic Covenant* JONATHAN MOO The Faraday Institute, St Edmund’s College, Cambridge CB3 0BN, England
There are striking thematic and verbal parallels between Isaiah 24–27 and Rom 8.18–30 that suggest that Isaiah 24–27 provides the primary source for Paul’s description of the ruin and groaning of creation in Rom 8.19–22, a possibility that is strengthened by the fact that Paul elsewhere explicitly cites Isa 25.8. If Paul has used Isaiah 24–27 in this way, it helps to explain the emergence in Romans 8 of a cosmic theme in the context of resurrection hope; it also implies that a historic ‘fall of nature’ in the traditional sense is not strictly in view, but that Paul rather considers creation to be enslaved to the effects of ongoing human sin and divine judgment. This slavery itself can be considered the result of God’s decision to link the fate of the natural world and humankind through what Isa 24.5 calls an ‘eternal covenant’. Keywords: Romans 8, Isaiah 24–27, Creation, Covenant
Romans 8.19–22 is quite possibly the text most frequently cited by those seeking to employ Christian Scripture for an environmental agenda. This may not be entirely unjustified, but despite being the subject of much study it remains far from clear just what Paul means in this passage – a passage which Brendan Byrne has called ‘one of the most singular and evocative texts in the whole Pauline corpus’.1 Even such a cautious and apparently straightforward observation as that of F. R. Tennant, who noted that for the Apostle Paul the present condition of the natural order is ‘neither original nor final’,2 requires accepting the still-disputed point that ktivs i~ refers here to the natural world. Moreover, as this article will suggest, Rom 8.19–22 may not offer as much support as is often assumed for a Pauline conception of creation’s fall from an originally pristine state. Determining the role and status Paul assigns to ‘creation’ in this passage is difficult because of
74
* A version of this paper was presented at the Senior New Testament Seminar at the University of Cambridge on March 6, 2007. I am grateful to Prof. William Horbury for his comments on an earlier draft and to the Faraday Institute for providing funding (via a grant from the Templeton Foundation) to support my research. 1 B. Byrne, Romans (SP 6; Collegeville: Liturgical, 1996) 255. 2 F. R. Tennant, The Sources of the Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1903) 271.
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how tantalisingly brief and allusive is Paul’s reference, because of the ambiguity of the key terms he uses, and because of uncertainty regarding the relevance of potential parallels. This article attempts to clarify the way in which Paul envisions the ktivs i~ as subject to matiovth~ (v. 20), enslaved to fqorav (v. 21) and groaning (v. 22), by suggesting a background for these ideas that has previously been largely overlooked.
1. Background and Context
a. Ktivs i~ as Creation It seems unnecessary to rehearse once again all the arguments for why ktivs i~ in Romans 8 almost certainly refers to or at least includes non-human creation. Although there have been at least ten different proposals made for the meaning of ktivs i~ in these verses,3 and the debate stretches back into the patristic era,4 the majority of present-day interpreters rightly insist that Paul intends to refer to the entire creation or, more likely, specifically to non-human creation.5 This is in keeping with the usual meaning of ktivs i~ in biblical literature,6 and it also makes the best sense of the immediate context of the passage. 3 Eight are listed by C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, vol. 1 (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975) 411; another two possibilities are added by J. R. Michaels, ‘The Redemption of Our Body: The Riddle of Romans 8.19–22’, Romans and the People of God: Essays in Honor of Gordon D. Fee on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (ed. S. K. Soderlund and N. T. Wright; Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1999) 92–114, here 105 n. 23. 4 Though Irenaeus, for example, clearly saw ktivs i~ as a reference to all creation (cf. Adv. Haer. 5.32.1; 5.36.3), as would Chrysostom (Hom. Rom. 14), Augustine became an early and influential proponent of the anthropological reading (Exp. quaest. Rom. 53). For a helpful and accessible summary of other early interpretations of Rom 8, see the texts and discussion in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament VI: Romans (ed. G. Bray; Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity, 1998) 220–6; cf. O. Kuss, Der Römerbrief: Übersetz und Erlkärt, vol. 2 (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1963) 622–3. 5 J. Bolt, ‘The Relation between Creation and Redemption in Romans 8.18–27’, CJT 30 (1995) 34–51, esp. 35–7, suggests that the popularity of human-centred readings in the last century (whatever conclusions were reached about the precise meaning of ktivs i~) may owe something to neo-orthodoxy’s denial of any significant role for the created order in biblical texts, as well as to von Rad’s influential prioritisation of history over creation. In his major Romans commentary, K. Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (6th ed.; London: Oxford University, 1933) 302–14, assumed that 8.19–22 referred to all creation, including human beings, but by the time of his shorter commentary he restricts the reference primarily to humankind (Barth, A Shorter Commentary on Romans [London: SCM, 1959] 99). 6 Most often ktivs i~ refers to the entire ‘creation’ (Mark 10.6; 13.19; Rom 8.39; Col 1.15; Heb 9.11; 2 Pet 3.4; Rev 3.14; cf. Jdt 9.12; Tob 8.5, 15; 3 Macc 2.2, 7; 6.2; Wis 2.6; 5.17; 16.24; 19.6; Sir 16.17), occasionally with a focus on non-human creation (Wis 5.17; 16.24). Elsewhere, it is used for the act of creation (Rom 1.20; cf. Pss. Sol. 8.7) or for an individual ‘created thing’ (Rom 1.25; cf.
76 jonathan moo
That the ktivs i~ is awaiting the ‘revealing of the children of God’ (ajpokavluyin tw`n tevknwn tou` qeou`) (v. 19) and will participate in and benefit from the ‘freedom of [their] glory’ (v. 21) suggests that ktivs i~ cannot be equivalent to or even include the ‘children of God’; this rules out those interpretations that, while rightly equating the ‘children of God’ with human believers, attempt also to limit the referent of ktivs i~ to (believing) humankind.7 Moreover, in v. 23 the ‘waiting’ (ajpekdevcomai) and ‘groaning’ (sustenavzw) of the ktivs i~ (v. 22) are linked with but explicitly distinguished from the ‘groaning’ (stenavzw) and ‘waiting’ (ajpekdevcomai) of ‘the ones having the first-fruit of the spirit – we ourselves’. Paul’s argument would seem to be hopelessly convoluted if ktivs i~ refers in vv. 19–22 to those who are in Christ. The argument that the referent changes from ‘creature’ to ‘creation’ between v. 21 and v. 22, reflected in early English translations (e.g. KJV) and revived more recently by Michaels, depends on forcing an artificial distinction between hJ ktivs i~ in vv. 19–21 and pa`sa hJ ktivs i~ in v. 22. It also yields unlikely interpretations of the ‘creature’ in v. 19, such as Michaels’ own suggestion that it refers to the physical bodies of believers.8 It is marginally more plausible that throughout these verses ktivs i~ includes in its scope all humanity apart from those Paul considers to be the children of God,9 but, even setting aside the unusual use of ktivs i~ this would represent, it is unlikely – given the wider context of Paul’s thought – that he
Sir 43.25; 49.16); in this latter usage, the reference occasionally may be restricted primarily to human beings, but specifically as ‘creatures’ (Mark 16.15; Col 1.23; Heb 4.13; cf. Jdt 16.14). E. Adams, Constructing the World: A Study in Paul’s Cosmological Language (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000) 77–80, 175–8, has surveyed the usage of ktivs i~ more widely in Greek and Hellenistic-Jewish literature and confirms that the linguistic evidence supports ‘the consensus view that ktivs i~ in 8.19–22 denotes the “non-human creation”’ (177). 7 Prominent supporters of the view that ktivs i~ refers primarily or only to human beings have included A. Schlatter, Romans: The Righteousness of God (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995) 184–6; A. Vögtle, ‘Röm. 8, 19–22: Eine schöpfungstheologische oder anthropologischsoteriologische Aussage?’, Mélanges Bibliques en Hommage au R. P. Beda Rigaux (ed. A. Descaps and R. P. André de Halleux; Gembloux: Duculot, 1970) 351–66, esp. 357; idem, Das Neue Testament und die Zukunft des Kosmos (KBANT; Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1970) 184–208; cf. Michaels, ‘The Redemption of Our Body’, 92–114. 8 Michaels, ‘The Redemption of Our Body’, 92–114. 9 J. C. Gager, ‘Functional Diversity in Paul’s Use of End-Time Language’, JBL 89 (1970) 325–37, esp. 329, who claims Paul intends to present what would otherwise be a cosmic new creation in primarily anthropological terms, is among those who argue for this reading. S. Eastman, ‘Whose Apocalypse: The Identity of the Sons of God in Romans 8.19’, JBL 121/2 (2002) 263–77, includes all creation in the reference to ktivs i~ but claims that Paul’s emphasis is on unbelieving humankind, especially Israel. E. Käsemann, Commentary on Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980) 233, accepts that ‘the main emphasis today is rightly put on non-human creation’, but even he maintains that non-Christians must be included and that ‘it is a mistake to speak of “irrational creation”’.
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would describe those outside the people of God as waiting expectantly for and participating in the liberation of God’s children.10 It is in the light of such considerations that most interpreters continue to maintain that ktivs i~ refers here to the ‘material creation’ or the ‘natural world’.11 b. Intra- and Inter-textual Links In Rom 8.18–30, Paul sets the present suffering of believers in a wider context in which their own groaning is paralleled by the intercession of the Spirit and the groaning of all creation as they wait in hope for the glory that is to come. Several of the prominent themes of the passage have been introduced already in ch. 5. In 5.2, for example, Paul has claimed that through Christ it is possible to boast ‘in the hope of the glory of God’. ‘Not only that’, he goes on to say in vv. 3–4, ‘but we also boast in [our] afflictions, knowing that they work to produce endurance, and endurance character, and character hope’. Here we have discussion of hope (ejlpiv~), glory (dovxa), suffering (qli`y i~; cf. 8.18 paqhvmata), and endurance (uJpomonhv); and in 5.5 Paul introduces the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of those who are in Christ. Even the cosmic horizon that is so striking in Rom 10 So also C. Cranfield, ‘Some Observations on Romans 8.19–21’, Reconciliation and Hope: Essays on Atonement and Eschatology (ed. R. Banks; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 224–30, here 225. It would also seem that if any human beings were to be described by Paul as God’s ‘creation’, it would be ‘the children of God’. Cranfield, Romans, 411, further points out that it if Adamic humanity is included in the reference to ktivs i~, it is surprising that Paul would claim the subjection was done against its will (v. 20). 11 Thus, e.g., P. F. Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003) 260–1; Byrne, Romans, 255–6; D. J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1996) 513–14; J. A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 33; London: Doubleday, 1993) 505–6; P. Stuhlmacher, Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Commentary (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994) 134; J. D. G. Dunn, Romans, vol. 1 (WBC; Dallas: Word, 1988) 469–70; W. Bindemann, Die Hoffnung der Schöpfung: Römer 8, 18–27 und die Frage einer Theologie der Befreiung von Mensch und Natur (Neukirchener Studienbücher 14; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1983) 73–6; U. Wilckens, Der Brief an der Römer (Röm 6–11) (EKKNT 6.2; Zürich/Einsiedeln/Köln: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1980) 152–3; Cranfield, Romans, 411–12; H. R. Balz, Heilsvertrauen und Weltenfahrung: Stukturen des paulinischen Eschatologie nach Römer 8,18–39 (BEvT 59; Munich: Kaiser, 1971) 47–9; U. Gerber, ‘Röm. viii.18ff. als exegetisches Problem der Dogmatik’, NovT 8 (1966) 58–81; Kuss, Der Römerbrief, 622–4; F. J. Leenhardt, The Epistle to the Romans (London: Lutterworth, 1961) 219; J. Jervell, Imago Dei: Gen. 1,26f. im Spätjudentum, in der Gnosis und in den paulinischen Briefen (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960) 282–4; M.-J. Lagrange, Saint Paul: Épitre aux Romains (6th ed.; Paris: Gabalda, 1950) 204–7; C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1932) 133–4; W. Sanday and A. C. Headlam, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (ICC; 5th ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902) 207. So also Calvin, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Romans and to the Thessalonians (ed. D. W. Torrance and T. F. Torrance; Edinburgh/London: Oliver & Boyd, 1961) 172–4, and Luther, Luther: Lectures on Romans (ed. W. Pauck; LCC 15; London: SCM, 1961) 237–9.
78 jonathan moo 8.19–22 is hinted at later in ch. 5, when Paul claims that sin entered the cosmos through one person, and death through sin (5.12). The links between Romans 5 and 8 probably extend at this point to Paul’s reliance on the Genesis narrative to derive his theodicy: he considers both the reign of death in the world (in Rom 5) and the subjection of creation to mataiovth~ and fqorav (in Rom 8) to be consequences of Adam’s sin. An echo of Genesis 3 in Romans 8 is suggested not only by the links with Romans 5 but also by Paul’s use of the aorist uJpetavgh, the tense possibly implying – in this context of present suffering, groaning, and expectant waiting for future freedom – a particular past event in which creation was put under subjection.12 The divine curses of Genesis 3, involving as they do the pain of childbirth,13 the difficulty of toil (cf. Eccles 1.2), and the altered productivity of the earth, also suggest themselves to some interpreters as possible explanations of what Paul means by this subjection. Genesis 3 is occasionally put to similar use elsewhere, most notably perhaps in 4 Ezra, a text that shares with Paul the attribution of responsibility to Adam for the power of sin in the world. Though a handful of other early Jewish texts hint that one or two things might have changed after Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden,14 in 4 Ezra 7 all the painful, difficult, and dangerous ways of the present world are traced back directly to Adam. For though the world was originally made for the sake of Israel, God tells Ezra that ‘when Adam transgressed my statutes, what had been made was judged’ (7.11) and the world thus became unsuitable as an inheritance for God’s people.15 According to 4 Ezra, this means that the right12 Cf. Cranfield, Romans, 413. 13 D. T. Tsumara, ‘An Old Testament Background to Rom. 8.22’, NTS 40 (1994) 620–1, has suggested that the curse on the woman in Gen 3.16 may have provided the ‘birth pangs’ metaphor in Rom 8.22, although Paul’s attribution of travail to ‘creation’ suggests that Tsumara’s explanation may not be sufficient. 14 The author of Jubilees, for example, assumes that animals must have been able to speak before the fall and subsequently lost the ability (Jub. 3.28). In the Apoc. Mos. 10–11, beasts are said to attack human beings on account of Eve’s sin: ‘Through this also our nature was changed’ (Apoc. Mos. 11.2; cf. 24.4). Quite often, it is the luminaries that are affected by Adam’s sin (cf. Gen. Rab. 11.2–4), and thus a renewal of the lights is expected in the age to come (cf. Jub. 1.29); a similar tradition may have informed some later patristic interpretations of Rom 8.19–22 wherein ktivs i~ is identified primarily with the stars, sun, and moon (and cf. Isa 30.26). A storyline nearer to that presupposed in 4 Ezra emerges in Gen. Rab. 12.6, although here the things that were ‘spoiled’ because ‘the first man sinned’ (and to be restored when the son of Peretz comes) are limited to ‘his splendour, his immortal life, his stature, the fruit of the land, the fruit of the tree and the lights’ (trans. J. Neusner, Genesis Rabbah: The Judaic Commentary to the Book of Genesis; A New American Translation, vol. 1 [BJS 104; Atlanta: Scholars, 1985] 125–6). 15 In 4 Ezra, this stands in some tension with the notion that two saecula were created from the beginning, one for the many and the other for the righteous few (7.50; 8.1; cf. 2 Bar. 15.7–8).
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eous must now endure the difficult circumstances of the present world if they are to inherit those things reserved for them in the next. It seems likely that such an interpretation of Genesis 3 has also influenced Paul’s thought in Rom 8.19–22. Nevertheless, this leaves unexplained some of the central questions raised by the passage; what does Paul mean, for example, by claiming that creation is enslaved to fqorav? What leads him to personify creation as groaning and suffering birth pangs? And why should Paul – in at least some contrast to the way the future of the world is framed in 4 Ezra (although, cf. 7.75; 13.26) – suggest that it is this very same subjected and enslaved creation that will participate in the freedom of the glory of the children of God? On this last question, the promise of a new heaven and a new earth as it is derived from Isaiah 65–66 as well as the wider Jewish hope of a new creation may have played an important role in shaping Paul’s thinking. A recent monograph by Harry Hahne demonstrates in fact how Paul’s perspective on the corruption and redemption of creation can be situated within a particular stream of Jewish apocalyptic literature, one represented, for example, by Jubilees, 2 Baruch and – as I have already suggested for the ‘subjection’ of creation – 4 Ezra.16 But greater precision regarding the background of Paul’s thought may be possible; this article will consider whether Paul may in fact be relying here, as so often elsewhere, on a particular Isaianic formulation of his theme. Before turning to Isaiah, however, it is necessary to look briefly at a few of the other key terms used by Paul and to suggest some directions of interpretation that may be useful for discerning the value of any proposed parallels. c. Exegetical Considerations Romans 8.20 claims that creation ‘was subject to mataiovth~’, and despite ongoing disagreement among commentators about who has done the subjecting, God is the most likely candidate for the agent behind the passive uJpetavgh and uJpotavxanta, especially if Genesis 3 lies somewhere in the background.17 As Dunn has suggested, the difficulty of the construction probably stems from Paul’s 16 H. A. Hahne, The Corruption and Redemption of Creation: Nature in Romans 8.19–22 and Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (LNTS [JSNTSup] 336; London: T. & T. Clark, 2006). 17 Though Byrne, Romans, 58, 60–1, and, more recently, C. Hill, ‘Romans’, OBC, 1083–1108, here 1099, have maintained that Adam is the agent, Eastman, ‘Whose Apocalypse’, 273, has provided a cogent critique of Byrne’s arguments, and Dunn’s explanation remains the most persuasive (see below). God can elsewhere be described as subjecting all things to himself or to Christ (e.g. 1 Cor 15.27–28; Eph 1.22; Phil 3.21 [Christ]; Heb 2.5, 8 [cf. Ps 8.7]; cf. 1 Pet 3.2), and though Paul and other NT writers may encourage their readers to submit themselves to various authorities, human beings are never described as actively ‘subjecting’ anything. A rare exception in biblical literature is in 2 Macc 4.12, where Jason ‘subjects’ noble young men to the indignity of wearing Greek-style hats. See also, in reference to assigning authority, 2 Macc 8.9, 22.
80 jonathan moo attempt ‘to convey too briefly a quite complicated point: that God subjected all things to Adam, and that included subjecting creation to fallen Adam, to share in his fallenness’.18 One may well discern in this a melancholy echo of the role of human beings described in Ps 8.5–8. The purpose of Paul’s aside regarding who it was that subjected the creation seems to be to exonerate material creation itself from any guilt regarding its current plight and to emphasise God’s sovereignty over both its present and future condition, however mediated its subjection may well be through Adamic humanity. What does Paul mean by saying that creation is subject to mataiovth~? In the LXX, the mavtaio~ word group most often translates some form of lbh and is used to refer to something that is empty, produces no result, or does not reach its intended purpose. In Ecclesiastes, this includes nearly all aspects of life, but elsewhere it refers specifically to deceitful speech, to prophecies not fulfilled19 and, very often, to idols.20 Not only are idols ‘empty’, but people who make and worship idols are said to become mavtaioi.21 A link between mavtaio~, idolatry, and failure to worship the creator is made by Paul himself earlier in Romans: at 1.21, Paul says that those who refuse to glorify the God they could know through creation ejmataiwvqhsan ejn toi`~ dialogismoi`~ aujtw`n.22 Their thoughts have become ‘futile’ or ‘worthless’ and their ‘senseless heart has been darkened’, such that they are unable to think aright.23
18 Dunn, Romans, 471. That the subjection is done ‘in hope’ could seem in one respect to weaken the case for God as ‘subjecter’, since in biblical literature hope is a purely creaturely characteristic, but the ejfΔ eJlpivdi of v. 21 is best explained as a reference to the ultimate reason for the subjecting: it has been done ‘on the basis’ of the hope in which the created order is thus made able to share. Such an elliptical use of ejfΔ eJlpivdi is analogous to that in Paul’s courtroom defence in Acts 26, where he claims that he stands being judged ejpΔ ejlpivdi (26.6), meaning not that he is standing before Agrippa ‘in hope’ but that the Jewish authorities have brought him there ‘on the basis of’ the hope he has in the resurrection. See again also Rom 5.2, where Paul says ‘we boast on the basis of the hope of the glory of God’ (kaucwvmeqa ejpΔ ejlpivdi th`~ dovxh~ tou` qeou`). It would in any case make even less sense to suggest that Adam or human beings subjected the creation ‘in hope’. 19 E.g., Job 35.16; Ps 4.3; 37.13; 143.8, 11; Lam 2.14; Ezek 13.6, 7, 8, 9, 19; 21.34; 22.28; cf. 2 Pet 2.18. 20 E.g., Lev 17.7; 1 Kgs 16.13, 26; 2 Chron 11.15; Ps 23.4; Isa 2.20; Jer 8.19; 10.3, 15; 28.18; Ezek 8.10; Jonah 2.9; cf. Wis 15.8. 21 E.g., 1 Kgs 17.15; Isa 44.9; Jer 2.5. Wis 13.1 claims more generally that all those who are ignorant of God, who fail to see the creator behind the good things observable in creation, are ‘by nature’ mavtaioi. D. Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon (AB 43; New York: Doubleday, 1979) 249, cites several parallels to this idea, including Philo’s description of those who do not acknowledge God as ajdidavktw/ th`/ fuvsei (Decal. 59). 22 W. Horbury, ‘The Wisdom of Solomon’, OBC, 650–67, here 663, notes the closeness of Rom 1 and Wis 13.1–9 at this point. 23 Ps 94.11 (93.11 LXX) uses similar language to describe the thoughts of humankind in general in the context of God’s discipline of unheeding evil-doers.
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If Paul has in mind such a link between idolatry and mataiovth~ in Rom 8.20,24 this may represent the reverse of the pattern wherein those who worship idols or created things become empty; Rom 8.20, read alongside 1.21, seems to attest to creation itself becoming subject to emptiness when it is treated idolatrously and thereby prevented from fulfilling its divinely intended telos of bringing glory to the Creator (8.21). This argument requires that creation’s ‘subjection’ results directly from human sinfulness, even if the agent behind the passive uJpetavgh remains God himself; but this makes good sense of the awkward construction in 8.20 in any case. This reading seems a plausible, if partial explanation for the way in which Paul considers creation to be subject to mataiovth~, particularly if idolatry in the broadest sense can be said to represent for Paul the fundamental sin of Adamic humanity.25 It also suggests an interesting parallel with Wis 14.12, where in the midst of a lengthy discussion of idolatry, it is said that the idea of idols was the ‘beginning of fornication’ and that their invention was the ‘corruption of life’, fqora; zwh`~. Paul, of course, goes on in the next verse of Romans 8 to describe creation’s future release from its enslavement to fqorav (v. 21).26 fqorav itself can have a number of different meanings, including ‘destruction’, ‘ruin’, ‘death’, ‘deterioration’, ‘decay’, ‘corruption’, and even ‘plague’ or ‘pollution’.27 As in the Wisdom of 24 S. Moyise, ‘Intertextuality and the Study of the Old Testament in the New Testament’, The Old Testament in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of J. L. North (ed. S. Moyise; JSNTSup 189; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000) 14–41, esp. 19–25, has argued along somewhat different lines for a link between Rom 1.21 and 8.20. Based in part on the probable use of Eccles 7.20 at Rom 3.10, he suggests that Ecclesiastes also lies behind Paul’s use of mataiovth~ at Rom 8.20–21, where Moyise claims to discern a link specifically to Eccles 1.2–3. As Moyise notes, in his reference to the futility of ‘toil’, Qoheleth himself may be alluding to the curse on Adam and the ground (Gen 3.17–18) that is generally thought to lie in the background of Paul’s thought. Cf. O. Bauernfeind, mavtaio~, mataiovth~, mataiovw, mavthn, mataiologiva, mataiolovgo~’, TDNT 4.519–24, here 523: ‘Rom 8.20 is a valid commentary on Qoh’. 25 Cf. M. D. Hooker, From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1990) 73–87. 26 In the context, creation’s slavery to fqorav probably represents the present condition that has resulted from its subjection, although it could alternatively imply that the hope entailed in its subjection was that it be released from a pre-existent slavery to fqorav, a condition for which Paul would then apparently have failed to provide an explanation. 27 Cf. BDAG; LSJ; for ‘plague’, see Apollodorus Library and Epitome E.6.20. It is possible that Paul has in mind the use of fqorav to denote the inevitable fate of all material things in the sense that we find, for example, in Plato’s Republic, where Socrates claims, ‘for everything that has come into being, fqorav is appointed’ (Resp. 546a), or, more specifically, in the way that Aristotle says that substances (the suvnolon consisting of lovgo~ plus u{lh), as opposed to their forms (lovgo~), must ‘admit of fqorav, for they also admit of generation (gevnesi~)’ (Metaph. 1039b). In this sense, being freed from slavery to fqorav could be intended to denote liberation from the cycle of generation and destruction that is inherent in all aspects of present existence. Paul’s avoidance of the relevant technical vocabulary suggests, however, that Greek philosophical categories may not be precisely in view.
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Solomon, fqorav elsewhere in biblical literature can connote moral corruption,28 but it can also refer more simply to physical ruin or destruction.29 A similar range of meaning, between ‘destroy’ and ‘corrupt’, pertains to the more common verbal form, fqeivrw, in both the NT and the LXX.30 Paul can elsewhere use fqorav to mean ‘ruin’31 or, in a way very similar to fqartov~,32 to refer to the perishable or mortal nature of flesh,33 although the idea of moral corruption or corruptibility is not necessarily far behind. In Rom 8.21, it seems unlikely that Paul intends to assign moral corruption to creation itself, particularly since he has in v. 20 emphasised creation’s lack of choice in its subjection. But the sense that creation is prey to ‘ruin’ and enslaved to the effects of human immorality comports well with what Paul has likely meant by its subjection to mataiovth~. It is in this context of unwilling suffering that creation strains ahead towards its hope of future release when it shall share in ‘the freedom of the glory of the children of God’ (8.21). In its present state the entire creation groans and suffers birth pangs together (8.22); Paul says that this has been happening ‘up to the present time’, and that it is something ‘we know’. That Paul assumes his readers share this knowledge does not necessarily imply that he thinks creation’s groaning can be kenned through mere observation of nature; based on how he uses o[idamen elsewhere, it may mean rather that he refers to a well-known teaching or something that can be known through Scripture.34 It is often suggested that the ‘messianic woes’ are in the background here,35 but this fails to account for the implication of the passage taken as a whole that creation has been suffering and groaning in birth pains ever since the time of its subjection. There is no reason to think that Paul alludes to events merely in the interim between the first and second comings of Christ or to signs immediately preceding the end of the age. Paul’s scope encompasses the time from Adam to the revealing of the children of God (which in v. 23 is equated with the resurrec28 E.g., Wis 14.12, 25; 2 Pet 1.4; 2.19. 29 Jonah 2.7; Dan 3.92; Isa 24.3; Mic 2.10; Col 2.22; 2 Pet 2.12. 30 With the meaning ‘corrupt’, see, e.g., Gen 6.11; Hos 9.9; Ezek 16.52; 4 Macc 18.8; 1 Cor 15.33; 2 Cor 7.2; 11.3; Eph 4.22; Rev 19.2. For ‘destroy’ or ‘ruin, cf. Exod 10.15; 1 Chron 20.1; Isa 24.3, 4; 54.16; Dan 2.44; 7.14; 9.26; Wis 16.27; 1 Cor 3.17; 2 Pet 2.12; Jude 1.10. 31 Its use in Gal 6.8 suggests either ‘ruin’ or ‘corruption’. 32 fqartov~ has a more restricted semantic range, denoting ‘mortal’ or ‘perishable’. Cf. 2 Macc 7.16; Wis 9.15; 14.8; Rom 1.23; 1 Cor 9.25; 15.53, 54; 1 Pet 1.18, 23. 33 Cf. 1 Cor 15.42, 50; Gal 6.8. 34 Cf. Rom 2.2; 3.19; 7.14; 8.28; 2 Cor 5.1; cf. 1 Cor 8.1, 4. 35 Byrne, Romans, 261, is among those commentators who recognise the lateness of most of the evidence, but he still maintains that the ‘messianic woes’ tradition ‘best accounts for the mysterious claim made here with respect to creation’. Jesus may allude to such a tradition in the gospels (cf. Mark 13.8 // Matt 24.8).
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tion, the ‘redemption of our bodies’). There is not here, as in the ‘messianic woes’ tradition, any indication that creation’s groaning is intensifying because of the approach of the end. Rather, Paul is adapting the more basic biblical idea that itself may have given rise to the messianic woes tradition, the idea that creation suffers and mourns as a result of human sin and divine judgment.
2. The Prophetic Background and Isaiah 24–27
Sylvia Keesmaat has suggested that Paul looks back here to the way in which the fate of material creation and human beings are linked in the creation and flood stories, in the covenant blessings and curses, in the prophets, and especially in the exodus narrative.36 In Katherine Hayes’ study of nine passages where the earth is portrayed as mourning (Amos 1.2; Hos 4.1–3; Jer 4.23–8; 12.1–4, 7–13; 23.9–12; Isa 24.1–20; 33.7–9; Joel 1.5–20), she suggests that in each instance the cause of the earth’s anguish is the Lord’s punitive anger against human social abuse and disorder.37 Laurie J. Braaten has recently made a compelling case for the importance of this ‘mourning earth’ tradition in Rom 8.22. Along the way, Braaten is also the first person (so far as I am aware) to argue, however briefly, for the particular importance of Isaiah 24 for informing Paul’s thought in Rom 8.19–22. Many commentators on Romans cite Isaiah 24 as an example of how creation can be personified in the Hebrew bible,38 but Braaten is the first to make reference to some of the more extensive parallels between the two passages. In the end, however, even Braaten does not consider in detail the wider context of Isaiah 24–27, and he contents himself with observing that ‘it is probably not a coincidence that there are similarities in thought between Isaiah 24 and Romans 8’.39 He goes on to consider the potential influence of a number of other texts and so
36 S. C. Keesmaat, Paul and His Story: (Re)Interpreting the Exodus Tradition (JSNTSup 181; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999) 102–23. The relationship between God, human beings and material creation in the Old Testament has recently been traced in more detail by T. E. Fretheim, God and the World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation (Nashville: Abingdon, 2005). O. Christofferson, The Earnest Expectation of the Creature: The Flood Tradition as Matrix of Romans 8.18–27 (ConBNT 23; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1990), has argued that the traditions concerning the Noahic flood are of central importance for interpreting Rom 8.18–27, but despite some interesting parallels, his overall argument is unconvincing; for a brief but incisive critique, see Adams, Constructing the World, 175 n. 93. 37 Katherine M. Hayes, The Earth Mourns: Prophetic Metaphor and Oral Aesthetic (SBL Academia Biblica 8; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002). 38 Most recently, see Hahne, Corruption and Redemption, 195, 201. 39 Braaten, ‘All Creation Groans: Romans 8.22 in Light of the Biblical Sources’, HBT 28 (2006) 131–59, here 147; an earlier, shorter version appeared as ‘The Groaning Creation: The Biblical Background for Rom 8.22’, BR 50 (2005) 19–40.
84 jonathan moo misses the possibility that Isaiah 24–27, taken as a whole, may in fact be of central importance for understanding Rom 8.19–22. Moreover, Braaten sets the prophetic background over and against the possibility that Paul has in view Genesis 3 and the fall of Adam. As has already been suggested, it seems nearly certain that Genesis 3 has influenced Paul’s thinking in Romans 8. I propose that though Paul indeed links the subjection of creation back to Adam, he interprets this narrative in such a way that the effects of the subjection of creation continue to be worked out in the context of a dynamic and ongoing relationship between God, Adamic humanity, and the rest of creation. As Keesmaat, Braaten, and others have recognised, it is the Hebrew prophetic tradition that informs Paul’s thinking on this point; but it may be Isaiah 24–27 in particular that can illuminate the significance of the links Paul makes between the groaning of creation, the suffering and patient endurance of God’s people, and the resurrection hope. a. Thematic Links Isaiah 24–27 begins with an evocative passage describing the Lord’s punishment of the earth for the guilt of its inhabitants (24.1–13) and then proceeds to detail an even wider cosmic judgment of heavenly powers and earthly kings (24.18b–23a), a judgment which is followed by the glorious reign of the Lord on Mount Zion (24.23b). At the establishment of this reign, the Lord is said to prepare a feast for all peoples, to swallow up death forever, and to wipe away every tear (25.6–8). The righteous are consistently portrayed as waiting expectantly, trusting in the Lord, and yearning for his coming (25.1–5, 9; 26.2–4, 8–9); they endure his chastening in the present and suffer birth pangs like a woman in labour (26.16–18). Though they are unable on their own to bring salvation to the earth, it is said that nonetheless the dead of the Lord shall live and their bodies rise: those who ‘dwell in the dust’ will awake and shout for joy (26.19). The earth will disclose the blood shed on it and no longer conceal its slain (26.21). In that day, when Leviathan is defeated (27.1), the vineyard Israel will bud and blossom and fill the world with fruit (27.2, 6), a great trumpet will sound, and the exiles will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem (27.12–13). A number of thematic parallels with Rom 8.18–25 may be discerned in this summary, including the suffering of the earth due to the Lord’s punishment of human sin, the personification of creation’s response to judgment, the promise that God’s glory will be revealed, the present waiting of the righteous in expectant hope, the use of birth-pang imagery, the defeat of death, and the possibility of life beyond death. Each of these motifs can of course be found elsewhere, but nowhere are they all brought together and linked in quite the same way as they are in Isaiah 24–27. Some of the major themes of Rom 8.18–25 are missing, notably the role of the Spirit, the status of God’s people as ‘children’, and freedom and slavery. But because these themes are prominent elsewhere in Romans, their absence
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need not rule out the influence Isaiah 24–27 may have had on the otherwise less well-attested motifs in Rom 8.19–22, particularly the subjection, groaning, and birth pangs of creation. b. Verbal Parallels There are several verbal parallels between Isaiah 24–27 and Rom 8.19–22 that may increase the volume of these thematic echoes. Thus, Isaiah 24 begins with the Lord ‘laying waste’ (katafqeivrei) the world (v. 1), so that the earth shall be ‘utterly ruined’ (v. 2). For the ‘ruin’ of the earth, the LXX translator uses the word Paul employs for the ‘ruin’ to which creation is enslaved: fqora`/ fqarhvsetai hJ gh` (cf. Heb. ≈r
86 jonathan moo covenant and the curse that consumes the earth would seem in any case to be amenable to Paul’s emphasis on the cosmic consequences of the sin of Adam and all ‘Adamic’ humanity. After details about the effect of this curse on the earth’s inhabitants in Isa 24.7–13, the themes of hope (ejlpiv~) and glory (dovxa) are briefly introduced (vv. 14–15) before the narrator breaks in with a lament (vv. 17–18) and creation’s ruin once again becomes the focus. Then, with the formulaic ‘in that day . . .’, v. 21 introduces the Lord’s cosmic judgment that prepares the way for his reign ‘on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its elders – with great glory’ (v. 23). It is from here that ch. 25 moves on to praise God for his faithfulness and to describe a banquet on Mount Zion, the ‘swallowing up’ of death and the wiping away of tears. After further descriptions of the Lord’s judgment, of the restoration of Judah, and of the righteous who keep faith and trust the Lord, it is said that the people sought the Lord in their distress and ‘poured out a whisper’ to him when his chastening was on them; in the Greek, it is the narrator who sought God in his qlivyei (26.16). According to 26.17, he and his fellow-sufferers were as a woman in labour (wjdivnousa), writhing and crying out in birth pangs when about to give birth (ejpi; th`/ wjdi`ni aujth`~ ejkevkraxen). But despite these travails (ejn gastri; ejlavbomen kai; wjdinhvsamen), the resulting birth is – according to the Hebrew text – only to wind, and salvation is not accomplished in the earth (v. 18). The LXX translator, apparently missing the negative lBæ, instead envisions that a ‘spirit of salvation’ (pneu`ma swthriva~) is born. In both the Hebrew and Greek texts, in any case, the next verse, echoing the promise of death’s defeat in 25.8, claims that the Lord’s dead shall live and their bodies rise (26.19). These thematic and verbal parallels cannot be said to provide anything like indisputable proof that Rom 8.19–22 depends on Isaiah 24–27. Two other considerations strengthen the likelihood of a link, however. First, Paul’s use of Isaiah is prominent elsewhere in Romans. He will in fact cite Isa 27.9 at Rom 11.27, and several recent monographs have borne out the significance of Isaiah generally for shaping Paul’s thought in the book.42 The second and more intriguing line of evi42 J. R. Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul in Concert in the Letter to the Romans (NovTSup 101; Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 2002); S.-L. Shum, Paul’s Use of Isaiah in Romans: A Comparative Study of Paul’s Letter to the Romans and the Sibylline and Qumran Sectarian Texts (WUNT 156; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002); F. Wilk, Die Bedeutung des Jesajabuches für Paulus (FRLANT 179; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998); cf. B. J. Oropeza, ‘Echoes of Isaiah in the Rhetoric of Paul: New Exodus, Wisdom, and the Humility of the Cross in Utopian-Apocalyptic Expectations’, The Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse in the New Testament (ed. D. F. Watson; SBLSymS 14; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002) 87–112; R. B. Hays, ‘“Who has Believed our Message?” Paul’s Reading of Isaiah’, SBL Seminar Papers 1998, Part 1 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1998) 205–25; idem, Echoes of Scripture in the Letter of Paul (New Haven: Yale University, 1989).
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dence for the potential influence of Isaiah 24–27, however, is the fact that when Paul elsewhere wants to delineate the contours of resurrection hope, it is to the centre of this section of Isaiah that he turns. c. Isaiah 24–27 and Paul’s Resurrection Hope Near the end of his lengthy defence of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul also makes extensive use of Adam typology, his argument climaxes with a description of the last trumpet at which the dead shall rise (v. 52), when ‘this corruption will put on incorruptibility and this mortal immortality’; at that time, he claims, the promise of Isa 25.8 shall be fulfilled: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’ (katepovqh oJ qavnato~ eiJ~ ni`ko~).43 The reference to the ‘last trumpet’ two verses earlier, also alluded to in Paul’s description of the resurrection in 1 Thess 4.16, may itself have already drawn on Isa 27.13, where at the sounding of the ‘great trumpet’ the exiles come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem. Although there are other possible sources for Paul’s eschatological trumpet,44 the contemporary popularity of Isa 27.13, as possibly evidenced, for example, by its use in the tenth of the eighteen benedictions,45 suggests it may well be resounding in the background here. In the somewhat different characterisation of life after death that Paul gives in 2 Corinthians 5, there is what may be another echo of Isa 25.8.46 In 2 Cor 5.4 Paul uses again the language of ‘swallowing’, this time to describe ‘the mortal’ being swallowed up by ‘life’. A comparison with Paul’s idiosyncratic citation of Isa 25.8 at 1 Cor 15.54 is instructive:
katepovqh oJ qavnato~ eij~ ni`ko~ (1 Cor 15.54) katapoqh`/ to; qnhto;n uJpo; th`~ zwh`~ (2 Cor 5.4) 43 For an assessment of the possible textual traditions behind Paul’s citation, see C. D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature (SNTSMS 69; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1992) 209–15. It is intriguing that Hos 13.14, the text Paul quotes alongside Isa 25.8 at 1 Cor 15.54–55, is immediately preceded by a description of Ephraim’s unfruitful labour pains (Hos 13.13). The same progression from unsuccessful birth-pangs to the Lord’s deliverance from death that occurs in Hos 13.13–14 is of course found in Isa 26.17–19. If Paul read Isa 26.17–19 as an extension of the promise made in Isa 25.8, this could help account for the unusual link he makes between Isa 25.8 and Hos 13.14 in 1 Cor 15.54, a connection that otherwise can be explained only by their shared personification of death and, less likely, the possible occurrence of nivko~/nivkh in both texts, a proposal that depends on which texts were available to Paul. 44 Cf. the trumpet blown on the Day of Atonement to announce the year of Jubilee in Lev 25.9; and in connection with the day of the Lord, cf. Joel 2.1; Zeph 1.16; Zech 9.14. 45 ‘Blow on the great shophar for our freedom, and lift up a banner for the gathering of our redeemed [exiles]’ (trans. in D. Instone-Brewer, Prayer and Agriculture [TRENT 1; Grand Rapids/Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2004] 99). Cf. the gathering of the elect at the trumpet in Matt 24.31. 46 I am indebted to Mr. Ryan Jackson for drawing this to my attention.
88 jonathan moo There are, moreover, strong links between Rom 8.18–25 and 2 Corinthians 4–5. We find in 2 Corinthians 4–5 the idea that ‘our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all’ (4.17; cf. Rom 8.18), an emphasis on focusing not on what is seen but what is ‘unseen’ (4.18; 5.7; cf. Rom 8.24), a mention of ‘groaning’ (stenavzomen) that accompanies the present mode of life (5.4; cf. Rom 8.22, 23, 26), and the assurance that the Spirit is given as a ‘guarantee’ (ajrrabw`na) of what is to come (5.5; cf. Rom 8.23). There are also, as in the shared use of ‘corruption’ language, some obvious links between Rom 8.18–25 and 1 Corinthians 15; indeed, the ‘redemption of our bodies’ described at Rom 8.23 sounds somewhat nearer the picture of the resurrection given in 1 Corinthians 15 than that in 2 Corinthians 5. It is not surprising that Irenaeus interprets these three passages together (Haer. 5.7.1–5.13.5; 5.32.1–5.36.3; cf. Haer. 3.19.1; 3.20.2; 4.11.1)47 and that Chrysostom, for example, cites 1 Cor 15.54 in his discussion of Rom 8.23 (Hom. Rom. 14).48 These links heighten the sense that each passage represents modulations on a theme, the coherence of which is rooted in Paul’s contextual interpretation and application of some of the same traditions and Scriptures. The Scriptural tradition seems likely to include both the defeat of death and the cosmic context of judgment and salvation that is prominent in Isaiah 24–27. This cosmic theme is developed further in the later chapters of Isaiah, but it was in Isaiah 25 and 26 that Paul could find explicit reference to life beyond death, and ch. 24 may well have supplied for him the vivid picture of creation’s ongoing slavery to the ruin brought upon it by human sin.
3. Implications
There are at least two possible implications for our reading of Paul if he has used Isaiah 24–27 in the way this article suggests. First, the emergence in Rom 8.19–22 of a role for material creation in the context of human suffering and resurrection hope becomes less surprising and less anomalous than is often claimed; it may rarely be the focus of Paul’s concern, but the cosmic and the personal may be for him as inseparably entwined as for the author of Isaiah 24–27. Paul considers material creation itself to be caught up in the drama of salvation by virtue of having its fate tied to humankind. The story of Adam and the story of Israel, brought to a climax in the story of Christ, is also the story of God’s purposes for all creation. And if Isaiah 24 envisions a cosmic covenant as the context in which the earth’s fate is tied to those who dwell on it, Paul sees in Adam the one whose trans-
47 On Irenaeus’s interpretation of Rom 8 and the links he makes with 1 and 2 Corinthians, see J. D. Bingham, ‘Irenaeus’s Reading of Romans 8’, SBLSP 40 (2001) 131–50. 48 The connection Chrysostom observed between Rom 8.23 and 1 Cor 15.54 is also cited by Cranfield, Romans, 419.
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gression set the pattern of all those covenant-breakers who followed. When all people, Jew and Gentile alike, sin as Adam did and thus fall short of the glory of God, the futility of creation’s subjection is intensified and its slavery to ruin perpetuated.49 For Paul, it takes the new human being, Christ, to reverse the effects of this curse and, through his defeat of death, to provide the way for the children of God to enter into God’s glory, the glory intended for Adam.50 Creation is thus made able to share – as was always intended – in the freedom that pertains to that glory. There is a second possible implication for the interpretation of Rom 8.19–22. Paul’s reliance on Genesis 3 here implies that the subjection of creation is a past event that cannot in this age be altered; and most interpreters assume that this includes the results of its subjection, its ‘slavery to corruption’. But if Rom 8.19–22 is to be read in light of Paul’s possible use of Isaiah 24–27, the effects of creation’s subjection may not have entailed for Paul a once-for-all ontological change in the created order, or a ‘fall of nature’ in the traditional sense. Paul’s possible use of Isaiah 24 would suggest instead that the creation’s slavery to ‘ruin’ is a contingent slavery, such that it remains at the mercy of the effects of ongoing human sin and divine judgment. Paul claims that creation’s final release from this bondage will not be attained until the full revelation of the children of God, an event that Paul equates with a future ‘redemption of our bodies’. Yet there is ambiguity in the status of the ‘children of God’ in Romans 8, who both are and are not yet God’s children, and this ambiguity likely reflects the tension in Paul’s view of the resurrection life and the new creation, which belong at once both to the unseen future and to the believers’ present life in Christ. When this tension within Paul’s eschatology is situated within the dynamic context of a cosmic covenant provided by Isaiah, there may even be created an opening for those who desire to interpret Romans 8 ecologically. For Paul, God’s children and the created order are inevitably co-sharers in both suffering and glory; but, more than that, as through the Spirit the children of God are enabled ‘to become what they are’, there is perhaps hope even in ‘the present evil age’ that individuals and communities orient themselves toward God and creation in such a way that the ktivs i~ itself gains glimpses of its longed-for hope of freedom. 49 In some contrast to P. W. Macky’s emphasis on Satan as the one who subjects creation to futility and is the ‘destroyer of nature’ (St Paul’s Cosmic War Myth: A Military Version of the Gospel [Westminster College Library of Biblical Symbolism 2; New York: Peter Lang, 1998] 68–71), Paul’s argument seems to focus pre-eminently on human sin as that which enslaves creation to corruption and as that which even perhaps has yielded power to malevolent cosmic forces. 50 On the ‘glory of Adam’ here, see especially E. Adams, ‘Paul’s Story of God and Creation: The Story of How God Fulfils His Purposes in Creation’, Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment (ed. B. W. Longenecker; Louisville/London: Westminster John Knox, 2002) 19–43, esp. 29; cf. Hooker, From Adam to Christ, 82–4.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 90–114. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0028688508000064
The Strategic Arousal of Emotions in the Apocalypse of John: A Rhetorical-Critical Investigation of the Oracles to the Seven Churches* DAVI D A . DE S I LVA Ashland Theological Seminary, 910 Center Street, Ashland, Ohio 44805, USA
Heuristic use of classical rhetorical theorists’ discussion of appeals to the emotions allows the interpreter to discern the strategic arousal of three principal pairs of emotions in the seven oracles of Revelation: fear and confidence, friendship and enmity, and shame and emulation. While some of these emotional responses are evoked in multiple oracles, certain ones tend to be more fully nurtured in particular oracles, being more strategic to achieving the speaker’s specific goals for the audiences in those settings. John gives attention to the multiple dimensions of appeals to emotion as discussed by Aristotle (nurturing the frame of mind that is disposed to that particular emotion, identifying particular ‘others’ in regard to whom that emotion is rightly directed, and inscribing situations that naturally give rise to that emotion). Keywords: Revelation, Letters, Rhetoric, Seven churches
Revelation regularly provokes strong emotional responses in its readers, whether those readers resist John’s rhetoric1 or yield themselves fully to John’s rhetoric and re-inscribe John’s strategies in current contexts.2 And yet, despite the
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* This paper was written during research leave made possible by a research fellowship award from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung and study leave grant from Ashland Theological Seminary. The generous support of these institutions is most gratefully acknowledged. The author also wishes to express his thanks to the faculty of the Evangelisch-theologisches Seminar of the University of Tübingen, especially to Prof. Dr. Martin Hengel and Prof. Dr. Hermann Lichtenberger, for their gracious hospitality, and to Mrs. Marietta Haemmerle for her kind and ever-willing secretarial assistance throughout the period of this research leave. 1 As, for example, D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse (London: Penguin, 1980 [New York: A. A. Knopf, 1931]) 87–8; C. G. Jung, Answer to Job (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1954) 125. Both authors seek to be alert to the emotions expressed within/behind the text as well as evoked by the text. 2 Contemporary sectarian literature is often instructive in this regard. Herbert W. Armstrong, for example, correctly identifies John’s appeal to fear in Rev 6.15–17 and uses this, with the help of Gruenewaldesque illustrations by Basil Wolverton, to terrorize his readers into
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self-evident nature of Revelation’s emotionally evocative power, rhetorical critics have given little attention to the appeals to emotion in John’s Apocalypse, focusing most energetically instead on appeals to ethos, and then on appeals to logos or other facets of its rhetorical composition.3 The present study seeks to begin to remedy this lack of attention, starting with the seven oracles of Revelation 2–3.4 After a brief account of the results of scholarly investigation of this topic to date, and an explanation of the methodology to be followed, the opening chapters of Revelation will be examined with a view to answering three questions, all three of which are necessary for a fully ‘rhetorical’ analysis of pathos: (1) Where might we suspect John of trying to arouse particular emotions among his hearers, and what particular emotions would these be?; (2) What features of the text can we identify as likely to arouse these particular feelings, and on what basis can we make these claims (e.g. what evidence can we bring forward from the near-contemporary discussions of evoking emotions in the rhetorical handbooks)?; (3) To what end is John (potentially) evoking this emotion at this place in the text?5
Previous Investigations of Appeals to the Emotions in Revelation
Rhetorical critics show awareness of the importance and prominence of appeals to the emotions in Revelation and the evocative power of John’s imagery.6 However, many studies remain imprecise in their analysis of particular appeals to
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accepting the seal of God, namely, the yoke of Armstrong’s own instruction concerning keeping God’s commandments (The Book of Revelation Unveiled At Last! [Pasadena: Ambassador College, 1959] 44–5). See the survey of research in D. A. deSilva, ‘What Has Athens to do With Patmos: Rhetorical Criticism of the Revelation of John (1980–2005)’, Currents in Biblical Research 6 (2008) forthcoming. The seven oracles recommend themselves for study as a discrete textual unit on the basis of the unity of (highly stylized) form that sets them apart from the remainder of Revelation, the unity of implied speaker (the Glorified Christ), reinforced by references in the opening of each oracle to the vision of this speaker (1.12–20), and the unity of addressees (individual churches, though to be heard by the whole circle of congregations). Although developed independently, these three questions align with, and thereby confirm, those posed by Leander E. Keck in his prolegomenon, ‘Pathos in Romans? Mostly Preliminary Remarks’, Paul and Pathos (ed. Thomas H. Olbricht and Jerry L. Sumney; Symposium 16; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001) 71–96, esp. 87–8: ‘What emotion does Paul seek to elicit? How does he attempt to do so? And, what is its role in the whole undertaking?’ For example, Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 187; Loren L. Johns, The Christology of the Apocalypse of John: An Investigation into Its Origins and Rhetorical Force (WUNT 167; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003) 157–8; Ben Witherington III, Revelation (NCBC; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2003) 90. The importance of appeals to the emotions as an integrated part of an orator’s rhetorical strategy is, of course, well evidenced by the space devoted to the subject in classi-
92 david a. desilva pathos. Critics frequently observe that a particular feature of Revelation ‘evokes pathos’ without taking the step of specifying which emotion is likely to be aroused,7 let alone the further step of analyzing the particular literary means by which this emotion might be evoked (and how, on the basis of what criteria, the analyst suspects such an appeal to that particular emotion to exist). It would be necessary, however, to answer such questions if one is to provide a helpful analysis of the inner workings of the text. Some scholars venture at least to name the particular emotion that is likely to be evoked by particular expressions or images.8 In an early foray into the rhetorical criticism of Revelation, John Kirby identifies the arousal of ‘the pathos of awe’ as a rhetorical effect of John’s narration of his vision of Christ.9 More recently, I have suggested that assurances of God’s public vindication of God’s witnesses (e.g. in Rev 11.11–13) potentially arouse confidence, on the grounds that Aristotle associated awareness of the availability of help with the evocation of this emotion.10 John’s descriptions of privileged groups (e.g. the ‘favored’ subjects of the macarisms) will evoke emulation in the hearers, ‘moving them to seek to embody those values which receive approbation and bring honor’.11 Further, John is seen to arouse ‘indignation (nevmesi~) against Rome’ by portraying it as enjoying good fortune ‘contrary to all merit’ (Rev 14.18; 16.18–19.4).12 Ben Witherington has also
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cal rhetorical handbooks, as well as more recent analyses of the difference between ‘convincing’ someone (i.e. of the validity of some logical theorem) and ‘persuading’ someone (i.e. to commit his or her personal resources to taking some action). See P. Christopher Smith, The Hermeneutics of Original Argument: Demonstration, Dialectic, Rhetoric (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University, 1998) 4; Lauri Thuren, ‘“By Means of Hyperbole” (1 Cor 12.31b)’, Paul and Pathos (Obricht and Sumney, ed.), 97–114, esp. 109. Examples can be found in Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 31, 129; Robert Royalty, ‘The Rhetoric of Revelation’, SBL Seminar Papers, 1997 (SBLSP 36; Atlanta: Scholars, 1997) 596–617, esp. 609; idem, The Streets of Heaven: The Ideology of Wealth in the Apocalypse of John (Macon, GA: Mercer University, 1998) 138, 190; Lorn L. Johns, ‘The Lamb in the Rhetorical Program of the Apocalypse of John’, SBL Seminar Papers, 1998 (2 vols; SBLSP 37; Atlanta: Scholars, 1998) 2. 762–84, esp. 763; idem, Christology, 162, 163 n. 46. An appeal to the emotions remains, of course, only a rhetorical ‘potential’ that may or may not achieve its effect in any one particular hearer dependent on a number of factors. One important factor in regard to Revelation’s potential to evoke the likely emotional responses would be, of course, the degree to which John’s appeals to ethos have succeeded vs. the degree to which the discourse is heard with some lingering critical distance. J. T. Kirby, ‘The Rhetorical Situations of Revelation 1–3’, NTS 34 (1988) 197–207, esp. 199. D. A. deSilva, ‘Honor Discourse and the Rhetorical Strategy of the Apocalypse of John’, JSNT 71 (1998) 79–110, esp. 98. D. A. deSilva, ‘The Persuasive Strategy of the Apocalypse: A Socio-Rhetorical Investigation of Revelation 14.6–13’, SBL Seminar Papers, 1998, 2.785–806, esp. 804. deSilva, ‘Persuasive Strategy’, 797.
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helpfully named anger, fear, trust, and love as particular emotions that, at some point in the course of Revelation, John will seek to arouse, although without naming where in the text, how, and to what end each of these emotions is potentially evoked.13 These studies have provided, so far, only incipient analyses of appeals to pathos in the text. Adela Yarbro Collins has provided the only sustained study to date of the emotions potentially aroused – indeed, intentionally aroused – by Revelation’s narrative, including a discussion of the author’s particular goals for them. She perceives that John wishes for his hearers to ‘aspire’ to be God’s witnesses, suggesting that the career of the unnamed ‘witnesses’ of ch. 11 will advance this goal.14 If she were using Aristotelian language, she would have named this an appeal to emulation. Collins develops at greater length the ways in which John’s presentation of Roman power and Jewish authorities are ‘designed more to evoke terror than to allay it’, thus arousing fear.15 John’s portrayal of Rome’s enjoyment of endless wealth and luxury, attained through vicious and unjust behavior, would evoke resentment against Rome. This is very close to Aristotle’s description of ‘indignation’. John manipulates fear and resentment in his audience, she continues, in much the same way, and to the same ends, that Greek tragedy manipulated fear and pity.16 Yarbro Collins develops her insights into Revelation’s evocation of emotions in a psychological-exegetical direction rather than a rhetorical-critical one, focusing on the catharsis and containment of negative emotions. A rhetorical-critical investigation would focus more on how the arousal of particular emotions contributes to making the audience more amenable to adopt the values and pursue the courses of action promoted by the author. Nevertheless, Yarbro Collins has more thoroughly exhibited John’s evocation of emotion and examined the literary means by which this is accomplished than any scholar before or since. Attending, moreover, to the emotional effects of Greek tragedy, especially as analyzed by Aristotle in his Poetics, gives her work a strong methodological foothold in the slippery field of emotions as she draws on near-contemporary observations about how emotions are evoked and what effects are achieved by a particular text in regard to those emotions.
13 Witherington, Revelation, 17. 14 Adela Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster) 151. In her earlier article, ‘Revelation 18: Taunt-Song or Dirge’, L’Apocalypse johannique et l’apocalyptique dans le Nouveau Testament (ed. J. Lambrecht; BETL 53; Louvain: Leuven University, 1980) 185–204, Yarbro Collins helpfully investigates the potential for Rev 18 to arouse true sympathy (in Aristotelian and Ciceronian terms, ‘pity’) as well as signs of the author’s expression of a bitter joy at the fate of one’s enemies. She concludes that neither is truly present in the text. 15 Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 152–3. 16 Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 152–3.
94 david a. desilva Clearly, then, the analysis of appeals to emotion in the Revelation is an area in which much remains to be accomplished.
Methodological Considerations: Identifying Appeals to the Emotions
In order to pursue the analysis of appeals to emotion on a less subjective foundation than ‘knowing them when we feel them’,17 this study relies heavily on the near-contemporary discussions of how to evoke emotions in Greek and Latin rhetorical handbooks. Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric (2.2–11) provides a lengthy elaboration of topics that an orator might use to build a case, as it were, for the provocation of a particular emotional response, covering a wide range of human feeling (anger, calm, friendship, enmity, fear, confidence, shame, shamelessness, favor/gratitude18 and its negation, pity, indignation, envy, and emulation).19 His discussion pertains thus to material that the analyst can discover in a text (topics) rather than to techniques that could only be observed in the performance (emotional tone, demeanor, or gesture of the speaker, a prominent feature of Roman rhetoricians’ discussion of the subject).20 17 Troy Martin (‘The Voice of Emotion: Paul’s Pathetic Persuasion [Gal 4.12–20]’, Paul and Pathos [Olbricht and Sumney, ed.], 181–202, esp. 201 n. 53) rightly points out that analysts have more upon which to build their exegetical explorations than the ‘sensitivity’ or ‘intuition’ for which Albrecht Oepke called (Der Brief von Paulus an die Galater [2nd ed.; THKNT 9; Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1957). 18 The designation of the emotion treated in Rhet. 2.7 merely as ‘favour’ or ‘benevolence’ is too one-sided both for the range of meanings covered by the term cavri~ itself as well as for the situations that Aristotle includes, some of which clearly would arouse gratitude in response to favor. 19 In Aristotle, according to Steven J. Kraftchick (‘Pavqh in Paul: The Emotional Logic of “Original Argument”’, Paul and Pathos [Olbricht and Sumney, ed.], 39–68, esp. 56), ‘ethos and pathos arguments are indeed arguments . . . The pavqh are emotions that can be caused in the audience by demonstrating to the listeners that the conditions for those emotions are present’, focusing those emotions, showing ‘that they are justifiable’, and finally suggesting ‘actions that are consonant with the emotions’. See also Martin, ‘Voice of Emotion’, 188: ‘An orator moves hearers to anger toward someone, for example, by convincing them to adopt the opinion that this person has insulted them’. Aristotle does not provide comprehensive coverage of the full range of human emotions that can be strategically evoked to serve rhetorical ends, limiting his treatment to emotions appropriate for arenas of human debate or celebration, i.e., the forum, council chamber, and hall of justice (John M. Cooper, ‘An Aristotelian Theory of the Emotions’, Essays on Aristotle’s Rhetoric [ed. Amelie O. Rorty; Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California, 1996] 238–57, esp. 251). He does not, for example, treat the emotion of ‘awe’ or ‘wonder’, which would be evoked in the religious contexts of the Temple of Artemis, the Altar of Zeus, the Temple of Roma et Augustus, or the Christian ejkklhsiva – religious contexts of great interest and concern to John. 20 Kraftchick (‘Pavqh in Paul’, 47–57) provides an excellent, succinct analysis of the differences between Greek and Latin rhetorical theory concerning appeals to the emotions.
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Aristotle’s treatment is supplemented in important ways by Latin orators. Because of a greater focus on forensic rhetoric, texts in the Ciceronian corpus (including the misattributed Rhetorica ad Herennium) provide detailed discussions only of indignation and pity (De Inventione 1.53.101–1.56.109; Rhet. Her. 2.30.48–2.31.50), with only some passing attention given to love (amor), compassion (misericordia), and jealousy (invidia; De oratore 2.51.205–2.52.211). Cicero (De or. 2.53.215–216) and Quintilian (Inst. 6.1.18, 20, 46) call attention to the orator’s obligation to sweep aside the feelings evoked by an opposing speaker by means of arousing the contrary emotion, just as surely as the opponent’s proofs must be deconstructed.21 They also add an important dimension to the repertoire of rhetorical theory by suggesting that the speaker’s own experience of emotion is an essential resource for dampening or kindling the audience’s feelings (De or. 2.45.189–2.47.197; Inst. 6.1.11; 6.2.26). Quintilian suggests a strategy by means of which a speaker can conjure up his or her own emotions that is particularly relevant for analyzing Revelation, and that is for the orator to so vividly present the scenes about which he or she speaks to his or her own mind’s eye through imagination ‘that they seem actually to be before our very eyes’ (Inst. 6.2.29), enabling him or her ‘not so much to narrate as to exhibit the actual scene’ (Inst. 6.2.32), and augmenting the audience’s immediacy to the scenes and their emotionally evocative content. The material in these classical handbooks has already been extensively employed in detailed analyses of appeals to pathos in other early Christian texts, particularly the epistolary literature (above all, the Pauline corpus).22 No presumption need be made that John learned or consciously imitated these conventions.23 As a distillation of their authors’ observation of rhetorical practice and its effects, the handbooks provide near-contemporary evidence concerning how 21 Such shifts in emotion are especially prominent in the analyses of 2 Corinthians and Galatians by Jerry Sumney (‘Paul’s Use of Pavqo~ in His Argument against the Opponents of 2 Corinthians’, Paul and Pathos [Olbricht and Sumney, ed.] 147–60, esp. 149–50) and Troy Martin (‘Voice of Emotion’, 184–201). The audience’s emotional disposition at the time of writing should be considered by the orator as a potential contribution to the ‘rhetorical problem’. 22 This method is employed in Bruce C. Johanson, To All the Brethren: A Text-Linguistic and Rhetorical Approach to 1 Thessalonians (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1987); Duane F. Watson, Invention, Arrangement, and Style: Rhetorical Criticism of Jude and 2 Peter (SBLDS 104; Atlanta: Scholars, 1988) 39–40, 71–86; D. A. deSilva, Perseverance in Gratitude: A Sociorhetorical Commentary on the Epistle ‘to the Hebrews’ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) 103–7, 151–2, 183, 210–14, 239–40, 343–54, 380; and several of the studies collected in Olbricht and Sumney, eds., Paul and Pathos, which have substantially helped confirm and refine the methodological approach of the present essay. 23 Kraftchick (‘Pavqh in Paul’, 42–3) provides a helpful model of nuancing these problems commonly associated with classical rhetorical criticism of the NT, as well as the position taken by Sumney (‘Paul’s Use of Pavqo~’, 149).
96 david a. desilva first-century audiences responded to particular rhetorical prompts (e.g. ‘topics’). Where an analyst discovers the presence of these prompts in a NT text, even one so far removed from the Greek oration as Revelation, he or she has a solid textual basis for presuming an emotional response on the part of the hearers, and an invitation to explore how this emotional reaction would help guide their response to the author’s discourse and serve his goals. The point is often made that rhetorical criticism needs, in general, to take into account more recent theory.24 In terms of their attention to appeals to the emotions, however, recent rhetorical and speech theorists actually fall short of Aristotle.25 Moreover, in regard to the analysis of appeals to emotion (particularly in Revelation), we have not begun even to employ the insights of classical rhetorical theory to their fullest. This study, then, will focus on the insights of classical rhetoricians concerning how to build a case, as it were, for evoking particular emotions, using their insights heuristically to facilitate rather than constrain and limit explorations of the rhetoric of these texts. The results, it is hoped, will provide at least a baseline study for more nuanced investigations of pathos in Revelation as scholars attend also to the task of expanding the methodological foundation for the investigation of appeals to emotions in ancient texts.
Genre and Rhetorical Orientation
Readers are strongly disposed to encounter, and therefore analyze, these chapters as a collection of seven ‘letters’, a generic label that has almost come to be assumed.26 This impression is reinforced by the prominent identification of these chapters as ‘letters’ in titles that perennially attract attention both among scholars and the broader community of students of Scripture.27 Such a generic frame leads, in turn, to the application of epistolographic theory and conventions to their interpretation, even against the evidence of the text itself. John Kirby gives an example of this as he writes: ‘Each begins, after what may be termed the salu-
24 Olbricht, ‘Introduction’, 2; C. Joachim Classen, ‘St. Paul’s Epistles and Ancient Greek and Roman Rhetoric’, Rhetorica 10 (1992) 325–32, esp. 321–2. 25 Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrichts-Tyteca (The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation [Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1969]), for example, give only passing attention to the subject. See Thomas Olbricht’s survey of, and conclusions concerning, the contributions of contemporary theory (‘Introduction’, 2–3). 26 As, for example, in David L. Barr, ‘The Apocalypse as a Symbolic Transformation of the World: A Literary Analysis’, Interpretation 38 (1984) 39–50, esp. 45: ‘The risen Christ dictates seven letters’. 27 E.g., William Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia and their Place in the Plan of the Apocalypse (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1904); Colin Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in their Local Setting (Sheffield: JSOT, 1986).
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tation (‘to the church at X, write’), with the phrase tavde levgei . . .’.28 The formula, ‘To the church at X, write’, is not, however, anything like a ‘salutation’. It is explicitly an instruction to John, not a greeting as in Rev 1.4: ‘John to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace and peace’. There is a growing awareness, however, that the ‘seven letters’ are not ‘letters’ at all. In an important article, David E. Aune correctly observes that the formula ‘To the church at X, write’ is part of the literary setting, since the actual messages begin with the ‘thus says’ formula.29 This formula, in turn, signals an immediate correspondence with the prophetic oracles of the Hebrew Scriptures as well as pagan oracles,30 and secondarily with Persian royal diplomatic letters and edicts and later edicts issued by Roman magistrates and emperors.31 The instruction to John to ‘write’ signals not dictation of a letter, but of an oracle. It is an instruction quite at home in the Greco-Roman milieu where ‘gods command various individuals, usually through the medium of a dream, to write books’.32 Aune’s conclusion that ‘the seven proclamations . . . exhibit few features derived from the Hellenistic epistolary tradition’ has been increasingly accepted.33 This clarification of genre carries significant implications for our appreciation of how the first hearers would have encountered these proclamations, and thus for the analysis of the rhetorical effects of the proclamations on these hearers. As oracles (and all the more if they are heard as oracles proclaiming edicts) these communications arouse fewer expectations for involved attempts at persuasion, but rather more forthright diagnosis and command.34 The form raises the issue of the superior and unquestionable authority of the speaker. John intends for his 28 Kirby, ‘Rhetorical Situations’, 200. 29 David E. Aune, ‘The Form and Function of the Proclamations to the Seven Churches (Revelation 2–3)’, NTS 36 (1990) 182–204, esp. 185. 30 Aune, ‘Form and Function’, 187–88; so also Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 46; D. A. deSilva, ‘The Social Setting of the Revelation to John: Conflicts Within, Fears Without’, WTJ 54 (1992) 273–302, 286–7; Paul B. Duff, Who Rides the Beast? Prophetic Rivalry and the Rhetoric of Crisis in the Churches of the Apocalypse (New York/Oxford: Oxford University, 2001) 32. 31 Aune, ‘Form and Function’, 188; Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation, 46. Aune argues that, within the identification of these communications as prophetic oracles, the particular pattern of the imperial edict gives further definition to the form of each pronouncement, a means by which John can give voice to his conviction that ‘Christ is the true king in contrast to the Roman emperor who is both a clone and tool of Satan’ (‘Form and Function’, 204). 32 Aune, ‘Form and Function’, 187. 33 Aune, ‘Form and Function’, 194; Royalty, ‘Rhetoric of Revelation’, 609; Witherington, Revelation, 41, 90. 34 Argumentation is not absent, as Kirby has rightly observed in regard to the presence of ‘inferential particles’ signaling enthymeme in the seven oracles (‘Rhetorical Situation’, 202–3), with the result that ‘the pronouncements, though absolute, are seen not to be irrationally despotic: there is logos, a rationale, underlying them all’.
98 david a. desilva audience to hear Christ speaking to them,35 and Christ’s position in the worldview shared by John and the congregations allows him indeed to command, whereas John, even if a respected leader, could only effectively come alongside to persuade. The letter form nurtures the expectation of a more ‘friendly’ communication that might ‘enjoin’, where the oracles can ‘command’ and are thus sharply to be distinguished from epistolary paraenesis.36 In light of this, those features that the seven oracles do share with paraenesis stand out more starkly and carry, potentially, a greater rhetorical impact since they are the less expected.37 Oracular form also gives greater room for the use of threat and promise (rather than moral exhortation) as effective motivators, which is exactly what we find in the seven proclamations. At the same time, these oracles are couched within a larger epistolary framework (1.4; 22.21), the genre that John has chosen for the delivery of his own voice. God gives a ‘revelation’ (1.1); Christ commands in oracles (2.1–3.22). John himself, however, can write a ‘letter’ (1.4), coming alongside the hearers in a way that creates strong feelings of association (e.g. presenting himself as a ‘brother’ and ‘fellow sharer’ in both the hope and the costs of discipleship, in 1.9) and 35 Royalty, ‘The Rhetoric of Revelation’, 610. Royalty rightly observes that the closing summons of each oracle, ‘Let anyone who has an ear listen’, is ‘an echo of the Synoptic parables’ (Royalty, ‘The Rhetoric of Revelation’, 610). This constitutes a kind of stylistic ‘signature’ marking the style of the oracles in a way that connects them with Jesus’ known speech patterns, increasing the likelihood of acceptance on the part of the hearers that this represents Jesus’ ‘true’ speech. 36 In this regard, the seven oracles more closely resemble ‘the Mosaic law, which prohibits or commands, but hardly engages in paraenesis’ (James Starr and Troels Engberg-Pedersen, ‘Introduction’, Early Christian Paraenesis in Context [ed. James Starr and Troels EngbergPedersen; BZNW 125; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2004] 1–12, esp. 2). Those features of the seven oracles that command, prohibit, and, moreover, threaten and promise would not be seen here to nurture a paraenetic environment, which relies rather on ‘benevolent injunction’ (see Wiard Popkes, ‘Paraenesis in the New Testament’, Early Christian Paraenesis [Starr and Engberg-Pedersen, ed.], 13–46, esp. 28; Troels Engberg-Pedersen, ‘The Concept of Paraenesis’, Early Christian Paraenesis [Starr and Engberg-Pedersen, ed.], 47–72, esp. 52). 37 In regard to paraenesis, this study is particularly informed by Starr and Engberg-Pedersen, eds., Early Christian Paraenesis, and Leo G. Perdue and John G. Gammie, Paraenesis: Act and Form (Semeia 50; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1990). As a result, it tends toward the narrower definition of ‘paraenesis’ that rejects the practice of using ‘paraenetic’ interchangeably with ‘hortatory’ (as, for example, in David E. Aune, Revelation 1–5 [WBC 52a; Dallas: Word Books, 1997] lxxxvii–lxxxviii and cxxv, where precisely the same list of textual features, chiefly in the seven oracles, is first described as ‘hortatory’ and later as an example of ‘parenesis’). Especially the Lund-Oslo conferences resulting in the volume by Starr and Engberg-Pedersen sought to establish that ‘what may be called “hortatory”, need not be “paraenetical”’ (Wiard Popkes, ‘Paraenesis’, 38). The specific commands given in the seven oracles stand at some distance from the ‘clear, concrete guidance’ concerning behavior within established domestic or social roles that characterizes speech or texts properly called ‘paraenetic’ (Popkes, ‘Paraenesis’, 42; Engberg-Pedersen, ‘The Concept of Paraenesis’, 53, 62).
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signals pastoral intent,38 while including oracles (2.1–3.22) and other more authoritative and authoritarian communications speaking with the power of divine command. He can thus ‘have it both ways’ in terms of constructing authority for his message.
Appeals to the Emotions in the Oracles to the Seven Churches
The congregations’ experience of hearing the seven oracles is necessarily colored by the opening chapter of the book that provides the narrative frame for the whole. Two features of this introductory chapter are of special importance here: the establishment of ‘imminence’ as the overall temporal frame of reference and the evocations of ‘awe’ in connection with the narrated vision of the Glorified Christ.39 The opening sentences of Revelation twice evoke the topic of ‘imminence’ (a{ dei` genevsqai ejn tavcei, 1.1; oJ ga;r kairo;~ ejgguv~, 1.3), establishing ‘imminence’ as a frame for all the material that John is about to describe. Precisely what is imminent comes into sharper focus as the decisive visitation of God/Christ is held vividly before the audiences’ eyes: ‘Look! He comes (e[rcetai) with the clouds!’ (1.7).40 The description of God, moreover, as ‘the one who is and who was and the one who comes’ (1.4, 8) modifies a widespread, traditional formula concerning the eternity of God (e.g. ‘Zeus is, Zeus was, Zeus will be’), and thus, in a sense, the timelessness of God, in favor of crafting an image of the ‘imminently intervening’ God (not oJ eleusovmeno~, ‘the one who will come [at some point]’, but oJ ejrcovmeno~, ‘the one who is [in the process of] coming’).41 38 Greg Carey, ‘The Apocalypse and Its Ambiguous Ethos’, Studies in the Book of Revelation (ed. Stephen Moyise; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2001) 163–80, esp. 173. 39 The verbal repetitions of phrases from Rev 1.12–20 in the self-introduction of the speaker in each of the seven oracles shows intentional connection between these passages, as does the verbal repetition of Christ ‘coming’ or ‘coming quickly’ in 1.7–8; 2.5, 15; 3.11. 40 Where the MT employs a perfect tense verb, OG an imperfect indicative, and Theodotion a periphrastic imperfect construction to speak of this ‘coming’, John has used the present tense of vivid narration. John seems to see this very sight happening before his eyes. Although Quintilian was talking about the benefits of a vivid imagination rather than ecstatic visionary experiences, it is still noteworthy that such ‘internal imaginings’ (fantasiva, visiones) were recommended as a means by which a speaker could effectively evoke emotional responses in himself or herself, so as to provide the spark to ignite the flames of emotion in the audience as well (Inst. 6.2.29–32). Since John is narrating what he claims to be a visionary experience, however, his vivid and immediate descriptions may present the scenes not only to himself, but also to his hearers’ internal sight, evoking their emotional responses more directly. 41 The translation of Rev 1.4, 8 comes from Aune, Revelation 1–5, 57. That God ‘was, is, and will be’ is a widely attested tripartite formula for Deity in the Classical and Roman periods (many examples are helpfully collected in Aune, Revelation 1–5, 30–2).
100 david a. desilva On the one hand, these opening evocations of the topic of imminence work effectively to heighten the hearers’ attention (hence, contributing to ethos), particularly in regard to the deliberative aspects of Revelation. Imminence, however, is also the foundation for appeals to the emotions of fear and confidence.42 Aristotle defines fear (fovbo~) as ‘a painful or troubled feeling caused by the impression of an imminent evil (kakou`) that causes destruction or pain’ (Rhet. 2.5.1). He stresses the proximity of harm: people will be afraid ‘only if [harmful things] appear to be not far off but near at hand and threatening’ (Rhet. 2.5.2). Similarly, confidence (qarrei`n), as ‘the contrary of fear’, is evoked by ‘the hope of what is salutary . . . accompanied by an impression that it is quite near at hand’ (Rhet. 2.5.16). This topic of imminence will be significantly reinforced as Revelation proceeds.43 Imminence, and the evocations specifically of fear and confidence in connection with ‘imminent’ events posing threat or promise, heightens the urgency that helps create a situation in which the hearers are disposed to deliberate,44 to consider possible changes in their courses of action (a rhetorical function highlighted by Aristotle specifically in regard to fear, Rhet. 2.5.14), and to adopt the actions commanded in the seven oracles. In Rev 1.12–20, John brings the Glorified Christ before the eyes of his congregations using language drawn from theophanies and angelophanies of the Hebrew Scriptures (notably recontextualizing details from Daniel and Ezekiel). John Kirby had helpfully suggested that Christ is pictured in a way evocative of the feeling of awe.45 While Aristotle did not provide a detailed list of topics or situations to which an audience could be expected to respond with awe, we can readily understand how this emotional response would be generated by means of religious ritual in the context of, for example, impressive temples with grandiose representations of deities.
42 Royalty (‘Rhetoric of Revelation’, 609) had observed that Rev 1.1–3 ‘heightens the emotional impact, or pathos, of the text on the audience’, first by creating a sense of ‘eschatological urgency’ and second by pronouncing a blessing, though he did not specify which emotions would be evoked by these two features, nor how. Similarly, Schüssler Fiorenza (Revelation, 115) sensed that ‘the urgency of Revelation’s imminent expectation clearly serves rhetorical functions’ without probing more fully what those functions would be. 43 e[rcomaiv soi tacuv (2.16); e[rcomai tacuv (3.11); crovno~ oujkevt i e[stai (10.6); a{ dei` genevsqai ejn tavcei (22.6); kai; idou; e[rcomai tacuv (22.7); oJ kairo;~ ga;r ejgguv~ ejstin (22.10); ijdou; e[rcomai tacuv (22.12); naiv, e[rcomai tacuv (22.20). The concentration of the last five of these statements in the functional peroration of the book suggests that John is giving special attention to closing appeals to pathos, especially in regard to reinforcing fear and confidence (which emotion a hearer feels will correspond with where one sees oneself reflected in the contents of the seven oracles and the visions). 44 See Kraftchick, ‘Pavqh in Paul’, 45–6, on the role that ‘emotions play . . . in initiating thought and creative thinking’. 45 Kirby, ‘Rhetorical Situation’, 199.
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Revelation 1.12–16; 4.1–5.14 can be understood largely as representations of God, Christ, heavenly personnel, and heavenly court ceremonial designed to arouse genuine awe – and this, most strategically. The extensive scholarly literature on Revelation’s interaction with, and opposition to, Roman imperial cult and court ceremonial leaves now little room for doubt that John attempted to evoke such a response, in part, to draw members of the audience away from the possibility of being impressed by the emperor, especially through all the pomp and circumstance of the manifestations of imperial cult in their cities, and to be more impressed – to feel more awe – in response to Jesus.46 The Glorified Christ trumps all the pretensions of human rulers and their pomp, their ‘aura’. John’s own response reflects the emotional response he seeks to kindle among his audience – being so overcome by the vision of Christ as he exists now in his post-resurrection, post-ascension state, that physical strength fails (Rev 1.17).47 This is not to say, however, that John’s presentation should not also evoke ‘fear’ in the more normal sense, especially in the context of the topics of imminence (temporal, in regard to second coming, but also now spatial, in regard to standing in the midst of the seven lampstands; 1.12–13, 20). Fear, indeed, is a response John acknowledges to be naturally generated by such a vision, and which certainly colors the ‘awe’ that Kirby discerned here, for it is this emotional response that Christ himself allays as he lays his hand upon John to strengthen him and utters the words mh; fobou` (1.17). The same ambiguity (or, perhaps better, multivalent potential) that inheres in the topic of imminence inheres in the presentation of the Glorified Christ: both topics can be nurtured now in a direction that evokes fear or in a direction that evokes confidence. It is this awesome, divine figure who confronts the churches in Revelation 2–3. Such power and strength as he embodies stands ready to enforce the warnings (fear), but also to encourage the believers, setting before them open doors that no one can close (confidence).
46 The Letter of Jeremiah evidences a similar dynamic. Here, another spokesperson for the monolatry at the heart of the Jewish tradition seeks to prevent the religious practices of the neighboring peoples deceiving the Jews in Diaspora into feeling awe before their gods – ‘Therefore, do not fear them’ is the constant refrain. See D. A. deSilva, Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002) 217–21, and the literature therein cited. 47 We recall here Cicero’s advice (De or. 2.45.189–2.47.197) that the speaker must himself or herself feel the emotions he or she would wish to arouse in the hearers. This principle needs to be applied with caution, of course, since not every such expression signals an appeal to pathos, or, at least, to that particular emotion. This is abundantly clear from Rev 5.3–4, where John weeps when no one is found who is worthy to open the scroll. John surely does not intend to arouse sorrow among the hearers at this juncture; rather, his weeping serves as part of a narrativization of a topic of encomium, namely the unique achievement of the subject of the encomium, here, the Lamb.
102 david a. desilva 1. Fear and Confidence Rather than proceed through the seven oracles seriatim, this study will focus on the arousal of particular emotions throughout the seven oracles, following Aristotle’s own pairing of contrary (but often complementary) emotions. The oracle to Ephesus begins with a topic of proximity: the Glorified Christ is not afar off in the world beyond, but stands in the midst of the seven congregations (Rev 2.1).48 He is thus close at hand to carry out the threat made at the close of the oracle, namely ‘to remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent’ (2.5). Spatial proximity functions in much the same way as temporal proximity (‘imminence’, which is nevertheless also present as a foundation for the entire experience of hearing Revelation): the threatened loss or harm is close at hand. John plays a similar change on the topic of imminence within the oracle to Sardis: ‘If, then, you will not be watchful, I will come as a thief, and you will certainly not know in what hour I will come upon you’ (Rev 3.3).49 Here, it is not that Christ will come ‘quickly’ against them, but that he will come suddenly, without warning. The vision of Christ in 1.12–20 reinforces the impression that he has the power to carry out his threats if he continues to be provoked by the congregation’s lack of responsiveness.50 The topics productive of fear, if successful, help to move the congregations toward discovering the ‘works’ that manifest the recovery of their ‘first love’ or genuine ‘life’ so as to avoid encountering this powerful figure to their harm.51 Appeals to fear are more fully developed in the oracles to Pergamum and Thyatira. In Rev 2.12, Christ confronts the congregation as the one ‘having the 48 In the discussion that follows, I will speak of John orchestrating topics in the seven oracles, but also of ‘the Glorified Christ’ speaking to the congregations. Neither constitutes a claim in regard to the vexed question of the genuineness or artifice of these oracular pronouncements. 49 That the speaker (Christ) anticipates disagreement or resistence, to the point even of announcing plans for dealing with such a response (‘but if not, . . .’; see Rev 2.5b, 16b; 3.3b), distinguishes these oracles from paraenesis as defined by, for example, Pseudo-Libanius (‘paraenesis is a word of advice not expecting opposition, as if someone would say that it is necessary to honour the divine; For nobody objects to that advice, unless he were crazy beforehand’; quoted in Popkes, ‘Paraenesis’, 45) and by the working group that shaped the Oslo definition of the phenomenon (Starr and Engberg-Pedersen, ‘Introduction’, 4). 50 The identification of a powerful figure who has been or is being provoked, especially a figure of principle, is an important constituent of an effective appeal to fear. Signals of fear include ‘the enmity and anger (ojrghv) of those able to injure us in any way . . . and outraged virtue (ajreth; uJbrizomevnh) when it has power, for it is evident that it always desires satisfaction, whenever it is outraged, and now it has the power’ (Aristotle Rhet. 2.5.3, 5). 51 Some hope of escape must be left, or else people will not be afraid (Aristotle Rhet. 2.5.14), and this is indeed the case in regard to constellations of topics of fear in Revelation. There is a way out for anyone on the wrong side of the Glorified Christ (except, perhaps, for ‘Jezebel’, who has already confirmed her commitment to persevere in the direction she has chosen).
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sharp, double-edged sword’.52 This sword is pointed specifically at the Nicolaitans, who have provoked God (and thus have aroused the anger of one who is ‘able to injure’, Aristotle Rhet. 2.5.3, 5) with their promotion of ‘eating foods sacrificed to idols and fornication’ (Rev 2.14–15), and not at the congregation as a whole (2.16).53 The topic of imminence (‘I will come to you quickly’, 2.16) is also explicitly introduced in connection with the fate of the Nicolaitan party in Pergamum, completing the recipe for eliciting fear. Since the threat clings specifically to being associated with the Nicolaitans, fear contributes to motivating the members of the congregation sympathetic to the Nicolaitan’s message and practice to distance themselves from the same. Similarly in the oracle to Thyatira, the Glorified Christ announces the threat of imminent harm to Jezebel and those who are connected with her (2.22–23). John employs the present tense as a means of making the threatened consequences more vivid, more imminent (ijdou; bavllw, 2.22), despite the fact that they are still future consequences, occurring only if the way of escape is not taken first (eja;n mh; metanohvswsin).54 The amplitude of this threatened harm is magnified in Rev 2.23b: It will be so stunning that ‘all the churches’ will feel its repercussions, giving rise to a new and profound reverence for the ‘one who searches minds and heart’. The overtones here of God’s gaining glory by means of the plagues God will visit upon Pharaoh, striking fear into the hearts of other nations, are unmistakable, and contribute to the dread of what this judgment will look like for anyone caught in bed with Jezebel.55 By contrast, Rev 2.24–25 evoke confidence among ‘the rest’ in Thyatira by equating ‘not holding to her teaching’ with being found in need of no major ‘adjustment’ in their walk in order for it ‘to be well with them in regard to the gods’ (Aristotle Rhet. 2.5.21), specifically, God and God’s Christ. The juxtaposition of arousing fear in connection with following Jezebel’s teaching and con52 The presentation of the speaker (Christ) as one who stands equipped and ready violently to enforce his commands (2.5b; 12; 16b; 21–23; 3.3b) is another prominent feature that significantly distances these oracles from paraenesis. 53 Appropriately in regard to the historical precedent invoked, Christ makes war with these contemporary Balaamites ‘with the sword’, even as the Israelites killed the historical Balaam ‘with the sword’ (Num 31.8). 54 A few scribes ‘correct’ John on this point, writing balw` for bavllw, missing the rhetorical contribution of the present tense verb here. 55 In Num 25.1–9, eating food sacrificed to idols and committing fornication resulted in death by plague for many among the Hebrews. Here, it is noteworthy that Jezebel’s punishment is to be cast upon a bed (klivnh), which many commentators read as a ‘sickbed’ (Duff, Who Rides the Beast, 92; Witherington, Revelation, 104; though its multiple valences are also aptly noted in W. J. Harrington, Revelation [SP 16; Collegeville: Liturgical, 1993] 64; Gerhard A. Krodel, Revelation [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989] 125; Jürgen Roloff, Die Offenbarung des Johannes [ZBNT 18; Zurich: Theologischer, 1984] 55), and that her children will be killed ‘with death’, a redundancy that almost certainly indicates that qavnato~ should be heard here to denote a certain manner of death, namely ‘plague’ (as in BDAG).
104 david a. desilva fidence in connection with distance from the same, of course, clearly serves the rhetorical goal of distancing the Christians in Thyatira from this prophetess, even potentially motivating them to put an end to her teaching within the congregation. The oracle to Smyrna contains a description of a situation of imminent harm that could be expected naturally to arouse a response of fear (Rev 2.10). The Glorified Christ, however, explicitly seeks to allay that emotional response, cutting it off ahead of time: ‘Fear nothing that you are about to suffer’ (mhde;n fobou` a{ mevllei~ pavscein, 2.10a). Instead, his speech nurtures a different kind of emotional response to the situation of fearsome opposition, namely confidence, as he recalls his own conquest of death, the most fearsome evil (2.8b), minimizes the danger by specifying its short duration (hJmerw`n devka, 2.10), and promises safety from a far more fearsome evil for the disciples who successfully meet the challenges set before them (2.11b). The oracle to Philadelphia is especially rich in topics that were recognized to evoke confidence. Christ presents himself as a powerful Ally who will open the way forward to the congregation, with no one to hinder: ‘These things says . . . the one who opens and no one will close, who closes and no one opens: . . . I set in front of you an open door that no one is able to shut’ (3.7–8). This opening combines the topics of having ‘means of help’ (Aristotle Rhet. 2.5.17), namely allies whose ‘interests are the same as ours’ and who are ‘stronger’ than the opposition (Rhet. 2.5.18), and the assurance of divine favor delivered through an oracle (Rhet. 2.5.21) in regard to a present conflict. Whatever the precise nature of this conflict,56 this same, powerful Ally will bring it about that the synagogue will come to acknowledge the congregation’s beloved place in the eyes of the Son of God (3.9). Similarly, the congregation receives assurance of safety in regard to ‘the hour of testing that is about to come upon the whole inhabited world to test those dwelling on the earth’ (3.10), which will be developed at length in the course of the visions to follow. The exact sense of this assurance is rendered problematic by the unusual expression ‘thrhvsw ejk’, insofar as it is not clear whether the congregation will be ‘kept from’ this trial or ‘preserved through and out of the midst of’ the same.57 If the former sense, this topic corresponds with Aristotle’s suggestion that making fearful things seem far-off or non-existent will arouse confidence; if the latter sense, the emotional response is still the same, though grounded in differ56 The conflict with the synagogue is not developed here in the same degree of detail as it is in the oracle to the church in Smyrna. 57 See discussions, for example, in Aune, Revelation 1–5, 239–40; G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) 290–2. In the context of visions that show disciples consistently emerging as ‘victors’ on the other side of trial (see especially Rev 7.13–17; 15.2–4), the latter option (preferred by both Aune and Beale) seems by far the most likely.
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ent affirmations (the presence of help, strong and capable Allies, and other such resources as assure a successful outcome). In this oracle, the topic of imminence invoked by Christ’s declaration, ‘I am coming quickly’ (3.11), would serve to further nurture confidence, ‘the hope of what is salutary’ being ‘accompanied by an impression that it is quite near at hand’ (Aristotle Rhet. 2.5.16). Feelings of confidence are aroused to compensate, in part, for the congregation’s awareness of its own relative powerlessness (3.8b), and to embolden it to continue in the course of ‘not denying [Christ’s] name’, not bending before any pressure that might be applied by the local synagogue there (3.9). 2. Friendship and Enmity Words that show ‘good feelings’, that manifest admiration or appreciation, and that praise the hearers’ good qualities all potentially arouse feelings of friendship (Aristotle Rhet. 2.4.14, 19). The words of commendation in five of the seven oracles (2.2a, 3, 9, 13, 19; 3.8), then, are very likely to have this effect.58 Aristotle especially finds that speakers ‘who praise our good qualities, especially those which we ourselves are afraid we do not possess’ (Rhet. 2.4.14), evoke friendly feelings, something that may apply in the case of those at Smyrna, whose material poverty may have hidden from their own eyes – but not from Christ’s – the fact that they are rich in those things that have value before God (Rev 2.9). Words of commendation are especially well developed in the oracles to Pergamum and Thyatira (2.13, 19). The connection of praise and friendly feelings is self-evident enough; the words of censure embedded in the majority of the seven oracles are a little more difficult in terms of the potential evocations of emotions. Frank naming of faults can be employed as a further evocation of feelings of friendship (Aristotle Rhet. 2.4.27). However, the exposure of faults could also arouse anger if the motives are not perceived to be friendly, for example, intended to humiliate another for one’s own advantage (Aristotle Rhet. 2.2.22; 2.4.16). A number of factors suggest that 58 This is also a point at which the seven oracles resemble paraenesis: ‘Paraenesis typically compliments present behavior, indicating a degree of personal acquaintance between the speaker and the audience. Thus paraenesis was aptly suited to the letter genre, since a chief characteristic of the letter was that it should be a friendly, personal communication’ (James Starr, ‘Was Paraenesis for Beginners?’, Early Christian Paraenesis (Starr and EngbergPedersen, ed.), 73–111, esp. 79, referring to A. J. Malherbe, Moral Exhortation: A Greco-Roman Sourcebook [LEC 4; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986] 125). The speaker’s complimenting of the congregations introduces an element of affirmation that is less characteristic of the oracle genre to which these proclamations belong, and may therefore have fostered a greater sense of friendly feeling/disposition, a positive emotion that would help to encourage the church to face the criticism and have greater confidence concerning their recovery. That such complimentary language was strategic may be inferred from the fact that it is least developed in the oracle to Smyrna, where there is also no rebuke or criticism.
106 david a. desilva even the moments of censure will not jeopardize the feelings of friendship which John hopes will shape the hearers’ response to these oracles and to the Christ who confronts them. First, John has previously reminded the addressees how Jesus has acted on their behalf in such a way as to arouse their deep gratitude (Rev 1.5–6); his love for them and acts on their behalf establish an overarching framework of ‘friendship’ as a dominant pathos (Aristotle Rhet. 2.4.2, 5, 29). Second, Jesus acts out a wellestablished script appropriate for a divinity in the mode of prophetic confrontation. This is, further, consistently presented as a confrontation that has the best interests of the audience at heart (Cicero De or. 2.51.206), for example, to move them back to a place of experiencing covenant blessings rather than judgment. Third, where virtues are identified as lacking, the Glorified Christ may express the conviction that the congregation formerly exhibited those virtuous behaviors (as in Rev 2.4–5). To be upbraided for falling short of one’s own former example interweaves a topic of praise and admiration, hence, a topic evocative of friendship (Aristotle Rhet. 2.4.14, 19), into the rebuke.59 Fourth, Christ shows every expectation that, if the congregations are willing, they are able to overcome these faults. The rebukes express no lack of esteem. Fifth, Christ enthusiastically offers promises of reward for those who heed his correction of their faults (2.7, 11, 17, 26–28; 3.5, 12, 21). Aristotle suggested that people are disposed in a friendly way toward ‘those who bear no malice and do not cherish the memory of their wrongs, but are easily appeased’ (Rhet. 2.4.17), and Christ’s overtures and promises to the defective congregations communicate such an attitude toward the hearers. Finally, in some oracles, such as those addressed to the church in Pergamum and Thyatira, the words of censure do not focus on the congregation as a whole, but on some narrow segment or third party. The inter-relatedness of feelings of friendship and enmity is especially clear from the fact that the topic of having common enemies was also seen to support the feeling of friendship. Friends ‘love and hate the same persons’ (Aristotle Rhet. 2.4.4). ‘Those whose enemies are ours, [and] those who hate those whom we ourselves hate’, tend to be regarded as friends, being united by a common enemy
59 The speaker twice enjoins the hearers to ‘remember’ (Rev 2.5; 3.3). The topic of ‘reminding’ addressees about their training with a view to calling them to live up to what they already know is closely identified with paraenesis (Aune, Revelation 1–5, 147; Abraham Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987] 7). The speaker, in the midst of rebuke and command, reaffirms ‘the listener’s dignity’ (Starr, ‘Was Paraenesis for Beginners?’, 84) by presenting the necessary action as an outworking of what is already within their intellectual grasp (particularly emphasized in Rev 3.3) and even a characteristic of their own past behavior (more to the fore in Rev 2.5). The command to ‘hold fast’ (Rev 2.25; 3.11), signaling again that what is needful is within the addressees’ grasp and practice, would have a similar effect.
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(Rhet. 2.4.6–7). We might well expect this topic to function in this way in the seven oracles as well, as, for example, when Christ commends the disciples in Ephesus because they ‘hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate’ (Rev 2.6). Alignment with Satan, the shared enemy of both the Glorified Christ and the Christian community, provides a topic that both unites the latter in friendship and reinforces feelings of enmity in regard to the ‘locals’ outside the Christian community. The local Jewish communities in Smyrna and Philadelphia are labeled ‘synagogues of Satan’ (2.9; 3.9), a label that both explains any hostile actions the Christian community is experiencing from the parent body and mitigates any tendency toward capitulation to any pressures being applied to the Christians.60 The Glorified Christ also names Pergamum the place ‘where Satan’s throne is’ and ‘where Satan lives’ (2.13), reinforcing enmity by recalling the locals’ act of hostility in making off with one of their own.61 If friendship is created by an act of beneficence (Aristotle Rhet. 2.4.2), and if ‘we like those who have done good either to us or those whom we hold dear’ (Rhet. 2.4.5), the opposite feeling would be evoked by opposite actions, and a reminder of overt acts of hostility (such as this oracle presents) would serve to rekindle both the awareness and feeling of enmity. In a situation in which some voices (the Nicolaitans) are advocating lowering boundaries between the community and the society and moving toward a more accommodationist position, arousing feelings of enmity strategically positions the audience against such a course of action. John gives more extended attention to evoking the emotion of enmity, along
60 Certainty in regard to the nature of the ‘slander’ of the synagogue, the motivation of such action, and its relationship to the distresses experienced by the Christians in Smyrna, remain elusive. Many scholars regard it as, in some sense, a defensive move on the part of local Jewish communities to distance themselves from a group that could be more easily interpreted as revolutionary, and hence draw dangerous attention to the parent group in the wake of the Jewish Revolt. See Hemer, Letters to the Seven Churches, 8–10; deSilva, ‘Social Setting of Revelation’, 287–9; Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation, 136; Witherington, Revelation, 95–100. J. Nelson Kraybill (Imperial Cult and Commerce in John’s Apocalypse [JSNTSup 132; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996] 170–91) argues, on the other hand, that it is the Jewish community’s successful integration into the life of Roman Asia Minor that elicits John’s hostility against them. 61 While the question of official persecution of Christians in Asia Minor under Domitian is a subject of considerable debate (see, for example, the two extreme positions found in Allen Brent, The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order [Leiden/Boston: Brill, 1999] and Paul Duff, Who Rides the Beast? Prophetic Rivalry and the Rhetoric of Crisis in the Churches of the Apocalypse [New York/Oxford: Oxford University, 2001]), the relevant point here is that John invites the hearers to recall the death of Antipas in such a way as evokes feelings of hostility. Indeed, as Thomas B. Slater has shown (‘On the Social Setting of the Revelation to John’, NTS 44 [1998] 232–56, esp. 241), the ‘only references to the wider Roman Asian milieu are to the repression of Christians’, and thus only to situations productive of feelings of enmity rather than friendship.
108 david a. desilva with emotions supportive of creating distance and antagonism (e.g. anger and indignation), toward the Nicolaitans and Jezebel. These feelings are strategically aroused to dispose the congregations to distance themselves from these figures, and thus address the main criticism – that they tolerate these voices in their midst (Rev 2.14–15, 20, 24–25). He must replace any feelings of friendliness toward these figures, on the basis of which at least some in the congregations have been open to the influence of these voices, if he is to achieve his goal.62 Describing people within or among the congregation as persons who ‘hold the teaching of Balaam’ taps into the story of the prototypical false prophet in the Jewish epic as a means of creating distance. Balaam plotted against the common good of the people of God for gain. Unable to call a curse upon them at the request of his patron, Balak, he nevertheless found a way to earn his commission, resulting in a plague falling upon the assembly of Israel and causing many deaths (Num 25.1–9; 31.16). Identifying the Nicolaitans as a modern resurgence of Balaam’s destructive teaching (Rev 2.15) is apt to arouse several negative emotions against them.63 If ‘love is won’ when a person is ‘thought to be upholding the interests of your audience’, and the contrary topics excite hatred (Cicero De or. 2.51.206, 208), the audiences will feel enmity against the Nicolaitans to the extent that they perceive the latter to be indeed acting out of self-interest and leading their fellow disciples on a path that will provoke God’s anger, and hence lead them to come to harm as a result of the Nicolaitans’ activity.64 The identification may crystallize feelings of indignation against them, since they are gaining a hearing in the congregation that they do not deserve, given the destructiveness of their message for those who follow them (as Balaam’s plot led to plague, the
62 Duff (Who Rides the Beast, 71–125) provides a masterful reading from Thaytira, demonstrating how the whole of Revelation contributes to this distancing in regard to Jezebel, especially as ‘homologies’ are created between Jezebel, Babylon, and the Beast from the earth/false prophet, which are further contrasted with positive female and prophetic figures throughout the visions. 63 ‘Balaam’ plays a different role in Revelation from ‘Jezebel’. John invokes the story of Balaam as an historical example of a prophet who led God’s people toward assimilation (with an eye to gain), in whose tradition the Nicolaitans are now said to stand. John does not, however, use ‘Balaam’ as a pseudonym for a particular teacher in Pergamum (contra Witherington, Revelation, 102), since no contemporary of John could consult Balak in the way Balaam is remembered to have done (Rev 2.14). John does, however, use the label ‘Jezebel’, recalling the infamous queen of Israel, as a derogatory and evocative pseudonym for a prophet in Thyatira contemporary with John. 64 Rhetorica ad Alexandrum names ill-treatment of one’s friends by some third party to be a prod to feeling enmity against that third party (1440a30–39). The Nicolaitans’ threat to the safety of the disciples in Pergamum, leading them into paths that bring them into conflict with the Deity, would surely qualify as a form of ill use.
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Nicolaitans’ practice will lead to Christ’s intervention ‘with the sword of his mouth’, Rev 2.16).65 In the oracle to the church in Thyatira, censure is directed primarily toward ‘Jezebel’, and only at the church as a whole insofar as they ‘permit’ Jezebel to exercise a prophetic ministry there. The repetition of the (alleged) summary of her influence as ‘leading my slaves astray to commit fornication and eat foods sacrificed to idols’ (2.20; cf. 2.14) connects her to the historic figure of Balaam and the contemporary figures of the Nicolaitans, and the feelings of enmity and indignation roused against them will provide a ‘boost’, as it were, to appeals to enmity and indignation within this oracle as well. The Glorified Christ’s denial of Jezebel’s claim to the status of ‘prophet’ potentially directs indignation against her (again, for enjoying an undeserved status and authority, gained by deception; 2.20). Jezebel’s contumacy is emphasized (2.21), which would tend to provoke anger.66 Her behavior is also made to appear as deplorable as possible, the images of fornication and adultery being employed to amplify Jezebel’s ‘crimes’, thus stoking the fires of indignation further (2.20–22).67 Feelings of friendship and enmity (and supporting emotions, such as gratitude, on the one hand, and indignation, on the other) are thus rather extensively nurtured throughout the seven oracles, and in the oracles to Pergamum and Thyatira in particular, with a view to creating distance between the disciples and influences John perceives to pose a threat to Christian identity and witness. 3. Shame and Emulation Shame and emulation constitute a third pair of emotions prominently at work in the seven oracles. First, the actual social dynamics of reading Revelation in the seven congregations, and realizing what is being said in the hearing of one’s sister churches, contribute substantially to the evocation of shame. The public 65 The essence of indignation is pain at undeserved good fortune, that is, seeing bad or unworthy people enjoy what ought, in all justice, be the reward reserved for the virtuous and worthy (Aristotle Rhet. 2.9.1). The corollary involves seeing good people not receive what is due them (Rhet. 2.9.11). Aristotle himself asserts that ‘indignation’ is an emotional response of virtuous people and the product of good character: ‘we ought to be indignant with those who prosper undeservedly; for that which happens beyond a man’s deserts is unjust, wherefore we attribute this feeling even to gods’ (Rhet. 2.9.1). 66 Aristotle (Rhet. 2.3.5) observes that people grow mild (the opposite of angry) toward those who admit their faults. The opposite stimulus (lack of repentance when confronted) must, then, promote the opposite emotional response, as Quintilian (Inst. 6.1.14), for example, observed in judicial cases (anger can be aroused by drawing attention to a defendant’s ‘disrespectful attitude toward the court, if, for instance, he be contumacious, arrogant or studiously indifferent’). 67 Quintilian Inst. 6.1.15: ‘The best way however for the accuser to excite the feelings of the judge is to make the charges which he brings against the accused seem as atrocious or, if feasible, as deplorable as possible.
110 david a. desilva nature of these oracular pronouncements is seven times emphasized by the refrain concluding each ‘individual’ message: ‘let the one who has ears hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches’ (2.7, 11, 17, 29; 3.6, 13, 22).68 The seven churches become a public audience of ‘significant others’ whose opinion would probably be valued by the individual Christians within the circle.69 This circle of churches is made witness to what each congregation has attained, and in what regards each had not lived up to the mark (Rev 2.23 explicitly speaks of ‘all the churches’ witnessing and learning from Christ’s forthcoming interventions to punish Jezebel and her followers),70 and each congregation individually is positioned to imagine its sister congregations looking on to witness their responses now that their shortcomings have been brought to light – whether they will prove shameless in light of Christ’s correction, or act to repair their reputation. It will arouse shame, therefore, among one congregation as its defects are exposed before the other congregations, as when, for example, the Ephesians’ decline from their ‘former love’ and its accompanying works is heard in the context of the ability of the church in Thyatira to attain Christ’s praise for their everincreasing works and fruitfulness, or when the Pergamenes’ inability to exercise appropriate discernment is heard in contrast to the Ephesian congregation’s successful deflection of the Nicolaitan threat.71 68 Noted, for example, by Aune, ‘Form and Function’, 184. Witherington (Revelation, 109) also draws attention to the rhetorical pressure applied by John by having the congregations ‘read[ing] each other’s mail, even if it is embarrassing’. 69 Aristotle had observed that ‘people feel shame before those whom they esteem, . . . whose opinion they do not despise (mh; katafronei` th`~ dovxh~, Rhet. 2.6.14–15)’. Early Christians had been widely and consistently directed by their leaders to be attentive to their honor and reputation in the eyes of their fellow Christians, both locally and trans-locally (see D. A. deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2000] 58–61). 70 A ‘textbook example’ of this technique of conjuring a specific audience to one’s decision as a means of arousing the feeling of shame (with a view to motivating a particular response) appears in Aristotle Rhet. 2.6.24: ‘Cydias, when haranguing the people about the allotment the territory to Samos, begged the Athenians to picture to themselves that the Greeks were standing round them and would not only hear, but also see what they were going to decree’. John may also harness here something of the broader civic competition in which these cities regularly found themselves, competing, for example, for the honor of being recognized for their promotion of imperial cult and the honorific title . On the latter phenomenon, see S. R. F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1984) 248. 71 One of the causes of shame (aijscuvnh) is to be seen to lack those praiseworthy things that those like us have been able to attain (Aristotle Rhet. 2.6.12). Again, it is a basic response to not ‘measuring up’ to an expected – and, in this case, elsewhere attained and exemplified – norm. At the same time, the Ephesians, for example, will not feel unduly put to shame, since they also exhibit virtues or behaviors that other churches lack, and must now strive to achieve to ‘measure up’ to Ephesus on that particular point.
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The exposure of such defects is especially blatant in regard to the congregations in Sardis and Laodicea, which are publicly shown not to merit the reputation they enjoy or would wish to enjoy. The Glorified Christ publicly and explicitly rejects their claims to honor, and his opinion is of such a quality as not to be overturned by any riposte on the congregations’ part.72 He tersely strips Sardis of its reputation, based as it is, in his eyes, on fiction: ‘You have a name that you are alive, and you are dead’ (3.1). Laodicea fares even worse. This congregation is also not what it should be, and Christ publicly exposes their failure to live up to expectations (3.15b–16). The claims to honor that they might make on their own behalf are publicly rejected as empty and as the result of self-deception: ‘You say, “I am rich and I have been enriched and I have need of nothing”, and do not know that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked’ (3.17). They are publicly stripped of the public image they think to project, exposing their ‘naked’ state (hJ aijscuvnh th`~ gumnovthtov~ sou, 3.18b) to broad view. Moreover, there is no word of commendation, not even about ‘a few’, to help them save face.73 The Sardian Christians, however, have what it takes to rebuild a more secure reputation (3.3a). They even have in their midst a ‘few names’ of note, a few models of what constitutes an honorable walk in the eyes of Christ (3.4).74 Calling 72 Aristotle did not name this as a topic in his own discussion of evoking shame, although examples of discussing endangered or falsified reputation do exist in the repertory of actual orations. In his Rhodian Oration (Orationes 31), for example, Dio Chrysostom avers that the Rhodian assembly’s reputation, which is otherwise secure, is in one particularly serious regard endangered by practices which have crept in during more recent times involving the renaming of old statues after new benefactors. Notably, Dio considers himself to be doing the assembly a friendly service by exposing the shamefulness of the practice, so that the assembly can properly repair the reputation of the city. 73 Duff (Who Rides the Beast, 35) claims that John provides ‘no significant elaborations of problems’ and ‘little, if any, encouragement’ in regard to the Laodicean church. This enables him to classify it together with Sardis (in regard to which the observation regarding the lack of elaboration of problems is correct) rather than with Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, which provide him with the picture of factionalism that he promotes as the crisis behind Revelation. Rev 3.17–18, however, represents a detailed elaboration of the problem in Laodicea, focusing on its material success as a deceptive ground for confidence and esteem. The oracle to Laodicea also offers the most intimate encouragement of all seven oracles (Rev 3.19, 21), a position confirmed here by analysis of the emotions it potentially evokes (see below). Even more problematic is the position of Royalty (Streets of Heaven, 242–3), who reads Christ’s censure as a call to them ‘to support John and his prophetic circle in the power struggles within the Christian churches’. This oracle is devoid of even an oblique reference to rival teachers as a problem or concern, and the language of ‘hot’, ‘cold’, and ‘lukewarm’ is explicitly interpreted (o{t i, 3.17) in terms of their orientation toward participation in the economy of Roman provincial Asia. 74 We might presume that the Sardian Christians would be able to discern who, specifically, was meant: these ‘few names’ would be the ones who currently look the most like those who ‘keep the commandments of God’, ‘keep faith with Jesus’ (14.12), and thus ‘keep the words of the prophecy of this book’ as well (22.7).
112 david a. desilva them ‘a few names’ is surely significant, since the ‘name’ of the Sardian church as a whole has been found to be empty. These ‘few’ alone retain a secure reputation (a ‘name’). The commendation of the few may serve to rouse emulation among the many.75 Jesus promises, moreover, to confess the ‘name’ of any who rise now to the challenges he sets before the churches (i.e. any who ‘overcome’, 3.5), which is the explicit remedy for their defective ‘name’, their false reputation, having as a whole not risen to the challenges posed by following Christ (3.1). This, too, can serve to flame ‘emulation’. What is in the grasp of the ‘few’ in Sardis can be in the grasp of all, if they apply themselves. In regard to Laodicea, Christ could not show himself more easily reconciled with the congregation (a topic evocative of friendly feelings). Christ has what they need to restore their honor, indeed, to build a more secure honor, and shows himself more than willing to provide it to cover the nakedness that is now exposed and otherwise reverse their shortcomings (3.18). Indeed, he further interprets the rebuke itself as an expression of love for the congregation, connecting with the topic of frank speech offered for friends’ edification as evocative of friendly feelings (‘love’).76 This is done, moreover, in language that evokes the ‘philophronetic tone’ of a parent tending to the moral edification of a child (and thus a strategy of paraenesis).77 Finally, Rev 3.20 shows Christ poised at the threshold, not standing aloof from a congregation that has failed to meet his expectations. The open offer of rapprochement and intimate fellowship, again, evokes friendly feelings through negating any sense of Christ bearing malice, being hard to appease, or cherishing any memory of their failure and his disappointment (see, again, Aristotle Rhet. 2.4.17).78 In one of the rare instances where a word with an emotional component is used as an imperative, Christ calls the Laodicean church to ‘be emulous’ (zhvleue,
75 Emulation (zh`lo~) involves pain at another’s enjoyment of honor or other goods but, unlike envy, remains a noble emotion. The envious person seeks to deprive another of deserved enjoyment of these goods; the emulous person seeks to fit himself or herself to attain the same goods (Aristotle Rhet. 2.11.1). People tend to be emulous of those who are close to them and like them (Rhet. 2.11.3), as well as ‘those who are praised or eulogized either by poets or prose writers’ (Rhet. 2.11.7). 76 This interpretation of rebuke, moreover, is anchored in an authoritative text (Prov 3.12) that connects Christ’s rebuke with God’s traditional role as the One who offers loving paideiva for God’s children, something that the author of Hebrews will offer as a token of God’s esteem and the honor of the Christians (Heb 12.4–11, esp 12.7a). See deSilva, Perseverance, 446–54, especially 454. 77 Abraham J. Malherbe, ‘Paraenesis in the Epistle to Titus’, Early Christian Paraenesis (Starr and Engberg-Pedersen, ed.), 297–317, 299. 78 In light of such attention to encouragement and overtures to rapprochement on the part of the Glorified Christ, it is difficult to agree with Duff (Who Rides the Beast, 35–6) that John believed he had little hope of ‘winning over’ Laodicea.
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3.19b). In part, this provides a corrective to being ‘tepid’ (3.16), but in part it also directs the attention of the Laodiceans to those positive models around them, and directs the energies of the Laodiceans to acquiring what those praiseworthy models already possess, as the means by which their lukewarmness will be resolved. The Laodicean Christians, having been put to shame for claiming to be rich while, in Christ’s eyes, being in fact impoverished (3.17), cannot fail to take notice of Smyrna, praised among the circle of churches for having what makes one ‘rich’ in Christ’s sight, despite their poverty (2.9). But, indeed, several traits of several congregations have been held up as admirable in the seven oracles, and emulation is naturally aroused where we see people like us in possession of praised and highly valued goods.79 Shame and emulation, then, are employed throughout the seven oracles to turn the hearers’ ambitions toward achieving the mark Christ holds out before them, so that they will be highly esteemed before his ‘court’ and the court of opinion formed by the circle of congregations. In several instances, this might provide an antidote to the Christians’ aspirations and ambitions being drawn overly much toward goals achieved only through collusion with Babylon’s economy, through winking at Roman imperial ideology, or participating in idolatry in some form.80
Conclusion
Using chiefly the lists of topics provided by Aristotle regarding the evocation of emotions, the seven oracles, together with the introduction to the whole of Revelation, are found to have the capacity especially to arouse three related pairs of emotional responses: fear and confidence, friendship and enmity, and shame and emulation. While some of these emotional responses are evoked in multiple oracles, certain ones tend to be more fully nurtured in particular oracles (e.g. confidence in the oracle to the Christians in Philadelphia, shame and emulation in the oracles to Sardis and Laodicea, enmity in the oracles to Pergamum and Thyatira), being more strategic to achieving the speaker’s goals in those settings. In most of these cases, it can be further demonstrated that John gives attention to multiple dimensions of appeals to a particular emotion (i.e. nurturing the frame of mind that is disposed to that particular emotion, identifying particular ‘others’
79 Similarly, the Christians in Ephesus may become emulous of the Thyatiran congregation, hearing the latter praised for their consistent increase in ‘works’ praiseworthy before Christ (2.4–5, 19), or Pergamum of Ephesus, since the latter’s deflection of Nicolaitan influence won them praise while the former’s toleration brought them the one blot on their report (2.6, 14–15). 80 The promises to the ‘one who overcomes’ (2.7, 11, 17, 26–28; 3.5, 12, 21) also contribute to this realignment of aspirations.
114 david a. desilva in regard to whom that emotion is rightly directed, and inscribing situations that naturally give rise to that emotion; see Aristotle Rhet. 2.1.9.) These remain, of course, only rhetorical potentialities. Not every hearer responds to every prompt, and among those who respond to a particular prompt, not every one does so to the same degree – especially in regard to appeals to pathos. But even where the response is slight, it creates an opportunity for the hearer to re-examine his or her assessment, alignment, and inclinations in regard to particular features of his or her situation, and thus an opportunity for John to draw the disciples forward in the direction that, he is convinced, the Glorified Christ would have them go.
New Test. Stud. 51, pp. 115–138. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0028688508000076
‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ bei Friedrich Nietzsche HAN S H Ü B N E R Theologische Fäkultät, Universität Göttingen, D-37073, Deutschland
Friedrich Nietzsches Philosophie kann mit Paul Ricoeur unter dem Aspekt der ‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ gesehen werden. Er ist mit Nachdruck hermeneutischer Philosoph. Im ‘Nachlaß’ (Ende 1886 bis Frühjahr 1887) spricht er seine hermeneutische Grundüberzeugung aus: Es gibt nur Interpretationen, aber keine Tatsachen. Diese Aussage richtet sich entschieden gegen allen Positivismus. Wenn er etwa erklärt, er sei ‘gegen das Atom’, so antizipiert er in gewisser Weise moderne physikalische Überzeugungen, nach denen das Atom nicht als Vorstellung gedacht werden kann, sondern nur in mathematischer Interpretation. Die Schwierigkeit bei Nietzsche ist, daß er aufgrund seiner Inspiration von Sils-Maria 1881 seine Überzeugung von der ‘Ewigen Wiederkehr des Gleichen’ dogmatisch vertritt und sie nicht als bloße Interpretation versteht. Die Frage bleibt offen und bedarf der weiteren Klärung in der Nietzsche-Forschung. Keywords: Hermeneutics, Nietzsche, Suspicion, Paul 1. Hinführung zur Thematik
Geht es angesichts des gestellten Themas um ein hermeneutisches Problem, so ist es sinnvoll, sich mit Friedrich Nietzsche als dem in besonderer Hinsicht hermeneutisch denkenden Philosophen auseinanderzusetzen.1 Zwar findet sich meines Wissens bei ihm der Begriff ‘Hermeneutik’ nicht, wohl aber ist für seine Denk-Weise, seine Denk-Struktur und seinen Denk-Horizont der hermeneutische Begriff ‘Interpretation’ von zentraler Bedeutung. Und wenn wir mit Paul Ricœur in Friedrich Nietzsche neben Karl Marx und Sigmund Freud einen ‘Meister des Verdachts’ sehen,2 so wäre es jedoch grundlegend verfehlt, wollte ich für Nietzsche von diesem fest umrissenen Begriff ausgehen. Ist doch sein geistiges Vermögen derart gewaltig und kraftvoll, derart lebendig, daß man ihm bitteres Unrecht täte, wollte man sein Denken auf eine exakt definierte Begrifflichkeit hin festlegen. Sein Denken läßt sich nicht in das Prokrustesbett 1 Vortrag im Seminar ‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ bei der Jahrestagung 2006 der ‘Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas’ in Aberdeen. 2 Paul Ricœur, Die Interpretation: Ein Versuch über Freud (suhrkamp taschenbuch wissenschaft 76; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1974) 47.
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116 hans hübner eines Systems einzwängen. Bezeichnend für sein Denken, aber auch für seine Persönlichkeit, ist sein provozierendes Diktum in ‘Götzen-Dämmerung’: ‘Ich mißtraue allen Systematikern und gehe ihnen aus dem Weg. Der Wille zum System ist ein Mangel an Rechtschaffenheit’.3 Selbst das Zueinander von so wichtigen Grundtopoi wie ‘Ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen’ oder ‘Wille zur Macht’ ist von erheblichen Unstimmigkeiten überlagert. Deshalb dürfte die sachgemäße Frage die nach der Grundintention von Nietzsches spezifischer Hermeneutik sein. Ich muß mich aber schon sofort korrigieren: Ich befrage ihn auf die Grundintentionen (Plural!) seiner sehr spezifischen Hermeneutik. Denn er hat auf seinem Denk-Weg – für Nietzsche ist dieser von Otto Pöggeler für Martin Heidegger geprägte Begriff besonders zutreffend – nicht nur einzelne Aspekte seines Denkens modifiziert, sondern in seinen hermeneutischen Intentionen sogar mehrfach regelrechte Denk-Umbrüche – Um-Brüche! – vorgenommen. Nietzsche ist nicht einfach Nietzsche! Doch unabhängig von dieser Einsicht: Schon ein grobes Bild seines sich stetig wandelnden Denkens und Verhaltens läßt uns in ihm einen recht bewußten Hermeneutiker sehen, der in seinem sich wandelnden Denken auch und gerade dem Verdacht einen nicht geringen Platz zuweist. Zugleich ist aber auch schon zu Beginn unserer Überlegungen zu bedenken, daß angesichts der Fülle von Nietzsches weitgreifenden Gedanken, und zwar in stets neuen Horizonten, mit ‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ natürlich nur ein einziger, wenn auch nicht unwichtiger Partialaspekt seiner hermeneutischen Gesamtintentionen abgedeckt ist. An meinem – vor allem in ‘Nietzsche und das Neue Testament’4 entworfenem – Nietzsche-Bild halte ich auch heute noch fest, gehe aber in wichtigen Punkten über bisher Gedachtes, Gesagtes und Geschriebenes hinaus. Eine weitere Vorbemerkung: Um angesichts der substantiellen Modifikationen von Nietzsches Denken eine möglichst in sich geschlossene Darstellung des Themas zu bieten, habe ich mich weithin auf die achtziger Jahre des 19. Jahrhunderts beschränkt und dabei als Grundlage meiner Ausführungen Fragmente aus Nietzsches Nachlaß dieser Zeit ausgewählt. Zuweilen ist es aber angebracht, auch auf Parallelen in seinen Hauptwerken hinzuweisen. Damit jedoch die Argumentation aus dem Nachlaß nicht in ihrer einheitlichen
3 Friedrich Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung u.a., in: Friedrich Nietzsche, Kritische Studienausgabe, Hg. von Giorgio Colli und Mazzino Montinari (im folgenden: KSA) 6 (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag De Gruyter, 21988, Neuausgabe 1999) 63; ich zitiere Nietzsche nach der Wiedergabe in KSA, also in einer zuweilen von der 20. Auflage des DUDEN abweichenden Orthographie. Nietzsches originale Orthographie kann auch ohne Schwierigkeiten lesen, wer Deutsch als Fremdsprache gelernt hat. Meine eigenen Texte schreibe ich nach der 20. Auflage, da die neue 21. Auflage des DUDEN zum Teil eine sinnentstellende Orthographie bietet. 4 Hans Hübner, Nietzsche und das Neue Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000).
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Darstellung unterbrochen wird, werden derartige Parallelen zumeist in Anmerkungen zitiert oder dort auf sie verwiesen. Zuweilen ist es nicht uninteressant zu sehen, wie sich bereits in früheren Schriften Nietzsches Ansätze eines Denkens finden, wie es für den später geschriebenen, dann posthum herausgegebenen ‘Nachlaß’ bezeichnend ist.
2. Nietzsche: Hermeneutik gegen Positivismus
Ein Abschnitt im ‘Nachlaß 1885–1887’ führt mitten in die soeben umschriebene Aufgabenstellung hinein. Ich zitiere nach der Nietzsche-Ausgabe von Giorgio Colli und Mazzino Montinari; denn die Ausgabe von Karl Schlechta ist bekanntlich gerade für den Nachlaß weithin unbrauchbar geworden. In Abschnitt 7, Fragment 60 (Ende 1886 – Frühjahr 1887) wettert Nietzsche entschieden gegen den Positivismus. Wegen seiner grundlegenden Bedeutung ist es angebracht, den Text in ganzer Länge zu zitieren: Gegen den Positivismus, welcher bei dem Phänomen stehen bleibt, ‘es giebt nur Thatsachen’, würde ich sagen: nein, gerade Thatsachen gibt es nicht, nur Interpretationen.5 Wir können kein Factum ‘an sich’ feststellen: vielleicht ist es ein Unsinn, so etwas zu wollen. ‘Es ist alles subjektiv’ sagt ihr: aber schon das ist Auslegung, das ‘Subjekt’ ist nichts Gegebenes, sondern etwas Hinzu-Erdichtetes, Dahinter-Gestecktes. – Ist es zuletzt nöthig, den Interpreten noch hinter die Interpretation zu setzen? Schon das ist Dichtung, Hypothese. Soweit überhaupt das Wort ‘Erkenntniß’ Sinn hat, ist die Welt erkennbar: aber sie ist anders deutbar, sie hat keinen Sinn hinter sich, sondern unzählige Sinne ‘Perspektivismus’. Unsre Bedürfnisse sind es, die die Welt auslegen: unsre Triebe und deren Für und Wider. Jeder Trieb ist eine Art Herrschsucht, jeder hat seine Perspektive, welche er als Norm allen übrigen Trieben aufzwingen möchte.6
5 In Menschliches, Allzumenschliches. Ein Buch für freie Geister, 1878 in 1. Aufl. publiziert, findet sich unter der Überschrift ‘Erbfehler der Philosophen’ bereits die kategorische Aussage (KSA 2, 1999) 25 (in allen Nietzsche-Zitaten stammen die Hervorhebungen, hier in Kursivierung, von Nietzsche): ‘Alles aber ist geworden; es giebt keine ewigen Thatsachen: sowie es keine absoluten Wahrheiten giebt’. Nietzsche wirft den Philosophen vor, daß sie nicht lernen wollten, daß der Mensch geworden und daß sein Erkenntnisvermögen geworden ist. Wörtlich 24–25: ‘Nun ist alles Wesentliche der menschlichen Entwickelung in Urzeiten vor sich gegangen, lange vor jenen viertausend Jahren [nach der Zählung der Jahre im Alten Testament], die wir ungefähr kennen; in diesen mag sich der Mensch nicht viel mehr verändert haben’. Soweit ich feststellen konnte, ist dies die früheste Stelle mit dem Begriff ‘Thatsache’. 6 Friedrich Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887 (KSA 12, 1999) 315.
118 hans hübner Diese Stelle ist von erheblicher hermeneutischer Bedeutung. Gleiches gilt auch für die heutige wissenschaftstheoretische Diskussion. Denn der Einfluß des logischen Positivismus, der sich nur an sogenannte Fakten hält, ist auch in der gegenwärtigen Situation der Philosophie noch groß. Den Fakten setzt Nietzsche – und das ist hier die für ihn entscheidende Intention! – Interpretationen entgegen, und zwar in radikaler Ausschließlichkeit. Damit geht er über die gängige Betonung der Interpretation bzw. der Interpretationen weit hinaus. Nietzsche leugnet nämlich nicht nur die Fakten in ihrer Bedeutung und Bedeutsamkeit. Nein, die gesamte Wirklichkeit des Menschen besteht für ihn einzig und allein aus Interpretationen, und zwar – je nach der geistigen Sehfähigkeit des einzelnen – aus sehr unterschiedlichen Interpretationen. Nietzsches Polemik gegen den Positivismus kann ich zum großen Teil mitvollziehen. Ich habe immer wieder zum Ausdruck gebracht, warum ich einen Positivismus sowohl aus philosophischen als auch aus hermeneutischen Gründen entschieden ablehne. Und so sei auch schon zu Beginn meiner Ausführungen gesagt, daß diese, wenn auch nur partiell gemeinsame Frontstellung von Nietzsche und einem Theologen – so paradox das gerade im Blick auf den Gottesleugner Nietzsche erscheinen mag – von hoher theologischer Relevanz ist: Der biblische Gott, um den es ja in der theologischen Hermeneutik geht, ist derjenige Gott, der sich in der Interpretation der vom Neuen Testament bezeugten Offenbarung Gottes erschließt und kraft solcher Interpretation im Glauben verstanden werden will. Die folgenden philosophischen Darlegungen haben also, so wenig man dies vielleicht erwartet, ihre inhaltliche Verankerung in der Theologie. Zutreffend urteilt Hans Küng: ‘Der Positivismus aber ist mehr als eine Theorie, er ist eine Weltanschauung’.7 Er ist sogar eine atheistische Weltanschauung. Küng nennt u.a. den zum positivistischen Kreis der Wiener Schule gehörenden Moritz Schlick, für den nur die Sätze der Mathematik und Logik sowie überprüfbare Sätze der empirischen Wissenschaften sinnvolle Sätze sein können: In einer solchen Naturwissenschaft und Philosophie gibt es kein Nachdenken über Meta-Empirisches, Religion, gar ‘Gott’. Philosophie erscheint auf Logik und Sprachanalyse reduziert, Metaphysik definitiv überwunden, Theologie von vornherein sinnlos.8
Trotz Nietzsches Weitsicht, trotz seiner bewundernswerten Vorwegnahme von Erkenntnissen, für die wir den Theologe Küng nannten und nachher noch den Physiker und Philosophen Heisenberg als Zeugen nennen werden – geht er nicht zu weit? Überspitzt er nicht in unerträglicher Weise, wenn er sogar die Existenz 7 Hans Küng, Der Anfang aller Dinge: Naturwissenschaft und Religion (München Zürichl: Piper Verlag, 62005) 39. 8 Küng, Der Anfang aller Dinge, 41.
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von Fakten im Namen seiner – exklusiven! – Hermeneutik der Alleingeltung von Interpretationen leugnet? In dieser Intention verbannte er z.B. selbst Atome aus der Wirklichkeit. Wir lesen in der irritierenden Überschrift von Fragment [7] 56, kurz vor Fragment [7] 60: ‘Gegen das physikalische Atom’.9 Die erste Reaktion mag wohl bei manchem sein: Wie kann man nur gegen physikalische Atome sein! Existiert nicht sogar gerade der Mensch in seiner ureigenen Leiblichkeit aus Atomen? Käme Nietzsche heute noch einmal in unsere Welt, er würde gewiß mit Genugtuung lesen, was Hans Küng in hermeneutischer Intention geschrieben hat, auch wenn er nicht jedes Wort unterschreiben könnte: Lassen sich die Grundbegriffe der Naturwissenschaft wie etwa das Atom überhaupt eindeutig definieren? Hängen sie nicht vielmehr von der ständig sich wandelnden Forschung ab, so daß eine Eindeutigkeit der Begriffe zwar angestrebt, aber nicht erreicht werden kann? Ist nicht schon das Wort ‘Atom’ ⫽ das ‘Unteilbare’ von der Forschung desavouiert worden? Läßt sich im mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Erkennen und Forschen das Subjekt, das heißt subjektive Bedingungen und Voraussetzungen, Standpunkte und Perspektiven, zugunsten einer reinen Objektivität völlig ausschalten?10
Nietzsche begründet seine Ablehnung der Atome wie folgt: Um die Welt begreifen zu können, muß man sie berechnen können. Dementsprechend sieht er die Wirklichkeit von Atomen nur in ihrem Reduziert-Sein auf den rein physikalischen Bestand. Was seine Gegner als Atom bezeichnen, ist in seinen Augen ein rein physikalisches Sein; dieses ist aber – und das ist essentiell für seine Argumentation – einzig und allein durch seine quantifizierbare Größe definiert. Nietzsche argumentiert dann: Als Voraussetzung des Berechnens behaupte man ‘constante Ursachen’; weil es aber solche Ursachen in der Wirklichkeit nicht gebe, würden wir sie – so seine Kritik – erdichten. Auf dem Weg über diese, für sein Denken wesentliche Reduktion der Atome auf Berechenbarkeit und deren Voraussetzung in nicht existenten konstanten Ursachen kommt er also hin zu seiner extremen Überzeugung. Beipflichten können wir ihm aber, wenn er anschließend erklärt: Die Berechenbarkeit der Welt, die Ausdrückbarkeit alles Geschehens in Formeln – ist das wirklich ein ‘Begreifen’? Was wäre wohl an einer Musik begriffen, wenn alles, was an ihr berechenbar ist und in Formeln abgekürzt werden kann, berechenbar wäre?11
Wenn Nietzsche hier das Beispiel der Musik bringt, so sei daran erinnert, daß er nicht nur musikalisch interessiert war, sondern sogar selbst musizierte und komponierte. Bekanntlich war er auch längere Zeit begeisterter Anhänger Richard 9 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, 314. 10 Küng, Der Anfang aller Dinge, 41–2. 11 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, 314.
120 hans hübner Wagners. Das Beispiel der Musik zeigt, wie für ihn Berechenbarkeit nur in der mathematischen Interpretation subsistiert. Denn auch das mathematische Denken ist für Nietzsche keinerlei Faktum. Paradox gesagt: Faktum ist, daß es kein Faktum gibt. Ist folglich das physikalische ‘Sein’ im mathematischen Denken gegründet, so heißt das für Nietzsche laut Fragment [7] 56, daß die Wirklichkeit des physikalischen Seins in grundsätzlichen Zweifel zu ziehen ist. Wahrscheinlich kann der Physiker und Philosoph Werner Heisenberg, ohne im betreffenden Zusammenhang Nietzsche zu nennen, besonders klar veranschaulichen, wie sehr dieser seiner Zeit voraus war, und zwar in einer Weise, die uns höchsten Respekt vor seinem Denken abnötigt. Ich verweise hier nur auf Heisenbergs Aufsatz ‘Das Naturbild der heutigen Physik’:12 Man könne vom Verhalten der kleinsten Bausteinen der Materie, also der kleinsten Bestandteile der Atome, nicht losgelöst vom Beobachtungsvorgang sprechen. So handelten die in der Quantentheorie mathematisch formulierten Naturgesetze nicht mehr von den Elementarteilchen ‘an sich’, sondern von deren Kenntnis durch uns: Die Frage, ob diese Teilchen ‘an sich’ in Raum und Zeit existieren, kann in dieser Form also nicht mehr gestellt werden, da wir stets nur über Vorgänge sprechen können, die sich abspielen, wenn durch die Wechselwirkung des Elementarteilchens13 mit irgendwelchen anderen physikalischen Systemen, z.B. den Meßapparaten, das Verhalten des Teilchens erschlossen werden soll. Die Vorstellung von der objektiven Realität des Elementarteilchens hat sich also in einer merkwürdigen Weise verflüchtigt [. . .] in die durchsichtige Klarheit einer Mathematik, die nicht mehr das Verhalten des Elementarteilchens, sondern unsere Kenntnis dieses Verhaltens darstellt.14
Es ist also auch für Heisenberg, ebenso wie für seinen Schüler Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker,15 genauso unmöglich vom Atom zu sprechen wie für Nietzsche. Heisenberg vermag nur in der Interpretation der Quantenlogik vom Atom zu sprechen und eben nicht vom Faktum Atom; letzte Wirklichkeit der Natur sind für ihn nicht Atome, sondern Symmetrie; sie ist die Theorie über die letzte Wirklichkeit, ist Mathematik.16 Das hat sich also erwiesen: Nietzsche war seiner Zeit weit voraus! Seine Rede vom nicht existenten Atom war, wie wir erkennen mußten, gar nicht so dumm, 12 Werner Heisenberg, ‘Das Naturbild der heutigen Physik’, in: Werner Heisenberg, Schritte über Grenzen: Gesammelte Reden und Aufsätze (München: R. Piper & Co, 21973) 109–27, Vortrag vor der Bayerischen Akademie der Schönen Künste am 17. November 1953. 13 Singular, weil Bezug auf ein spezielles physikalisches Experiment. 14 Heisenberg, ‘Das Naturbild der heutigen Physik’, 115; s. auch Gerhard Börner, Schöpfung ohne Schöpfer? Das Wunder des Universums (München: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2006) 158–9. 15 Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Die Einheit der Natur (München: Carl Hanser Verlag, 51979) passim. 16 S. dazu auch Reinhard Löw, Ordnung der Wirklichkeit: Werner Heisenberg in seinen philosophischen Schriften (Univ. 42, November 1987) 160.
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gar nicht so falsch. Denn was er ontologisch am Sein eines Atoms bestritten hat, ist das materielle Sein, ist die Materie, die materielle Masse des Atoms. Heutzutage kennt fast jedes Kind Einsteins berühmte Formel: E ⫽ mc2: Energie ist das Produkt aus der Masse und dem Quadrat der Lichtgeschwindigkeit. Und nach dieser Formel kann sowohl Masse in Energie als auch Energie in Masse umgewandelt werden. Materie ist demnach keine unwandelbare Vorfindlichkeit. Es könnte also durchaus, immerhin als Möglichkeit erwogen, die gesamte Materie in Energie umgewandelt werden oder womöglich beim Urknall erstmals aus Energie Materie entstanden sein.17 Doch Nietzsches Gedanke ging über diese Möglichkeit noch weit hinaus. Er hatte die bewundernswerte Vorahnung, daß Materie grundsätzlich nicht in massiv materialistischem Verständnis gesehen werden kann. In der Tat ist heute, physikalisch gesehen, Masse eben keine vom damaligen Begriff der Materialität her zu sehende Wirklichkeit. Heute wird vielmehr ontologisch – und das sei mit Nachdruck gesagt – Materie als Interpretation eines komplizierten quantentheoretischen Seins begriffen, das sich dagegen sperrt, überhaupt als Vorstellung verstanden zu werden.18 Selbst die damals revolutionäre Vorstellung (!) des Atommodells durch den Nobelpreisträger Niels Bohr ist physikalisch überholt. Somit hatte Nietzsche recht, als er provozierend sagte: ‘Gegen das physikalische Atom’, da er schon damals die Vorstellung – Vorstellung als Vorstellung! – des Atoms als Materie zurückwies. Ohne schon zu jener Zeit konkrete Indizien dafür zu haben, ahnte er, daß das moderne physikalische Denken unverzichtbar auf den zentralen Begriff der Interpretation angewiesen ist. Damit war er in seinen Ahnungen weiter als die Physiker zu Beginn des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts! Der denkende Philosoph wurde durch die spätere physikalische Forschung bestätigt.19
3. Nietzsche und Kant
Dennoch müssen wir Nietzsche auch heftig widersprechen. Dabei wird zunächst seine Auseinandersetzung mit Immanuel Kant im Mittelpunkt stehen; hat er sich doch gerade mit diesem Denker kritisch auseinandergesetzt. Daran lag ihm: Kritik den Kritikern! So kritisiert er auch die kritischen Philosophen Spinoza, ebenso Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer und andere.
17 Hans Hübner, Evangelische Fundamentaltheologie: Theologie der Bibel (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005) 54. 18 S. dazu die jüngsten auch für Nichtphysiker lesbaren Publikationen, z.B.; Börner, Schöpfung ohne Ende?; Charles Seife, Die Suche nach Anfang und Ende des Kosmos (Berlin: Berliner Taschenbuch-Verlag, 2004); amerikanisches Original: Alpha and Omega: The Search for der Beginning and the End of the Universe (New York: Viking, 2003); dazu jeweils Hinweise im Inhaltsverzeichnis bzw. Sachregister. 19 S. auch Küng, Der Anfang aller Dinge, 41–2 in Anm. 19.
122 hans hübner In gewisser Weise liegt Nietzsches Kritik der Philosophie Immanuel Kants auf der Linie seiner Positivismus-Kritik: ‘Das theologische Vorurtheil bei Kant, sein unbewußter Dogmatismus, seine moralistische Perspektive als herrschend, lenkend, befehlend’. An Fragment [7] 60 erinnert, wenn er ihn wie folgt attackiert: ‘Das prw`ton yeu`do~: wie ist die Thatsache der Erkenntniß möglich? ist die Erkenntniß überhaupt eine Thatsache?’ Mehrfach bestreitet Nietzsche dies vehement: ‘Wenn wir nicht wissen, was Erkenntniß ist, können wir unmöglich die Frage beantworten, ob es Erkenntniß giebt’. Also: ‘Kant glaubt [!] an die Thatsache der Erkenntniß: es ist eine Naivetät, was er will: die Erkenntniß der Erkenntniß!’20 Hier kann ich nicht Nietzsches gesamte Kant-Interpretation diskutieren. Das Gesagte dürfte aber genügen, um einen ersten Eindruck zu gewinnen. Zu bedenken und festzuhalten ist jedoch: Kants grundsätzliche Unterscheidung von ‘Erscheinung’ und ‘Ding an sich’ führt näher an die Problematik der ‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ im Denken Nietzsches heran. Erscheinung ist für Kant ein Gegenstand der Erfahrung, der mit den Sinnen erfaßt und den reinen Verstandesbegriffen verstanden wird. Als Beispiel wähle ich die für Nietzsche so wichtige Frage der Kausalität. Nur im Bereich der Erscheinungen können wir mittels der Kausalität die Reihenfolge von Ursache und Wirkung erfassen, von causa und effectus.21 Mit solcher Kausalität kommen wir aber nicht zum Ding an sich, also nicht zum eigentlichen und inneren Wesen der Realität; denn gerade diese können wir mit den Sinnen und den reinen Verstandesbegriffen nicht erkennen. Und genau an dieser Stelle setzt Nietzsche mit seiner Kritik an. Er erhebt den Vorwurf gegen die Metaphysiker, Fragment 10 [150]: Die letzten Metaphysiker suchen im Grunde immer noch in ihm [im Ideal der Personen-Realität] die wirkliche ‘Realität’, das ‘Ding an sich’, im Verhältniß zu dem Alles Andere nur scheinbar ist. Ihr Dogma ist daß, weil unsere Erscheinungswelt so ersichtlich nicht der Ausdruck jenes Ideals ist, sie eben nicht ‘wahr’ ist, – und im Grunde nicht einmal auf jene metaphysische Welt als Ursache zurückführt.22
Fast könnten wir schon jetzt sagen: Endlich wissen wir, gegen wen Nietzsche seinen Generalverdacht ausspricht: Gegen die Metaphysiker! Diese sind es in
20 Alle drei Zitate: Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, 264. 21 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, 383; Fragment 9 [91]: ‘Erst dadurch, daß wir Subjekte “Thäter” in die Dinge hineingedeutet haben, entsteht der Anschein, daß alles Geschehn die Folge von einem auf Subjekte ausgeübten Zwang ist – ausgeübt von wem? wiederum von einem “Thäter”. Ursache und Wirkung – ein gefährlicher Begriff, solange man ein Etwas denkt, das verursacht und ein Etwas, auf das gewirkt wird’. S. auch die nachfolgenden Ausführungen Nietzsches. 22 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, 540.
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seinen Augen, die mit ihrer Ontologie eine grundlegend falsche Sicht des Seins und somit der Wirklichkeit verkünden. Diese sind es, die der ganzen Menschheit eine falsche Welt vorgaukeln. Und diese Menschenwelt, zumindest die des europäischen Denkens, läßt sich verführen. Verführten und Verführern muß daher in einem hermeneutischen Prozeß ein Verstehen der wirklichen Welt vermittelt werden. Verführern und Verführten gegenüber muß in einer ‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ der Verdacht einer Verführung durch eine Philosophie wie vor allem die von Kant entgegengehalten werden. Wir müssen sogar fragen, ob nicht die Rede vom Verdacht noch viel zu harmlos ist. Denn es ist ja für Nietzsche nicht nur der bloße Verdacht, daß eine die Realität behauptende Philosophie in Wirklichkeit eine die Realität leugnende Philosophie ist. Nein, es ist seine Anklage gegen die Metaphysiker, daß sie die Menschen dazu verführen, ausgerechnet die Leugnung der Wirklichkeit als Wirklichkeit anzusehen. Müßten wir dann nicht besser von einer ‘Hermeneutik der Anklage’ sprechen? ‘Hermeneutik der Anklage’ – das klingt gut. Doch ein solches Urteil wäre zu voreilig, zu vordergründig. Es würde nämlich Nietzsches Intention entstellen. Schon das letzte Zitat verweist uns auf eine entschieden radikalere Bahn des Denkens. Denn es geht nicht allein darum, daß Nietzsche gegen Kants grundlegende Unterscheidung von ‘Erscheinung’ und ‘Ding an sich’ polemisiert, also seine Konzeption in rein intellektuell-philosophischer Auseinandersetzung bekämpft. Es geht um weit mehr! Er geht darum, daß er den gesamten Umgang des Menschen mit seiner Welt und mit sich selbst auf den Kopf stellt, er somit – salopp gesprochen – die ganze Welt, die ganze Wirklichkeit ‘umkrempelt’.
4. Nietzsches philosophische und theologische Grundintentionen
Was also will Nietzsche? Er will zwei grundlegende Irrtümer entlarven. Erstens: Die von den metaphysischen Philosophen vertretene absolute Gewißheit a priori von ‘Gott’, der an der Spitze der gegebenen Wahrheit steht. Zweitens: Die Personen-Realität. Was den ersten Irrtum angeht, so dürfte Nietzsches Intention zumindest im groben bekannt sein. Doch der zweite Vorwurf bedarf der Explikation, um das Revolutionäre dieses Gedankens zu erkennen. Die Vokabel ‘revolutionär’ ist angesichts des von Nietzsche Intendierten noch viel zu harmlos. Denn hier geschieht nicht eine bloße Revolution des Denkens, sondern die Behauptung eines in seiner Radikalität nicht zu überbietenden Umbruchs der Realität. Die Welt, die Nietzsche verkündet, ist nicht mehr die Welt vor Nietzsche! Spricht Nietzsche von Personen-Realität, so geht es ihm zwar primär um das Person-Sein Gottes, nicht aber um das Person-Sein des Menschen. Bedingt aber die Absage an die Personen-Realität Gottes zugleich die Absage an metaphysisches Denken, so impliziert dies in analoger Weise auch die Absage an das
124 hans hübner Person- bzw. Subjekt-Sein des Menschen.23 Was aber meint Ablehnung des metaphysischen Denkens? Eine Kurzantwort: Metaphysik ist für Nietzsche die Lehre vom Sein, genauer: die Lehre von einem geordneten, nach oben aufsteigenden Sein. Das höchste Sein, summum ens et summum bonum, ist danach Gott, dann innerhalb der sogenannten Seinspyramide das jeweils nach unten gehende Sein: die Engel, die Menschen, die Tiere und schließlich das leblose Seiende. Schenken wir uns alles weitere. Hier interessiert nur, daß Nietzsche ein solch geordnetes Sein verabscheute, vor allem, wenn es in statischer Weise als Sein gedacht wird. Für ihn war das eigentliche Sein – das Werden! Was will demnach Nietzsche? Er will vehement sein Nein zu einem statischen Sein verkünden, auch in diesem Sinne zum Seienden. Was aber fällt dann unter Nietzsches Nein? Ich zitiere noch einmal aus Fragment 9 [89], in dem er ‘Formeln für Gleichbleibendes’ als Intention der Logik gehandhabt sieht: ‘das Seiende’ gehört zu unserer Optik. das ‘Ich’ als seiend ( – durch Werden und Entwicklung nicht berührt) die fingirte Welt von Subjekt, Substanz, ‘Vernunft’ usw. ist nöthig – : eine ordnende, vereinfachende, fälschende, künstlich-trennende Macht ist in uns. ‘Wahrheit’ – Wille, Herr zu werden über das Vielerlei der Sensationen ... Erkenntniß und Werden schließt sich aus. Folglich muß ‘Erkenntniß’ etwas anderes sein: ‘es muß ein Wille zum Erkennbar-machen vorangehen, eine Art Werden selbst muß die Täuschung des Seienden schaffen. 24
Nietzsche polemisiert also gegen eine ‘fingirte Welt’, z.B. gegen Subjekt und Substanz. Vor allem ist in seinen Augen ‘Substanz’ wirklichkeitswidrig: Keine Bewegung in ihr, kein Werden, also keine Energie! Und ebenso ist Erkenntnis für ihn etwas Statisches. Wird sie ins Werden hineingezogen, ändert sie sich und bleibt nicht im schon gewonnenen Erkenntnis-Stand. ‘Erkenntniß’ ist also wirklichkeitsnegierend! Wir sollten vor allem unsere Aufmerksamkeit der Aussage widmen: ‘das “Ich” als seiend’. Nietzsche nimmt hier das Ich aus dem Bereich des Seienden heraus; für ihn hat es seinen Sinn einzig im Bereich des Werdens. Kurz, aber in betont programmatischer Aussage: Das Ich ist Werden. Wo es dem Seienden zugeschlagen wird, da ist es in einem fingierten, somit in einem nur unserem Denken zugehörigen Bereich gedacht – und das heißt für Nietzsche: da ist es der Wirklichkeit entnommen. Doch auch das Ich als Werden 23 Die Ausführungen Nietzsches über Person und Subjekt sind nicht identisch, aber doch weithin aufeinander bezogen. Da die Argumentationsspitze in etwa in die gleiche Richtung weist, differenziere ich hier nicht zwischen beiden Begriffen. 24 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, 382.
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im eigentlichen Sinne, nämlich im Sinne Nietzsches, ist in recht eigenartiger Weise konzipiert: nicht in einem Sein, das durch Werden einer ständigen Veränderung unterworfen wäre, also nicht, was – mit Martin Heidegger gesprochen25 – als geschichtliches Dasein zu interpretieren wäre. Denn auch einem so konzipierten Ich als werdendem Sein widerspricht Nietzsche. Nach Fragment [7] 63 wäre das nämlich nur der Glaube an das Ich als der Glaube an eine Substanz, als der Glaube an die angeblich einzige Realität, nach der wir den Dingen Realität zusprechen. Dieses Fragment läßt Nietzsches Sicht noch klarer erkennen: Muß nicht alle Philosophie endlich die Voraussetzungen, auf denen die Bewegung der Vernunft ruht, ans Licht bringen? Unseren Glauben an das Ich, als an eine Substanz, als an die einzige Realität, nach welcher wir überhaupt den Dingen Realität zusprechen? Der älteste ‘Realismus’ kommt zuletzt ans Licht: zu gleicher Zeit, wo die ganze religiöse Geschichte der Menschheit sich wiedererkennt als Geschichte vom Seelen-Aberglauben. Hier ist eine Schranke: unser Denken selbst involvirt jenen Glauben (mit seiner Unterscheidung von Substanz-Akzidens, Thun, Thäter usw.), ihn fahren lassen heißt nicht-mehr-denken-dürfen.26
Das also ist die Stelle, an der Nietzsche besonders klar das Ich negiert. Der Glaube an das Ich ist nicht akzeptierbar; ist es doch nur der Glaube an eine Substanz. Damit wären wir nach Nietzsche mitten im metaphysischen Denken, das er a limine ablehnt. Und nur auf diesem Irrweg könnten wir den Dingen Realität zusprechen. Den Zusammenhang von Subjekt und Substanz haben wir ja schon zur Kenntnis genommen. Nehmen wir noch einige Aussagen Nietzsches über das Ich, über das Subjekt zur Kenntnis. Daß er der Substanz und dem Subjekt die Realität bestreitet, wissen wir inzwischen. Die Zusammengehörigkeit beider Begriffe thematisiert er in Fragment 10 [19]. Nietzsche schreibt: Der Substanzbegriff eine Folge des Subjektsbegriffs: nicht umgekehrt! Geben wir die Seele, ‘das Subjekt’ preis, so fehlt die Voraussetzung für eine ‘Substanz’ überhaupt. [. . .] ‘Subjekt’ ist die Fiktion, als ob viele gleiche Zustände an uns die Wirkung Eines Substrats wären: aber wir haben erst die ‘Gleichheit’ dieser Zustände geschaffen; das Gleichsetzen und Zurechtmachen derselben ist der Thatbestand, nicht die Gleichheit ( – diese ist vielmehr zu leugnen –)27
Diese Worte sind deutlich genug: Wir haben uns als Subjekt fingiert, wir haben als solche Fiktion eines Subjekts den Substanzbegriff fingiert. Das ist hier die Struktur
25 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 282002) §§ 72–83. 26 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, 317. 27 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, 465.
126 hans hübner von Nietzsches Denken: Fiktionen schaffen Fiktionen. Fiktionen setzen Fiktionen und gaukeln so Wirklichkeit vor. Aus dem Begreifen, daß das ‘Subjekt’ nichts ist, was wirkt, sondern nur eine Fiktion, folgert Nietzsche, daß wir nach dem Vorbild des Subjekts die Dringlichkeit erfunden und uns in den Sensationen-Wirrwarr hineininterpretiert haben. Und noch einmal steht in diesen Folgerungen Kant im Hintergrund, so in Fragment 9 [91]: Es fällt endlich auch das ‘Ding an sich’:28 weil dies im Grunde die Conception eines ‘Subjekts an sich’ ist. Aber wir begriffen, daß das Subjekt fingirt ist. Der Gegensatz ‘Ding an sich’ und ‘Erscheinung’ ist unhaltbar; damit aber fällt auch der Begriff ‘Erscheinung’ dahin.
Es ist nur konsequent, wenn Nietzsche daraus folgert: Geben wir das wirkende Subjekt auf, so auch das Objekt, auf das gewirkt wird. Die Dauer, die Gleichheit mit sich selbst, das Sein inhärirt weder dem, was Subjekt, noch dem, was Objekt genannt wird: es sind Complexe des Geschehens, in Hinsicht auf andere Complexe scheinbar dauerhaft [. . .].
Und noch eine weitere Folgerung Nietzsches bedarf nach den bisherigen Überlegungen keiner Begründung: Geben wir den Begriff ‘Subjekt’ und ‘Objekt’ auf, dann auch den Begriff ‘Substanz’ – und folglich auch dessen verschiedene Modificationen z.B. ‘Materie’ ‘Geist’ und andere hypothetische Wesen ‘Ewigkeit und Unveränderlichkeit des Stoffes’ usw. Wir sind die Stofflichkeit los.29
Gerade die letzte Folgerung ist uns inzwischen bestens vertraut. Bei all diesen Deduktionen Nietzsches mag sich die Frage nahelegen, woran sich unser Philosoph überhaupt noch halten kann, wenn er über sich und andere und überhaupt die ganze Welt nachdenkt. Aber Nietzsche würde wohl antworten: ‘Ihr fragt nur deshalb so falsch, weil ihr in eurer alten Denkstruktur befangen seid’. Es dürfte scheinen, daß wir doch bei unserem Anfangseinwand verbleiben und Nietzsche erwidern sollten: ‘Bedeuten deine Aussagen über das Monopol der Interpretationen und die radikale Ablehnung der Existenz von Thatsachen nicht eine übertriebene gedankliche Konstruktion? Hier bleibt es wohl bei Aussage gegen Aussage. Und wenn Nietzsche sogar in Fragment 9 [98] dekretiert: ‘Aber es giebt keinen Willen,’30 könnte dann nicht mancher unwillig die Diskussion mit ihm abbrechen? Hätte er nicht im Grunde sogar recht? Wo ist denn noch ein Ich, ein ego? Wo ist denn noch ein Du? Ein Wir? Ein Ihr? Einer der bedeutendsten Nietzsche-Forscher, Wolfgang Müller-Lauter, zugleich einer der wenigen, der
28 Fettdruck bei Nietzsche. 29 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, 384. 30 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, 391.
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Nietzsches Formulierung ‘es gibt keine Fakten, sondern nur Interpretationen’31 ausführlich bedacht hat, spricht in Zusammenfassung dieser Problematik von Nietzsches ‘Destruktion des Subjektes’.32 Als letztes Nietzsche-Zitat in diesem Zusammenhang ein Abschnitt aus den Nachgelassenen Fragmenten vom Frühjahr bis Herbst 1881 zitiere, nämlich aus Fragment 11[7]: Hauptgedanke! Nicht die Natur täuscht uns, die Individuen und fördert ihre Zwecke durch unsre Hintergehung; sondern die Individuen legen sich alles Dasein nach individuellen d.h. falschen Maaßen zurecht; wir wollen damit Recht haben und folglich muß ‘die Natur’ als Betrügerin erscheinen. In Wahrheit giebt es keine individuellen Wahrheiten, sondern lauter individuelle Irrthümer – das Individuum selber ist ein Irrthum. Alles was in uns vorgeht, ist an sich etwas Anderes, was wir nicht wissen: wir legen die Absicht und die Hintergehung und die Moral erst in die Natur hinein. [. . .] Aber wir haben ein Bewußtsein, als ob wir Alles sein wollten und sollten, eine Phantasterei von ‘Ich’ und allem ‘Nicht-Ich’. Aufhören, sich als solches phantastisches ego zu fühlen! Schrittweise lernen, das vermeintliche Individuum abzuwerfen! Die Irrthümer des ego entdecken! Den Egoismus als Irrthum einsehen!33
Zu Nietzsches Kritik an Kant noch ein kurzes Schlußwort: Nietzsche hat sich in seine Kant-Polemik hineingesteigert und letztlich verrannt. Denn sein erkenntnistheoretisches Grundanliegen war in wichtigen Punkten deckungsgleich mit dem Kants. Dazu der Kant-Interpret Anton Grabner-Haider, der, ohne jedoch Nietzsche zu nennen, einen wichtigen Aspekt der ‘Kritik der reinen Vernunft’ folgendermaßen zusammenfaßt: ‘Wir erfassen die Natur immer als interpretierte Wirklichkeit, aber nie die Natur an sich’.34 Genau das hätte auch Nietzsche sagen können! Es stellt sich immer wieder die Frage, warum Nietzsche gerade diejenigen Gedanken Kants, die doch auf seiner Linie liegen, so mißdeutet hat.
31 Wolfgang Müller-Lauter, Heidegger und Nietzsche: Nietzsche-Interpretationen III (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2000) 327. 32 Müller-Lauter, Heidegger und Nietzsche: Nietzsche Interpretationen III, 319; in seinem ausgezeichneten Artikel ‘Nietzsche, Friedrich (Wilhelm)’, in: Walter Killy; Literatur-Lexikon: Autoren und Werke deutscher Sprache, Band 8 (Gütersloh/München: Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, 1990) (414–20) 417 urteilt Jochen Hörisch, jedoch nicht im Blick auf unsere spezielle Frage, sondern im weiteren Sinne: ‘N[ietzsche]s Denken ist prinzipienlos’. Ein solches Urteil dürfte vielleicht auch für unsere Fragestellung naheliegen. Doch möchte ich nicht so weit gehen. Ich versuche in den folgenden Überlegungen diese Folgerung zu vermeiden. 33 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1880–1882 9, 442–3. 34 Anton Grabner-Haider, Die wichtigsten Philosophen (Wiesbaden: maxiverlag, 2006) 131; eine ausgezeichnete Schrift für solche, die erste Informationen suchen.
128 hans hübner 5. Interpretation und Offenbarung bei Nietzsche
Bisher habe ich solche Aussagen Nietzsches bedacht, in denen er zuweilen autoritär anderen etwas sagt und abverlangt. Er verdächtigt sie, er will ihnen gegenüber Hermeneut sein und sie durch sein Hermeneut-Sein zur Erkenntnis ihres falschen Denkens bringen. Sie sollen alle – ich greife auf das erste NietzscheZitat zurück – erfassen, daß es keine Tatsachen gibt, sondern nur Interpretationen. Jetzt aber drängt sich unüberhörbar die Frage auf: Wie aber verhält sich Nietzsche selbst zu seiner eigenen Verkündigung? Sieht er sich auch als solchen angesprochen, der seine Individualität und sein ego aufgeben soll, um nicht falsch zu denken? Sieht er seine eigenen Gedanken, seine eigenen mit Nachdruck vertretenen Forderungen, auch nur als bloße Interpretationen innerhalb eines unendlichen Prozesses je neuer Interpretationen? Hat er auch seine eigenen Worte aufgrund der ihm eigenen ‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ selbstkritisch in Frage gestellt? Oder sieht er sich selbstbewußt als den überragenden, nicht kritisierbaren und nicht zu hinterfragenden Verkünder, der unangefochten und erhaben über allen und über allem steht und der sich deshalb mit gutem Gewissen von seiner ureigenen Predigt dispensiert? Um hierauf eine Antwort zu erhalten, bietet ‘Ecce homo’, Abschnitt ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’, aus den Nachgelassenen Schriften einen guten Einstieg. Hier schaut Nietzsche auf seine bisherigen Bücher zurück. Zuvor aber der Blick auf das für ihn so überaus ereignisreiche Jahr 1881! Nietzsche befindet sich im Oberengadin, in Sils-Maria. Da widerfährt ihm am 6. August eine Inspiration: Anfang August 1881 in Sils-Maria, 6000 Fuß über dem Meere und viel höher über allen menschlichen Dingen! –’35
Mag der Ton dieser Worte manchem pathetisch vorkommen, so haben doch viele deren dichterischen Klang im Ohr. Doch nun zu ‘Ecce homo’! Hier beschreibt Nietzsche dieses seine Existenz bestimmende Ereignis in theologischer Terminologie, und zwar in einer solchen Terminologie, die für den Neutestamentler von höchster Relevanz ist. Denn Nietzsche denkt hier in Denkbahnen, die in auffälliger Parallele zu wichtigsten theologischen Termini des Neuen Testaments stehen, vor allem im Corpus Paulinum und im JohannesEvangelium. Er versteht nämlich das ihm geschehene Widerfahrnis in Sils-Maria als Inspiration, als ihn inspirierende Offenbarung. In eben dieser Weise beschreibt er deren Wesen: Der Begriff Offenbarung, in dem Sinn, daß plötzlich, mit unsäglicher Sicherheit und Feinheit, Etwas sichtbar, hörbar wird, Etwas, das Einen im Tiefsten erschüttert und umwirft, beschreibt einfach den Thatbestand. Man hört, man sucht nicht; man nimmt, man fragt nicht, wer da giebt; wie ein 35 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1880–1882, 494.
‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ bei Friedrich Nietzsche 129
Blitz leuchtet ein Gedanke auf, mit Nothwendigkeit, in der Form ohne Zögern, – ich habe nie eine Wahl gehabt.36
Offenbarung ist demnach etwas, gegen das niemand ankommt, selbst Nietzsche nicht! Was sich mit Macht in ihr offenbart, geschieht ‘mit unsäglicher Sicherheit’; der Angesprochene kann dem Gehörten nicht widersprechen. In innerster Existenz ist er überwältigt. Das besagen doch wohl die Worte ‘Etwas, das Einen im Tiefsten erschüttert’. Was sich einmal als Offenbarung ereignet hat, dem eignet somit höchste Autorität. Denn unbestreitbar ist das, was einem Menschen als ihn überwältigende Offenbarung widerfährt, keine Interpretation, die von Menschen mit bloß menschlicher Kompetenz in einer unendlichen Kette laufender Interpretationen vorgenommen würde. Und so ist es nur konsequent, wenn Nietzsche hier nicht von Interpretation spricht. Es wäre auch widersinnig, Offenbarung in eine solche Kette von Interpretationen einzuordnen. Offenbarung kann nicht eingeordnet werden. Offenbarung ordnet sich nicht ein! Sie ist es, die einordnet! Sie hat das letzte Wort! Wenn nun ihr Gedanke ‘wie ein Blitz leuchtet’, dann kann keine Dunkelheit ihr so überaus helles Licht auslöschen. Und also beschreibt eine Offenbarung ‘mit unsäglicher Sicherheit [. . .] den Thatbestand’. Und wiederum drängt sich eine Frage auf: Wie kann Nietzsche derartiges im Ernst behaupten? Wir kennen doch seine kategorische Aussage: Es gibt nur ‘Interpretationen’, es gibt keine ‘Thatsachen’. Spricht er hier nun von ‘Thatbestand’, so dürfen wir diesen Begriff sicherlich als Synonym von ‘Thatsache’ verstehen. Dann aber legt sich für Nietzsche folgende Argumentations-Sequenz nahe: 1. Das Postulat der exklusiven Geltung von Interpretationen leugnet die Existenz von Tatsachen. 2. Auf höherer Ebene aber – so wäre Nietzsches Gedankengang zu ergänzen – setzt das Ereignis der Offenbarung dieses so grundsätzliche Postulat außer Kraft. Und so kann er dann kurz danach – wenn auch im Blick auf Zarathustra, so doch letzten Endes im Blick auf seine eigene Existenz – im Brustton der Überzeugung sagen: ‘Dergleichen ist nie gedichtet, nie gefühlt, nie gelitten worden: so leidet ein Gott, ein Dionysos’.37 Wir dürfen dann, uns in Nietzsche hineinversetzend, folgern: ‘So leidet der Gott Friedrich Nietzsche!’ Es ist der Atheist Nietzsche – er hat ja Gott getötet,38 aber eben nur den christlichen Gott –, der durch die letztgültige Autorität der Offenbarung von Sils-Maria wie von einer überwältigenden göttlichen Macht überwunden wurde. Und – zumindest dürfen wir es hypothetisch sagen – diese ‘göttliche’ Macht hat ihn in die Existenzweise des Gottes Dionysos versetzt. Dionysos, für Nietzsche gemeinhin der Gott des Lebens, ist aber hier der Gott des Leidens. Dieses Problem, ein Problem der Unausgeglichenheit, bedarf noch der 36 Friedrich Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra 7: Ecce homo u.a. (KSA 6, 1999) 339. 37 Nietzsche, Ecce homo, 348. 38 Friedrich Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft u.a. (KSA 3, 1999) 480–1.
130 hans hübner Erörterung. Zunächst aber stellen wir fest: Mit der Einführung der Thematik ‘Offenbarung’ stehen wir in grundsätzlicher Hinsicht an einem der entscheidenden Punkte der Hermeneutik Nietzsches, mehr noch: der Hermeneutik überhaupt! Gehen wir deshalb in den nächsten Überlegungen dieser zentralen hermeneutischen Frage nach. Wir haben Nietzsches Worte zur Kenntnis genommen: ‘Etwas, das Einen im Tiefsten erschüttert’. Gerade diese Worte sind offenkundig im Bereich unseres biblisch-hermeneutischen Denkens beheimat. Denn auch die biblische Botschaft kann der Hörende nur dann verstehen, wenn sie ihn trifft, ihn also betroffen macht. Geht es doch in ihr um ein Geschehen, das den Hörenden in seiner Existenz sowohl vor Gott als auch zugleich vor sich selbst be-trifft. Der Christ glaubt nicht an Dogmen, sondern an Gott, dessen Tun am Menschen allerdings je neu in der Sprache des Dogmas seinen Ausdruck findet. Das heißt jedoch, daß der Christ gerade nicht durch Dogmen, also nicht durch die Formulierung eines theologischen Existenz-Verhalts in seiner Existenz getroffen wird, sondern allein durch den in dogmatischer, aber noch zu interpretierenden Sprache formulierten Inhalt. Nietzsche aber vermag trotz atheistischer Überzeugung von der Gewalt der Inspiration wie von einer göttlichen Dynamis zu sprechen: Alles geschieht im höchsten Grade unfreiwillig, aber wie in einem Sturme von Freiheits-Gefühl, von Unbedingtsein, von Macht, von Göttlichkeit [!] . . . Die Unfreiwilligkeit des Bildes, des Gleichnisses ist das Merkwürdigste; man hat keinen Begriff mehr, was Bild, was Gleichnis ist, Alles bietet sich als der nächste, der richtigste, der einfachste Ausdruck. Es scheint wirklich, um an ein Wort Zarathustra’s zu erinnern, als ob die Dinge selber herankämen und sich zum Gleichnisse anböten (– ‘hier kommen alle Dinge liebkosend zu deiner Rede und schmeicheln dir: denn sie wollen auf deinem Rücken reiten. Auf jedem Gleichniss reitest du hier zu jeder Wahrheit. Hier springen dir alles Seins Worte und Wort-Schreine auf; alles Sein will hier Wort werden, alles Werden will von dir reden lernen –’). Dies ist meine Erfahrung von Inspiration; ich zweifle nicht, daß man Jahrtausende zurückgehn muß, um Jemanden zu finden, der mir sagen darf ‘es ist auch meine’.–39
In diesen Worten spricht sich ein überaus hohes Selbstbewußtsein aus! Wir lesen hier: ‘Alles Sein will hier Wort werden’. Welcher Theologe wird nicht sofort an Joh 1,14 erinnert: kai; oJ lovgo~ sa;rx ejgevneto? Der vom theologischen Denken herkommende Friedrich Nietzsche wußte also auch als Atheist gut theologisch zu formulieren. Außer auf Johannes sei auch auf Paulus verwiesen. Nietzsches Rede vom Gedanken, der wie ein Blitz leuchtet, findet ihre Parallele bei Paulus in 2 Kor 4.6: Denn Gott, der sprach: ‘Licht soll aus der Finsternis hervorleuchten’, der hat einen hellen Schein in unsre Herzens gegeben, daß durch uns entstünde die
39 Nietzsche, Ecce homo, 340.
‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ bei Friedrich Nietzsche 131
Erleuchtung zur Erkenntnis der Herrlichkeit Gottes in dem Angesicht Jesu Christi.40
Verwiesen sei auch auf des Apostels Damaskus-Widerfahrnis, wie es dann später Lukas in Act 9.3–4 in seiner typisch lukanischen Weise ausmalt: Als er aber auf dem Wege war und in die Nähe von Damaskus kam, umleuchtete ihn plötzlich ein Licht vom Himmel; und er fiel auf die Erde und hörte eine Stimme, die sprach zu ihm: ‘Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich?’
Es ist diese Erfahrung, die – in Nietzsches Diktion – Paulus widerfuhr: Das unfreiwillige Geschehen, ‘wie in einem Sturme von Freiheits-Gefühl, von Unbedingtsein, von Macht, von Göttlichkeit’. Man kann in paulinischer Bildrede zuspitzen: Nietzsches Sils-Maria ist sein Damaskus. Paulus und Nietzsche begriffen beide ihre Existenz als von einem göttlichen oder pseudogöttlichen Widerfahrnis neu bestimmt. Der eine bedient sich dabei seiner theologischen Sprache, der andere der Metapher der Theologie. Beide Männer wußten sich in einer je neuen Existenz. Bedeutete somit für Nietzsche – so müssen wir nun fragen – sein Schweizer ‘Damaskus’ die Außerkraftsetzung der exklusiven Geltung der Interpretationen? Dagegen dürfte allerdings die Chronologie der Vita Nietzsches sprechen. Denn das Fragment [7] 60, in dem die Exklusivität der Interpretationen und die Bestreitung von Thatsachen dekretiert werden, wurde zwischen Ende 1886 und Frühjahr 1887 geschrieben. In ihm dürfte diese Überzeugung am klarsten aufgesprochen sein. Sollen wir daher annehmen, daß er 1881 in Sils-Maria aufgrund seines Widerfahrnisses von einer ganz anderen Wirklichkeit – seiner neuen Wirklichkeit! – geradezu besessen war, später aber wieder zur früheren Auffassung zurückkehrte? Dies wäre jedoch eine recht künstliche und wenig glaubwürdige Vermutung. Einleuchtender wäre der Hinweis auf seine bereits bedachte Selbstüberschätzung. Sie könnte ein Indiz dafür sein, daß Nietzsche seine ureigene Erfahrung von Inspiration – Ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen – als so singulär verstand, daß man, wie er selbst sagte, Jahrtausende zurückgehen müsse, um einen zu finden, der sagen könnte, es sei auch die seine.41 Sollte diese Vermutung zutreffen, verstand er sich dann als Mann der Inspiration, die anderen aber als Menschen der Interpretationen? Leider läßt uns hier der entsprechende Abschnitt des Nietzsche-Handbuchs ‘Nachlaß 1885–1888’ im Stich. Seine Verfasserin ist die sonst zuverlässige Maria Cristina Fornari.42 Immerhin zitiert aber Claus Zittel in seinem Artikel 40 S. auch 2 Kor 3.18. 41 Nietzsche, Ecce homo, 340. 42 Hennig Ottmann (Hg.), Nietzsche-Handbuch: Leben. Werk (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2000) 143–9. Das kritisiert auch Tobias Nikolaus Klas, Danach: Neues von Nietzsche (Teil 1) (PhR 51; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004) (214–65) 240–1: Wirklich unverständlich scheint dagegen in diesem Teil der Umgang mit dem Nachlaß’. Fornari wird in diesem Zusammenhang ausdrücklich erwähnt.
132 hans hübner ‘Perspektivismus’43 das so wichtige Fragment 7 [60] aus KSA 12, von dem wir ja den Ausgang unserer Überlegungen nahmen, und nennt in diesem Zusammenhang auch Nietzsches wichtiges Diktum 14 [93] aus KSA 13, wonach für ihn die Welt nicht ‘an sich’ existiere, sondern essentiell Relations-Welt sei.44 Doch die von uns genannte Kernfrage stellt auch er hier nicht. Vielleicht kann aber ein Blick auf die Zeit des Ausbruchs der Geisteskrankheit Nietzsches zumindest eine Vermutung unsererseits bestärken. Wir hörten schon als Wort Nietzsches ‘So leidet ein Gott, ein Dionysos’ in ‘Ecce homo’, jener autobiographischen Schrift, die er noch vor dem Beginn seines Wahnsinns geschrieben hatte; und wir interpretierten: ‘So leidet der Gott Friedrich Nietzsche!’ ‘Ecce homo’ schließt mit den eindringlichen Worten: ‘– Hat man mich verstanden? – Dionysos gegen den Gekreuzigten. . .’45 Dionysos und der Gekreuzigte sind hier für Nietzsche Gestalten des absoluten Gegensatzes. Die eine Gestalt ist die – soll man sagen: weltanschauliche? – Negation der anderen. In den sogenannten Wahnsinnsbriefen Ende Dezember 1888 bis Anfang Januar 1889 findet man aber auch die merkwürdige Identifizierung beider, wie vermutlich auch in ‘Ecce homo’ (s.o.). In einem Brief an seinen Freund Prof. Overbeck und dessen Frau, in dem er androht, alle Antisemiten erschießen zu lassen, unterschreibt er mit Dionysos.46 Hans von Bülow verurteilt er brieflich zum ‘Löwen von Venedig’, der ihn fressen möge – wiederum Unterschrift: Dionysos.47 An Malwida von Meysenbug schreibt er aber am selben Tag, daß ihr, obwohl sie bekanntlich Kundry sei, viele verzeihen, weil sie ihn (!) viel geliebt habe – Unterschrift diesmal: Der Gekreuzigte.48 Doch in einem Brief vom Vortrage an Cosima Wagner lesen wir wieder die eigentümliche Kombination von Dionysos und dem Gekreuzigten, diesmal aber eben nicht als das Gegeneinander beider Gestalten, sondern diese in auffälliger Identität; Nietzsche ist jetzt als der Gott Dionysos zugleich der Gekreuzigte, Dionysos freilich diesmal als der Siegreiche, Nietzsche aber bekennt: ‘Ich habe auch am Kreuz gehangen’.49 Auch in einem Brief an den römischen Kardinal Mariani, in dem er seinen Papstbesuch ankündigt, unterschreibt er mit ‘Der Gekreuzigte’.50 Und um wenigstens auch Nietzsches Brief an Jacob Burckhardt zu nennen, sei daraus zitiert: ‘Ich habe Kaiphas in Ketten legen lassen,
43 44 45 46
47 48 49 50
Ottmann, Nietzsche-Handbuch, 299–301. Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1887–1889 (KSA 13, 1999) 271. Nietzsche, Ecce homo, 374. Friedrich NIetzsche, Sämtliche Briefe. Kritische Studienausgabe, Hg. von Giorgio Colli und Mazzino Montinari (im folgenden: KSB) 8 (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag De Gruyter, 1986) 577. Nietzsche, Sämtliche Briefe 8, 574. Nietzsche, Sämtliche Briefe 8, 575. Nietzsche, Sämtliche Briefe 8, 572–3. Nietzsche, Sämtliche Briefe 8, 577.
‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ bei Friedrich Nietzsche 133
auch bin ich voriges Jahr von den deutschen Ärzten auf eine sehr langwierige Weise gekreuzigt worden. Wilhelm[,] Bismarck und alle Antisemiten abgeschafft’.51 Was also Nietzsches Selbstüberschätzung betrifft, so zeigt sich diese kontinuierliche Linie auch in der Zeit von seiner Autobiographie ‘Ecce homo’52 bis hin zu seinen Wahnsinnsbriefen. Gehen wir nun davon aus, daß er ‘Ecce homo’ noch im geistig gesunden Zustand geschrieben hat, so erstreckt sich seine Selbstverherrlichung aufgrund der Gleichsetzung oder Nahezu-Gleichsetzung mit Dionysos von der Zeit seiner geistigen Gesundheit bis hin zur Anfangszeit seiner Geisteskrankheit; über den Ausbruch des Wahnsinns erscheint sie uns als continuum trotz des so katastrophalen Bruchs in jenem Abschnitt seines Lebens, auch wenn die Sicht des Gottes Dionysos dabei recht auffällig changiert. In ‘Ecce homo’ leidet der Gott, und Nietzsche sieht sich mit ihm in enger personaler Nachbarschaft, wenn nicht sogar nahezu in Identität. Der leidende Gott Dionysos und der leidende Nietzsche werden zumindest, wenn man es so formulieren kann, ‘quasi-identisch’. Marco Brusotti interpretiert ‘Dionysos gegen den Gekreuzigten. . .’.53 mit folgender Aussage: Dionysos steht für die Lebensbejahung, die N[ietzsche] der durch den Gekreuzigten versinnbildlichten und vom Christentum verkörperten Lebensverneinung entgegensetzt.54
Die erwähnten Beispiele aus ‘Ecce homo’ und den Wahnsinnsbriefen mit ihrer eigenartigen Quasi-Identität oder Identität Nietzsches einmal mit dem Gekreuzigten, dann wieder mit Dionysos bedürfen der Interpretation. Es zeigte sich: Nietzsche wechselt, wie auch sein Intimus Dionysos, immer wieder von der einen Identität in die andere. Deren jeweilige Zerstörung oder Bejubelung und dann wieder das Ganze vice versa lassen erahnen, wie groß Nietzsches Unsicherheit war, wenn er herausfinden wollte, wer er denn nun wirklich sei. Diese Unsicherheit korrespondiert mit der Unsicherheit, wie er sich selbst in seinem Atheismus verstand, ob als der überzeugte, triumphierende Atheist oder als der an seinem Atheismus Leidende.55 Ich konkretisiere: Nietzsche ist das eine
51 52 53 54 55
Nietzsche, Sämtliche Briefe 8, 579. Nietzsche, Ecce homo, 255–374. Nietzsche, Ecce homo, 374. Ottmann (Hg.), Nietzsche-Handbuch, 135. Zur Frage des Verhältnisses von Nietzsche und Dionysos sei auf verwiesen auf: Tom Kleffmann, Nietzsches Begriff des Lebens und die evangelische Theologie: Eine Interpretation Nietzsches und Untersuchungen zu seiner Rezeption bei Schweitzer, Tillich und Barth (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003) 317–31: 1. Hauptteil: Nietzsches Begriff vom Leben, V. Dionysios als Wesen des Lebens und sein Verhältnis zum ‘Gekreuzigten’ – nach ‘Götzendämmerung’ (1889), ‘Der Antichrist’ (1888/1895) und ‘Ecce homo’ (1888/1908); s. auch
134 hans hübner Mal Jünger des Gottes Dionysos, das andere Mal aber mit ihm identisch oder zumindest quasi-identisch. Das eine Mal ist er ganz und gar Mensch, das andere Mal aber befindet er sich im Bereich göttlichen Daseins, in erster Linie nämlich des Gottes Dionysos. Statt des wieder zum Leben erweckten Gottessohnes Jesus Christus ist es jetzt der Gott Dionysos!56 Wie aber steht es dann mit Nietzsches Atheismus, wenn zumindest dieser Gott und gerade dieser Gott in seinem Leben eine so wichtige Rolle spielte? Die in den letzten Jahren geführte Kontroverse, ob sich nicht Nietzsche womöglich selbst als Gott verstanden hat, kann hier nicht thematisiert werden.57 Aber zum Verständnis des weithin rätselhaften Verhaltens von Nietzsche, gerade auch in den so unklaren Zeugnissen seines einerseits so selbstbewußten Auftretens, andererseits seines so sehr unter Selbstverlust leidenden Ichs, möchte ich auf meine Interpretation des Aphorismus 125 ‘Der tolle Mensch’58 zurückgreifen:59 Daß Nietzsche nicht von der Gottesproblematik loskam, zeigt sich in diesem Aphorismus überaus deutlich; er hatte seine Botschaft ‘Gott ist todt’ letzten Endes nicht verkraftet. In all seinem Selbstbewußtsein und in all seiner Selbstüberheblichkeit existierte er letztlich aus innerer Unsicherheit. Nietzsche erzählt bekanntlich, wie der tolle Mensch am hellen Vormittage eine Laterne anzündete und auf dem Markt unaufhörlich schrie: ‘Ich suche Gott! Ich suche Gott!’. Da wurde er ausgerechnet von Atheisten verlacht. Er aber sprang mitten unter sie und durchbohrte sie mit seinen Blicken: ‘Wohin ist Gott? rief er, ich will es euch sagen! Wir haben ihn getödtet, – ihr und ich! Wir Alle sind seine Mörder!’60 Er verdächtigt ausgerechnet Atheisten, also solche, die wie er den Glauben an Gott ablehnen. Doch der tolle Mensch weist sie zurecht; er will ihnen nämlich ins Bewußtsein rufen, daß der Tod Gottes keine lächerliche, sondern eine überaus ernste Sache ist. Er verdächtigt die Atheisten, daß sie nicht wissen, was Atheismus ist. Insofern mag man auch hier von seiner ‘Hermeneutik des
56
57
58 59 60
meine Rezension dieses Standardwerks insgesamt: ThLZ 131 (2006) 1028–31. Kleffmann bringt in seiner hervorragenden Habilitationsschrift von seiner Konzeption her in mancher Hinsicht eine andere Perspektive als ich; an einigen Stellen differieren wir. Dazu s. die interessante und die Diskussion weiterführende Ansicht Kleffmanns, Nietzsches Begriff des Lebens, 328: ‘Der Tod des am Kreuz sterbenden Gottes, sein Tod als Gott, ist unmittelbare Voraussetzung der erneuten Erscheinung des Dionysos’. Kleffmann verweist dafür auf Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1887–1889, 641: ‘Selbst das Christentum wird nothwendig: die höchste Form, die gefährlichste, die verführerischste im Nein zum Leben fordert erst seine höchste Bejahung heraus – mich…’ Auf diese Problematik werde ich noch ausführlich in einer späteren Publikation eingehen. Dazu hier nur Kleffmann, Nietzsches Begriff des Lebens, vor allem außer in Kap. V auch in Kap. III und IV. Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 480–1. Hübner, Nietzsche und das Neue Testament, 5–10. Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 480–1.
‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ bei Friedrich Nietzsche 135
Verdachts’ sprechen, weil der tolle Mensch – hier alias Nietzsche! – denen, die ihn verlachen, vorwirft, sie wüßten nicht, was es mit seiner heiligsten Überzeugung auf sich hat, mit dem Tode Gottes. Dieses Ereignis müßte doch eigentlich jeden Menschen in tiefster Seele aufrütteln! Die, die hier vom Richtigen überzeugt zu sein scheinen, gerade sie wissen nicht, wovon sie überzeugt sind. Aber nicht nur wegen dieses vielleicht noch ein wenig vordergründigen Belegs für Nietzsches ‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ habe ich diesen Aphorismus genannt. Er läßt uns nämlich – etwas pathetisch ausgedrückt – in Nietzsches tiefste Seele blicken. Und da wird deutlich, daß ihn seine anscheinend so selbstsicher und unbeirrbar ausgesprochene Überzeugung vom Tode Gottes in der Tiefe seiner Existenz extrem leiden läßt. Seinen Atheismus sehe ich deshalb als einen ehrlich vertretenen Atheismus, weil er das Ergebnis harter und schmerzvoller innerer Kämpfe ist. Nietzsche ist – im Gegensatz zu den lächerlichen, weil ihn verlachenden Menschen – ein Atheist, der weiß, welch ungeheuerliche Botschaft er verkündet, welch furchtbare Anklage selbst gegen Atheisten: Wir – so bekennt er – haben Gott getötet, wir – so bekennt er – haben ihn ermordet! Es sind Worte, die er in höchster Erregung aus sich herausgeschrieen hat: Wie vermochten wir das Meer auszutrinken? Wer gab uns den Schwamm, um den ganzen Horizont wegzuwischen? Was thaten wir, als wir diese Erde von ihrer Sonne losketteten? Wohin bewegt sie sich nun? Wohin bewegen wir uns? Fort von allen Sonnen? Stürzen wir nicht fortwährend? Und rückwärts, seitwärts, vorwärts, nach allen Seiten? Giebt es noch ein Oben und Unten? Irren wir nicht wie durch ein unendliches Nichts? [. . .] Riechen wir noch Nichts von der göttlichen Verwesung? – auch Götter verwesen! Gott ist todt! Und wir haben ihn getödtet!61
Nietzsche leidet nicht nur an seinem Atheismus. Er zerbricht sogar – zumindest zuweilen – an ihm. Sind nicht gerade jene Aussagen, in denen er sich an anderer Stelle so überaus forsch zu seinem Atheismus bekennt, Ausdruck einer Überkompensation? In Aphorismus 125 begegnen wir also einem Nietzsche, der ahnen läßt, wie er gerade bei seinen besonders energischen atheistischen Aussagen die Zerrissenheit seines Innersten übertüncht. Sind nicht seine Fragen Zeugnis eines nicht und zugleich dennoch ausgesprochenen Nihilismus?62 Man erwäge die Worte: ‘Irren wir nicht wie durch ein unendliches Nichts?’ Das Nichts ist also ein Geschehen der Unendlichkeit! Angesichts des einen Nietzsche, der einen auf ihm lastenden Atheismus offenkundig macht, und des anderen Nietzsche, der triumphierend und aggressiv seinen befreienden Atheismus aller Welt kundtut, wäre zu überlegen, wie wir diesem letzteren Nietzsche gegenüber die nun ihm geltende ‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ praktizieren: Ist deine nach außen getragene Selbstsicherheit und Freiheit nicht dein verschleiertes wahres Gesicht? 61 Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 480–81. 62 Hübner, Nietzsche und das Neue Testament, 229–73: Kap.9. Der Nihilismus.
136 hans hübner Ein Blick in das Buch ‘Nietzsche in seinen Werken’63 von Lou Andreas-Salomé, Nietzsches zeitweiliger Freundin, mag unsere Überlegungen noch vertiefen. Sie, eine auch philosophisch sehr interessierte Frau, hatte mit ihm äußerst intensiv über philosophische Fragen gesprochen, hatte aus seinem Munde gehört, was er in persona zu seinem Denken zu sagen vermochte. Lassen wir hier ihre Einordnung von Nietzsches Worten in seine zeitlich unterschiedlichen Einstellungen zu Richard Wagner, Arthur Schopenhauer und Immanuel Kant undiskutiert. Von Gewicht für uns dürfte vornehmlich sein, daß sie Nietzsches, an Kant und Schopenhauer gewonnene Überzeugung gut verstanden hat, nämlich wie ‘die Fragen nach den höchsten und letzten Dingen ihre Beantwortung finden, zwar nicht durch den Verstand, sondern durch die höchsten Eingebungen und Erleuchtungen des Willenslebens’. ‘Höchste Eingebungen’ – das ist Gegebenes! Erinnert sei an Nietzsches bereits zitierte Aussage ‘Man hört, man sucht nicht, man nimmt, man fragt nicht, wer da giebt’.64 Das ist genau das, was seine Freundin Lou mit ‘höchsten Eingebungen’ ausdrückt, mit ‘Erleuchtungen’. Wenn das Widerfahrnis von Sils-Maria 1881 von Nietzsche als höchste Eingebung aufgefaßt wurde, so ist hier die Frage nach dem ‘Geber’ der ‘Ein-geb-ungen’ unangemessen. Daß er in diesem Zusammenhang von ‘Unbedingtsein’ und als Atheist von ‘Göttlichkeit’ spricht, dürfte aufschlußreich sein! In diesem Sinne polemisiert er in ‘Jenseits von Gut und Böse’ – geschrieben bezeichnenderweise in Sils-Maria!, Vorwort Juni 1885 – gegen den Aberglauben der Logiker mit ihrer Berufung auf ‘ich’ und ‘Subjekt’ mit dem Argument ‘dass ein Gedanke kommt, wenn ‘er’ will, und nicht wenn ‘ich’ will’.65 In theologischer Terminologie wäre dies die Eingebung des Heiligen Geistes. Auch theologisch läßt sich mit Nietzsche sagen: ‘Man hört, man sucht nicht, man nimmt, man fragt nicht, wer da giebt’. Nur bleibt in der Theologie das ‘Wer’ nicht fraglich. Die phänomenlogische Nähe des von Nietzsche geäußerten Grundgedankens können wir aber nicht bestreiten. Und jetzt gehe ich sogar noch einen Schritt weiter. Wenn Nietzsches faktische Außerkraftsetzung seines Interpretationen-Dogmas durch die höchste Ein-gebung von Sils-Maria geschehen ist, ohne daß er dies hinreichend reflektiert hat, so läßt sich zunächst sagen, daß sich Nietzsche und der christliche Theologe in der Bedeutung des unerläßlichen Interpretierens treffen, dann aber auch darin, daß ein Gedanke, verstanden als Eingebung und Erleuchtung, von jenseits des Denkens kommt. Natürlich versteht Nietzsche dieses ‘Jenseits’ anders als der christliche Theologe. Trotzdem kommen sich Nietzsche und der Theologe näher, als es zunächst scheint. Gott ist zwar auch nach dem christlichen Glauben der
63 Lou Andreas-Salomé, Nietzsche in seinen Werken (Frankfurt am Main und Leipzig: insel taschenbuch 2592, 1994) 187–8. 64 Nietzsche, Ecce homo, 339. 65 Friedrich Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse:.Zur Genealogie der Moral (KSA 5, 1999) 30.
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Transzendente. Aber dieser transzendente Gott hat als der Schöpfer seine Seinsweise auch im Immanenten, also in der Schöpfung. Dem entspricht, daß der Mensch, als Geschöpf ein immanentes Wesen, nach dem Neuen Testament auch seinen seinsmäßigen Bezug zur Transzendenz hat. Diejenige Aussage, die in dieser Hinsicht am weitesten geht, ist 2 Petr 2,4, wo es vom Menschen heißt, er werde ‘teilhaft der göttlichen Natur sein’, koinwnoi; qeiva~ fuvsew~.66 Nach 2 Kor 3,18 werden wir ‘von göttlicher Herrlichkeit in immer neue göttliche Herrlichkeit umgeformt’, metamorfouvmeqa ajpo; dovxh~ eij~ dovxan.67 Hat also Gott seine transzendente Seinsweise auch im Immanenten, so läßt sich vom Menschen sagen, daß er seine immanente Seinsweise auch im Transzendenten hat. Anders formuliert: Das Menschliche in Gott – das Göttliche im Menschen.68 Das ist gut neutestamentlich. Nietzsche würde diese Formel nicht unterschreiben. Er würde ihr wahrscheinlich sogar mit Vehemenz widersprechen. Aber unser theologisch-philosophisches Fragen sollte einer gewissen Affinität energisch nachspüren. Ich mache damit Nietzsche nicht zum Christen! Aber ich frage, ob nicht in seiner betont atheistischen Denkweise mehr als nur ein Funken theologischen Denkens steckt.
6. Schlußüberlegung
Zurück zur Themenstellung: Nietzsche und die ‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’! Wir haben sie ihm als dem, der unbestreitbar ein bedeutender Vertreter dieser Hermeneutik ist, bereits für einen Augenblick aus der Hand genommen und gegen ihn selbst gerichtet. Wir sollten für einen Augenblick auch ihm gegenüber, um ihn in unserer Hermeneutik richtig zu verstehen, unseren hoffentlich gründlich genug überlegten Verdacht äußern, also unsere eigene ‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’. Es hat sich gezeigt, daß sich in Nietzsches Gesamtkonzeption Unausgeglichenes findet. Es liegen schon gravierende Verdachtsmomente vor, die zu prüfen uns aufgegeben ist – eine Aufgabe, der wir uns anfangsweise zu stellen bemüht haben. Wenn aber Nietzsche zu denen 66 Hans Hübner, ‘2 Petr 1,4 – eine Blasphemie, die keineswegs gotteslästerlich ist’, in: Theologie in der Spätzeit des Neuen Testamnts. Vorträge auf dem Symposium zum 75. Geburtstag von Kurt Niederwimmer (Hg. Wilhelm Pratscher—Markus Öhler; Wien: Universität Wien, Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät, Gutachten und Studien Nr.2 2005) 67–79. 67 Hübner, Evangelische Fundamentaltheologie, 155–8: das neutestamentliche dovxa meint in der Regel die göttliche Herrlichkeit, das göttliche Sein in seiner Herrlichkeit, also eine nahezu ontologische Aussage. 68 Dem steht das islamische Verständnis von der Transzendenz Gottes entgegen; s. Hans Hübner, Wer ist der biblische Gott? Fluch und Segen der monotheistischen Religionen (Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1. Auflage 2004) 204–5 (⫽ 2. Auflage 2006: S. 206–7). Ich habe da den biblisch-hermeneutischen Monotheismus als ‘bereichernden Monotheismus’ charakterisiert.
138 hans hübner gehört, die unser gegenwärtiges Denken stark beeinflußt haben, und wenn er uns Fragen gestellt hat, die zu bedenken uns bereichern könnten, dann sollte das Gespräch mit dem toten Nietzsche, also mit seinen höchst lebendigen Schriften, auch heute noch eine unverzichtbare Aufgabe sei. Dem Atheisten Friedrich Nietzsche müssen wir widersprechen. Dem Denker Friedrich Nietzsche sollten wir unser Ohr leihen.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 139–159. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0028688508000088
Recent Advances in Computational Linguistics and their Application to Biblical Studies* J . JOSÉ ALVIAR Faculty of Theology, University of Navarra, 31080 Pamplona, Spain
This article focuses on novel computer-based techniques for style characterization which have been tested on NT texts. The techniques are derived from the fields of information theory, communications engineering, and bioinformatics, and treat text as linearly sequenced information. They employ computer algorithms capable of detecting patterns in character strings, thereby permitting characterization of a given text or comparison of various texts. The application of the techniques to NT books has so far yielded results generally concordant with other methods, and suggest that the new techniques, if further refined, could complement other approaches to Biblical-textual questions. Keywords: Stylistics, Biblical analysis, Computer analysis, Linguistics
1 Introduction
The ‘feel’ of a text – the impression of uniqueness conveyed upon the reader by a cumulus of details such as peculiar words, turns of phrase, or lines of thought – that is what ‘stylometry’ attempts to quantify. As early as 1851, the English mathematician Augustus de Morgan suggested that measuring the average length of words of the NT books could provide an insight on the authorship of the letter to the Hebrews. The field of stylometry has advanced rapidly since then, and in recent times has been helped by the advent of the computer age. The computer has made possible the storage of large textual corpora in manageable digital form, and given rise to automated procedures for language analysis (computational linguistics). The present article focuses on a novel class of computer-based * The author wishes to express his gratitude to the following for providing invaluable assistance in the preparation of this article: Derek Abbott, Matthew Berryman, Vittorio Loreto, and William Teahan, for supplying information on experimental results and expert advice; Bernardo Estrada, Robert Kraft, and Réginald Ferdinand Poswick, for providing additional information on publications and institutions; Dither Ruiz and Vincent Hernandez for collaborating in the compression-technique experiments and the preparation of the figures.
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140 j. josé alviar techniques, which have been used recently to analyse the style of NT books. The results obtained, and the implied presence of a new conceptual approach to textual questions, are, we feel, sufficiently intriguing to warrant a review. To situate the new techniques in their proper historical context, we first draw a brief summary of the evolution of stylometry and computational linguistics. It is not our intention to do an exhaustive review (this has already been done by others, as will be seen in the citations below), but rather to open a narrow window, focusing on approaches to style analysis derived from unusual fields such as data compression and bioinformatics. In the central part of the article, we describe the methods and their results. Finally, we remark on the limitations and potential of the new techniques, in the hope that biblical scholars and linguists will consider giving attention to advances in ‘foreign’ scientific areas.
2 The Evolution of Stylometry and Computational Linguistics 1
a) A Brief History The first attempts in the paradoxical enterprise of ‘measuring’ literary style appeared in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They involved simple criteria for characterising textual pieces, such as the average word length (Thomas Corwin Mendenhall), average sentence length (Udny Yule), or frequencies of different words (George Kingsley Zipf, Yule). In the latter half of the twentieth century more sophisticated techniques came into being. Frederick Mosteller and David L. Wallace, in an influential 1964 study, showed how the frequency of commonly occurring ‘function words’ (such as prepositions, conjunctions, and articles) could help in discriminating styles. In the 1970s, Barron Brainerd tested the indicative value of article and pronoun frequencies, whereas Andrew Q. Morton tried criteria such as word position within a sentence or in relation to another word. The decades of the 1980s and 1990s saw more progress – in the first place, the appearance of more refined techniques based on word frequency. Herbert Simon Sichel and Morton focused on one extreme of the word frequency distribution, studying the potential of hapax legomena and of dislegomena,
1 For more comprehensive reviews, see D. I. Holmes, ‘Authorship Attribution’, Computers and the Humanities 28 (1994) 87–106; idem, ‘The Evolution of Stylometry in Humanities Scholarship’, Literary and Linguistic Computing 13 (1998) 111–17; H. Craig, ‘Stylistic Analysis and Authorship Studies’, A Companion to Digital Humanities (ed. S. Schreibman, R. Siemens and J. Unsworth; Oxford: Blackwell, 2004) 273–88; J. Burrows, ‘Questions of Authorship: Attribution and Beyond’, Computers and the Humanities 37 (2003) 5–32; A. Dean Forbes, ‘Statistical Research on the Bible’, ABD 6.185–206; H. van Dyke Parunak, ‘Computers and Biblical Studies’, ABD 1.1112–24; R. F. Poswick, ‘Si la Bible m’était comptée’, Actes JADT 1998 (Nice: CNRS, 1998) 517–27; ‘Statistiques et Bible’, Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de la Bible (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002) 1232–3.
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respectively, to obtain an idea of texts’ vocabulary richness, while M. W. A. Smith and John F. Burrows concentrated on the other end of the distribution, reasoning that the statistics of very frequent words could be useful for characterising style. Burrows developed a powerful method that took large sets of frequently occurring function words, then mathematically combined the statistical information of the sets to uncover an author’s distinctive use of language. The philosophy underlying his method – that of using not just one stylistic criterion, but rather a mathematical combination of a large set of different criteria (multivariate analysis) – has become predominant in stylometry. It lies at the heart of the various methods currently being used by researchers like Hugh Craig, Peter Dixon, David I. Holmes, David L. Hoover, Gerard R. Ledger, David Mannion, Thomas V. N. Merriam, and David L. Mealand. The dawn of the computer era had a deep impact on linguistic studies, as reflected in the birth and growth of numerous interdisciplinary institutions and journals.2 The application of computers to linguistic questions, however, is still in its early stages. Holmes, in a 1998 survey of stylometric techniques, included a section on ‘Stylometry and Artificial Intelligence’ and referred to artificial intelligence (AI) techniques as ‘exciting tools for the future’.3 Some investigators are in fact currently testing AI approaches to style analysis, such as artificial neural networks (Bradley Kjell, Robert A. J. Matthews, Fiona J. Tweedie, Sam Waugh), genetic algorithms (Richard S. Forsyth, Holmes), and comparison of character sequence probabilities (Patrick Juola). These methods work on digitalized texts, and employ computer programs capable of detecting or comparing patterns in the digital representations of texts. Their basic assumption is that a machine with suitably designed software can detect features that are not evident to the human eye. b) Applications to Bible Studies Not surprisingly, during this time a number of stylometric techniques have been tested in application to biblical texts. The latter half of the twentieth century, especially, saw a growing number of stylometric methods being brought to bear on Bible texts. The question of authorship of books in the Pauline corpus was met by Kenneth Grayston and Gustav Herdan using a technique based on vocabulary counts, and by Morton with a method relying on features such as sentence length, 2 For more details, see S. Hockey, ‘The History of Humanities Computing’, A Companion to Digital Humanities, 3–19. Among the institutions that work more specifically with Bible and computers are: the Association Internationale Bible et Informatique (AIBI, founded in 1982 through the initiative of Réginald Ferdinand Poswick, and organizer of the colloquium series ‘Bible and Computer’); the Computer Assisted Research Group (CARG, begun in 1979 under the auspices of the Society of Biblical Literature); and the Center for Computer Analysis of Texts (CCAT) of the University of Pennsylvania, under the direction of Robert A. Kraft. 3 Holmes, ‘The Evolution of Stylometry in Humanities Scholarship’, 114–15.
142 j. josé alviar function word frequency and function word positioning within sentences. Other researchers attempted to compare the styles of OT texts – Ronald E. Bee using verb frequencies, Yehuda T. Radday a combination of statistical markers. Among Radday’s studies, the one on Genesis is perhaps best known.4 Relying heavily on computers, it applied a large number of statistical techniques: univariate and multivariate analyses, analysis of pattern vector distribution, cluster analysis, smallest space analysis, reliability analysis, factor analysis, and estimation of vocabulary richness through the Sichel distribution. It led to a conclusion contrary to the venerable Wellhausen hypothesis: Genesis appeared to be more of a unity as far as authorship was concerned, though stylistically measurable differences were noticeable among the ‘narrative’ passages, the ‘God-spoken’ ones, and the ‘human-spoken’ ones. Anthony Kenny, in another study that applied simpler statistical tools to NT texts, also achieved interesting results.5 His analysis, based principally on different parts of speech (conjunctions and particles, prepositions, articles, nouns and pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) and their statistical distribution in the NT books, as well as on the commonest words, last words, sentence lengths, and preposition positions, led to conclusions such as the following: the likeness between Luke and Acts points to one same author; the Apocalypse is dissimilar to John’s Gospel [and therefore could have a different author]; the Pauline epistles constitute a stylistic ‘cluster’, with the distance of individual epistles from the nuclear group varying in this outward order: Rom, Phil, 2 Tim, 2 Cor, Gal, 2 Thess, 1 Thess, Col, Eph, 1 Tim, Phlm, 1 Cor, Titus. In the 1990s, following the general trend in stylometry, researchers like Étienne Brunet and Mealand applied multivariate techniques (factor analysis or correspondence analysis) to the stylistic study of NT texts. Further methods have been reported in more recent times, with the same underlying philosophy as the AI approaches mentioned above – that of viewing text as linearly sequenced information, characterizable with pattern-detecting computer programs. These techniques are unusual, though, for two reasons: (1) they use procedural tools developed in areas quite removed from linguistics or Bible studies – e.g. the fields of information retrieval (data mining), electronic and communications engineering (signal processing and data compression) and biology (DNA sequencing and phylogenetic tree mapping); (2) the methods, relying heavily as they do upon enhanced computing power, could hardly have been envisioned for use just a few decades ago – indeed, they are strictly ‘computer-based’, not merely ‘computer4 Y. T. Radday, et al., Genesis: An Authorship Study in Computer-Assisted Statistical Linguistics (Rome: Biblical Institute, 1985). For a summary of the critique, see Forbes, ‘Statistical Research’, 199–201. 5 A. Kenny, A Stylometric Study of the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986). For a summary of the critique, see Forbes, ‘Statistical Research’, 193.
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assisted’, techniques.6 In the remainder of this article we focus on these novel techniques – not because they are definitely superior to older methods, but because of the perspectives they suggest for biblical and linguistic studies.
3 Some Recent Methods
a) Techniques Based on Data Compression (1) Overview At the turn of the millennium, several research teams (in the United Kingdom, Russia, and Italy) working on the problem of discriminating linear character sequences (e.g. literary texts, DNA sequences, transmitted signals, etc.), turned their attention to ideas first conceived in the field of information theory. The techniques described by William J. Teahan and David J. Harper,7 Olga V. Kukushkina, Anatolij A. Polikarpov and Dmitry V. Khmelev,8 and Dario Benedetto, Emanuele Caglioti, and Vittorio Loreto,9 were all based on a ‘stochastic’ model of written language, which conceived the characters of a text as having been ‘emitted’ one at a time by a source ( the writer), with a probability function governing the likeliness of any given character being emitted next. Such a probability function (an indication of the ‘richness’ of the information contained in the text – the ‘entropy’10 or ‘complexity’,11 in the more technical wording of the authors) might be sufficiently distinctive, the researchers argued, as to permit identification not merely of the idiom, but even of the author, of a given text. 6 This would seem to bear out H. van Dyke Parunak’s scepticism over attempts at writing a history of ‘the application of computers to the Bible’: ‘the field’, he stated, ‘is progressing so rapidly that such a history would immediately be out of date’ (‘Computers and Biblical Studies’, 1112). 7 W. J. Teahan, ‘Text Classification and Segmentation Using Minimum Cross-Entropy’, Proceedings of the RIAO 2000 Conference (Paris: Centre de Hautes Études Internationale D’Informatique, 2000) 943–61; W. J. Teahan and D. J. Harper, ‘Using Compression-Based Language Models for Text Categorisation’, Language Modeling for Information Retrieval (eds. W. Croft and J. Laferty; Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2003) 141–66. 8 O. V. Kukushkina, A. A. Polikarpov, and D. V. Khmelev, ‘Using Literal and Grammatical Statistics for Authorship Attribution’, Problems of Information Transmission 37 (2001) 172–84. 9 D. Benedetto, E. Caglioti, and V. Loreto, ‘Language Trees and Zipping’, Physical Review Letters 88 (2002) 48702(1–4). 10 C. E. Shannon: ‘A Mathematical Theory of Communication’, Bell System Technical Journal 27 (1948) 379–423, 623–56. 11 R. J. Solomonov, ‘A Formal Theory of Inductive Inference’, Information and Control 7 (1964) 1–22, 224–54; A. N. Kolmogorov, ‘Three Approaches to the Quantitative Definition of Information’, Problems of Information Transmission 1 (1965) 1–17; G. J. Chaitin: ‘On the Length of Programs for Computing Finite Binary Sequences’, Journal of the Association for Computer Machinery 13 (1966) 547–69; idem, Information, Randomness and Incompleteness: Papers on Algorithmic Information Theory (Singapore: World Scientific, 1987).
144 j. josé alviar In practice, it is not feasible to arrive exactly at such a probability function, so the research teams looked for ways of approximating it. Following earlier leads, they turned to existing text-compression algorithms (PPM Prediction by Partial Match, in the case of Teahan and Harper; LZ77 Lempel-Ziv, in the case of Benedetto, Caglioti, and Loreto; 16 different algorithms, in the case of Kukushkina, Polikarpov, and Khmelev). Previous research had already shown such compression algorithms to be capable of yielding an estimate of the ‘richness’ of information in a text.12 (This may be grasped intuitively as follows: one expects a text with numerous repetitions to be easier to summarize; and a text with hardly any repeated elements to be harder to condense). The estimate of ‘richness’ of a text could then be contrasted, further studies had suggested, with estimates of ‘richness’ of other texts. In this way, an approximate procedure for textual comparison could be derived. (In the researchers’ more technical terms, the problem was one of measuring the ‘relative entropy’, ‘cross-entropy’, or ‘relative complexity’ between any given pair of texts).13 It is the application of data compression algorithms (packaged in readily available computer programs) to an ‘old’ problem – 12 J. Ziv and A. Lempel, ‘Compression of Individual Sequences via Variable-Rate Coding’, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 24 (1978) 530–6; A. D. Wyner and J. Ziv, ‘Some Asymptotic Properties of the Entropy of a Stationary Ergodic Data Source with Applications to Data Compression’, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 35 (1989) 1250–8; T. M. Cover and J. A. Thomas, Elements of Information Theory (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1991) 78–124; P. F. Brown, S. A. Della Pietra, V. J. Della Pietra, J. C. Lai, and R. L. Mercer, ‘An Estimate of an Upper Bound for the Entropy of English’, Computational Linguistics 18 (1992) 31–40; D. S. Ornstein and B. Weiss, ‘Entropy and Data Compression Schemes’, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 39 (1993) 78–83; A. D. Wyner, ‘Typical Sequences and All That: Entropy, Pattern Matching and Data Compression’, IEEE Information Theory Society Newsletter (June 1995) 8–14; M. Farach, M. Noordewier, S. Savari, L. Shepp, A. Wyner, and J. Ziv, ‘On the Entropy of DNA: Algorithms and Measurements Based on Memory and Rapid Convergence’, Proceedings of the 6th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (Philadelphia: SIAM, 1995) 48–57; W. J. Teahan and J. G. Cleary, ‘The Entropy of English Using PPM-based Models’, Proceedings of the 1996 Data Compression Conference (Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society, 1996) 53–62; M. Li and P. M. B. Vitanyi, An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications (2nd ed.; New York: Springer, 1997) 325–78, 476–88; A. D. Wyner, J. Ziv and A. J. Wyner, ‘On the Role of Pattern Matching in Information Theory’, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 44 (1998) 2045–56; I. Kontoyiannis, P. H. Algoet, Y. M. Suhov, and A. J. Wyner, ‘Nonparametric Entropy Estimation for Stationary Processes and Random Fields, with Applications to English Text’, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 44 (1998) 1319–27. 13 J. Ziv and N. Merhav, ‘A Measure of Relative Entropy between Individual Sequences with Applications to Universal Classification’, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 39 (1993) 1280–92; Li and Vitanyi, An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity, 537–54; P. Juola, ‘What Can We Do with Small Corpora? Document Categorisation via Cross-Entropy’, Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Workshop on Similarity and Categorisation (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, 1997) 137–42; idem, ‘Cross-Entropy and Linguistic Typology’, Proceedings of the Joint Conference on New Methods in Language Processing and Computational Language Learning (Somerset: ACL, 1998) 141–9.
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textual comparison – which constitutes the novelty of the approach. We now offer a summary of two specifications of this approach. (2) The PPM (Prediction by Partial Match) approach The PPM algorithm for text compression was proposed by John G. Cleary and Ian H. Witten in 1984,14 and remains as one the most efficient compression schemes in use today. In simplified terms, this algorithm encodes characters in a text one by one. First it predicts the upcoming character, based on the few characters (usually not more than 5) immediately preceding, relying on frequency counts done for earlier character sequences. (The frequency counts are continually updated as compression proceeds.) The actual upcoming character is then encoded in terms of its mathematical probability of appearing after the preceding letters. In real applications, the PPM algorithm permits highly efficient compression of linearly sequenced information. In articles published between 2000 and 2003, Teahan and Harper described how the PPM algorithm could be used to classify or compare various texts.15 First, they applied the algorithm to a set of ‘known’ texts, arriving in each case at a ‘trained’ PPM compression procedure. Next, they applied the ‘learned’ compression procedures to ‘test’ texts of ‘unknown’ provenance. Since a learned compression scheme derived from a training text reflects the specific probability of the successive appearance of different characters, such a compression scheme, when applied to test texts, performs efficiently whenever the test texts have character sequences similar to those of the training text; and less efficiently when the character sequences in the test texts are unlike those in the training text. Thus the ease or difficulty in compressing a test text using different ‘learned’ compression schemes gives a measure of the ‘closeness’ of the test text relative to the various training texts. Teahan and Harper reported high rates of success in matching texts (in modern Western languages) of ‘unknown’ authorship with ‘reference’ texts of known authorship (e.g. the attribution of segments of Reuters news articles to different Reuters reporters, or the attribution of 12 disputed ‘Federalist Papers’ to one of three suspected authors). A further idea was set forth in 2001 by the Russian team comprised of Kukushkina, Polikarpov, and Khmelev, in their article on authorship attribution using Markov chain models.16 As a contrast to the Markov chain method, they described in an Appendix an alternative technique employing 16 different text 14 J. G. Cleary and I. H. Witten, ‘Data Compression Using Adaptive Coding and Partial String Matching’, IEEE Transactions on Communications 32 (1984) 396–402. 15 See note 7. Teahan had earlier worked with PPM compression in his PhD thesis: ‘Modelling English Text’ (Department of Computer Science, University of Waikato, Hamilton, 1998), obtaining peculiar results (pp. 135–7) for the book of Revelation. 16 See note 8.
146 j. josé alviar compression algorithms. The authors suggested that an approximate measure of the ‘closeness’ between any two documents (their ‘relative complexity’) could be obtained through a simple procedure, summarized thus: For two ‘documents’ to be compared, say a and b, extracts may be taken – A and B, respectively. A and B may then be concatenated and compressed (using a compression algorithm); additionally, B alone may be compressed. The authors reasoned that the difference between the length of the compressed AB text and the length of the compressed B text (in shorthand, LAB LB) should be smaller the more similar extract B is to extract A. If A and B are truly representative extracts of sources a and b, then we have a simple way of approximately measuring the ‘affinity’ between documents a and b. The authors tried out this method in matching ‘unidentified’ texts with texts of ‘known’ authorship (all texts in Russian), and achieved high rates of success in assigning ‘unknown’ texts to their real authors (though the success rates were generally inferior to the rate obtained via the Markov chain method). A further development was reported in 2005, when an Australian research team comprised of Madeleine Sabordo, Shong Y. Chai, Matthew J. Berryman, and Derek Abbott17 combined the ideas described above with a procedural suggestion set forth by the Italian research group of Benedetto, Caglioti, and Loreto.18 In order to estimate the stylistic ‘distances’ among NT books, the Australian team proceeded as follows. First they took short extracts (e) from different books of the NT. They then appended the ‘e’ extracts to whole books of the NT (E), to generate all possible E+e combinations. Afterwards, they applied the PPM compressor to the E+e texts. Again, theory predicts that where E and e have similar character sequences, the model generated by the PPM algorithm in compressing the first section E should continue to work efficiently as it starts work on the appended e section, and the resulting file ought to be relatively small-sized. And vice-versa: a bigger, less efficiently compressed E+e file may be expected in cases where the appended e fragment has character sequences quite different from the E file. The Australian research group took note of the numerical sizes (in bits) of the resulting compressed E+e files and, using a formula proposed by the Italian research team, calculated the ‘distance metric’19 between pairs of NT books.
17 M. Sabordo, S. Y. Chai, M. J. Berryman and D. Abbott, ‘Who Wrote the Letter to the Hebrews? Data Mining for Detection of Text Authorship’, Smart Structures, Devices, and Systems II. Proceedings of the SPIE 5649 (2005) 513–24. 18 See note 9. 19 This formula may be described in the following general way. Let a and b be two different ‘books’ to be compared. From these ‘books’ are taken long extracts (let us call them A and B, respectively) and shorter ones (a and b respectively). The extracts are cross-combined to form the text files Ab, Bb, Ba, and Aa. These files are all encoded with a compression algorithm. Extract A and extract B are separately compressed. Afterwards, the length L (in bits or bytes) of each resulting compressed file is measured. The delta (D) values are then cal-
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Figure 1. Plot of distances between Lk and other NT books
Figure 1 shows the ‘distances’ calculated by the Australian team between Lk and other NT books using the PPM technique. A ‘closeness’ to the reference book (in this case, Lk) may be observed for the three other Gospels, as well as for Acts (seen in this graph as especially close to Lk); and a greater ‘distance’ relative to Lk may be noted for the Pauline epistles. Among the Pauline works, the results for the longer epistles Rom, 1 and 2 Cor are similar; in turn, these are rather removed from the results for the shorter epistles Gal and Eph. (Evidently, the method as described here only permits direct comparison between one ‘reference’ book and other NT books; however, by comparing the different ‘distances’ from the common reference book one indirectly obtains an idea of the ‘closeness’ of the other NT books with respect to each other.) The Australian team concluded that the PPM algorithm yielded sufficiently precise results and was preferable to the LZ77 algorithm propounded in 2002 by the Italian group, whose method we now proceed to discuss.
culated as follows: DAb LAb LA; DBb LBb LB; DBa LBa LB; DAa LA+a LA. Finally, from the delta values the so-called ‘distance metric’ (Sab) between ‘books’ a and b may be computed thus: Sab (DAb DBb) / DBb (DBa DAa) / DAa.
148 j. josé alviar (3) The LZ77 (Lempel and Ziv) approach In 1977 Jacob Ziv and Abraham Lempel proposed one of the earliest compression algorithms, which came to be called LZ77.20 Though the original version has subsequently been refined, its basic concept continues to lie at the heart of such widely used compression programs as zip and gzip. Simply put, the LZ77 algorithm proceeds in linear fashion: it ‘remembers’ previously encountered character sequences and thus detects any subsequent recurrence of a specific sequence. It then encodes the information of the repeated sequence economically, employing just two numerical references – to the length of the repeated string, and to its distance from the previous identical string. The Italian team of Benedetto, Caglioti, and Loreto attracted attention in 2002 when they published an article in Physical Review Letters suggesting the use of this algorithm for text categorization.21 As briefly mentioned above, their method included an interesting twist – that of appending short samples ‘e’, extracted from different source texts, to longer samples ‘E’ extracted from the same corpus of texts, then using the gzip program to compress all the Ee files. Theory predicts that compression should be most efficient when an appended file e is most ‘like’ the file E to which it is attached. (In this sense, the gzip algorithm behaves like the PPM algorithm described above.) This is so because as the program proceeds with the compression of E, it ‘memorizes’ character sequences typical to E, so that by the time it gets to compressing e it is already equipped with a set of rules for summarizing e’s character sequences. When e is similar to E, many of the character sequence rules learned for E apply, encoding is economically done, and the resulting compressed file Ee turns out to be small; on the other hand, when the appended e text is dissimilar to E, unfamiliar sequences of characters are encountered in e, impossible to resume with the rules previously learned for E, and encoding file Ee becomes more cumbersome (and the resulting compressed Ee file is consequently bigger). In one experiment, Benedetto, Caglioti, and Loreto extracted long (E) and short (e) samples from different Italian literary works, generated all possible Ee combinations, applied gzip compression, and measured the size (LEe) of each compressed file. They also compressed the E extracts taken from the different books and measured the resulting file size in each case (LE). The lowest values for LEeLE were predicted by theory to correspond to those cases where the documentary source of sample e was most ‘similar’ to the source of sample E. Using this principle, the Italian team attempted to match ‘unknown’ texts with works of ‘known’ authorship, obtaining a success rate higher than 90 per cent.
20 J. Ziv and A. Lempel, ‘A Universal Algorithm for Sequential Data Compression’, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 23 (1977) 337–43. 21 See note 9.
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Going a step further, the Italian researchers suggested that further quantification of the ‘remoteness’ between document pairs could be attempted. They proposed a formula for computing what they called the ‘distance metric’ (Sab) between any two documents a and b, calculable from the data arising from the procedure just described.22 The ‘distance’ Sab, they reasoned, reflected the differences in patterns between documents a and b, and therefore signified an estimate of ‘literary distance’. Given a corpus of documents, Sab values may be calculated for every document pair, then inscribed in a triangular matrix compactly summarizing the ‘closeness’ or ‘remoteness’ of the documents in the corpus. The authors suggested that, by feeding the matrix values into a program used in phylogenetics (the Fitch–Margoliash algorithm, included in the public-dominion ‘Phylip’ package), a tree diagram could be generated to provide an overall picture of the relative affinities among documents. (In subsequent reports on improved versions of their technique, the Italian team included tree diagrams of Italian literary works, in which works by the same writers tended to cluster together.) The Italian team’s 2002 article provoked mixed responses – some favorable, others critical. Teahan and Khmelev pointed out the limitations inherent in the method.23 Other researchers tested the method in different applications, introducing procedural modifications of their own.24 The members of the Italian group themselves have continued to refine and develop their original idea since 2002.25 In 2005 the Australian research group of Sabordo, Chai, Berryman, and Abbott (earlier cited) used the technique to measure the relative affinities of NT texts (their principal intention being to shed additional light on the question of the authorship of Heb).26 A partial presentation of their published data may be seen in Figure 2. The graph shows the calculated ‘distances’ of various NT books relative to Luke. (The graph has been simplified to show only the calculated mean
22 See note 19. 23 D. Khmelev and W. J. Teahan, ‘On an Application of Relative Entropy’, Physical Review Letters 90 (2003) 089803; D. Benedetto, E. Caglioti and V. Loreto, ‘Reply’, Physical Review Letters 90 (2003) 089804. 24 Apart from the article by Sabordo, Chai, Berryman, and Abbott (note 16), see S. C. Sahinalp, M. Tasan, J. Macker, and Z. M. Ozsoyoglu, ‘Distance Based Indexing for String Proximity Search’, Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Data Engineering (New York: IEEE Computer Society, 2003) 125–36; T. Agata, ‘Authorship Attribution by Data Compression Program’, Library and Information Science 54 (2005) 1–18; R. Cilibrasi and P. M. B. Vitanyi, ‘Clustering by Compression’, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 51 (2005) 1523–45; T. Roos, T. Heikkilä and P. Myllymäki, ‘A Compression-Based Method for Stemmatic Analysis’, Proceedings of the 2006 European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (Amsterdam: IOS, 2006) 805–6. 25 See below, section (c). 26 See note 17.
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Figure 2. Plot of distances between Lk and other NT books
values, not the uncertainty ranges of the values, which the authors hold to be significant.) Though some of the results were intriguing (closeness of Acts to Lk; relative affinity of the Synoptics, and even Jn, among themselves; closeness of some Pauline epistles among themselves), the authors noted that the method did not yield results sufficiently precise (i.e. with an acceptably small ‘scattering’ of experimental values) as to permit firm conclusions. They concluded that the LZ77 algorithm was less useful than PPM as a tool for authorship attribution. We have performed an experiment along the same line, to illustrate how the original idea of the Italian and Australian research groups might be pursued to the end, to arrive, as the Italian group did in their experiment with Italian texts, at a pairwise distance matrix for NT books and a tree diagram representing the closeness or remoteness of these books among themselves. Ours, however, must be considered a simple proof-of-principle experiment, since significant results may be obtained only through repeated trials with multiple extracts randomly drawn from each NT book.27 In one trial, long and short samples were taken from the 17 largest books of the NT, cross-combined, then compressed with the LZ77 algorithm. The resulting file size values were used to calculate the ‘distances’ between
27 For more details of this proof-of-principle experiment, see www.unav.es/tdogmatica/ profesores/josealviar/experiment.html.
Recent Advances in Computational Linguistics 151 Mt Mc Lk Jn Act Rm 1Co 2Co Ga Eph Ph Co 1Th 1Tm 2Tm Hb Jm 1P 2P 1Jn Rv
-0.11 -0.01 0.09 0.27 0.17 0.10 0.25 0.15 0.30 0.21 0.18 0.29 0.20 0.09 0.23 0.11 0.20 0.34 0.33 0.30 Mt
0.02 0.13 0.22 0.18 0.22 0.28 0.11 0.30 0.23 0.17 0.30 0.18 0.11 0.22 0.12 0.17 0.26 0.36 -0.02 Mc
0.13 0.24 0.20 0.12 0.27 0.08 0.20 0.20 0.11 0.28 0.17 0.07 0.21 -0.05 0.15 0.25 0.32 0.26 Lk
0.34 0.30 0.22 0.34 0.24 0.32 0.26 0.31 0.46 0.27 0.17 0.30 0.18 0.28 0.47 0.41 0.42 Jn
0.35 0.32 0.31 0.32 0.37 0.30 0.36 0.42 0.34 0.22 0.32 0.32 0.33 0.43 0.63 0.51 Act
0.15 0.09 0.04 0.08 0.12 0.10 0.16 0.04 -0.05 0.20 0.05 0.09 0.30 0.23 0.42 Rm
0.20 0.06 0.15 0.03 0.16 0.14 0.17 0.11 0.29 0.07 0.13 0.33 0.39 0.41 1Co
0.13 0.08 0.21 0.14 0.02 0.13 0.10 0.29 0.10 0.15 0.27 0.36 0.43 2Co
0.16 0.08 0.11 0.26 0.14 0.12 0.14 0.09 0.15 0.33 0.30 0.41 Ga
0.08 0.02 0.20 0.08 0.04 0.23 0.09 0.01 0.28 0.37 0.51 Eph
0.06 0.17 0.11 0.08 0.18 0.01 0.08 0.32 0.28 0.47 Ph
0.15 0.04 0.10 0.27 0.12 0.04 0.29 0.38 0.34 Co
0.22 0.24 0.32 0.23 0.23 0.40 0.34 0.52 1Th
-0.03 0.25 0.12 0.06 0.25 0.40 0.38 1Tm
0.16 0.04 -0.01 0.13 0.29 0.24 2Tm
0.20 0.18 0.31 0.46 0.40 Hb
0.07 0.30 0.18 0.29 Jm
0.17 0.31 0.42 0.31 0.55 0.55 1P 2P 1Jn Rv
Figure 3. Pairwise ‘distance’ matrix for NT books
different pairs of NT books using the formula proposed by the Italian research group. Figure 3 summarizes the results in the form of a triangular matrix. To visualize the results better, we followed the suggestion of the Italian team and fed the matrix values to the Phylip tree-drawing algorithm.28 In simplified terms, this program (employed by biologists to visualize affinities among different DNA sequences) yields a tree diagram that most closely agrees with the numerical distances calculated for different pairs of sequences. The result is shown in Figure 4. b) The WRI (Word Recurrence Interval) Method We now turn our attention to another recent method, quite different from the compression-based ones. The concept of WRI originally arose from the field of ‘data mining’ – more specifically, from research on automated keyword extraction. It was proposed in 2002 by a Spanish research group comprised of Miguel Ortuño, Pedro Carpena, Pedro Bernaola-Galván, Esther Muñoz, and Andrés M. Somoza.29 Its key idea is ‘inter-word spacing’, i.e. the ‘distance’ between two successive occurrences of the same word within a given text. Such ‘spacing’ or ‘distance’ is formally defined as the number of other words intervening between one
28 It will be noted that in the distance matrix a few ‘distance’ values are negative (as Teahan and Khmelev predicted might occur: see ‘On an Application of Relative Entropy’, 089803). As Benedetto, Caglioti, and Loreto suggested (see ‘Reply’, 089804), we have rounded these values to 0 to avoid feeding unacceptable negative values to the Phylip tree-drawing program. 29 M. Ortuño, P. Carpena, P. Bernaola-Galván, E. Muñoz, and A. M. Somoza, ‘Keyword Detection in Natural Languages and DNA’, Europhysics Letters 57 (2002) 759–64.
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Figure 4. Affinity tree of NT books, generated by the Phylip algorithm from the pairwise distance matrix data
occurrence of a given word and the next occurrence of that same word. For any given word in a document, all its inter-word distances may be calculated (hapax legomena are of course excluded); afterwards, the standard deviation of that word’s inter-word distance values may be computed. The procedure may thereafter be repeated for every distinct word in the text, to produce a table of standard deviation values (of inter-word distances), corresponding to each and every word in the document. Finally, the words may be ranked according to their computed standard deviation values, from highest to lowest.30 In several articles, the Australian research group headed by Abbott and Berryman (earlier mentioned) reported experiments using WRI as a criterion for
30 According to the Spanish research team, a large standard deviation value is indicative of a non-uniform or ‘clustered’ occurrence of the word in the document body, whereas a small value signifies a more regular distribution of the word within the document. Experimentally, they discovered that the high-standard-deviation words (which they called ‘self-attracting’ words) were apt for use as keywords. For example, working with the King James version of the Bible, the researchers found that the words with the highest WRI standard deviation values were (in descending order): Jesus, Christ, Paul, disciples, Peter, Joab, faith, Saul, Absalom, John, David, king, Pharisees, Jeremiah, Gospel, Solomon, Mordecai, Esther, Joshua, Elisha. They concluded that these words are indeed representative of the KJV’s contents, and that therefore the WRI method holds promise for automated selection of keywords.
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Figure 5. Graph of standard deviation vs. rank discriminating English literary works.31 When they drew graphs of standard deviation values against word rank, they observed that the resulting curves for texts by different authors were distinct. They then tested the method on NT books. In Figure 5 we offer a simplified version of their published results for four NT books. The authors themselves have pointed to a similarity between the curves of Lk and Acts, and the dissimilarity of their curves with those of 2 Cor and Heb. To quantify further the differences or similarities among the curves, the Australian team tried both chi-squared testing and curve fitting via linear regression. The latter method allowed them to calculate the slope value for each book, which they suggested could vary from author to author; Figure 6 shows a simplified view of their results. Once more, a similarity between Lk and Acts may be observed – this time expressed as identical slope values (0.0015), as well as the difference of these slope values from those of 2 Cor and Heb. Further experiments by the Australian group on English fiction texts, however, yielded ambiguous results and led them to adopt a more cautious attitude regard31 M. J. Berryman, A. Allison, and D. Abbott, ‘Signal Processing and Statistical Methods in Analysis of Text and DNA’, Biomedical Applications of Micro- and Nanoengineering. Proceedings of SPIE 4937 (2002) 231–40; ‘Statistical Techniques for Text Classification Based on Word Recurrence Intervals’, Fluctuations and Noise Letters 3 (2003) L1–L10; M. Sabordo, S. Y. Chai, M. J. Berryman, and D. Abbott, ‘Who Wrote the Letter to the Hebrews?’, 513–24.
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Figure 6. Linear fitting of curves of standard deviation vs. rank ing the capability of the method (at least ‘in its current form’) to characterize an author’s style.32 c) Other Techniques: A Résumé Our survey has focused on two approaches utilized by several research teams around the world. For completeness’ sake we now make a brief mention of other computer-assisted methods that have been used recently in textual comparison experiments. The techniques are not yet as widely employed as the ones earlier cited, but appear to hold promise also. Several of the research groups mentioned above as having worked with the PPM or LZ77 algorithm have tested other text-compression algorithms, particularly bzip2 and improved variants of PPM. Some have gone further, devising even more refined pattern-detecting schemes. The tendency now seems to be towards schemes based on the detection and comparison of ‘typical’ character strings in
32 T. J. Putnins, D. J. Signoriello, S. Jain, M. J. Berryman, and D. Abbott, ‘Advanced Text Authorship Detection Methods and Their Application to Biblical Texts’, Complex Systems. Proceedings of SPIE 6039 (2005) 163–75. It seems that the plots vary somewhat with document length, so the issue must be investigated before the WRI technique can be reliably employed for authorship attribution.
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documents as suggested, for instance, by Forsyth and Holmes. In this line, Khmelev and Teahan have proposed the R-measure. The value is derived from simple counts taken of character strings that are common to any two given documents.33 Teahan, after Khmelev’s death in 2004, went on (with the assistance of graduate students) to develop a related value, called the C-measure, for documentary comparison. This value is derived from counts of character strings of a fixed length that are common to the documents being compared.34 The method achieves improved results over the R-measure technique. For their part, the Italian researchers have been working on the creation of intermediate, ‘artificial texts’, based on typical sequences detected in the original sources by the LZ77 compression algorithm.35 Such ‘artificial texts’ are in principle representative of their sources, and are the ones that may be compared to obtain an estimate of the ‘distances’ of the original source documents relative to each other. The procedure circumvents several limitations inherent in the LZ77 compression technique, and has been reported by the authors to yield better experimental results.
4 A First Appraisal
a) Commentary on the Results The results obtained thus far with the new methods are hardly startling. Abbott and Berryman’s experiments – perhaps the most comprehensive to date done on NT texts – show that compression algorithms which detect typical character sequences situate the four Gospels near each other (with Acts and Rv close by), and books belonging to the Pauline corpus farther away. (The measured closeness of Rv to the Gospels could be due to the presence of apocalyptic passages in the Gospels; this suggests a need to pay careful attention in future trials to the presence of various genres within a NT book). The detected affinity between Acts and Lk concords with findings of other stylometrists like Kenny and with the traditional attribution of Acts to the author of the Lucan gospel. The closeness of the great Pauline letters Rom and 1–2 Cor, as well as their distance from Eph, is in 33 D. V. Khmelev and W. J. Teahan, ‘A Repetition Based Measure for Verification of Text Collections and for Text Categorisation’, Proceedings of the 26th Annual ACM-SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (New York: ACM, 2003) 104–10. 34 D. S. Hunnisett and W. J. Teahan, ‘Context-based Methods for Text Categorisation’, Proceedings of the 27th Annual ACM-SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (New York: ACM, 2004) 578–9. 35 A. Baronchelli, E. Caglioti, V. Loreto, and E. Pizzi, ‘Dictionary-Based Methods for Information Extraction’, Physica A 342 (2004) 294–300; A. Baronchelli, D. Benedetto, E. Caglioti, and V. Loreto, ‘Artificial Sequences and Complexity Measures’, Journal of Statistical Mechanics (2005) P04002.
156 j. josé alviar agreement with the consensus among Biblical scholars; not so their distance from Gal. This latter result is ambiguous – it may be taken as an indication of the compression technique’s limitations, or as a suggestion that Eph is not really too distant from other epistles of indubitable Pauline authorship. As for the WRI trials, based on an algorithm capable of measuring the clumping or scattering of determined words in a text, the results lend further credence to the idea of a common author for Lk and Acts. Such results, though suggestive, must be considered as provisional and still subject to discussion. Although mathematical support for the techniques is available, further experimentation needs to be done to gain a more complete idea of the methods’ effectiveness in distinguishing literary ‘styles’. (In fact, as already mentioned, their proponents are currently working on further refinements.) The task that these researchers face is no mean one. In a critical article regarding the current state of stylometry36 Joseph Rudman cites, among the challenges (‘problems’, he calls them) confronting current-day researchers, the need for serious experimental design37 – e.g. obtaining the best available version of the text to be studied, mastering the history of difficulties of the different versions of a document, having a firm grasp of the mathematical and statistical techniques to be applied (including the knowledge of their assumptions and their limitations). This point of Rudman’s critique has some applicability to the procedures reported above: the choice of the particular version of the NT used in the trials is a matter for discussion, as are the number of trials required and the specific conditions that need to be met for reliable conclusions to be reached.38 The results obtained thus far with the new methods are, as we have said, far from revolutionary; but not devoid of interest. The mere fact that they generally point in the same direction as conclusions from other studies may be taken as an
36 J. Rudman, ‘The State of Authorship Attribution Studies: Some Problems and Solutions’, Computers and the Humanities 31 (1998) 351–65. Similar concerns are expressed by A. Dean Forbes, ‘Statistical Research on the Bible’, 204, and É. Évrard, ‘Sur quelques précautions en statistique littéraire’, Bible and Computer: Proceedings of the AIBI-6 Conference (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2002) 583–91. 37 Rudman, ‘The State of Authorship Attribution Studies’, 359. 38 As a concrete example, A. Puglisi, D. Benedetto, E. Caglioti, V. Loreto, and A. Vulpiani, ‘Data Compression and Learning in Time Sequences Analysis’, Physica D 180 (2003) 92–107, showed that if one wishes to obtain reliable results using the original LZ77 technique described by Benedetto, Loreto, and Caglioti in their 2002 article (see note 9), it is necessary to control carefully the size of the short extracts ‘e’ relative to the long extracts ‘E’. The measurement of the so-called ‘cross-over length’, necessary for a sound experimental design, calls for additional trials. A further idea of the abundant work required may be drawn from the report by Kukushkina, Polikarpov, and Khmelev (see note 8) – they estimated that comprehensive testing of 16 different compression algorithms for author attribution work required ‘about three weeks of non-stop computing’.
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indication of the potential of such methods for text characterization. It is true that their approach to literary text is simplistic, as they view text as a mere string of characters; however, it is precisely this reductionist approach which renders the text tractable to powerful pattern-detecting computer programs. In this sense, the techniques could be a valuable complement to the other methods of style analysis. The novel techniques offer some advantages. First, they do not require much ‘preprocessing’ of texts, and so are more straightforward to use compared to other stylometric methods (such as the discriminant methods).39 On a deeper level, the ‘blindness’ of the new methods renders them immune to subjective or ideological biases on issues like authorship, canonicity, etc.40 Such a ‘neutral’ starting-point could be useful for objectively counterchecking proposals like the old multiplesource hypothesis of Wellhausen for the Pentateuch, or the Q-source hypothesis for the Gospels. This same trait, admittedly, may also be counted as a weakness, since the new methods cannot possibly take into account the historical, cultural, and social context of biblical texts. They are clearly non-holistic methods. One further interesting characteristic of the new techniques is that they are applicable to any linear sequence of characters, and may thus be employed for Hebrew and Greek texts. Conceivably, these techniques could be of use in measuring differences among sections within one same book (as Radday and Shore attempted, using other methods, with the book of Genesis41): e.g. Gen 1.1–2.4a vs. Gen 2.4b–3.24; Gen 1–11 vs. Gen 12–50; Jn 7.53–8.11 or Jn 21 vs. the rest of Jn. They might also be helpful in comparing presumed Q-originated sections of the Synoptics with other sections; or, for that matter, canonical with contemporaneous non-canonical works (apocalypses, gospels, etc.: e.g. Daniel vs. apocryphal Danielic literature). b) Future Perspectives But then again, how useful are computer-based techniques for analysing a text so complex as the Bible? In the early 1960s, when computer power was 39 ‘Compression-based text classification methods are easy to apply requiring virtually no preprocessing of the data’. Y. Marton, N. Wu, and L. Hellerstein, ‘On Compression-based Text Classification’, Advances in Information Retrieval: Proceedings of the 27th European Conference on Information Retrieval Research (Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3408; Berlin: Springer, 2005) 300–14, esp. 300. 40 ‘Information theoretic measures have the advantage of making very few assumptions on the models which are considered to have generated the sequences’. D. P. Coutinho and M. A. T. Figueiredo, ‘Information Theoretic Text Classification Using the Ziv-Merhav Method’, Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis: Proceedings of the 2nd Iberian Conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis (Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3523; Berlin: Springer, 2005) 355–62, esp. 355. 41 See n. 4.
158 j. josé alviar increasingly being brought to bear upon biblical research, T. M. Knox famously remarked: ‘The spirit moveth where it listeth and is not to be reduced to the numerical terms with which alone a computer can cope’.42 Can a ‘blind program on a mindless machine’ really detect the subtle patterns that a human author consciously or unconsciously imprints on his or her work? Is it not, indeed, a contradiction to seek to measure that elusive trait that we call ‘style’; to attempt to quantify what is essentially a quality? The results obtained to date in the field of computational stylistics,43 and those reported in this article, would seem to contradict Knox’s dismissal of the usefulness of machine-based approaches to Biblical texts. While it is true that computational approaches grasp only a limited number of textual peculiarities, they do add richness to the perceived texture of human language. Combined with more traditional methods, non-traditional techniques contribute to a more holistic picture of the text. Modern scholars, in fact, tend to use more than one approach to literary texts, aware that every approach has its limitations. Thus, Holmes assures: ‘Stylometry presents no threat to traditional scholarship. In the context of authorship attribution, stylometric evidence must be weighed in the balance along with that provided by more conventional studies’.44 In the same vein, a 1994 Vatican document on Biblical exegesis acknowledges: ‘No scientific method for the study of the Bible is fully adequate to comprehend the biblical texts in all their richness . . . It is not surprising, then, that at the present time other methods and approaches are proposed . . . which serve to explore more profoundly other aspects worthy of attention’.45 It will be noted that the ideas and tools here reviewed have a ‘foreign’ provenance – fields like information theory, data compression and mining, and bioinformatics. This is a sign of the increasing ‘globalization’ of scientific research: methods are continually being elaborated in disparate areas of human knowledge, with potential application to many other fields. In the concrete filed of textual analysis, as we have seen, instruments are now being proffered by information theorists, communications engineers, and DNA researchers. This trend towards interdisciplinarity suggests that linguists and biblists may have to pay greater attention to advances in research areas ostensibly distant from their own. Therein lies a challenge – for who can keep attuned to fields so numerous and diverse? Rudman, in his article on the current state of stylometry, complains of a 42 Cited by Kenny, A Stylometric Study of the New Testament, 116. 43 See Craig’s defence of this field in his article ‘Stylistic Analysis and Authorship Studies’, esp. 287–8. 44 Holmes, ‘Authorship Attribution’, 104. 45 Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (15 April 1993), I. B.
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general ‘lack of competent and complete bibliographical research’ and ‘little investigative memory’ in current stylometric investigation;46 in other words, researchers are not always fully aware of what others have already done or are currently doing. This problem is only becoming deeper, for – as we have pointed out – concepts and tools are now being brought to bear upon textual problems from fields farther and farther removed from traditional sectors of stylometry, and the results reported in specialized publications little accessed by biblical or linguistics scholars.47 (It will be observed that the concepts for the techniques described in this article were first reported in communications and electrical engineering journals, rather than in biblical, linguistic, or computer journals.) Kenny, in his comparative analysis of Aristotle’s Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics published in 1978 (which partially relied on stylometric techniques), affirmed that ‘to be fully qualified to undertake such a task a man must be a professional philosopher, classicist, and statistician’.48 We might today add: ‘. . . and an electrical engineer, or perhaps a geneticist’. Perhaps the most realistic solution would consist in more assiduous collaborative work among experts from different fields, in order to pool know-how and resources.49 Will linguists, biblists, computer scientists, mathematicians, communications engineers, and biologists eventually come to form a tightly knit ‘expertise network’? Or will, rather, the trend towards specialization hinder attempts at concerted effort? Only time will tell.
46 Rudman, ‘The State of Authorship Attribution Studies’, 354. 47 For instance, Rudman (‘The State of Authorship Attribution Studies’, p. 353) reports that ‘a quick scan of my working bibliography shows that non-traditional authorship attribution studies have been published in well over 76 journals representing 11 major fields’. Another veteran researcher in Bible and computers, R. F. Poswick, alludes in an online article to the ‘overwhelming’ bibliography on the Bible and information technology, as well as the need to classify and critically evaluate all this bibliographical information: ‘The Bible in the Civilization of the Electronic Writing: An Evaluation (1985–2004)’, http:/www.cibmaredsous. be/cib5015J.htm, 1.2.1 (23 July 2004). 48 Kenny, The Aristotelian Ethics. A Study of the Relationship between the Eudemian and Nichomachean Ethics of Aristotle (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978) v. 49 Craig hints at this possibility in his article ‘Stylistic Analysis and Authorship Studies’, 281–2. Observing the difficulty for any one scholar to be expert in two or more fields, he points to a trend towards collaborative work among scholars from the humanities, computing, and statistical areas.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 161–175. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S002868850800009X
Mission in Matthew against the Horizon of Matthew 24 VICKY BALABAN S KI Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide College of Divinity, 34 Lipsett Terrace, Brooklyn Park SA 5032, Australia
Mission in Matthew’s Gospel is not limited to the obvious missional texts – Matt 28.16–20 and Matthew 10. Verbal and thematic parallels between Matt 28.16–20 and Matt 24.1–31 invite an interpretation of these texts as mutually significant. Matthew 24 portrays the present for Matthew’s community as darker and more vulnerable than is generally observed in Matt 28.16–20. This article explores both the similarities and contrasts between these Matthean passages and some other key intertexts, particularly Isa 42.1–4. Matthew’s eschatological program is discerned, including the nature of Christ’s ‘presence’ in Matthew 24 and the mission to the nations as an eschatological imperative. Keywords: Matthew 24; Mission; Testimonia; Matthean Eschatology; Gentiles
Introduction
The classic text with which to begin a study of mission in Matthew’s Gospel is undoubtedly Matt 28.16–20. At a symposium on ‘The Mission of the Early Church to Jews and Gentiles’ held in April 1998 in Norway, the papers presented on Matthew’s Gospel could be summarized under the heading ‘the Gospel of Matthew and the Great Commission’, for the focus centered on the interpretation of these few key verses.1 They are crucial to any theory about whether the evangelist revokes or redirects the missional perspectives of Matthew 10, to any hypothesis about the importance of mission in the Matthean agenda, and to any convictions about the projected recipients of that mission – whether the mission is to be inclusive of both Jews and Gentiles, or now directed to Gentiles only. In missional as well as chronological terms, they have a good claim to be the ‘last word’. Yet it is equally clear that the final verses of Matthew’s Gospel cannot be interpreted in isolation. It is the Gospel in its entirety that gives content and depth to 1 See The Mission of the Early Church to Jews and Gentiles (ed. Jostein Ådna and Hans Kvalbein; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, Paul Siebeck, 2000) 17–86.
161
162 vicky balabanski the words of the Risen Christ in Matt 28.18–20. Viewed against the broader canvas of the Gospel, the disciples are not the only ones who have been ‘sent’: there have been prophets in the past (11.13; 21.34–36) culminating in the work of John the Baptist (11.10), and there are ‘prophets, sages and scribes’ still to come (23.34). Jesus is sent by God (10.40), and it is finally the Human One – the Son of Man – who will send the angels (13.41; 24.31). The connection between all these instances of ‘mission’ – and the authority behind all mission – is ultimately God. So despite the prominence of the final verses of the Gospel, mission is not simply something that pertains to this ‘commission’, but needs to be understood broadly as an important theme in various parts of this Gospel, and an integral aspect of Matthean soteriology. It is not possible within the parameters of this paper to pursue all facets of this multi-dimensional theme. The purpose of this paper is to bring Matt 28.16–20 into dialogue with another Matthean text that is of great importance for understanding mission in Matthew’s Gospel, namely Matt 24.1–31. This paper proposes that these verses from the eschatological discourse offer a vital inter-textual horizon for the interpretation of the ‘great commission’, and for understanding Matthew’s missional perspective as a whole. The ‘great commission’ shares a number of important connections with this section of Matthew’s eschatological discourse (Matt 24.1–31). First, both have as their focus the ‘future’ in relation to the chronology of the narrative. Both passages look beyond the narrative time of the Gospel to an implied imminent future. Second, both give prominence to imperatives that the Matthean community2 could read as directly applicable to themselves and their context. The significance of these imperatives is evaluated below. Third, the setting of both ‘revelations’ invites the reader to connect them. In both passages, the disciples come to Jesus on a mountain, and the evangelist emphasizes that they are alone with him. This is in contrast to the mountain-top teaching of chs. 5–7, where a reference to the presence of the crowds frames the narrative (5.1; 7.28–29). Fourth, there are some close verbal connections between the two passages. One of them is the phrase ‘end of the age’ in Matt 28.20, which – as both the final words of the Risen Christ, and the conclusion of the Gospel – explicitly recalls the question of the disciples in Matt 24.3 as to what the sign of Jesus’ coming and the suntevleia tou` aijw`no~ will be. The nature of the answer which Matthew 24 gives to the disciples’ question forms the framework for understanding the concluding words of the Gospel. This fourth connection between the passages will also be discussed in more detail below.
2 In using the term ‘community’, a single, uniform gathering is not being implied, but rather a complex cluster of communities. Cf. Graham N. Stanton, A Gospel for a New People: Studies in Matthew (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992) 50–51.
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The fifth significant connection between the passages is the reference in Matt 28.19 to pavnta ta; e[qnh, who are to be the recipients of the disciples’ mission. This recalls the statement in Matt 24.14, where the good news of the God’s reign is to be preached as a testimony to all the nations3 – pa`s in toi`~ e[qnesin. The connection between the mission to the nations and the End that is drawn by both passages is also the subject of further discussion below. Finally, a further connection between the passages lies in the parallel between the future ‘power and great glory’ of the Human One in Matt 24.30 and ‘all authority in heaven and on earth’ (Matt 28.18) given to the Risen Christ. Both passages allude to Dan 7.13–14, Matthew 28 implicitly,4 and Matt 24.30 explicitly. There is, however, a contrast implied here as well. Although the Risen Christ has already been given all authority, his presence among the disciples in Matthew 28 does not yet constitute the parousiva of Matt 24.3, 27–31, as it is not yet apparent to all (w{sper ga;r hJ ajstraph; ejxevrcetai ajpo; ajnatolw`n kai; faivnetai e{w~ dusmw`n, ou{tw~ e[stai hJ parousiva tou` uiJou` tou` ajnqrwvpou, Matt 24.27). These various striking connections between Matt 28.16–20 and Matt 24.1–31 compel the careful reader to interpret them in close dialogue with one another.
The ‘Eschatological Discourse’ as a Window on the ‘Present’ for Matthew
One of the most significant difficulties in bringing these two texts into dialogue is in identifying a chronological sequence in Matt 24.4–31. It is clear that the commission of Matt 28.19–20 pertains to the present time for the Matthean community, but it is by no means so clear where the present time begins and ends in Matthew 24. Set out in Eschatology in the Making: Mark, Matthew and the Didache, is an argument that the progression of Matt 24.4–31 is best understood as a ‘twosequence schema’.5 It proposes that there are two parallel chronological sequences in these verses that span the past, present and future for the Matthean community, but which view them from different perspectives. The first sequence begins at v. 6, and encompasses the immediate past of the Matthean community, the period shaped by the Jewish War. This corresponds to the opening of the second sequence, beginning at v. 15, describing the necessity of flight during the Jewish War. 3 In order to avoid pre-judging the issue of whether ta; e[qnh includes or excludes Israel, the potentially inclusive term ‘nations’ rather than ‘Gentiles’ is used in this paper. 4 So W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison Jr., Matthew (3 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988–97) 3.688. 5 See Vicky Balabanski, Eschatology in the Making: Mark, Matthew and the Didache (SNTSMS 97; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1997, 2005) 153–79, especially Table 4, 155–6.
164 vicky balabanski The present for the Matthean community is characterized by suffering,
qli`yi~, and the second section of each sequence opens with a reference to this (vv. 9 and 21). In both sequences, prominence is given to false prophets leading many – even the elect – astray. In the first sequence this is addressed in v. 11, and in the second it is the issue addressed by vv. 23–28. The opening verses of the passage, vv. 4–5, form a prelude to the two chronological sequences. They also refer to false christs who lead many astray, and set the scene for the ‘present’ experience of the Matthean community. Each sequence ends with a description of the future – the End – seen from different perspectives. In the first sequence this is vv. 13–14, and in the second, vv. 29–31. The description of the first sequence depicts the completion of the mission to the nations and the gathering-in of those who have remained faithful. It answers the first part of the disciples’ question in v. 3 – ’when will this be?’ – with the statement ‘then the end will come’, v. 14. The second sequence depicts the cosmic signs that are to accompany the end, as well as the gathering-in of the elect, and answers the second part of the disciples’ question – ’what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’ – with the ‘sign of the Human One/Son of Man’, v. 30. There is not scope within the parameters of this paper to rehearse the details or nuances of the argument. But there is a strong case for this two-sequence model being the best explanation of the Matthean redaction of the eschatological discourse.6 An abridged summary of the schema can be set out as follows:
A 66–74 ce
First sequence
Second sequence
Vv. 6–8 wars, rumours
Vv. 15–20 desolating sacrilege
The immediate past
(war)
B Post 74 ce
Vv. 9–12 Suffering,
Vv. 21–28 Great suffering,
Matthean present
false prophets
false prophets
(Vv. 4–5)
Vv. 13–14 Gentile mission
Vv. 29–31 Cosmic perspective
C The End
completed, earthly perspective.
of end.
One implication of the two-sequence schema for this discussion is that the present experience of the Matthean community is particularly apparent in certain sec6 This two-sequence hypothesis is affirmed by U. Luz in the third volume of his commentary on Matthew, Matthew 21–28 (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2005) 196. ‘I . . assume along with Balabanski that for the readers a new prediction begins with v. 15 that parallels vv. 6–14’. The only real difficulty he sees with the hypothesis is v. 20, a difficulty discussed in Eschatology in the Making, 162–5.
Mission in Matthew against the Horizon of Matthew 24 165
tions of Matt 24.1–31, namely vv. 4–5, 9–12 and 21–28. False prophets, who are successfully misleading many, are present experience for Matthew. Suffering, with hatred by ‘all the nations’ on the one hand, and hatred within the community networks on the other, are both present experience. Even allowing for the more stylized language of apocalyptic thought expressed in this discourse, this paints a darker and more vulnerable picture of the Matthean community’s experience than a reading of the Gospel as a whole would normally reconstruct. In particular, reading the conclusion of the Gospel – the ‘great commission’ – would normally lead to the impression of a community that had the resources and freedom for at least some of them to ‘go, make disciples, baptize, teach’ and practice the commandments as they understood them, interpreted as the halakah of Jesus. Does the apparently positive, even optimistic, tone of Matt 28.16–20 negate the connection, proposed above, between the ‘great commission’ and the eschatological discourse?
Hearing Matt 28.16–20 against the Background of Matt 24.4–5, 9–11 and 21–28
In their discussion of Matt 28.16–20, Davies and Allison mention the great significance of these verses to William Carey and the nineteenth-century Protestant missionary movement.7 Many Western interpreters find themselves heirs to the optimistic, expansionist, colonial frames of reference that embraced this text as the rallying call for converting the heathen. However, post-colonial readings of it are beginning to appear, which challenge reading strategies like this,8 and which reveal the fact that even in this Gospel’s very confident and inspiring conclusion, there are glimpses, for those who have eyes to see them, of the darker, more vulnerable side of the Matthean community’s experience. The first and most obvious aspect of Matt 28.16–20 that causes the reader to glimpse the vulnerability of the disciples, and through them the vulnerability of the Matthean community, is the reference to doubt in v. 17: kai; ijdovnte~ aujto;n prosekuvnhsan, oiJ de; ejdivstasan. Whether it is only some, or all of the disciples who doubt, it is striking that Matthew allows that among disciples who both see the Risen Christ and worship him, doubt can be present, and is not explicitly over7 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3.687. 8 Cf. George M. Soares-Prabhu, S.J., ‘Two Mission Commands: An Interpretation of Matthew 28:16–20 in the Light of a Buddhist Text’, Voices from the Margins (ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah; New York: Orbis, 1995) 319–39; Musa W. Dube, ‘ “Go Therefore and Make Disciples of All Nations” (Matt 28:19a): A Postcolonial Perspective on Biblical Criticism and Pedagogy’, Teaching the Bible: The Discourses and Politics of Biblical Pedagogy (ed. F. F. Segovia and M. A. Tolbert; New York: Orbis, 1998) 224–46.
166 vicky balabanski come. Many scholars note that it is not clear why Matthew refers to this doubting or hesitation.9 Hagner proposes that ‘Matthew wanted members of his community to apply the truth to themselves’, and cites various scholars who argue for it as a plausible psychological experience.10 But perhaps, rather than beginning with a psychological explanation, this doubt or hesitation could be seen as an acknowledgment of the experience of the Matthean community as glimpsed through Matthew 24, where the issue of false christs and false prophets could lead even faithful community leaders to succumb. Hence an acknowledgment of the danger of being led astray is apparent even at the resurrection encounter and commissioning of the disciples. The second window into the disciples’ vulnerability comes with Jesus’ reassuring words in v. 20 – kai; ijdou; ejgw; meqΔ uJmw`n eijmi pavsa~ ta;~ hJmevra~. They also have another and more vulnerable side to them. They recall the experience of both Moses and Ezekiel in the Scriptures who shrink from their prophetic office, as well as Jeremiah’s objection that he is too young;11 each requires the reassurance of God’s presence to perform what is required of them. It is likely that Matthew’s community would have recognized the scriptural parallels and the implication in the assurance of Christ’s ongoing presence that their community was similarly vulnerable.12 Third, it is quite explicitly Jesus’ authority in heaven and earth that will enable Jesus’ followers to make disciples, not the authority or power of the followers themselves. By contrast with Matt 16.18–19, where the authority of Peter is emphasized, there is here a distinct absence of imputed power. The authority to go and make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them is and remains the authority of the Risen Christ, not of his followers. All authority has been given to Christ. The disciples are to pursue their mission knowing that everything they do is not in their own power and authority. This too implies a recognition of the fact that the authority of the disciples is always contingent, and that they may need to perform their tasks in vulnerability and suffering. Fourth, the immediate context of Matt 28.16–20 does not allow the motif of vulnerability and conflict to be far from the mind of the readers. The conspiring of the chief priests and elders to reinterpret the news of the open and empty tomb forms the backdrop to the ‘great commission’. Matthew’s depiction of the leaders orchestrating a ‘cover-up’, the complicity of the guards who willingly receive their 9 So, for example, Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew (Sacra Pagina 1; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical/Michael Glazier, 1991) 414; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3.682. 10 Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14–28 (WBC 33b; Dallas, Tex.: Word, 1995) 885. 11 Exod 4.10, 12; Jer 1. 6–8; cf. also Ezek 2–3. 12 John Chrysostom makes reference to this parallel in a homily ‘As if to One Body’. See Manlio Simonetti, ed., Matthew 14–28 (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, NT 1b; Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity, 2002) 313.
Mission in Matthew against the Horizon of Matthew 24 167
bribe and the passivity of the governor depicted in 28.14, do not allow the reader to assume that the context of the mission to which the disciples are about to be called is anything other than fraught and difficult. In these ways, there is an undercurrent of adversity and vulnerability in Matt 28.16–20 that is in continuity with the depiction of the Matthean community’s present experience found in Matthew 24. Any grand and even triumphalistic ways of reading Matt 28.16–20 may reflect more about the reader’s own location than about that of the Matthean community. There is no necessary contradiction between the present experience of the Matthean community as depicted in Matt 28.12–20 and Matt 24.4–5, 9–11 and 21–28; both passages reveal something of the internal and external pressures facing them. There remain some important contrasts between these passages. Perhaps the most striking is the absence of the Risen Christ in the depiction of the present experience of the community in ch. 24. How can this tally with the promise that the Risen Christ will be ‘with’ his followers until the end of the age (28:20)? David Kupp, in his monograph Matthew’s Emmanuel: Divine Presence and God’s People in the First Gospel,13 analyses the promise of divine presence ‘with’ God’s people in the Jewish scriptures, and notes that ‘in a variety of wordings and circumstances, [they] contain at least 114 occurrences of the formula between the MT and LXX, promising or asserting that God is ‘with’ an individual, a group, or the nation Israel’.14 This suggests that Matt 28.20 (and the other ‘presence’ texts 1.23 and 18.20) should not be read without reference to this widely attested motif. His analysis leads him to emphasize the ‘concrete and active nature of the formula’,15 and he concludes that ‘it is not a philosophical assessment of divine ontology and omnipresence, but the promise, assertion and declaration of YHWH’s distinctly personal company, activity and empowerment on behalf of his people in particular events of their individual and corporate human experience’.16 The perspective this offers on the nature of divine presence relates closely to the pressures depicted in Matt 24.21–28. In order to interpret the portrayal of the Risen Christ’s presence, it is important to give consideration to the apocalyptic genre of this material. The present is portrayed in Matthew 24 as a time of great suffering (vv. 9, 21–22) that has already been shortened according to God’s divine mercy (v. 22). The combination of the aorist passive ejkolobwvqhsan followed by the future passive kolobwqhvsontai gives the sense that a divine program that curtails their suffering
13 David D. Kupp, Matthew’s Emmanuel: Divine Presence and God’s People in the First Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1996). 14 Kupp, Matthew’s Emmanuel, 139. 15 Kupp, Matthew’s Emmanuel, 144. 16 Kupp, Matthew’s Emmanuel, 144.
168 vicky balabanski has already been decreed, but their experience of this shortening is not yet present reality. The activity of false christs and false prophets is viewed as part of the eschatological program; the community must endure while it waits to greet the coming of the true Christ. In keeping with Dan 7, the true Human One/Son of Man will be apparent to all, the faithful and detractors alike (Matt 24.27–28). The final part of the eschatological program is to follow immediately and suddenly – eujqevw~ de; meta; th;n qli`y in tw`n hJmerw`n ejkeivnwn. Cosmic disorder is to herald the coming of the Human One/Son of Man. All peoples will witness his vindication, and his angels will gather in the elect from the four winds. In vv. 13–14, the end of the first sequence and the first depiction of the End, there are two future passive verbs: swqhvsetai and khrucqhvsetai. In a similar way, at the end of the second sequence, vv. 29–30, there are three more future passives: skotisqhvsetai, saleuqhvsontai and fanhvsetai. This preponderance of future passives invites the reader to see them as divine passives and understand God as the subject of these actions. There may be various reasons why agency of a passive verb is not expressed,17 but the obvious agent for most of the future passives in this eschatological programme is God.18 The only future passive where this is controversial is khrucqhvsetai, but even here, the context suggests that God is the impetus behind the action, and the human preachers who carry out the action are the instruments. The fact that these divine passives are prominent at the end of each sequence (and also in v. 22, which refers to the shortening of the days) suggests that Matthew and his fellow scribes think in apocalyptic terms of an eschatological program in which God has foreordained certain stages. There are other future passives in the chapter, vv. 7, 10, 11, 12 and 24; they are less obviously God’s action. Yet the form of the verbs does not allow too hasty an assumption that the early hearers or readers of these traditions would have discounted a divine imperative behind these actions. Either way, the striking number of passive verbs in the two sequences of Matthew 24 gives the sense that the eschatological program being laid out is God’s mission, and that human actions are subject to this mission, working either with God, or against God. Similarly the phrase dei` ga;r genevsqai, 17 Daniel B. Wallace lists eight reasons in Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1996), 435–8. Wallace discusses the use of divine passives and sees them not so much reflecting reticence to utter the name of God, but rather that in such instances, God’s agency is implicit and therefore naming it would be superfluous or rhetorically obtrusive. 18 The ‘aspectology’ of the future in Greek is also relevant here, for ‘the future is not like the past from the point of view of our experience and conceptualization of time. Futurity is never a purely temporal concept; it necessarily includes an element of prediction or some related modal notion . .’ J. Lyons, Semantics, ii (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1977) 677–8. So to look for a series of future events is to take a desiderative stance in relation to them. Cf. T. V. Evans, Verbal Syntax in the Greek Pentateuch: Natural Greek Usage and Hebrew Interference (Oxford: Oxford University, 2001) 32–40.
Mission in Matthew against the Horizon of Matthew 24 169
v. 6, strengthens this impression. The final verse of the second sequence, v. 31, shifts to active verbs: ajpostelei`, ejpisunavxousin. Once the Human One/Son of Man has been publicly vindicated, his action in sending the angels and their action of gathering in the elect are clearly identified. From this overview of the apocalyptic genre evident in Matthew 24, with its emphasis on depicting the present and imminent future as circumscribed by divine imperative, it can be seen that this shapes the portrayal of the Risen Christ’s ‘presence’. The perspective given in these verses is that of a community enduring suffering, although they have foreknowledge of it (Matt 24.25). While they look for the presence of the Messiah, they experience a series of false messiahs and false prophets. This might lead them to conclude that the true Messiah is in fact absent. But the presence of Christ is invoked by their actions and testimony.19 Moreover, the discourse suggests that for those armed with foreknowledge, the presence of the Risen Christ may be perceived in that for the sake of the elect, those days of great suffering will be cut short (Matt 24.21–22). The effect of the apocalyptic language of Matthew 24 is to portray divine activity as being experienced at a distance, but at the same time to assure the ‘elect’ of the Risen Christ’s ongoing empowering of them to endure. So the apocalyptic nature of the material must be taken into account in interpreting the apparent ‘absence’ of the Risen Christ in Matt 24.21–28. By bringing the promise of Christ’s presence (Matt 28.20) into dialogue with the much more distant and fraught experience of his followers depicted in Matt 24.21–28, it may become necessary to revise conventional understandings of that promise with which the Gospel concludes. If it were taken to mean that Matthew’s Jesus is assuring his followers that his presence obviates the need for discernment or the experience of suffering, this would indeed be to abstract this promise from the rest of the Gospel witness. Christ does promise to be ‘with’ his followers, but the nature of that presence is one that must be sought and perceived to be actualized. It is through the gathering of believers as believers (i.e. ‘in his name’) that his presence is experienced (Matt 18.20). Just as worship and doubt are shown to coexist in Matt 28.17, so the experiences both of divine absence (24.23–26) and divine presence (28.20) are foreseen for the present. By reading the relevant verses in Matthew 24 and 28 in dialogue in this way, it becomes clear that it is not ultimately persuasive to give interpretive preeminence to the chronological ‘last word’, important as that word may be. On the level of the narrative, Jesus’ commission to make disciples of ‘all nations’ does revoke the restriction of the mission to just Israel made in Matt 10.5. However, in seeking to
19 They are engaged in proclamation of Christ, and in doing so, they are invoking his presence. Cf. the discussion of invoking God’s kingship in Balabanski, Eschatology in the Making, 148–52.
170 vicky balabanski discern the meaning of Matt 24.1–31 and 28.16–20, it is a stronger interpretive platform to read them as mutually significant. This is not simply a contemporary hermeneutical observation. Matt 28.16–20 itself draws attention to the importance of what has gone before, by calling on the disciples to teach all nations ‘to obey everything I have commanded you’ (28.20). What has been taught prior to this encounter with the Risen Christ is far from relativized by these words; rather, its significance is brought into relief. The teachings of Matthew 24 remain valid. There is a further important implication of the two-sequence schema for an examination of mission in Matthew’s Gospel. This relates to the way in which both sequences in Matthew 24 give prominence to the mission to the nations as an eschatological imperative.
The Mission to the Nations as an Eschatological Imperative, and its Links with the End of the Age
The close verbal links between Matt 28.16–20 and Matthew 24 in the phrases pavnta ta; e[qnh/pa`s in toi`~ e[qnesin and sunteleiva~ tou` aijw`no~ have already been mentioned. It is also useful to give further attention to where the references to the nations come in the two sequences in Matthew 24, and whether this sheds some further light on Matthew’s concept of mission. What role does this mission play in Matthew’s eschatological ‘program’, and in what way could it be linked to the end of the age? The two-sequence schema postulates that each sequence falls into three sections – the immediate past for the Matthean community, including the Jewish War (Section A), their present experience, characterized by suffering, false leaders and community pressure (Section B) and the future, pertaining to the End (Section C). Hatred by pavntwn tw`n ejqnw`n dia; to; o[nomav mou, v. 9b, is part of Section B, the present experience of the Matthean community, which suggests that at least some of the Matthean community is deliberately engaging in contact with the nations, and at considerable cost (v. 9a: tovte paradwvsousin uJma`~ eij~ qli`yin kai; ajpoktenou`s in uJma`~). The mission to the nations was therefore no new venture for the Matthean community. Yet the prominence given to this mission, not only by the ‘great commission’, revoking as it does the missional restrictions of Matt 10.5–6, but also by many other aspects of the Gospel,20 gives a strong impression that in some way, mission which was inclusive of the Gentiles was
20 These include the Gentiles prominent in the genealogy, including Rahab, a Canaanite (Josh 2.6); Ruth, a Moabite (Ruth 1.4); Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam 11.3); the Magi (Matt 2.1–8); the reference to Galilee ‘of the Gentiles’ (Matt 4.15); and the formula quotation with Gentiles as the focus (Matt 12.18–21: ‘and in his name the Gentiles will hope’).
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controversial for this community. Before seeking to offer some reflections on this, it is necessary to review the remaining references to the nations in Matthew 24. The other references to the nations fall within Section C of both sequences. Verse 14 concludes the first sequence, and draws a close connection between the testimony to all the nations and the End: kai; khrucqhvsetai tou`to to; eujaggevlion
th`~ basileiva~ ejn o{lhÛ th`/ oijkoumevnhÛ eij~ martuvrion pa`s in toi`~ e[qnesin, kai; tovte h{xei to; tevlo~. This suggests that the proclamation to all the nations is not simply a precursor to the End, but an eschatological imperative integral to Matthew’s Enderwartung. Section C of the second sequence also refers to the nations in relation to the End, although in v. 30 they are referred to as pa`sai aiJ fulai; th`~ gh`~. This phrase is identical with LXX Gen 12.3, which promises blessing through Abram to pa`sai aiJ fulai; th`~ gh`~. This further strengthens the claim which the discourse is making with regard to the overarching purposes of God, namely that the ‘mission’ heralded in Gen 12.3 will be brought to its culmination in the End described here, and that there is coherence between them. Verse 30 states that they will mourn at the appearance of the sign of the Human One/Son of Man, and witness his coming on the clouds of heaven with great power and glory. The mourning and the witnessing reflect well-known early Christian testimonia,21 drawn from Zech 12.10–14 and Dan 7.13–14.22 Clearly the tribes of the earth are not incidental to the eschatological ‘program’ envisaged here, but an integral part. One might have expected to see more explicit reference to the Gentile mission in Section B, but especially in the second sequence, the focus remains on the community and its tribulations. In both sequences, the references to mission to the nations are made explicitly in relation to the End (Section C). Nevertheless, in both sequences, the implication is that this mission has been carried on for some time. In v. 14 that is clear: ‘And this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations; and then the end will come’. In v. 30, it is implicit rather than explicit that a mission has been taking place; the mourning of the tribes implies that they were given the opportunity to join the perspective of the Christian testimonia, but did not. If there had been no prior contact with those who proclaimed the coming of the Human One, one might have expected a response of fear rather than mourning. The verb kovptw, used in the sense of performing an outward expression of grief, does not neces-
21 Such early Christian collections of scriptural excerpts were made for apologetical purposes, but also with didactical, catechetical and paraenetical functions. So M. C. Albl, ‘And Scripture Cannot be Broken’: The Form and Function of the Early Christian Testimonia Collections (NovTSup 96; Leiden: Brill, 1999). 22 The two are conflated, for instance, in Rev 1.7. See the discussion in Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3.360–1.
172 vicky balabanski sarily denote repentance, but it would be a surprising reaction for those who had no notion of what this appearance must mean. In these two sequences of Matthew 24, the mission to the nations is revealed not just as a pragmatic reality of the community’s present experience, but as an eschatological imperative that is integral to the coming (presumed to be imminent23) of the End. If this is accepted, it means that the commission of Matt 28.16–20, mutatis mutandis, can also be understood as an eschatological imperative, pending the end of the age. The task of making disciples, baptizing them and teaching them to obey all that Jesus has commanded would be an outworking of God’s mission, not the sum total of it. It is a continuation of the eschatological harvest set out in Matt 9.35–38, and begun in the mission discourse of ch. 10.24 As indicated above, the Gentile mission appears to have been controversial in some way within the network of Matthean communities, although it was at least in some quarters a present reality. It is possible that its inclusion as an eschatological imperative – a necessary precursor to the End – was a development in Matthean theology/eschatology that not all the community accepted. Neither Zech 12.10–14 nor Dan 7.13–14, the early Christian testimonia mentioned above, required a Gentile mission. Zech 12.10–14 explicitly states that it is the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem who will mourn, and in vv. 12–14 it is the house/tribe of David, Nathan, Levi and the Shimeites that are grieving. In Dan 7.13–14, all peoples, nations and languages are given to the Human One/Son of Man as part of his dominion, glory and kingship, but this can be readily interpreted as subservient peoples, the spoils of victory. Dan 7.13–14 does not of itself require a Gentile mission.25 There is, however, a text which functions as a Christian testimonium that does seem to invite a theology of Gentile mission, namely Isa 42.1–4.26 Matthew quotes it at length in Matt 12.18–21: 23 On this, see Balabanski, Eschatology in the Making, 173–5. 24 For a discussion of the eschatological nature of the mission in ch. 10, see Eschatology in the Making, 141. 25 The issue of whether one may speak of a Jewish mission to Gentiles in antiquity is highly controversial, and is beyond the scope of this paper. For a helpful summary of the debate, see James Ware, The Mission of the Church in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians in the Context of Ancient Judaism (NovTSup 120; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 23–55. Ware’s own position, namely that ‘ . . the missionary consciousness of the primitive church, although not originating in a prior Jewish mission, may nonetheless have had its roots in Jewish understandings of gentiles and their conversion’ (p. 55), offers some corroboration for the argument of this study. 26 This is discussed by B. Lindars, New Testament Apologetic: The Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament Quotations (London: SCM, 1961) 144–52, who argues that the question of the admission of the Gentiles was becoming increasingly important within the early Church, and identifies the adaptation of this quotation from Isa 42 as a fourth and final phase of application of these verses. M. Albl does not accept the theory of logical or temporal stages, but supports the purposes which were discerned by Lindars, ‘Scripture Cannot be Broken’, 188.
Mission in Matthew against the Horizon of Matthew 24 173
<12.18> ΔIdou; oJ pai`~ mou o}n hJ/revt isa
oJ ajgaphtov~ mou eij~ o}n eujdovkhsen hJ yuchv mou: qhvsw to; pneu`mav mou ejpΔ aujtovn, kai; krivs in toi`~ e[qnesin ajpaggelei`. <12.19> oujk ejrivsei oujde; kraugavsei, oujde; ajkouvsei ti~ ejn tai`~ plateivai~ th;n fwnh;n aujtou`. <12.20> kavlamon suntetrimmevnon ouj kateavxei kai; livnon tufovmenon ouj sbevsei, e{w~ a]n ejkbavlhÛ eij~ ni`ko~ th;n krivs in. <12.21> kai; tw`/ ojnovmati aujtou` e[qnh ejlpiou`s in. In v. 18d, the phrase can be translated as either ‘he will proclaim justice to the nations’ (or ‘Gentiles’), or ‘he will proclaim judgment to the nations (or ‘Gentiles’). The former would give prominence to the mission of the disciples in the post-Easter period, whereas the latter foreshadows Jesus as the judge of all nations and peoples (Matt 25.31–46). Perhaps it is not necessary to resolve this in one direction or the other; both meanings resonate for the Matthean readership. A similar ambiguity accompanies the reference to krivs i~ in v. 20c, but if one were inclined to downplay the necessity of a Gentile mission on the basis of these verses, v. 21 hardly allows this; ‘in his name the nations/Gentiles will hope’. The fate of the Gentiles is shown to be integral to God’s purposes, faithfully carried out through God’s servant. By drawing on this passage from Isaiah, Matthew emphasizes that this is part of Israelite tradition. This emphasis on the Gentiles is Matthew’s way of bringing this aspect of Israelite tradition into stark relief.27 The programmatic nature of this quotation, the longest in Matthew’s Gospel, gives it the prominence of a ‘mission statement’. It distills the nature of Jesus’ ministry – not only his compassion and his unobtrusive approach, but also his ultimate eschatological victory of bringing ni`ko~ th;n krivs in. If there were controversy about the necessity of a Gentile mission, this text gives a strong affirmation of it as being in keeping with God’s purposes, foreshadowed in Isaiah’s servant song, and enacted in the person of Jesus.28
27 J. H. Neyrey emphasizes the conflictual rather than irenic significance of this quotation in ‘The Thematic Use of Isaiah 42,1–4 in Matthew 12’, Bib 63 (1982) 457–73. He states that ‘it is important to see this material in the context of Matthew’s gospel at this point in the narrative. The evangelist has been repeatedly pointing out the rejection of Jesus by the Jews . .’ (p. 461). Neyrey draws attention to the conflict and judgment brought about by Jesus’ mission, as depicted in Matt 11–13, and this coheres with the themes that this present contribution has been exploring. 28 The second servant song, though not cited explicitly by Matthew, gives further prominence to this theme. Isa 49.6–7 states that ‘it is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth’. This may resonate with the story of the Magi in Matt 2, who observe the star at its rising and come to worship Jesus.
174 vicky balabanski This sheds some light on the current debate as to whether the mission to the nations envisaged in Matt 28.16–20 is inclusive of an ongoing mission to the Jews, or has now reached a stage in which they are no longer to be the recipients of a concerted mission.29 The contribution that this paper makes to the discussion is to show that Matthew understands mission to the nations as an eschatological imperative, in keeping with Jewish messianic hopes, particularly as they are articulated in Isa 42.1–4. This mission is shown to be in continuity with the mission of God throughout the ages, to and through Israel by means of the prophets in the past (11.13; 21.34–36), John the Baptist (11.10), the ‘prophets, sages and scribes’ still to come (23.34) and, most centrally, the Human One/Son of Man (13.41; 24:31). It is inclusive of Israel in that they are called on to embrace this aspect of Israelite tradition. Certain actions are required of those who participate in God’s mission. According to Matt 28.16–20, it is primarily to ‘make disciples’.30 In Matt 24.1–31 it is watchfulness and discernment, so as not to be led astray, and ultimately endurance: oJ de; uJpomeivna~ eij~ tevlo~ ou|to~ swqhvsetai (Matt 24.13). Against the broader backdrop of the Gospel, it is continuing to preach the central proclamation of both John the Baptist and Jesus: metanoei`te: h[ggiken ga;r hJ basileiva tw`n oujranw`n (Matt 3.2; 4.17). There are various facets to mission in this Gospel, and they do not allow too narrow a reconstruction of the concept of mission for the Matthean community. Endurance was as much core business as teaching and preaching.
29 Hans Kvalbein and Peter Stuhlmacher have become the proponents of the former position (H. Kvalbein, ‘Has Matthew abandoned the Jews?’, The Mission of the Early Church [ed. Ådna and Kvalbein], 45–62; Peter Stuhlmacher, ‘Matt 28:16–20 and the Course of Mission in the Apostolic and Postapostolic Age’, The Mission of the Early Church [ed. Ådna and Kvalbein], 17–44). They have made Ulrich Luz the main spokesperson for the latter, though he does not accept their portrayal of his position (U. Luz, ‘Has Matthew Abandoned the Jews? A Response to Hans Kvalbein and Peter Stuhlmacher Concerning Matt 28:16–20’, The Mission of the Early Church [ed. Ådna and Kvalbein], 63–83). Luz’ own viewpoint, stated baldly, is that Matthew does not exclude a continuation of the mission to Israel, but is not particularly hopeful as to its prospects (p. 69). This is set out further in the final volume of his commentary, Matthew 21–28, 628–31. See also Amy-Jill Levine, The Social and Ethnic Dimensions of Matthean Social History: ‘Go Nowhere Among the Gentiles . .’ (Matth 10.5b) (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 14; Lewiston/Lampeter: Mellen, 1988); Axel von Dobbeler, ‘Die Restitution Israels und die Bekehrung der Heiden. Das Verhältnis von Mt 10.5b,6 und Mt 28,18–20 unter dem Aspekt der Komplementarität. Erwägungen zum Standort des Matthäusevangeliums’, ZNW 91 (2000) 18–44; Eckhard J. Schnabel, Early Christian Mission. Vol. 1. Jesus and the Twelve (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity, 2004) 361–63. 30 The participles in vv. 19–20, poreuqevnte~, baptivzonte~, didavskonte~, are subordinate to the finite verb maqhteuvsate.
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Conclusion
The links between Matt 28.16–20 and Matt 24.1–31 are illuminating. There are at least seven ways in which the evangelist invites his audience to read these passages as mutually significant. This article has examined what they reveal about the portrayal of the present experience of Matthew’s community. By discerning the structure of Matthew 24, namely in two parallel chronological sequences, and by noting the passages that portray the present for Matthew’s community, both Matt 24.1–31 and Matt 28.16–20 reveal aspects of Matthew’s understanding of mission. While there are significant contrasts between the passages, both are concerned with the mission to the nations and the close of the age. This mission is depicted as an eschatological imperative that must precede the End. This view appears to have been controversial within the Matthean community network, and the emphasis on the ‘nations’ in the Gospel is Matthew’s way of bringing this aspect of Israelite tradition into stark relief. In conclusion, Matthew’s eschatological discourse offers a vital inter-textual horizon for the interpretation of the ‘great commission’, and for understanding Matthew’s missional perspective as a whole. Mission in Matthew’s Gospel is not limited to the obvious missional texts – Matt 28.16–20 and Matthew 10 – but can be discerned as an important aspect of the eschatological discourse.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 176–200. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0028688508000106
Defilement Penetrating the Body: A New Understanding of Contamination in Mark 7.15* YAI R F U R STE N B E RG Department of Talmud, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 91905 Israel
Mark 7.15, which contrasts two modes of defilement, appears in the gospel as a response to the Pharisaic custom of washing hands before eating. In this article, it is argued that this custom embodies an innovative approach to ritual impurity. Hand washing, which originated, so it is argued, in the Greco-Roman practice, was promoted by the Pharisees along with other purity laws, but stands in contrast to the biblical priestly purity system. In this logion, Jesus rejects the Pharisees’ new conception of ritual purity, which was designed to guard the self from impurity. This interpretation offers both a coherent narrative and a plausible understanding of the custom within its historical-social context. Keywords: Purity and Impurity, Hand Washing, Food, Body, Mark 7.15, Pharisees, Halakhah
Jesus’ pointed statement, ‘there is nothing outside a person which by going into him can defile him, rather the things which come out of a person are what defile him’ (Mark 7.15),1 is presented in the Synoptic Tradition as justification for rejecting the Pharisaic custom of washing one’s hands before partaking in a meal.2
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* This article is a revised version of a chapter from my M.A. thesis ‘Hand Purity and Eating in a State of Purity: A Chapter in the Development of Halakhah’ (Hebrew University Jerusalem, 2005 [Hebrew]), written under the supervision of Prof. Shlomo Naeh. 1 This sentence is widely viewed as having been uttered by the historical Jesus (ipsissima verba), as R. Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition (New York: Harper & Row, 1963) 74, concludes through his form-criticism method. A sample list of scholars who hold this view is given by J. Lambrecht, ‘Jesus and the Law: An Investigation of Mark 7.1–23’, ETL 53 (1977) 24–82, esp. 29. A detailed survey of various studies is also offered by R. P. Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity (JSNTSup 13; Sheffield: JSOT, 1986) 55–112. 2 In the Matthean version (Matt 15.1–20) we find a parallel narrative, and the differences between the two accounts can all be viewed as stemming from Matthew’s adaptation of the narrative to his community, focusing on anti-Pharisaic polemic and rejecting this specific halakhah. Linguistic and stylistic reasons for preferring Mark’s version of this pericope can be found in W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, The Gospel according to Saint Matthew (3 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988–97) 2.516. The account that appears in the third synoptic
Defilement Penetrating the Body 177
Nonetheless, from the earliest times, presumably since the Markan redaction of the narrative, this statement has been interpreted as an all-encompassing rejection of ritual purity laws including the biblical dietary laws, thus ‘purifying all foods’ (Mark 7.19). The traditional, all-inclusive interpretation of Mark 7.15 asserts that Jesus chose this occasion, the dispute with the Pharisees over washing hands prior to eating, to challenge the system of biblical purity laws in its entirety. Jesus’ statement, it would then seem, is not merely a rejection of a specific custom – that of washing hands before partaking in a meal – but rather contains within it an attempt to distinguish between two different possible modes of defilement:3 one kind caused by ‘what enters a person’ and another kind caused by ‘what comes out of a person’. This kind of interpretation thus has Jesus rejecting a comprehensive conception of ritual purity, namely the kind of conception underlying the biblical ritual purity laws in general and the dietary laws in particular. By denying the importance of ‘what enters the body’, Jesus is thus understood as offering an alternative to the conception of ritual purity presented in the Old Testament and developed by the Pharisees. This kind of all-encompassing reading, however, poses quite a few difficulties for NT scholars. There is a clear incongruity between the minor dispute over a specific custom and the sweeping denial of biblical laws. On the other hand, attempts to interpret the statement in a way that bridges this gap lead to a fragmentation of the narrative; the statement becomes disconnected from the particular circumstances in which it is presented. Some exegetes have suggested a caesura between the discussion on hand washing, which in turn incurs an attack on the traditions of the elders (vv. 1–13), and a more general speech on purity directed to the crowd and followers (vv. 14–23). The two sections are differentiated either as subsequent stages in the evolution of the narrative, or through the liter-
gospel, Luke 11.37–41, is similar in some respects to Mark 7. However, the restaging of the scene in a typical Lukan manner and the presence of elements originating in Q both point to the inferiority of this version. Cf. J. B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (NICNT; Grands Rapid: Eerdmans, 1997) 468. 3 In all versions (Mark 7.15, 18b,20; Matt. 15.1; Gosp. Thom. 14), the crux of the statement is a distinction between that which enters the body and that which comes out of it. Indeed, scholarship has dealt lengthily with the variations in wording in the different versions. Verses 18 and 20 in the Markan version present a weaker opposition than v. 15 and Matthew speaks of what enters and comes forth from the mouth. Both of these versions are believed to be more Semitic than Mark’s harsh version. Therefore, some view the wording in vv. 18–20 as a more original form of the logion. Cf. H. Hübner, Das Gesetz in der Synoptischen Tradition (Witten: Luther, 1973) 166–9. Yet, J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus Paul and the Law (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1990) 42–4, attributes equal authority to Matthew’s logion. At any rate, the differences between the versions, important as they are for identifying the course of tradition, do not influence the core of the statement and hence are not relevant for our investigation.
178 yair furstenberg ary analysis of the unit.4 The question that we are then left with is whether there exists a way of interpreting the whole narrative coherently, somehow reading Jesus’ contrasting of the two modes of defilement as a suitable reaction to the discussion about the custom of washing hands before eating. How, in other words, might we explain Jesus’ choice of this occasion to contrast defilement caused by ‘what enters a person’ with that caused by ‘what comes out a person’? In this article it will be suggested that the custom of washing hands before partaking in a meal, which is the narrated background of the logion, embodies a particular approach to ritual purity, one promoted by the Pharisees and rejected, in the logion, by Jesus. Two points enrich our understanding of hand washing in its original context and they will stand at the heart of the present inquiry: First, according to early rabbinic sources, a set of laws relating to ritual contamination were introduced together with the custom of hand washing. Seen as a system these regulations reflect a particular understanding of ritual impurity which corresponds to the first part of the logion (‘that which enters a person’). According to the reading that will be proposed, Jesus contended that these laws, concerned as they were with eating only in a state of ritual purity, were not biblical in origin, but rather were a Pharisaic innovation which reflected a new understanding of ritual contamination, one which changed the focus and significance of ritual purity. Second, it will be suggested that the cultural origin of the hand-washing custom lies in Greco-Roman practice, and not in the priestly purity laws. This factor will shed light on the novel understanding of purity which Jesus rejected.5 It will be argued, then, that a close reading of the logion as a reaction against then-current innovations in the field of purity offers us a plausible interpretation of the pericope as a coherent unit.
4 Lambrecht, ‘Jesus and the Law’, 25, portrays the pericope as one literary unit. However, on the whole, ‘the artificiality of the composition is clear as day’, as Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition, 47, indicates. According to his discussion of ‘controversy dialogues’ only vv. 1–8 constitute the authentic section. Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 56–66, undertakes a thorough analysis on the basis of Bultmann’s premises, but he suggests that v.15 was part of the original dispute. E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 266, completely disconnects the two sections of the passage, seeing no common ground between the general statement about food and the requirement for washing one’s hands. Furthermore, he rejects the historicity of each part of the pericope on different grounds. The Pharisees would not demand of laypersons to wash their hands, he argues, nor would Jesus reject the dietary laws in such a manner. 5 It seems that this is not the only occasion on which Jesus defends a conservative halakhic stand. In the woe-sayings in Matt 23, Jesus twice rails against Pharisaic law and offers an alternative halakhic opinion. In both matters, that of oaths (vv. 16–22) and the subject of purifying vessels (vv. 25–26), Jesus objects to the leniency of the Pharisees and offers a stricter ruling. This point is stressed by K. C. G. Newport, The Sources and Sitz im Leben of Matthew 23 (JSNTSup 117; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995) 137–45.
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I. Defining ‘What Enters the Body’
a. Jesus’ Statement in Light of Biblical Dietary Laws The most radical interpretation of Jesus’ saying is expressed in Mark’s assertion that Jesus was ‘thus purifying all foods’ (Mark 7.19, kaqarivzwn pavnta ta; brwvmata).6 This interpretation, which for a long time was the dominant scholarly view, assumes that the defilement which Jesus describes entering the body includes all forbidden foods and animals which are classified as impure in Leviticus 11. The suitability of Leviticus 11 as a context in light of which to understand Mark 7.15 is supposedly confirmed by the parallel reference there to contamination entering the body; after listing all ritually unclean and repugnant creatures, scripture concludes with a warning against becoming defiled by eating these animals: ‘You shall not defile yourselves with any creature that swarms. You shall not make yourself impure therewith and thus become impure’ (Lev 11.43). Another verse referring to the act of eating as a potential cause of defilement appears in Lev 17.15–16: ‘And any person, whether citizen or alien, who eats what has died or has been torn by beasts, shall launder his clothes, bathe in water and remain impure until the evening; then he shall be pure. But if he does not launder and bathe his body, he shall bear his punishment’.7 If the gospels are read as a direct response to the OT and the two are viewed in the same continuum, then these verses become the most natural context in which to interpret Jesus’ statement in Mark 7.15. Jesus is then seen as annulling not only Pharisaic law and tradition, but also the commandments that appear in the Bible itself. This extreme conclusion, unthinkable in other gospel sources, has caused 6 Alternatively, this statement can be interpreted as referring to the digestive process ‘purifying all foods’, as mentioned by R. A. Guelich, Mark 1–8:26 (WBC; Dallas: Word, 1989) 378. Most, however, understand Jesus to be the subject of the verse. 7 The fear of defiling the soul through the ingestion of ritually impure food also appears in Ezek 4.12–15: ‘I have never defiled my soul. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No unclean meat has ever entered my mouth’. The concern not to pollute the body by eating the ritually impure is also well attested in the writings of the Hasmonaean revolt. In 1 Macc 1, the decrees of Antiochus are presented in detail (vv. 44–50): forbidding sacrifice in the Temple, profaning the Sabbath and festival days, setting up altars for the worship of idols and the sacrificing of swine. Yet, when describing the martyrdom in the verses that follow, the writer emphasises that martyrdom was motivated by unwillingness on the part of the Israelites to defile their souls by eating any unclean thing. ‘Howbeit many in Israel were fully resolved and confirmed in themselves not to eat any unclean thing. Consequently they preferred to die, that they might not be defiled with meats, and that they might not profane the holy covenant. So then they died’. Martyrdom here is connected to the refusal to consume ritually unclean food, rather than to idolatry or the Sabbath. The same impression is given in 2 Maccabees, in the narrative about Eleazer the Scribe (6.18–31) and in the martyrdom of the mother and her seven sons in the next chapter. Both heroes are prominently featured in 4 Maccabees, choosing death over the consumption of the ritually impure.
180 yair furstenberg some scholars to divest Jesus of these words, which otherwise might have seemed to be ipssisima verba.8 Others avoid denying the authenticity of the statement by reading it as a manner of rhetoric, what Lindars calls a ‘language event’.9 Lindars suggests that Jesus intentionally opens his words with a provocative statement, letting his audience think that he is referring to physical impurity, thus shocking the Pharisees and causing the sinners to identify with him and pay heed. But then, according to Lindars, he goes on to elevate the meaning of purity to a moral level. Only once we’ve heard the entire statement do we understand that, from the beginning of the verse, Jesus was concerned exclusively with moral impurity and mentioned ritual impurity only as a rhetoric device. Another common interpretation solves the problems involved in attributing to Jesus such an extreme form of antinomianism by softening the opposition between the two parts of his statement. According to this reading, Jesus should be understood as arguing for the importance of moral purity relative to the kind of ritual purity that is based on the laws of Leviticus 11. He is not, however, claiming that ritual purity is completely insignificant. Davies and Allison express this view by rearticulating Jesus’ statement as follows: Contrary to what comes out of the body, what goes into it does not contaminate morally (although it can contaminate ritually).10 Interpreting Mark 7.15 in this way, rather than as an outright rejection of the laws of ritual purity, saves Jesus from antinomianism, but does not offer a precise and tight reading of the verse. Not enough consideration is given in such interpretations to the absolute contrast that the statement implies between impurity 8 H. Räisänen, ‘Jesus and the Food Laws: Reflections on Mark 7:15’, JNST 16 (1982) 79–100, argues at length against the authenticity of this statement. He rejects all ‘authenticating criteria’ and highlights the total absence of this saying from the heated arguments between the Jewish and Gentile communities regarding the dietary laws. Since, according to Räisänen, the saying can only be interpreted as referring to food and not to any external impurity, the proof ex silentio, he claims, is decisive. Also E. P Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 264–7, interprets the saying as nullifying the biblical law and therefore rejects its authenticity. 9 B. Lindars, ‘All Foods Clean: Thoughts on Jesus and the Law’, Law and Religion: Essays on the Place of the Law in Israel and Early Christianity (ed. B. Lindars; Cambridge: James Clarke, 1988) 61–72. 10 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 529. Other writers have also expressed similar views. J. Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University, 2000) 147–9, compares this statement to Philo’s preference for moral purity. Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 214, understands Jesus as saying: ‘There is nothing outside a man which cultically defiles him as much as the things coming from a man ethically defile him’. The possibility of interpreting the contrast between the two parts of the clause ‘ouj . . . allav’ as relative rather than absolute is discussed by Booth (pp. 69–70). Since there is no way to determine linguistically whether the negation is absolute or relative, Booth resorts to contextual considerations and rejects the possibility that Jesus abrogated the cultic law.
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that ‘enters’ and impurity that ‘exits’ the body. If Jesus is opposed to the equating of moral and ritual purity, then he supplies only an artificial difference between the two. Indeed, misdeeds and moral impurities might be viewed as ‘coming out of the person’, but the direction in which impurity ‘travels’ is hardly the best way to define the difference between morality and obedience to laws of ritual impurity.11 Several of the forms of ritual impurity described in the priestly code, such as those related to semen and menstrual blood, do in fact originate in the body and contaminate as they leave it. The body, it thus seems, can spread both moral and ritual contamination. We therefore see that reading Jesus’ statement as an argument for moral purity and against the significance of the biblical laws of ritual purity is problematic on two levels. First, we have the fact that this understanding is difficult to reconcile with the exact wording of the statement. Second, we have the seeming disconnect between the statement itself and its context, which is about the custom of washing hands before eating. Both problems can be tempered, to some extent, by Guelich’s suggestion that Jesus had a tendency not to linger on the immediate contextual topic. Rather, Guelich suggests, he would often raise discussions to a more general and fundamental level.12 This line of interpretation, which disregards the immediate context in favour of viewing Jesus’ statement as general and meta-contextual, is unconvincing. Jesus’ statement should be interpreted first and foremost in light of the specific circumstances in which it was made. A close reading will present Jesus’ statement as a precise answer to the Pharisees and as a sharp, direct response to the custom of hand washing. The logion will be read as an intelligible reaction which could have been appreciated and understood by the opponents who were standing in Jesus’ presence when he made the statement. b. Jesus’ Statement as Referring to Principles of Contamination Interpreting Jesus’ saying in light of first-century Halakhah – and not as a reaction against the biblical laws of ritual purity – offers us a completely different point of view with a new set of considerations. Kister has suggested that, in its first-century context, the first limb of the logion, ‘there is nothing outside a person 11 W. Paschan, Rein und Unrein: Unterschung zur Biblischen Wortgeschichte (Munich: Kosel, 1970) 173–7, omits from the original logion the directional aspects (eijsporeuevsqai, ejkporeuevsqai), which were identified as Markan elements, leaving only the dichotomy between interior and exterior. Lambrecht, ‘Jesus and the Law’, 46–8, 59–60, following Paschan, develops this line of interpretation and connects it to Q 11.39–41, which is founded on the opposition between e[xwqen and e[swqen. Thus Mark’s redaction of the story is contextualised into the same anti-Pharisaic framework, where Jesus emphasises the superiority of interior purity. However, all of this seems very hypothetical when compared to the content of the saying as it survived. 12 According to Guelich, Mark, 376, this attitude also justified Jesus’ disrespect for purity laws and his contact with lepers and other impure persons.
182 yair furstenberg which by going into him can defile him’, could not be related to the impure animals listed in Leviticus 11. Their consumption was prohibited and thus they were not part of the normative diet.13 Rather, Kister argues, this kind of statement might refer to foods which became contaminated by touching sources of impurity such as a corpse, swarming creatures or a menstruant. Indeed, understood in this way, Jesus’ statement lies on solid halakhic foundations. Contaminated food does not cause the person eating it to become impure. According to the laws that appear in Leviticus 11, only the consumption of prohibited foods, such as the carcass of an animal not ritually slaughtered or a ‘swarming creature’, can cause impurity, and not the consumption of foods that have become contaminated. This fact is articulated explicitly by Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki), the authoritative Talmudic commentator, who states: ‘According to the Torah food does not contaminate the person eating it’.14 Rashi’s statement, which summarises the approach of the Talmud to this issue, is surprisingly similar to Jesus’ anti-Pharisaic saying.15 In light of this source, Kister sees the first part of Jesus’ saying not as an attack against the Pharisees but rather as a rhetorical device to win their attention. Only once he has gained their approval, argues Kister, does Jesus chastise them and argue with them. The statement should therefore be read in this manner: ‘We all agree that according to biblical law eating contaminated food does not defile. Therefore, why don’t you put more emphasis on what comes out of the body?’ Kister’s reading, which shifts the focus of Jesus’ saying from biblical dietary laws to biblical purity laws, is in some respects appealing. Nevertheless, this interpretation still leaves unexplained the relationship between Jesus’ statement and the requirement for washing hands before eating, since it too disregards the narrated context.16 13 M. Kister, ‘Law, Morality and Rhetoric in Some Sayings of Jesus’, Studies in Ancient Midrash (ed. J. Kugel; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 2001) 145–54. T. Kazen, Jesus and Purity Halakhah: Was Jesus Indifferent to Impurity? (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2002) 86, writes: ‘[T]he saying in 7.15 . . . could represent Jesus’ answer to a question about hand washing. Questions about what meat could be eaten – pork, idol meat etc. – were not discussed in Jesus’ context’. 14 Rashi, bShabbat 13b (appears also in bYoma 80b). 15 The similarity of Jesus’ saying to the Talmudic position raises doubts about the criterion of dissimilarity which has been applied as a proof of the authenticity of the saying, presented for example by N. Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (New York: Harper & Row, 1976) 150: ‘Mark 7.15 is, therefore, completely without parallel in either rabbinic or sectarian Judaism and more than this, it completely denies a fundamental presupposition of Jewish religion: The distinction between the sacred and the secular . . . This is perhaps the most radical statement in the Whole of the Jesus tradition and as such, it is certainly authentic’. Other limitations of the dissimilarity criterion are suggested by J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul and the Law, 38–9. 16 Kister’s interpretation does not take the context of the logion – hand washing – into account, implying that such a statement could have been said in any context involving matters of
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Despite the problems with Kister’s approach, the interpretation of the logion as referring to principles of ritual contamination can provide a foundation for a plausible interpretation of the pericope, as long as we also take into consideration an additional component: first-century approaches to food purity laws. Although according to biblical law eating contaminated food does not defile the body, the practiced custom in that period, at least among the Pharisees, maintained such a possibility.17 In a discussion that appears in the Mishna, R. Eliezer and R. Yehoshua, both of whom lived in the second half of the first century, discuss the details of this matter. Both agree that the consumption of contaminated foods does result in ritual impurity. The Mishna does not provide a source for this nonbiblical concern18 and the Babylonian Talmud is thus compelled to reconstruct an occasion (just prior to 70 ce) on which it alleges this law was decreed.19 However, without relying on the later, unreliable reconstruction offered by the Babylonian Talmud, we can assume that the Pharisees, who lived shortly before these rabbis of the Mishna, knew of this custom. Jesus’ statement might therefore be directly connected to an understanding of ritual that existed in his milieu. The dispute with the Pharisees over their custom of hand washing, according to this reading, led Jesus to articulate his disapproval toward their new, non-biblical concern with consumption of ritually contaminated foods. In halakhic terms, his saying might
ritual purity. He therefore also turns to the relative interpretation: According to Kister, Jesus criticises the Pharisees for being overly concerned with issues relating to food purity and less concerned with moral purity, ‘which is the weightier matter of Law’. 17 Kister, ‘Law, Morality and Rhetoric’, 153, mentions this fact explicitly. Nevertheless, in his opinion, Jesus refers the Pharisees to their common biblical heritage and attacks them from there. Contrary to Kister, I suggest that Jesus attacks the Pharisees exactly at the point where they departed from that heritage. 18 See mTaharoth 2.2. Impurity caused by eating contaminated foods is explicitly defined as a non-biblical decree. For example, mTaharoth 4.11 (a parallel to mZavim 5.12) defines the impurity caused by the consumption of contaminated foods as a rabbinic decree, and therefore permits leniency with respect to such impurity in cases of uncertainty. The Talmud in bYoma 80b raises the possibility that this decree is rooted in scripture, but concludes that the law is in fact a later innovation. 19 bShabbat 13b. The Talmud discusses the eighteen decrees legislated in the attic of Hananiah b. Hezeqiah that are mentioned in mShabbat 1.4. Though there is no reason to doubt that this law is indeed a post-biblical decree, there are sufficient reasons to reject the Babylonian Talmud’s assumption that it was included in these eighteen decrees, and its attribution of the law to Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai immediately before the revolt. The Talmud does not provide any evidence for its claim that the ritual purity laws mentioned in mZavim 5.12 (which do not add to eighteen) were decreed at that time. The Palestinian Talmud (jShabbat 1.4 [3c]), on the other hand, presents two earlier Tannaitic sources which include eighteen decrees relating to separation between Jews and Gentiles. The suggestion that any other laws were decreed in the attic of Hananiah b. Hezeqiah is, at best, dubious (contra Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 162).
184 yair furstenberg be rephrased thus: ‘Contrary to your halakhah, which is unknown in the bible, the body is not defiled by eating contaminated food. Rather, it is defiled by what comes out of it’. But what is the connection between the custom of washing one’s hands before eating and the fear of eating contaminated food? c. The Role of Hands in Spreading Contamination One further matter needs to be clarified in order to explain Jesus’ response to the Pharisees. Why, in his statement in Mark 7.15, does Jesus attribute to the Pharisees a concern with distancing themselves from contaminated foods, when they had only commented on the neglect of the hand-washing custom? It might be possible to link Jesus’ statement to its context if there exists a possibility, according to halakhic principles, that eating with defiled hands will cause the body to become impure. Is such a possibility known in early rabbinic sources? Is there a way, according to rabbinic law, that a person’s hands might contaminate food to a degree that would enable the food, in turn, to defile the body it enters? Halakhic principles indeed can be deduced from various Tannaitic sources which together portray a model of ritual contamination in which impurity can spread from ritually impure hands to the body. Since at that time people normally ate without cutlery,20 it was common for ritually impure hands to come into contact with food and, critically, with the liquids which usually constituted an essential part of a meal. Liquids, according to halakhic models of ritual purity, can carry contamination from a person’s hands to food. According to the Tannaitic purity system, hands can be impure to the second degree (mYadayim 2.1; mTaharoth 1.7). Whenever liquids come into contact with a second-degree impurity, the liquids themselves enter a state of first-degree impurity. In turn, anything that comes into contact with the liquids then becomes ritually impure to the second degree (mParah 8.7). In other words, when hands come into contact with a mix of solid food and liquids, the food becomes ritually impure to the same degree as the hands.21 20 The possibility of eating with cutlery in order to prevent hands from defiling food is mentioned in tHagigah 3.11–12. Even in such a case, there is still a concern with the possibility that one might reach one’s hand into a mouth full of food. 21 The function of liquids in spreading hand impurity is well described by Kazen, Jesus and Purity Halakhah, 81–5. As Kazen emphasises, this dynamic means that impure hands can contaminate not only consecrated foodstuff but also unconsecrated food (hullin). Although mZavim 5.12 states that hands (among other things) contaminate heave-offerings, this does not mean that impure hands cannot contaminate unconsecrated food. Rather, with the addition of another component – liquids – contamination indeed can spread. Further, unconsecrated food which is defiled in the second degree is considered impure (mTaharoth 2.3). The susceptibility of hullin to contamination by impure hands only in the presence of liquids is attested in mTebul-Yom 2.2. This Mishna compares hand impurity with that of a tebul yom (a person who has immersed in a miqveh), who does not contaminate hullin anymore but invalidates terumah (heave-offering), both food and liquids: ‘If a pot is full of liquid and a
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Consequently, a person who eats food that has been defiled by ritually impure hands becomes impure to the same level.22 An early source (from the Second Temple Period) describes this same result without articulating the system of degrees of impurity.23 In mTaharoth 9.5 we read: ‘He who crushes olives with impure hands defiles them’. The liquid on the crushed olives transfers impurity from the hands to the olives.24 mTaharoth 10.4 also connects hand impurity with the susceptibility of liquids to defilement. This Mishna explains that, on their way to the wine press, grapes must be handled in a state of ritual purity: ‘[If the grapes are taken] from the grape basket or from what tebul yom touches it, the liquid becomes unfit if it is terumah, but the [hullin] pot is clean. But if the liquid is unconsecrated (hullin) then all remains clean. If his hands were unclean, all becomes unclean’. That being the case, the requirement to wash one’s hands before eating a standard meal (which includes liquids) in order to prevent ritual contamination is halakhically credible. 22 Both first-century rabbis, R. Eliezer and R. Joshua, in mTaharoth 2.2, agree that eating food that is impure in the second degree makes a person impure to the same degree. This process is compared in tTaharoth 2.1 to the power of liquids to sustain impurity in the second degree. 23 J. Neusner, History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities (22 vols; Leiden: Brill, 1976) 13.144, 202–5, correctly mentions that the complex system of grades of impurity is known to us only in postTemple sources from Yavne, where the system was probably elaborated. This innovation, however, does not affect the actual substance of the purity laws; it merely involves the formulation of a new system of organising categories of impurity, designed to create a standard measure of reference for the different sources of impurity and the different channels of contamination. I find it hard to accept the argument of Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 123–4, who assumes that the system of grades of impurity was a part of the purity laws already in Jesus’ time. Booth states: ‘[. . .] they must have accepted some limitations on the transmissibility of purity or impurity. Such a limitation would naturally be the number of intermediate things between the sources of impurity and the things potentially defiled . . . it seems likely that some limitations would evolve at an early stage, with some differentiation based on its holy or ordinary nature’. This complex system is anything but probable. 24 This halakhah is linked in the Mishna to a dispute between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, and it seems to originate from the same strata. A striking parallel in a halakhic fragment from Qumran reinforces this hypothesis. In 4Q284a (J. M. Baumgarten et al., Qumran Cave 4 XXV: Halachic Texts, DJD XXXV [Oxford: Clarendon, 1999] 131–3), we read: ‘[anyone who] may not touch the communal liquids; for these [will defile the] basket and the figs and the pomegranates [if their jui]ce comes out w[hen he pre]sses them all . . . and if they press [olives in the olive press] let him [by no m]eans defile them by opening them before he pours [them into the press]’. Despite the lacunae, it is clear that this text deals with the fear of liquid defilement when harvesting soft fruits or bringing the olives to press. The person who may not touch the communal liquid, because of his susceptibility to impurity, has to be cautious in his work. This description is parallel to the Mishna which warns the person who is harvesting with defiled hands, and can impart impurity to the liquids, to be careful lest he cause impurity to the fruits. Those who defile liquids, those who may not touch the communal liquids according to Qumran Halakhah, and those who have defiled hands according to Tannaitic Halakhah, are all distanced from the same critical stages of the harvest, namely that of crushing the olives.
186 yair furstenberg is spread out on leaves, all [the abovementioned, Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai] agree that they must be handled with clean hands, for if they are handled with unclean hands they become unclean’.25 Indeed, eating only dry foods prevents the spreading of ritual impurity from the hands to food. A Tannaitic source describes this meticulous custom, but such a practice obviously precludes all but the most basic of diets, unsuitable for most people.26 In light of these halakhic facts, a coherent reading of the narrative in Mark 7 becomes possible. In response to the Pharisaic insistence upon washing hands before eating, Jesus replies, ‘there is nothing outside a person which by going into him can defile him’. There is, in other words, no need to wash one’s hands before eating. Jesus’ opinion – contrary to that of the Pharisees – is that even food which has been contaminated by defiled hands does not contaminate a person who ingests it.27 But there is much more to this dispute than a halakhic disagreement regarding the possibility of contamination through ingestion. In the second limb of the logion, Jesus challenges the very purpose of the Pharisaic approach to ritual purity. In his view, the concern with defilement penetrating the body contradicts an alternative conception of purity. Hence, the dispute over hand washing contrasts two understandings of ritual defilement: one concerned with ‘that which enters the body’, and another, concerned with ‘that which comes out of it’.
II. Why Eat Ordinary Food in a State of Purity?
Identifying the halakhic background of the custom of washing hands before eating elucidates both the Pharisaic practice itself and Jesus’ reaction. It also lays the foundations for our main task: describing the two differing views of 25 This Mishna, together with other sources on hand impurity (cf. mTaharoth 7.8), imply that the kind of ritual impurity which was feared in day-to-day situations was hand impurity. For that reason it was brought as an example of contamination which can occur immediately after the fruits become susceptible to impurity. A person can keep his body pure from serious sources of impurities which contaminate his whole body, but the hands are easily contaminated by any impure vessel, liquid or food. 26 tSukka 2.3 tells of R. Yohanan b. Horanit, of Bet Shammai, who ate no moist foods in fear of contamination. 27 Already A. Büchler, ‘The Law of Purification in Mark 7.1–23’, ExpTim 21 (1909–10) 34–40, and Hübner, Das Gesetz, 161–4 attempted to interpret Jesus’ logion in light of the halakhic data, and to follow the process of contamination from the hands into the body through ingestion. However, both scholars, having ignored the role played by liquids, encountered the same difficulty: How can hands cause the food to be defiled to such a degree that it would further contaminate the eater? As a solution, Büchler postulates an otherwise unknown category of ‘real levitical impurity’ which causes a higher degree of hand impurity, and Hübner turns to R. Akiva’s view that in special (rare and almost theoretical) cases stated in mYadayim 3.1, the hands are defined as impure in the first degree. In contrast, according to our analysis, the fear of contaminating the body would always be present when eating with impure hands.
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defilement. By re-examining the halakhic and the historic backgrounds of the hand-washing custom, both the purpose of this practice and the opposition to it can be better understood. a. Protecting Food from Defilement The capacity of hands to spread contamination and consequently cause the body to become impure is familiar to students of Talmud and has been well investigated by Roger Booth.28 Booth’s study probes the plausibility of the Pharisaic requirement for washing hands before eating and of Jesus’ response to this requirement, using what he calls ‘Historico-Legal Criticism’. In order to determine whether the Pharisees could have viewed hand washing as obligatory according to the legal assumptions pertaining during that period, Booth describes the aforementioned dynamic of impurity from the hands entering the body. However, Booth adds one further stage which does not emerge directly from the text: the concern that a defiled person will touch holy foodstuff and thus contaminate it.29 This additional step is not actually needed in order to make sense of Jesus’ saying, which only refers to a person becoming contaminated, but it was added by Booth in order to conform to an accepted scholarly view. According to this prevailing view, the only reason for a layperson to maintain ritual purity (outside the Temple) was in order to protect food from defilement; either holy foodstuff or particular unconsecrated foods which were handled as if they were holy.30 Thus, fear of the body becoming contaminated is not, in this view, a sufficient reason to require hand washing before every meal. Rather, the primary reason for washing hands before eating lies in the concern that a person who has been contaminated by ingesting food will later touch consecrated food and thus contaminate it. 28 Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 173–87. 29 ‘It is thus arguable that, even according to the restrictive tradition, there was cause for hands to be washed in Galilee, in order to preserve the purity of terumah gedolah there . . . Thus the route to be taken by the impurity, in order to render the question credible, is from hands to hullin, thence to the eater, and thence to terumah’ (Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 156). It should be noted that this route is not chosen by Booth in order to explain Jesus’ logion, since he adopts the so-called ‘relative’ interpretation, but in order to justify the Pharisaic requirement to wash one’s hands before eating. 30 The most prominent advocate of this approach is A. Büchler, Der Galiläische ‘Am-ha’Ares des zweiten Jahrhunderts (Wien: Verlag der Israelitisch-Theologischen Lehranstalt, 1906). Büchler defends the view that the laws surrounding hand purity, along with other ritual purity laws, were observed only by priests who came in contact with holy foodstuff (or by a small number of individuals who imitated the priestly way of life), in order to distance their food from defilement. Only much later, during the second century, did this custom come to be practiced in the daily life of laypersons. As we shall see, even those who are of the opinion that hand washing was widespread, usually share the assumption that the practice was initially linked in some way to the purity of holy foodstuff.
188 yair furstenberg This approach, which maintains that hand washing was intended for the protection of foodstuff, is reflected already in the traditional historical account described in the Babylonian Talmud. An uncertainty in the traditions regarding the source of the hand-washing ordinance led the Talmud (bShabbat 14b) to reconstruct a multi-stage decree. In the first stage, according to this account, the requirement was to wash one’s hands only before touching holy foodstuff such as sacrificial meat (kodesh); in next stage, the ordinance was expanded to include heave-offerings (terumah), eaten by the priests in their homes; only in the period immediately before the destruction of the Second Temple was the decree finally applied to unconsecrated food (hullin). This description creates the impression that the decree is rooted in the priestly concern with ritual purity, and furthermore, that the purpose of the decree is the protection of food, in the same manner that the priestly code prohibits contamination of holy foodstuff and heave-offerings (Lev 22.1–8). The view that hand washing was originally decreed in relation to heave-offerings and only later expanded to include unconsecrated food also appears in scholarly accounts, such as Sanders’ thorough reconstruction of purity practices during the period of the Second Temple. Sanders assumes that ‘the likely line of development was from washing hands before handling the priests’ food to washing hands before their own special meals on Sabbaths and festivals’.31 b. Protecting the Body from Defilement Ritual contamination is a tricky issue. Impurity can flow from one object to another, from food to body and then again to other food, and it can pass through many stages before dying out. But what exactly is being protected from handinduced contamination? As we have seen, later sources assume that the purity of sacred foods is at stake, but is there any contemporaneous data that can help to answer this question? In fact, although the Pharisaic requirement itself provides no solution, Jesus, in his response, explicitly articulates the reasoning behind hand washing. It was not the purity of foods that concerned the Pharisees, who ate 31 E. P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah: Five Studies (London: SCM, 1990) 229. A systematic survey of early sources on hand impurity appears on pp. 203–4 and 228–31. A careful reading of Sanders’ sources reveals that he is heavily dependent on the Talmudic account, whereas the sources themselves do not relate solely to terumah. He correctly states that mTaharoth 10.4 reflects a ruling that the heave-offering must be separated with pure hands (p. 197). However, the Mishna defines the stage in which all grape puree becomes susceptible to impurity, and therefore has to be handled with purity, even before the heave-offering is separated. Sanders further assumes that mBerachoth 8.2–3 (discussed below), which requires hand washing before meals, relates specifically to Sabbath meals at which ritual purity laws were observed, as opposed to standard meals. There is no basis for this assumption. Rather, according to this Mishna, ritual purity is required at every meal. It is more plausible to accept simply mHagigah 2.5 ‘wash the hands both for hullin and for terumah’. Sanders’ reconstruction of the expansion of purity from terumah to hullin is also presented by Kazen, Jesus and Purity Halakhah, 71.
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unconsecrated foods;32 rather, they were concerned with guarding the body from defilement. Whilst it is true that a ritually impure body might indeed continue to spread its contamination, this does not reflect the nucleus of the hand-washing custom if we are to believe Jesus’ testimony. In the traditional framework, with its emphasis on the protection of foods from contamination, there is no place to speak of impurity entering the body, since the focal point of this system is the purity of holy food. Consequently, various proposed interpretations diverge from the simple meaning of Jesus’ statement in an attempt to make it fit with the traditional view. According to Maccoby, for example, purity laws have nothing to do with protection of the body. Maccoby thus finds it meaningless to interpret Jesus’ statement about defilement going into the body as a reaction against these laws of purity. In Maccoby’s view, Jesus is rejecting a Pharisaic concern with hygienic maintenance of the body, because of his trust in God.33 Alternatively, Booth raises the above-mentioned complicated 32 The priestly code explicitly prohibits defilement of holy foodstuff (Lev 22.4–6), and holy offerings were burned if they became defiled (Lev 7.19–21). This is illustrated in mMa’aser Sheni 2.4 which deals with the question of how terumah should be handled when it is given from some type of horse bean, rarely used as human food. The early authorities make an effort to keep it pure as long as possible, even though it is designated for animal consumption. On the other hand, unconsecrated food (hullin) that was intended for animal use was not kept in a state of purity. Therefore, even if hullin became contaminated it was still usable, and it was given to ritually impure people or to animals. This difference is neatly presented in a case in which there is doubt as to whether dough has become defiled (mHallah 3.2): ‘If before she kneaded she found herself in a condition of uncleanness that was in doubt, it may be prepared in uncleanness, but if this occurs after she rolled it out, it must be prepared in cleanness’. In reference to this Mishna, the Talmud comments that there is no prohibition on contaminating hullin. This stands in contrast to Neusner’s contention (J. Neusner, From Politics to Piety: The Emergence of Pharisaic Judaism [Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1973] 83) that the Pharisees handled their own food as if it was holy. A characteristic portrayal of the Pharisees as keeping their food pure as if it was holy is found in H. K. Harrington, The Impurity Systems of Qumran and the Rabbis: Biblical Foundations (SBL Dissertation Series 143; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993) 280–1: ‘In summary, it is clear that although the Pharisees did not adopt the total regimen required for a priestly way of living, they did think it important to eat like priests and to consider their own ordinary food as holy in some degree’. In my view, it is preferable to suppose that the motivation for eating unconsecrated food in a state of purity does not necessarily derive from the same principle as the prohibition against defiling holy foodstuff. 33 H. Maccoby, Ritual and Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1999) 155–61; ‘No one ever claimed that the purpose of ritual purity was to prevent impurities from entering the body. On the contrary, it was held that ritual impurity never penetrates beyond the surface of the body. Even impurities incurred through eating forbidden food do not cause impurity to the interior of the body, only to the exterior’ (p. 158). According to Maccoby, the pericope should be interpreted as referring to hand washing for hygienic reasons. Jesus, whose ‘Hasidic’ mindset involved completely trusting in God, ignored these physical dangers. Maccoby’s reading hardly fits the text, which refers repeatedly to matters of ritual purity.
190 yair furstenberg assumption that the Pharisaic practice was designed to protect heave-offerings from becoming contaminated by a defiled person who previously ate with unwashed hands.34 Adhering to the straightforward meaning of Jesus’ statement releases us from such forced interpretations. Furthermore, additional evidence can be found for the opinion that hand washing was practiced for the protection of the eater’s purity by turning directly to the earliest rabbinic sources which describe the custom within its historical and halakhic setting. Both early rabbinic sources and Jesus’ statement seem to point towards the body and its protection – and not the priestly concern with food purity – as the focal point of these purity customs.
III. Historical Background of Hand-Washing Custom
a. Survey of Previous Suggestions What is the historical source of the practice of washing hands before coming into contact with food? Although numerous answers have been offered,35 many of these are methodologically problematic. One basic question that the above-mentioned Talmudic account (which suggests that the custom evolved from the ritual purity practices of the priests) does not solve is: Why were the hands seen as impure in the first place? After all, in the biblical purity system, the possibility that hands might defile independently of the whole body is unknown. Defiled hands are not one of the sources of impurity in the biblical system, except as part of an impure person, such as a zab.36 Furthermore, biblical law does not 34 In fact, this explanation of the Pharisees’ practice is finally rejected by Booth himself (Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 186), due to an additional assumption: The disciples in the Galilee did not immerse on a daily basis and their bodies were thus deemed completely unclean. There would thus be no point in washing their hands, which are anyhow impure as part of the whole body. 35 A recent attempt to reconcile the different sources about hand purity has been made by Ch. Milikowsky, ‘Reflections on Hand-Washing, Hand Purity and Holy Scripture in Rabbinic Literature’, Purity and Holiness: The Heritage of Leviticus (ed. M. J. H. M. Poorthuis and J. Schwartz; Leiden: Brill 2000) 149–62. 36 ‘Anyone whom the man with the discharge touches without having rinsed his hands in water must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening’ (Lev 15.11). The hands are carriers of the zab’s seminal discharge from his genitals; otherwise the contamination is confined to the zab’s body. The implications of this leniency are presented by J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991) 920. In contrast, in the Second Temple Period ‘hand impurity’ was thought to be able to defile even the hands of pure persons. Even someone who has immersed and is ready to eat terumah or kodesh, and is completely pure according to levitical standards, is required to wash his hands since a light impurity might be attached to them (mHagigah 2.5). Indeed, in the Tannaitic interpretation (Sifra, Zabim 4:6 [77a]), this verse is brought as a secondary support – though not as the primary source – for this halakhah.
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know of a purification process for hands alone, contrary to what is found in rabbinic law and mentioned in our pericope. Neusner,37 following a third-century Midrash,38 suggests that the practice of washing hands before meals is an imitation of the priestly custom of washing hands and feet upon entering the Temple. Though ancient, this suggestion fails to explain the contamination force attributed to the hands, since the washing of hands and feet in the Temple was intended as a ritual of preparation and not of purification. Another similar attempt connects this custom to the practice known in Diaspora Judaism of washing hands before prayer and learning Torah.39 An exponent of this approach is John Poirier.40 Contrary to Neusner, Poirier rejects the hypothesis that the Pharisees imitated the custom of the priests, and suggests instead that their commitment to purity during eating correlates to the known Diaspora custom of bathing or washing hands before prayer and learning. In his view, Pharisees kept their bodies in a state of holiness so that they could be ‘filled’ with Torah and prayer. He states, ‘The Pharisees washed their hands in order not to defile their inner parts. Such defilement would severely limit their regimen of prayer and Torah-study.’41 Poirier’s attempt to connect hand washing with the practice followed in Diaspora Judaism is unconvincing on two levels. First, none of the early sources 37 Neusner, History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities, 19.103; idem, The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 1973) 3. The late aggadic compilation, Elijah Rabba 15, contains the best example of this approach. An elaborate version of this suggestion, linking additional Temple laws relating to hand washing, can be found in L. Finkelstein, The Pharisees: The Sociological Background of their Faith (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 3rd ed. 1962) 272–9. 38 Sifre Numbers 116, on Num 17.8, ‘I give you the priesthood as a gift for service – thus making the eating of holy foodstuff in the country like the service in the Temple. Just as in the service in the Temple he sanctifies his hands and afterwards he serves, so in eating holy foodstuff, he sanctifies his hands and afterwards eats . . . Thus we have learned hand-washing from scripture’. This source connects hand washing directly with the priestly service. However it is apparent from the context that the Midrash was innovated by R. Judah the Patriarch or his contemporaries. The tendency to confine hand washing and other purity regulations to priests seems to be typical of sources from the third century, when eating in a state of purity was uncommon. This is implied by I. N. Epstein, Mevo’ot Le’sifrut Ha’tana’im (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1957) 306. Also mBikkurim 2.1, which rules that hand washing is only required when eating terumah, should be classified as a late Mishna. 39 Letter of Aristeas 305–6. Pure hands as a necessary condition for prayer are found in Philo De Virtutibus 57; De Vita Contemplativa 66; Josephus J.W. 5.308; 404. The practice of hand washing before praying is also evidenced in the archaeological finds of Diaspora synagogues, as described by A. Runesson, ‘Water and Worship: Ostia and the Ritual Bath in the Diaspora Synagogue’, The Synagogue of Ancient Ostia and the Jews of Rome (ed. B. Olsson et al.; Stockholm: P. Astroem, 2001) 115–29. 40 J. C. Poirier, ‘Why Did the Pharisees Wash Their Hands?’, JJS 46 (1996) 217–33. 41 Poirier, ‘Why Did the Pharisees Wash Their Hands?’, 227.
192 yair furstenberg of Palestinian Jewry ever mention the practice of washing hands before these activities; in these sources, hand washing is exclusively associated with eating. Second, these Diaspora sources do not shed any light on the contamination aspect, which is essential to hand washing before the meal.42 Nevertheless, Poirier does correctly recognise the basic motivation for the Pharisees’ custom of washing hands. He comments that ‘some write as if the pericope’s connection between hand washing and food concerns requires special pleading. I must admit, this sounds strange to someone who was reared always to wash before eating’. He further states that ‘The Pharisees’ concern was analogous to modern table etiquette’. Poirier notes this analogy, but refrains from pursuing it further. Further investigation of this point might in fact reveal the origins of the hand-washing custom. b. Hand washing as a Greco-Roman Custom Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai are the earliest authorities who discuss hand washing and hand impurity. In mBerachot 8.2–4, they discuss how to integrate hand washing into the different stages of the meal: Does it precede the pouring of the wine? Is it done after sweeping the floor at the end of the meal? What is to be done with the napkin which was used to wipe the hands? Later interpretive sources examine the purity-related issues that exist in each of these situations.43 However, the immediate background of these discussions can be found in GrecoRoman table manners. All of the issues referred to in this Mishna have their counterparts in literary sources describing Greek and/or Roman dining habits. An example can be found in the very name of the custom: in all Tannaitic sources, the servant ‘gives (water) to the hands’ (μyydyl ˜twn), and the diner ‘takes (water) to the hands’ (μyydyl lfwn). These expressions are translations of Greek (and Latin) idioms, which are discussed by Athenaeus: kata; ceirw`n dou`nai and kata; ceirw`n labei`n.44 Furthermore, many Greek and Roman sources refer to the proper order of events at a meal: hands are washed before wine is poured.45 In addition, Athenaeus, in his comprehensive collection of sources relating to hand washing, describes the reasons for sweeping the floor before washing hands at the end of a meal.46 There are also sources which imply that placement of a dirty
42 Sanders, Jewish Law, 228. 43 tBerachoth 5.26–8. Contrary to our suggestion, Sanders, Jewish Law, 203, declares, ‘It is difficult to explain these mishnayot if one does not follow the Tosefta’. 44 Athnaeus Deipnosophistea, ix, 408f–409a 45 See Aristophanes Vespae 1216, as an early example, and Petronius Cena Trimalchionis 31, for a contemporary Roman context. 46 The sequence appears in Athenaeus Deipno. ix 408e; xi 462c. The reference to ‘dog-bits’ in ix 409d reveals the purpose of this custom: preventing the spurning of bread crumbs with the perfumed hands. This parallel text was quoted by S. Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-fshuta (10 vols.; New York/Jerusalem: JTS, 2nd ed. 1992) 1.93.
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napkin on the adorned couch during a meal would trouble the polite GrecoRoman diner.47 The discussions of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, contemporaries of Jesus, took place in a milieu in which Greco-Roman cultural forms were familiar. The Jewish hand-washing custom is described by them in terms that are similar to those associated with the Greco-Roman practice of washing hands before partaking in a meal. Some scholars have concluded that these early rabbis fashioned the laws of hand washing not as a purity rite, but rather as table etiquette; their discussions are thus read as debates about the proper way in which to dine.48 An alternative explanation is available, however. This explanation combines the Greco-Roman background of the hand-washing custom with the language of ritual purity that was tightly linked to this practice since its earliest stages. c. The Purifying Role of a Pre-existing Custom Three critical facts must be considered together: (1) Hand impurity capable of contaminating food was well known to Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, as can be seen in mTaharoth 10.4 and mYadayim 3.5. (2) Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai shaped the laws of hand washing before meals in accordance with Greco-Roman norms, and so they do not limit this practice to special meals or holy foodstuff. (3) In Mark 7, the Pharisaic requirement to wash hands before eating reflects a concern that contamination will spread from the impure hands, as we learn from Jesus’ reaction. Taken together, these facts lead to the conclusion that the concern with hand contamination and the popular norm of hand washing are in fact two sides of the same coin. Purification, in other words, was achieved through a prevalent custom which was not associated with priestly regulations. Concern with impurity of the hands should be viewed, then, as an outcome of this norm. A person who is accustomed to washing his hands regularly before eating will come to view this practice as an act of purification, implying that his hands were contaminated. Furthermore, hand washing was popularly perceived as an apotropaic act, necessary during daily life no less than in ritual circumstances. This is clearly attested in Theophrastus’s depiction of the ‘superstitious man’ who continuously washes his hands in order to guard himself from evil.49 This popular custom, it thus seems, reflects a popular understanding of contamination and purity. I therefore suggest that the laws of hand purity developed in the opposite direction than that suggested in previous studies. Hand washing was not origi47 For the use of the napkin (mappa) cf. H. Blümner, Die Romischen Privatalterümer (Munich: Beck, 1911) 390. Meticulousness in distancing dirt from the couch can be deduced from Horace Satires 2.4 48 Büchler, ‘Am-ha’Ares, 130–8. 49 Theophrastus Characters 16.2.
194 yair furstenberg nally a priestly custom; rather it was a product of everyday normative behaviour in a society that indeed held purity as a significant cultural category. Whereas for the modern reader hygiene and purity are generally viewed as two completely different categories, they were fused together in the eyes of a Second Temple Period Jew. Viewing hand washing in this context thus leads us back to the point stressed above: Hand washing in the halakhic realm should be understood similarly to how it is understood in accepted table etiquette, namely, as a method for dispelling pollution from the body.50 This is not a concern unique to the Pharisees, but rather a common tendency, which can help to explain the popularity of this custom.51 IV. The Status of Humans in the Contamination System
As Jesus recognised and as is evident upon investigation of the cultural background of the hand-washing laws, the hand-washing custom evolved within a framework that differed from the priestly understanding of ritual purity. In the previous sections it was maintained that the first limb of the logion could be interpreted as a reaction against these purity laws. Unknown in the Bible, the system being opposed is concerned with food contaminating people. Adopting this line of interpretation, it is reasonable to further suggest that the second limb of the logion, ‘the things which come out of a person are what defile him’, defines an alternative conception of ritual purity which does fit with the biblical system. Thus each limb of the logion, at least on one level, carries a halakhic meaning. Jesus, according to this interpretation, is contrasting two competing models of ritual purity. According to the levitical purity laws, human beings are a major source of impurity, and they primarily become contaminated as a result of various sub50 Classical medical treatises, such as the Hippocratic corpus, do not mention hand washing as part of a healthy regimen. This is due to their disease etiology, which views disease as a result of imbalance and not of invasion, to use the classification offered by D. B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University, 1995) 139–62. Nonetheless, as Martin emphasises, the concept of pollution played a much greater role in the popular outlook than it did in professional writing. The fear of pollution is the same, whether it refers to demons or to impurity. Avoiding pollution and ensuring purification were regarded as imperative in order to live in good health. Furthermore, medical language also utilised the concept of purity, as demonstrated in the Hippocratic treatise On Affections. Diseases affecting the body cavity are healed by ‘purifications’ (kaqarmov~, i.e., evacuation through the bowels or vomiting. In order to regain the required balance, the digestive system is utilised for re-cleaning the body. 51 A confrontation between the popular fear of pollution through eating and a philosopher’s rejection of such a fear is found in Diogenes Laertius Lives 6.61, regarding Diogenes the Cynic: ‘He was gathering figs, and was told by the keeper that not long before a man hanged himself on that very fig-tree. “Then” said he, “I will now purge it” (aujth;n kaqarw`)’. Both Jesus and Diogenes dismiss the fear of ingesting pollution, and both ‘purge’ the eaten food.
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stances exiting the body: menstruation, seminal discharges of different kinds, parturient blood discharge and saliva. Some rabbinic sources label these forms of impurity as ‘impurities coming out of the body’, and this is given as a reason for the severity of the laws surrounding these kinds of contamination.52 On the other hand, Second Temple Period readers of the bible would not find in it any reference to impurity which can contaminate a person through ingestion. According to the ruling in Lev 17.15, eating the carcass of a pure animal requires subsequent purification. However, the parallel verses in Lev 11.39–40 do not distinguish between eating a carcass and touching it.53 The only biblical case in which impurity is transmitted solely through ingestion is the consumption of ‘swarming creatures’ in Lev 11.43–44. However, since these creatures do not otherwise convey impurity,54 it seems that the impurity attributed to them is only an expression of the fact that they are considered abominable and that their consumption is prohibited. Furthermore, unlike in Lev 17.15, there are no purification procedures that ameliorate the defilement. This leads to the conclusion that Lev 11.43–44 refers not to ritual impurity with its principles of contamination and purification, but rather to a different kind of impurity which is caused by sin and which can by avoided by sanctification: ‘You shall sanctify yourself and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not make yourself unclean through any swarming things that move upon the earth’ (v. 44).55 It seems, then, that no biblical source actually suggests that contamination can spread through ingestion. In the Hebrew Bible, eating, unlike emission or discharge, is not a means of transferring defilement. Only in later purity laws, influenced by the Pharisaic hand-washing practice as well as other factors, does concern with ingesting impurity become a major theme. The substantial differences between the two systems of impurity – the biblical system on one hand and the rabbinic system, originating in the Second Temple Period, on the other – can also be observed in some other features of the respec52 Sifra Tazri’a 12.4 (67 [d]). 53 According to the Tannaitic literature (mTaharoth 1.1; Sifra Emor 4.12–13 [97a]), there is one case in which impurity can be imparted through the eating of a carcass: the carcass of a pure bird. Both Lev 17.15 and 22.8 are interpreted as referring to this specific case. This interpretation is based on the assumption that, since only the carcass of an animal can defile through carrying, the carcass of a bird must defile only through ingestion. However, the distinction between the two kinds of carcass is not evident from scripture. On the contrary, based on Ezek 44.31 it can be concluded that there is no difference between bird and animal carcasses. 54 A suggested explanation for the difference between the two zoological groups, sheqez (abominable) and tame (impure), is found in Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 656–8. 55 D. Z. Hoffmann, Das Buch Leviticus (2 vols.; Berlin: Poppelauer, 1905–1906) 1.303–5 presents the differences between various kinds of impurities, identifying the impurity in these verses as the converse of sanctity. This subject is elaborated in detail by Klawans, Impurity and Sin, who classifies the different biblical sources according to the two categories he designates ‘ritual impurity’ and ‘moral impurity’. Our verses are classified as ‘moral impurity’ (p. 31). This would seem to be the reading accepted also by Jesus’ contemporaries.
196 yair furstenberg tive systems. Two innovations in the rabbinic approach have already been mentioned: (a) hands are susceptible to light impurity which does not affect the whole body, and (b) contaminated food can transmit impurity to the person eating it. Two other innovations appear in this new conception: (c) contamination can spread from food to food,56 and (d) by coming into contact with liquids, impurity can be transmitted to vessels and people. It seems that, contrary to later Talmudic interpretation, this system does not merely insert minute and scattered details into the pre-existing biblical system.57 Rather, the numerous innovations together make this system a distinct, independent conception of ritual purity. Some fundamental characteristics of the differences between the systems are manifest. In the levitical system, impurity travels only one way: it is imparted from the source of impurity and flows through people and vessels until it reaches its final destination, the food. If the contaminated food is holy, then its consumption is prohibited. In the rabbinic system, on the other hand, not only does the circle of influence widen, but the process of contamination reverses its direction. While in Leviticus 11, food can be contaminated by a defiled vessel, in the rabbinic system a vessel can be defiled by foods and liquids. Such is also the case with people, who can be contaminated not only (or primarily) by direct sources of impurity, as in Leviticus, but also by ‘secondary impurities’ such as contaminated foods. Finally, the most prominent innovation in the rabbinic purity system is the role played by liquids in the spreading of impurity. When impurity comes into contact with a liquid, it does not die out, no matter how far it spreads.58 These 56 The novelty of this concept and its subsequent vulnerability is manifest in mSotah 5.2: ‘On that day R. Akiba expounded “And every earthen vessel into which any of them falleth, whatsoever in it shall be unclean” (Lev 11.33). It does not state tame (is unclean) but yitma, meaning it can make others unclean (as though it is read yetame). This teaches that a loaf which is unclean in the second degree (since it touched the vessel, which is unclean in the first degree) makes [whatever it comes into contact with] unclean in the third degree. R. Joshua said: ‘Who will remove the dust from your eyes, R. Johanan b. Zakkai, since you predicted that another generation is destined to pronounce clean a loaf which is unclean in the third degree on the grounds that there is no text in the Torah according to which it is unclean? Has not R. Akiba, thy pupil, adduced a text in the Torah according to which it is unclean?’ 57 Such explanations are offered in bShabbat 14–15, which states that the uncleanness caused by eating defiled food is based on the fear that someone eating terumah will concurrently put in his mouth unclean food and consequently render the terumah unfit. As a precautionary measure, the eater of unclean food is also declared unclean. The susceptibility of liquids, which are always unclean in the first degree, is explained as a preventive measure on account of the fluids of a zab (such as semen, saliva and urine which are sources of impurity). 58 The susceptibility of liquids to contamination is well attested in Qumran literature. See J. M. Baumgarten, ‘Liquids and Susceptibility to Defilement in 4Q Fragments’, JQR 85/1–2 (1995) 91–101; F. Avemarie, ‘Tohorat Ha-Rabbim and Mashqeh Ha-Rabbim – Jacob Licht Reconsidered’, Legal Texts and Legal Issues, Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies: In Honor of J. M. Baumgarten (ed. M. Bernstein and F. G Martinz; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 215–30.
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defiled liquids will contaminate everything that comes their way: people (limited to the hands), vessels and foods.59 Similarly to the concept of hand impurity, the power of liquids to contaminate is not explicitly mentioned in any biblical source.60 Moreover, an ancient tradition which appears in the Mishna claims that liquid impurity, along with all of its severe consequences, is disregarded in the Temple.61 This fact implies that the concern with liquid impurity was initiated outside of the priestly circle and not in accordance with its purity system. Though the strictness about purity of liquids is an innovation, it is an innovation that makes perfect sense if one acknowledges the ability of liquids to carry dirt. Grave is the fate of whoever walks with dirty feet on a freshly washed, wet floor. Through liquids, dirt can be carried from food to food and to vessels. Thus, if a food item has come into contact with liquids and may thus have been contaminated, its consumption is forbidden, even if it is not holy. And any food which has been contaminated by a liquid, if consumed, will contaminate the body of the person eating it, requiring purification. We therefore see that all of the innovations regarding laws of food purity – hand impurity, defilement of the body and liquid impurity – merge in the moment of eating, and make this moment a moment of anxiety, a posture which Jesus rejected. Jesus’ logion, which is fully intelligible within the context of halakhic discourse, is thus reacting to one conception of ritual defilement by suggesting another. The biblical law (which Jesus favours) posits the person as a source of contamination of foods and vessels, whereas the Pharisees are concerned with the effects of contamination on the person.62 However, the force of Jesus’ statement 59 The force of liquid impurity is characterised in the Mishna in the following pronouncement made by an impure object to the liquid which defiled it: ‘That which caused you to be unclean, did not cause me to be unclean, but you caused me to be unclean’ (mParah 8.4–7). 60 A clear distinction should be made between two different functions of liquids in the contamination system. Lev 11.34, 38 assert that foodstuff is susceptible to impurity only if it was initially soaked by water. Consequently, as long as food is separated from liquids it remains pure even if it comes into direct contact with a source of impurity. This aspect of liquid impurity is viewed both in Qumran literature (11QT 49.7) and in rabbinic Halakhah (Sifra Shemini 11.5 [56b]) as biblically rooted. Nonetheless, the capacity of liquids to preserve the level of impurity and to pass it on continuously is not rooted in these laws in Leviticus. This distinction is evident in rabbinic law, which deals with each aspect in separate contexts; the first one in tractate Makhshirin, and the second in Tractate Taharoth. 61 mEduyot 8.4: ‘R. Jose b. Joezer of Zereda testified that . . . the liquid [that flows] in the shambles [in the Temple] is not susceptible to uncleaness’. 62 Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 209–10, investigates a close variation of this line of interpretation. Both sections of the logion can be interpreted as referring to cultic impurity, thus Booth suggests reading the logion as saying: ‘Contaminated food that enters the body defiles less than the defilement of bodily discharges’. Except for the soft relative comparison, which I would substitute with an absolute opposition, this suggestion is close to the one presented
198 yair furstenberg lies in its ability simultaneously to rise to a moral level, which Jesus reveals to his disciples in the interpretation of the mashal. In Jesus’ sayings, halakhic standpoints often also reflect a moral condition, as can be seen, for example, in the woe-sayings of Matthew 23.63 In our pericope too, Jesus extrapolates the Pharisaic ethical inclination – their neglect of the corruption coming out of their hearts – from their hand-washing custom. Conclusion
Within its historical and social context, the hand-washing custom was understood by many scholars as an expression of the Pharisees’ desire to impose on the populace a meticulous submission to purity laws. The Pharisees were conceived of as insisting that all eat in a state of purity,64 with the intention of forming a kingdom of priests. Indeed, several contemporaneous sources, both textual and archaeological, allude to the expansion of observance of purity laws into daily life in the time of Jesus.65 The rabbis describe it as a ‘burst of purity’ (tShabb 1.14), here. However, Booth himself rejects this option since he prefers the accepted interpretation of the second section, as an ethical statement. I, on the other hand, do not see the moral and the cultic interpretations as mutually exclusive, since one is reflected by the other. 63 The four central woe-sayings are divided into two pairs. Each pair starts with a complaint against the Pharisaic Halakhah, and then continues with a portrayal of a matching behavioural characteristic. In the first pair, Jesus claims that the Pharisees, in their halakhic rulings, give primacy to the vow of lesser importance (Matt 23.16–22). Accordingly, in the next woe-saying, he complains that in their way of life they also neglect the heavier matters, such as justice and mercy (vv. 23–24). In the second pair, Jesus complains that, contrary to his halakhic opinion, the Pharisees allow for purity of the exterior of a vessel while the interior remains unclean (vv. 25–26). He then describes the Pharisees themselves as clean only externally but full of defilement, like whitewashed tombs (vv. 27–28). 64 It has long been debated whether the Pharisees ate in a state of purity. Current scholarship on this subject has gained immensely from Sanders’ chapter ‘Did the Pharisees Eat Ordinary Food in Purity’, Jewish Law, 131–254. Against his tendency to minimise the scope of purity and accept only ‘minor gestures toward purity’, H. K. Harrington, ‘Did the Pharisees Eat Ordinary Food in a State of Purity?’, JSJ 26/1 (1995) 42–54, emphasises the systematic nature of the purity laws, in which selected ‘gestures’ of purity are unacceptable. The conclusion that Pharisees indeed ate in a state of purity is confirmed by two additional facts that have not yet been highlighted. First, when Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel speak about ‘themselves’ contrary to ‘the others’ (meaning amei-ha’aretz) they take for granted that they themselves eat in a state of purity (mEduyot 1.14). Second, and more important: the phrase, ‘he who eats ordinary food in a state of purity’, was first used to refer to a specific group of people only in the later Tannaitic period. In earlier periods it was taken for granted that everybody lived according to such a regimen. Therefore, the early sources do not specify who ate ordinary food in a state of purity but only who ate in a higher level of sanctity (compare mHagigah 2.7 with tHagigah 3.3). 65 The wide distribution of stone vessels is surveyed by R. Deines, Jüdische Steingefässe und pharisäische Frömmigkeit (WUNT; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1993). Immersion pools are dis-
Defilement Penetrating the Body 199
and many halakhoth were instituted in order to make this wider observance of purity laws practicable without making life impossible.66 Mark, addressing his gentile audience, also describes the extent of Jewish scrupulousness in the field of purity, specifying customs that all Jews accepted. In this normative context, Jesus’ reaction to the practice of hand washing could be understood as a general denunciation of a contemporary tendency which Gedalyahu Alon labelled an ‘expansionist inclination’, and which was promoted by the Pharisees.67 However, in the process of integrating this event into contemporary social history, not enough attention has been given to the unique aspects of the polemic over hand washing: the nature and origin of this particular purity law, and Jesus’ precise justification for his rejection of it. The hand-washing custom is not a component of the priestly purity system, nor is it an expansion of it.68 It did not initiate in that realm, nor did it originate in the restricted sphere of the haberim (associates).69 Hand washing cannot be seen as an adaptation into daily life of any
66
67
68 69
cussed by R. Reich, Jewish Immersion Pools in the Second Temple Period and in the time of the Mishna and Talmud (dissertation, Hebrew University Jerusalem, 1990 [Hebrew]). A short summary of these findings is found in E. Regev, ‘Non-Priestly Purity and its Religious Aspects according to Historical Sources and Archaeological Findings’, Purity and Holiness (ed. Poorthuis and Schwartz) 223–44. This is emphasised in Sanders’ essay, ‘Did the Pharisees Eat Ordinary Food in Purity’, which, in addition to the interpretive scholarly effort, provides a visualisation of a life of purity with all its practical outcomes. See also Kazen, Jesus and Purity Halakhah, 74–8. G. Alon, Jews, Judaism and the Classical World: Studies in Jewish History in the Times of the Second Temple and Talmud (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977) 232. Alon presents the ‘expansionist inclination’ as a general tendency of the period and does not distinguish between common Judaism and the Pharisaic stand. Therefore, he also sees our event in the same light: the Pharisees demand that Jesus’ disciples act according to the accepted practice. On the other hand, some have viewed this as a unique Pharisaic custom, which they tried to impose on other groups, such as Jesus’ disciples. This is the view of Dunn, Jesus Paul and the Law, 49, and Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 202, who rephrase the Pharisees’ question, ‘Why do your disciples not wash their hands before they eat and observe the same standard of purity as we pietists do?’ The fact is that hand washing was unknown among the Qumran sectarians, who fully immersed before every meal, and it seems that they would reject this practice. Hand washing was associated particularly with the haberim (associates) on the basis of a dubious interpretation of tDemai 2.11: ‘[The Candidate] is accepted for “wings” and afterwards for “purities”. If he says “I accept upon myself only wings”, he is accepted’. One of the proposed interpretations of ‘wings’, which appears already in Rashi and his contemporaries, is ‘hands’, since the hands were visualised as wings. This interpretation was accepted by the authoritative Tosefta exegete Saul Lieberman in his Tosefta Ki’fshuta, 1.215 and ‘The Discipline in the So-Called Dead Sea Manual of Discipline’, JBL 71 (1952) 199–206 n. 26. This would imply that hand washing was a special norm of the associates. This view is also promoted by Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity, 186. Nonetheless, it seems that this is not the most convincing suggestion. First, the use of symbolic language seems inappropriate.
200 yair furstenberg biblical ruling concerning purity. On the contrary, the custom itself reshaped the nature and content of discourse relating to ritual purity. At the same time, nothing in Jesus’ words points to the possibility that he opposed the ‘expansion of purity’, per se. Jesus only confronted a law which focused on one specific conception of impurity: the kind that is concerned with ‘that which enters the body’. The hand-washing custom, together with the view that foods have the capacity continuously to transfer contamination to other objects and even to people, are the laws under attack in Jesus’ statement. The distancing of potential sources of contamination from the digestive system, with the hands posted as guards, originates in alternative concepts of purity, closely related to the Greco-Roman custom of hand washing and absorbed through popular practice into the Jewish laws of purity. The Pharisees accepted this practice and integrated it into their purity system, whereas Jesus confronted it with the conception of ritual purity found in Leviticus. In Jesus’ view, the anthropology of the levitical purity laws places the self as a source of impurity rather than as a vulnerable potential object of contamination. Accordingly, the neglect of that which comes forth from the body is reinterpreted in his words as the acceptance of all vices created in the heart and sent out from the mouth.
Second, all of the sources regarding haberim indicate two areas of responsibility: foods and clothes. Now, since the pair of ‘wings’ in the Tosefta is ‘purities’ (Taharoth), which in all occurrences in Tannaitic literature means ‘pure foods’, ‘wings’ should be understood as referring to ‘pure clothes’. Surely enough, ‘wings’ as the wings of the cloak, used for wrapping the pure food, is found already in scripture (Hag 2.12). According to this understanding, there is no source linking hand washing specifically to associates.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 201–220. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0028688508000118
Auferweckt und erhöht: Zur Genese des Osterglaubens U LR ICH B . M Ü LLE R Trillerweg 15, Saarbrücken D-66117, Deutschland
Der Osterglaube verdankt sich einmal der besonderen Heilserfahrung, die Jesu Jünger mit seinem Wirken angesichts der andringenden Gottesherrschaft gemacht haben; zum anderen entspricht er im Blick auf die Überzeugung von Jesu himmlischer Erhöhung dem außerordentlichen Sendungsbewusstsein des irdischen Jesus als Repräsentant der Gottesherrschaft, das ihn mit Ostern zum himmlischen Mandatar derselben werden ließ. Dan 12.1–3 ist dabei die grundlegende Verstehenstradition, die sowohl den Glauben an Jesu Auferweckung wie den an seine Erhöhung bestimmt hat. Keywords: Resurrection; Easter-faith; Appearance; Theophany; Daniel 12; 1 Corinthians 15.
Die Frage nach der Entstehung des Osterglaubens ist ein historisch schwer lösbares Problem, insofern die Aussagen über Jesu Auferstehung und Erscheinung sich als ‘ein urchristliches Proprium’ erweisen, das sich religionsgeschichtlich nicht einfach erklären lässt.1 So zeigen die ältesten Formulierungen von Jesu Auferweckung keine direkte Verbindung mit der jüdischen Überzeugung von der endzeitlichen allgemeinen Totenauferweckung, wie man meint.2 Besonders bei den in der alten Glaubensformel 1Kor 15.3–5 erwähnten Erscheinungen des Auferstandenen ist zu fragen, ob hier nicht ‘ein religionsgeschichtliches Unikat’ vorliegt.3 Jedenfalls bieten antike Texte aus griechischrömischem Bereich keine Parallelen zu Erscheinungen Verstorbener, die eine Auferstehung bestätigen.4 Auch für jüdische Tradition ist ein entsprechender Zusammenhang kaum präformiert. Im Traumgesicht 2Makk 15.12–16 erscheinen der (verstorbene) Hohepriester Onias und der Prophet Jeremia als Fürbitter vor 1 M. Karrer, Jesus Christus im Neuen Testament (NTD Ergänzungsreihe 11; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998) 36. 2 Karrer, Jesus Christus, 29. 3 D. Zeller, ‘Erscheinungen Verstorbener im griechisch-römischen Bereich’, Resurrection in the New Testament. FS J. Lambrecht (ed. R. Bieringer et al.; BETL 165; Leuven/Paris: Leuven University Press, 2002) 1–19, hier 1. 4 Zeller, ‘Erscheinungen’, 4, 19.
201
202 ulrich b. müller Gott, letzterer in hoheitlichem Glanz. Doch zeigt die Vision, ‘daß sie bei Gott sind, nicht aber, daß sie auferweckt wurden’.5 Diese Einwände sind insgesamt ernst zu nehmen. Die Erscheinungen des Auferstandenen mögen ‘ein religionsgeschichtliches Unikat’ sein. Doch befreit diese Einsicht den Exegeten nicht von der Aufgabe, die traditionellen Voraussetzungen zu untersuchen, die zu diesem einzigartigen (aber deshalb noch nicht analogielosen) Geschehen geführt haben, das in dem Bekenntnis gipfelt: ‘Der Herr ist wirklich auferweckt und dem Simon erschienen’ (Lk 24.34). Zu diesen Voraussetzungen gehört sicherlich die Besonderheit des Wirkens des historischen Jesus. Es besteht wohl ‘kein prinzipieller Unterschied zwischen einem vorösterlichen Jesus und seiner nachösterlichen Deutung’ und ‘die Aussagen über seine Auferstehung und Erhöhung basieren auf Erfahrungen, die von seinem irdischen Wirken ausgegangen sind.’6 Bei den vorösterlichen wie den nachösterlichen Überlieferungen über Jesus geht es jeweils um den erinnerten bzw. gedeuteten Jesus (‘the remembered Jesus’) und so auch bei den letzteren um die Nachwirkung des irdischen Jesus: ‘Auferstehung’ ist dann ‘the crystallization of that impact.’7 Gleichwohl stellt sich die dringliche Frage, warum die Jünger angesichts des Kreuzestodes Jesu die Sache Jesu nicht aufgegeben haben.8 Eine Antwort wird sich nur finden lassen, wenn die Verkündigung Jesu selbst Hinweise gibt, warum Jesu Jünger die Krisenerfahrung des Todes Jesu bewältigen konnten.
I.
Bei der Frage nach der Entstehung des Osterglaubens ist man auf die alte vorpaulinische Glaubensformel 1Kor 15.3–5 verwiesen, die neben der Aussage von 5 Zeller, ‘Erscheinungen’, 1. 6 J. Schröter, Jesus von Nazaret. Jude aus Galiläa – Retter der Welt (BG 15; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2006) 299. 7 J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making, vol. 1; Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2003) 827. In der Diskussion mit N. T. Wright stellt J. D. Crossan heraus, dass gerade der irdische Jesus und seine eschatologische Verkündigung jenen ‘leap of faith’ des Osterglaubens ermöglicht haben, nicht das Schicksal des Leichnams Jesu, so in dem Beitrag N. T. Wright and J. D. Crossan, ‘The Resurrection. Historical Event or Theological Explanation? A Dialogue’, The Resurrection of Jesus. J. D. Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue (ed. R. B. Stewart; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006) 16–47, bes. 26, 33. 8 Die besondere Todesart Jesu, die Kreuzigung, musste nicht jene deprimierende Wirkung auf die Jünger gehabt haben, wie man meint, wenn man auf die zeitgenössische Deutung von Dtn 21.23 verweist, wonach ein Gekreuzigter von Gott verflucht sei. Die Kreuzigung impliziert nicht automatisch den Gedanken der Verfluchung. Wenn fromme Juden durch die Römer gekreuzigt wurden, dachte man nicht an Verfluchung (AssMos 6.9). Gleiches gilt für jene Frommen, die sich zur Beschneidung bekannten und vom endzeitlichen Widersacher gekreuzigt wurden (AssMos 8.1). Vgl. dazu U. B. Müller, Die Entstehung des Glaubens an die Auferstehung Jesu (SBS 172; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1998) 10.
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der Auferweckung Jesu den Erscheinungshinweis bietet: Christus ‘erschien dem Kephas, dann den Zwölfen.’ Am ehesten ist hier der Schlüssel zur Erkenntnisfrage zu finden, wie denn die mit Ostern gelungene Bewältigung der Krisenerfahrung des Kreuzestodes Jesu erfolgt ist.9 Man wird der anerkannten Zweiteilung des Textes der Glaubensformel folgen können. Zwei zentrale Aussagen (‘gestorben’ – ‘auferweckt’) werden durch kurze Feststellungen ergänzend bestätigt (‘begraben’ – ‘erschienen dem Kephas’). Dabei soll die Begräbnisaussage nicht nur die Realität des Todes Jesu bestätigen, die ja von niemandem bestritten wurde. Sie hat eine Art Brückenfunktion zwischen der Todes- und der Auferweckungsaussage.10 Sie wird der Überzeugung der Jünger gerecht, dass es sich bei der Auferweckung um die leibliche Auferstehung aus dem Grab handelt,11 ohne dass die Formel eine unmittelbare Anspielung bzw. einen direkten Reflex der erzählten Überlieferung des leeren Grabes enthält (Mk 16.1–8).12 Zentral ist die Auferweckungsaussage, die aufgrund der Grundstruktur der Glaubensformel durch den Verweis auf die Erscheinungen eine Bestätigung findet. Nach verbreiteter Meinung ist w[fqh mit Dativ der Person deponential im Sinne ‘er ließ sich sehen’ – ‘er erschien’ zu deuten. Die Wendung greift den biblischen Ausdruck für das Erscheinen Gottes oder seines Boten (Engels) auf (z.B. Gen 12.7; 17.1; 18.1; 35.9; Ex 3.2; Ri 6.12; 13.3) und enthält gerade in der LXX ein stark visuelles Element (so aber schon in MT: Gen 18.1–15; 32.31; 33.10), was auf den Gebrauch und den Sinn der Glaubensformel eingewirkt haben wird.13 Das visuelle Moment ist gerade auch beim neutestamentlichen Gebrauch des Erscheinungsbegriffes vorhanden, wenn Paulus in 1Kor 15.8 sagt: Christus ‘erschien auch mir’, während 1Kor 9.1 dasselbe Geschehen umschreibt: ‘Habe ich nicht Jesus, unseren Herrn, gesehen?’ 9 Die sog. partizipialen Gottesprädikationen (Röm 4.24; 8.11a.b; 2Kor 4.14; Gal 1.1; Kol 2.12b), die als sehr alte Osterüberlieferung gelten, lassen nicht erkennen, wie die Gemeinden zu solchem Bekenntnis veranlasst wurden. 10 M. Hengel, ‘Das Begräbnis Jesu bei Paulus und die leibliche Auferstehung aus dem Grabe’, Auferstehung – Resurrection (ed. F. Avemarie and H. Lichtenberger; WUNT 135; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2001) 119–83, hier 131. 11 Hengel, ‘Begräbnis’, 176. 12 D. C. Allison, Resurrecting Jesus. The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (New York/London: T & T Clark, 2005) 299–337, betont, dass die Annahme des leeren Grabes für die frühen Christen historisch vorausgesetzt ist. Ohne Kenntnis des leeren Grabes hätten die Erscheinungen nicht zum Glauben an die Auferweckung Jesu, sondern eher zur Annahme der Entrückung geführt. In seinem großen Werk N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003) betont Wright die theologische Bedeutung der leiblichen Auferstehung Jesu und die Historizität des leeren Grabes. 13 P. Hoffmann, ‘Der Glaube an die Auferweckung Jesu in der neutestamentlichen Überlieferung’, Studien zur Frühgeschichte der Jesus-Bewegung (SBAB 17; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1994) 188–256, hier 215–16.
204 ulrich b. müller Umstritten ist, in wieweit der Ausdruck ‘er erschien’ aufgrund seiner Aufnahme des traditionellen Theophanie- bzw. Epiphaniebegriffs einen bewusst theonomen Inhalt besitzt. ‘Er erschien’ impliziere bereits die Erhöhung in den Himmel und zwar ‘zu einem höchst aktionsmächtigen Status.’14 Dagegen scheint zu sprechen, dass allein der fragliche Ausdruck diesen Schluss nicht erlaubt, da dieser als Epiphaniebegriff Erscheinungen verschiedener Art bezeichnen kann.15 Gleichwohl legt der in der Formel auftauchende Gebrauch des Perfekts bei ejghvgertai die Schlussfolgerung nahe, dass der Auferweckte als der gegenwärtig Lebende und damit doch als der Erhöhte bekannt wird und als dieser den Jüngern ‘erscheint’.16 Wegen des visuellen Moments, das die sprachliche Form ‘er erschien’ in 1Kor 15.3–8 enthält, erscheint der verbreitete Rückschluss auf visionäre Erfahrungen der Jünger als berechtigt. Allerdings regt sich hier insofern Widerstand, als gesagt wird: ‘Die “Erscheinungen” des Auferstandenen müssen für die ersten Zeugen eine über bloße Visionen hinausgehende, “einzigartige” . . . Qualität besessen haben.’17 Dieser Einwand wird in gewissem Sinne richtig sein, wenn man bedenkt, dass die Erscheinungen für die Jünger wohl die Schau des in leiblicher Gestalt Auferstandenen bedeutet haben, wie die Begräbnisaussage, die parallel zur Erscheinungsaussage steht, nahe legt (1Kor 15.3–5). Gleichwohl liegt bei diesem kritischen Verweis auf ‘bloße’ Visionen wohl ein Missverständnis dessen vor, was mit den als Visionen verstandenen Erscheinungen gemeint ist. Bei den besonderen Erfahrungen der Jünger wird man nicht streng getrennt von ‘bloßen’ Visionen einerseits und eventuellen theologischen Schlussfolgerungen andererseits sprechen dürfen. ‘Wir sind von vornherein gehalten, “Vision” (als “Widerfahrnis”) und “Deutung” (als Interpretation) in einem komplexen Feld zusammenzusehen . . . Visionen arbeiten ja generell innerhalb eines traditionellen Symbolsystems und mutieren diese Elemente zu einer neuen Konfiguration.’18 Das heisst dann: Schon bei der Entstehung von visionärer Kommunikation sind bestimmte Deutekategorien mitbeteiligt, die menschliche Erfahrungen strukturieren helfen. Eine Deutung tritt nicht erst wie etwa beim Traum nachträglich an die Vision heran, sondern ist schon bei ihrem Zustandekommen mit im Spiel.19 Jesu Jünger waren mit der Krisenerfahrung des Todes Jesu konfrontiert. Eben hier wird Religion in Gestalt ihrer Deutesysteme wirksam. Eine Tradition scheint besonders wirksam gewesen zu sein – jene Vorstellung, die mit der alttestamentlichen Formel vom Erscheinen Gottes ver14 15 16 17 18
A. Vögtle/R. Pesch, Wie kam es zum Osterglauben? (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1975) 58. Zeller, ‘Erscheinungen’, 3. A. Lindemann, Der Erste Korintherbrief (HNT 9/I; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2000) 331–2. Hengel, ‘Begräbnis Jesu’, 177. S. Vollenweider, ‘Ostern – der denkwürdige Ausgang einer Krisenerfahrung’, Horizonte neutestamentlicher Christologie (WUNT 144; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2002) 105–23, hier 115. 19 Vollenweider, ‘Ostern’, 115.
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bunden ist und in 1Kor 15.3–5 der Bekräftigung der Auferweckungsaussage dient. Die visionäre Erfahrung der Jünger (Christus ‘ist erschienen’) wird dabei nicht ein gesondertes Erlebnis gewesen sein, das danach erst der entscheidenden Deutung bedurft hat. Vielmehr hat man damit zu rechnen, dass vor Ostern die Deutung ‘Jesus ist auferweckt’ als Möglichkeit bereitlag und in der visionären Kommunikation (‘er erschien’) sich zur gewissen Überzeugung konkretisierte. Nicht ein von außen kommender Impuls wird die kreative Bewältigung der Krisenerfahrung des Kreuzestodes Jesu ermöglicht haben, sondern das besondere, ja neue Gottesverständnis, das Jesus seinen Jüngern vermittelt hat. Es geht um die Ankunft der jetzt schon geschehenden Gottesherrschaft auf Erden. Für Jesus selbst wird die Vision vom himmlischen Satanssturz der Anstoß gewesen sein, die sich abzeichnende Heilswende zu verkünden. Jedenfalls kann er seinen Zuhörern zurufen (Lk 10.18⫹20b):20 ‘Ich sah den Satan wie einen Blitz aus dem Himmel stürzen . . . Freut euch, das eure Namen im Himmel (jetzt) aufgeschrieben sind.’
Die Jünger haben angesichts der Heilswende mit ihren Augen und Ohren sehen und hören können, was die in der Gegenwart bereits anbrechende Gottesherrschaft an Heil bedeutet (Q 10.23f.). Die Seligpreisungen Q 6.20f. sprechen Armen, Hungernden und Weinenden gegenwärtig zu, dass die Gottesherrschaft ihre Not aufheben wird. Jesu Exorzismen gelten ihm als hier und jetzt ankommende Realisierung der Herrschaftsmacht Gottes, und als diese, d.h. ‘mit dem Finger Gottes’ (Ex 8.15) gewirkt, macht er sie seinen Zeitgenossen evident (Lk 11.20). In Jesu Gastmählern mit den Marginalisierten, mit Zöllnern und Sündern, erfolgt deren Aufnahme in die Gottesherrschaft. Mit der erzählerischen Vermittlung der Gleichnisse bringt Jesus die Gottesherrschaft den Menschen durch die Kraft der Sprache nahe. Mit dem Anbruch der Basileia Gottes ist das ganz Neue, die Schwelle zur eschatologischen Heilswende erreicht, so dass der Satz gilt: ‘Siehe, mehr als Salomo ist hier’ – ‘Siehe, mehr als Jona ist hier.’ (Q 11.31–32). Zusammenfassend lässt sich feststellen: ‘Von fundamentaler Bedeutung war jener alle Negativität überwältigende Überschuß an Heilsgewinn, der in Jesu Worten und Taten zum Ausdruck kam, insofern in ihnen Gottes eschatologischer Herrschaftsantritt Gestalt annahm, so sehr angesichts aller Widerstände und Zweideutigkeiten dieser Unheilswelt das Reich Gottes der Vollendung erst noch entgegenging.’21 Damit aber ist bereits in Jesu Auftreten eine kreative Spannung 20 Zu dieser Rekonstruktion des ursprünglichen Jesuswortes vgl. M. Theobald, ‘ “Ich sah den Satan aus dem Himmel stürzen . . . ” Überlieferungskritische Beobachtungen zu Lk 10,18–20’, BZ NF 49 (2005) 174–90. 21 Müller, Entstehung, 69f. Die vorliegende Untersuchung konzentriert sich auf die Protophanie vor Kephas und den Zwölfen (1Kor 15.3–5). Daneben existiert eine alte Tradition von der Auffindung des leeren Grabes durch die Frauen um Maria Magdalena (Mk 16.1–8; Joh
206 ulrich b. müller mitgesetzt, die in besonderer Weise zur Auflösung kommen musste. Der kreative ‘Überschuss’ an Heil in der hereinbrechenden Gottesherrschaft wird der eigentliche Grund sein, der das Ostergeschehen ermöglichte.
II.
Anhand von Lk 11.20 zeigt sich beispielhaft Jesu Überzeugung, dass mit seinen in der Macht Gottes gewirkten Exorzismen die Gottesherrschaft bei den Menschen angelangt ist. Durch den Gebrauch des Verbums e[fqasen betont Jesus geradezu ‘den Epiphaniecharakter’ der Gottesherrschaft ‘hier und jetzt in seinem exorzistischen Handeln’, wobei der Verweis auf den ‘Finger Gottes’ ‘die je punktuelle Form dieser ‚Ankunft’ unterstreicht.’22 In Jesu Handeln ist die Gottesherrschaft schon ‘mitten unter euch’, wie es in Lk 17.21 heisst. In bezeichnendem Kontrast dazu lauten die beiden ersten Bitten des Vaterunsers (Lk 11.2):23 ‘Geheiligt werde dein Name, es komme deine Herrschaft!’
Gerade bei der zweiten Bitte geht es um die endgültige Durchsetzung der Gottesherrschaft, wobei wohl beide Du-Bitten wegen ihrer Parallelität eschatologisch ausgerichtet sind. Wichtig ist das Folgende: Jesus redet von der Gottesherrschaft so, dass er sie zum Subjekt von Verben der Bewegung macht: Sie ist ‘angekommen’ (Lk 11.20) bzw. ‘genaht’ (Mk 1.15). Besonders gilt dies von der zweiten Du-Bitte ‘Es komme deine Herrschaft’, die wegen ihrer für Jesus charakteristischen Redeweise (‘Gottesherrschaft’ mit einem Verb der Bewegung) keinesfalls dem historischen Jesus abzusprechen ist. Dabei wird man damit zu rechnen haben, dass bei der zweiten Bitte Theophanietradition wirksam ist,24 ob man an Theophanieschilderungen denkt (z.B. äthHen 1.3–9; 25.3; AssMos 10.3,7; Sib 3.49,
20.11–18). Danach wären diese Frauen die ersten Zeuginnen der Auferstehung. Zu bedenken ist etwa das folgende Argument: ‘It is far likelier that a prominent role of women, particularly of Mary of Magdala, was later suppressed, than that such a tradition was a later accretion’ (A. J. M. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection [London: SCM, 1999], 60). Diese Sondertradition ist jedoch historisch nur schwer aufzuhellen, auch wenn ernsthafte Gründe für die Historizität des leeren Grabes sprechen (Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 299–337). Wäre Maria Magdalena erste Erscheinungszeugin, so wäre von Belang, dass gerade die Frau, die den Heilsgewinn der Gottesherrschaft körperlich erfahren hat, weil von Jesus von Besessenheit exorzistisch geheilt (Lk 8.2), dass gerade sie trotz des Todes Jesu den Glauben an die Macht der Gottesherrschaft durchgehalten hat. 22 M. Hengel, ‘Der Finger und die Herrschaft Gottes in Lk 11,20’, La Main de Dieu. Die Hand Gottes (Hgg. R. Kieffer/J. Bergmann; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1997) 87–106, hier 104. 23 Die Kurzform von fünf Bitten in Lk 11.2–4 ist im Vergleich mit der Langform Mt 6.9–13 authentisch. 24 J. Becker, Jesus von Nazaret, (Berlin/New York: W. de Gruyter, 1996) 144–5.
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91) oder an ausdrückliche Theophaniebitten (s.u.). Beim ‘Kommen’ der Gottesherrschaft in Jesu Gebet handelt es sich um dieselbe weltordnende Bewegung wie beim ‘Herabkommen’ oder ‘Einschreiten’ Gottes zur Theophanie, nur dass Jesus als Subjekt der Bewegung seinen Zentralbegriff ‘Gottesherrschaft’ gebraucht. Eine entscheidende Besonderheit von Jesu Gebet, das ansonsten in der Gebetssprache Israels formuliert, liegt auch darin, dass die Bitte um das Kommen der Gottesherrschaft dominant voransteht und nicht wie beim Achtzehngebet ein Aspekt neben anderen im endzeitlichen Drama darstellt (11. Berakha). In Jesu Gebet sind alles andere und damit die folgenden Wir-Bitten ins Licht der sich realisierenden Gottesherrschaft getaucht, um deren Vollendung man betet.25 Für die Interpretation der Bitte ‘Es komme deine Herrschaft’ ist entscheidend, dass ausdrückliche Theophaniebitten belegt sind, wenn etwa Ps 80.2–3 (ähnlich Ps 144.5–8; Jes 63.19b–64.1) formuliert:26 ‘Der du auf den Keruben thronst, erscheine . . . Entbiete deine Heldenkraft und komm uns zur Hilfe!’
Von Gott, dessen herrliche Königsherrschaft gepriesen wird (1QM XII 7), erbittet man (1QM XII 10–12): ‘Erhebe dich, Held . . . Erfülle dein Land mit Herrlichkeit und dein Erbteil mit Segen!’
In 3Makk 6.9,12,15 ist die Theophaniebitte dreifach gestaltet: ‘Erscheine eilends . . .’ – ‘sieh jetzt drein’ – ‘das mach nun wahr!’
Die genannten Theophaniebitten (vgl. noch Ps 7.7f.; 82.8) sprechen nicht explizit von der Gottesherrschaft. Dennoch besteht eine innere Strukturverwandtschaft zwischen ihnen und Jesu Bitten, insofern es jeweils um die heilsentscheidende Wende geht. Dahinter steht die Anschauung, wonach Gericht und Rettung für Israel im Sinngefüge bzw. der Gattung Theophanie Darstellung finden. Gott ‘kommt’, ‘erhebt sich’, ‘steigt herab’, um weltordnend einzuschreiten (z.B. Ps 18.8–16; Mi 1.3–6; Hab 3.3–15; äthHen 1.3–8; 1,9; AssMos 10.3–10).27 Gottes Kommen bewirkt die entscheidende Wende (Sach 2.13–17; Mal 3.1–5). In diesen Kontext
25 Becker, Jesus, 333f. Das Vaterunser, Jesus abzusprechen, weil angeblich unspezifisch jüdisch, ist unzureichend begründet (gegen K. Müller, ‘Das Vater-Unser als jüdisches Gebet’, Identität durch Gebet [Hgg. A. Gerhards/A. Doeker, P. Ebenbauer; Paderborn u.a: Schöningh, 2003] 159–204.) 26 J. Jeremias, Theophanie. Die Geschichte einer alttestamentlichen Gattung (WMANT 10; Neunkirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 21977) 129–30. 27 Vgl. dazu A. Scriba, Die Geschichte des Motivkomplexes Theophanie (FRLANT 167; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1995).
208 ulrich b. müller gehört die Bitte ‘Es komme deine Herrschaft’, was besonders die erwähnten Theophaniebitten nahe legen. Wahrscheinlich besteht auch ein Zusammenhang mit der Verkündigung Johannes des Täufers. Dieser erklärt: ‘ . . . der nach mir kommt, ist stärker als ich.’ (Q 3.16). Der ‘Stärkere’ ist wohl Gott selbst,28 dessen Kommen Johannes ansagt, als dessen Wegbereiter er sich versteht (Lk 1.16–17; 1.76). Der Angesagte kommt zum Gericht, so wie Mal 3.2 vom Tag Jahwes als ‘Tag seines Kommens’ handelt. Wenn Jesu Gebet Theophanietradition aufnimmt, ja seine Anhänger auf diese Heilstheophanie einstimmt, musste das deren eschatologische Erwartung stimulieren. Gleichwohl setzt die Bitte um das Kommen, d.h. die Vollendung der Gottesherrschaft voraus, dass ansonsten das Erleben der Menschen in Jesu Umgebung von Defiziterfahrungen geprägt war, wie gerade die Wir-Bitten voraussetzen. Den punktuellen Realisierungen der Gottesherrschaft in Jesu Wirken kontrastierte die übrige übermächtig erscheinende irdische Realität, die Jesu Anspruch in Frage stellte. Jesus versuchte angesichts dieser Problematik, mit der metaphorischen Kraft der Sprache zu antworten. Die Gleichnisse von der selbstwachsenden Saat (Mk 4.26–29), vom Senfkorn (Mk 4.30–32; Q 13.18–19) und vom Sauerteig (Q 13.20–21) reflektieren den Kontrast zwischen unscheinbarem, gefährdet erscheinendem Anfang und großem Ende, wobei Jesu punktuelles Wirken als integraler Bestandteil von Gottes eschatologischem Kommen verständlich wird29 und gleichzeitig die Gewissheit über die große Heilswende bei den Zuhörern Gestalt gewinnt. Die Bitte um das Kommen von Gottes universaler Herrschaft mit dem ihr eigenen Spannungsmoment sollte über Jesu Tod hinaus wirkmächtig bleiben. Es drängt sich ja die Annahme auf, das der Flehruf um die Parusie maranaqav (1Kor 16.22; Did 10.6) ⫽ ‘unser Herr, komm!’ (Offb 22.20) in der geschichtlichen Konsequenz des Gebets Jesu liegt – ‘geradezu als christologische Umformung der Bitte des Unser Vater (Lk 11,2b) begreifbar.’30 Jedenfalls ist das maranaqav der Urgemeinde vom Theophaniegedanken bestimmt, und zwar im Sinne der Heilstheophanie.31 Die frühe Urgemeinde nahm danach Jesu Bitte um das Kommen der Gottesherrschaft auf, wie sie auch die ajbbav-Anrede Gottes auf neue
28 M. Reiser, Die Gerichtspredigt Jesu (NTA NF 23; Münster: Aschendorfsche, 1990) 171–2; Scriba, Theophanie, 211. 29 M. Wolter, ‘ “Was heisset nu Gottes reich?” ’, ZNW 86 (1995) 5–19, hier 14–15. 30 E. Brandenburger, Art. ‘Gericht Gottes’ III, TRE 12 (1984) 472; U. B. Müller, ‘Parusie und Menschensohn’, Christologie und Apokalyptik (ABG 12; Leipzig: Evang. Verlagsanstalt, 2003) 124–43, hier 128. 31 Brandenburger, ‘Gericht Gottes’, 472. Maranatha ist wegen der bedeutungsgleichen Wendung in Offb 22.20 imperativisch zu übersetzen, vgl. J. A. Fitzmyer, ‘New Testament Kyrios and Maranatha and Their Aramaic Background’, To Advance the Gospel (Grand Rapids, Mich./Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 21998) 218–35.
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Weise rezipierte (Röm 8.15; Gal 4.6). Die Bitte Jesu um das theophane Kommen der Gottesherrschaft mutierte mit Ostern zur Bitte um Christophanie ‘Unser Herr, komm!’ Dies war allerdings nur möglich, weil bereits vorösterlich ein besonderer Sendungsanspruch Jesu aktuell war, der mit Ostern eine Bestätigung erfuhr und zu christologischen Konsequenzen führte.
III.
Will man Jesu Sendungsanspruch präzisieren,32 ist man zunächst auf eine negative Feststellung verwiesen. Jesus hat wahrscheinlich keinen messianischen Titel des Judentums auf sich bezogen, weil weder ‘Messias’ noch ‘Menschensohn’ seinem Selbstverständnis entsprochen haben. Demgegenüber gilt: Jesus nahm für sich in Anspruch, nicht nur der Heilsbote der Gottesherrschaft zu sein, sondern er identifizierte sein eigenes Wirken als Bestandteil ihrer Durchsetzung.33 Insofern hat er als der Repräsentant der Gottesherrschaft zu gelten: Die im Himmel bestehende Realität gewann in seinen Exorzismen irdische Wirklichkeit (Lk 11.20). Das bedeutet jedoch, dass Jesus etwas für sich reklamiert, was frühjüdischer Basileia-Erwartung an sich fremd ist.34 Dabei betont er: ‘Siehe, hier ist mehr als Salomo . . . siehe, hier ist mehr als Jona.’ (Q 11.31–32). Es geht bei diesem zunächst unbestimmt klingenden ‘Hier’, das Zurückhaltung des Sprechers signalisieren könnte, nicht nur um die andringende Gottesherrschaft, sondern gerade auch um seine eschatologisch handelnde Person, die mehr ist als jede Gestalt vorangegangener Heilsgeschichte. Als Repräsentant der Gottesherrschaft formuliert Jesus zudem ethische Weisungen, die mit der antithetischen Einleitungsformel ‘Ich aber sage euch’ sich von dem abgrenzen, was zu den ‘Alten’ gesagt ist, d.h. faktisch von der Tora des Mose (Mt 5.21–22; 5.27–28). Besonders auffällig ist das nicht-responsorische Amen (‘Amen, ich sage euch . . .’), das einer Aussage unbedingte Autorität verleiht (z.B. Mk 8.12; 14.25). Weil Jesus mehr ist als ein Prophet, überschreitet seine Sprache geläufige prophetische Redeformen wie die Botenformel ‘So spricht Jahwe’.35 Man hat deshalb mit verschiedenen Formen evozierter Christologie zu rechnen, bei den Jüngern etwa (Mk 8.29) oder den Festpilgern beim Einzug in Jerusalem (Mk 11.9–10).
32 Vgl. dazu J. Frey, ‘Der historische Jesus und der Christus der Evangelien’, Der historische Jesus (Hgg. J. Schröter u. R. Brucker; BZNW 114; Berlin/New York: W de Gruyter, 2002) 273–336, hier 299–323. 33 Wolter, ‘Gottes reich’, 14. 34 Wolter, ‘Gottes reich’, 14. 35 M. Hengel, ‘Jesus der Messias Israels’, M. Hengel/A. M. Schwemer, Der messianische Anspruch Jesu und die Anfänge der Christologie (WUNT 138; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2001) 1–80, hier 73.
210 ulrich b. müller Andererseits ist Jesus auf entschiedenen Widerspruch gestoßen, wie die Vollmachtsforderung von Gegnern verrät, die ein Zeichen verlangen (Q 11.16; 11.29), das er verweigert (Mk 8.11–12). Jesu Gerichtsworte, die auf die Ablehnung seiner Botschaft reagieren, stehen in einem drohend eschatologischen Kontext (z.B. Q 10.13–14; Q 11.31–32; Q 13.28–29). Er hatte schärfste Reaktionen zu erwarten, wenn seine Aktionen wie die Symbolhandlung der sog. Tempelreinigung (Mk 11.15–18) und seine Prophetie gegen den Tempel (Mk 13.2 bzw. 14.58) authentisch sind. Wahrscheinlich gehört beides zusammen: ‘ Es ging hier nicht um eine Reform des Tempels innerhalb der gegenwärtigen Geschichte, sondern um sein Verschwinden mit dieser vergehenden Welt.’36 Ist dies richtig, bestätigt sich die bisherige Einschätzung. Jesus weiss sich und sein Wirken als Teil des Endgeschehens, in dem er eine entscheidende Rolle spielt. Gerade die Tempelprophetie steht in einem gesteigerten eschatologischen Zusammenhang, gleicherweise Worte Jesu, die implizit auf seinen möglichen Tod Bezug nehmen, gleichzeitig aber seine Rehabilitierung durch Gott und seine Vollendung in der Gottesherrschaft ankündigen (Lk 13.32 und Mk 14.25). Gleichwohl hat Jesu Tod die Jünger in eine elementare Krise gestürzt, wofür die Jüngerflucht (Mk 14.50) als Ausdruck von größter Irritation einen deutlichen Hinweis gibt. Jesu Jünger waren ‘in ihrer ganzen Existenz betroffen. Es war dies eine Situation, die, wie die Analogien in der Religionsgeschichte zeigen, bei einer entsprechenden psychischen Disposition und in einem entsprechenden Milieu zu visionären Erfahrungen führen kann.’37
IV.
Das Osterbekenntnis formuliert: Christus ‘ist auferweckt am dritten Tage . . . , erschienen dem Kephas, dann den Zwölf’ (1Kor 15.3–5). Im Osterbekenntnis begegnet immer schon interpretierte Erfahrung, wobei symbolische Deutesysteme nicht erst nachträglich an eine Vision herantreten, sondern schon am Entstehen derselben beteiligt sind. Doch taucht hier eine Schwierigkeit auf: ‘Kein Beleg des Auferstehungsglaubens in Israel um die Zeitenwende kombiniert diesen mit der Erwartung, der Verstorbene/Erstandene erscheine ihm verbundenen Personen.’38 Die Erscheinungen Jesu als des Auferstandenen wären insofern ohne geschichtliche Analogie und historisch deshalb nicht begreifbar. Aus dieser Sackgasse führt die Erkenntnis heraus: Im Kontext ihrer Erwartung der endgültigen Gottesherrschaft erhofften Jesu Jünger die baldige Theophanie
36 G. Theissen/A. Merz, Der historische Jesus. Ein Lehr- und Arbeitsbuch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 32001) 381; ähnlich Schröter, Jesus, 282–5. 37 Hoffman, ‘Glaube’, 251. 38 Karrer, Jesus Christus, 35.
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ihres Gottes – eine Hoffnung, die in den letzten Jerusalemer Tagen sich steigerte bzw. in Gefahr stand zusammenzubrechen. Geschichtliches Geschehen folgt keiner absoluten Zwangsläufigkeit, sondern ist für Überraschungen gut. Das heisst: Jesu Jünger erfuhren diese Theophanie auf eine neue Weise in Gestalt der Christophanie ihres Herrn. Es gehört zum Kontingenzcharakter geschichtlichen Geschehens, dass a) Jesu Botschaft und der durch ihn geweckte Glaube noch in drohendem Scheitern getragen hat, b) die Reduktion kognitiver Dissonanz in der Weise gelang,39 dass die Theophanieerwartung der Jünger im Rahmen des Symbolsystems jüdischer Hoffnung einen vorgezeichneten Weg fand, die Theophanie Gottes in Gestalt der Christophanie Jesu zu erfahren. Zu erinnern ist dabei an die bedeutsame Kontinuität der Theophanieerwartung von Johannes dem Täufer über Jesus bis zur Urgemeinde. Johannes kündigte das Kommen der ‘Stärkeren’ an, womit Gott gemeint war (Q 3.16b); Jesus betete zu Gott ‘Es komme deine Herrschaft’ und die Urgemeinde erflehte ‘unser Herr komm!’ (maranaqav 1Kor 16.22; Offb 22.20) wobei mit der Anrufung ‘Herr’ ein Prädikat begegnet, das Jesus mit Jahwe zusammenstellt40 und Jesu himmlische Erhöhung voraussetzt. Als Erhöhter konnte er den Jüngern erscheinen.41 Dass mit der Ostererfahrung bald die Überzeugung von Jesu Erhöhung mitgedacht war, legt auch folgende Überlegung nahe. Die in der Glaubensformel 1Kor 15.3–5 gebrauchte Wendung ‘er erschien’ entspricht dem visionären Kommunikationstyp Erscheinung, wie er in der alttestamentlichen Theophanie – bzw. Epiphanieformel begegnet.42 Nimmt man die Bezugnahme auf das AT ernst, dann kommt der Auferstandene vom Himmel auf die Erde herab, um nach der Begegnung mit den Jüngern wieder aufzusteigen.43 Auch wenn man nicht sicher wissen kann, dass die Ostertradition die vorgegebenen visionären Sprachmuster genau einhält, also die Austauschbarkeit visionärer Kommunikationsformen vorliegt (etwa mit der Vision im engeren Sinne, vgl. 1Kor 15.8 mit 1Kor 9.1), bleibt es bei der Erkenntnis, dass ‘das Kommunikationsmuster Erscheinung . . . von Anfang an den Rahmen für das Osterzeugnis des Petrus (und der Zwölf) bildete (1Kor 15,5; vgl. auch Lk 24,34).’44
39 Vgl. G. Theissen, Die Religion der ersten Christen. Eine Theorie des Urchristentums (Gütersloh: Chr. Kaiser/Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2000) 71–81. 40 Das Judentum war dazu übergegangen, Jahwe als ‘Herrn’ zu bezeichnen, vgl. Fitzmyer, ‘New Testament Kyrios’, 218–35; ansonsten M. Rösel, Adonaj – warum Gott ‚Herr’ genannt wird (FAT 29; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2000) 225–6, 229–30. 41 Lindemann, Erster Korintherbrief, 332. 42 B. Heininger, Paulus als Visionär. Eine religionsgeschichtliche Studie (HBS 9; Freiburg u.a.: Herder, 1996) 46–51. 43 Heininger, Paulus, 194 mit Verweis auf Gen 17.1–22; 35.9,13 und Ri 6.11f, 21; ähnlich 2Makk 3.24–34. 44 Heininger, Paulus, 211.
212 ulrich b. müller Dabei ist ein Gesichtspunkt noch gesondert zu betrachten, wenn man präzisieren will, welche spezifische Bewandtnis den Erscheinungen bei der Entstehung des Osterglaubens zukommt. Wie oben ausgeführt, hat die Begräbnisaussage in 1Kor 15.4 eine Brückenfunktion zwischen der Todes- und der Auferweckungsaussage. Sie signalisiert, dass es sich beim Glauben an die Auferweckung Jesu um die leibliche Auferweckung handelt. Für Kephas und die Zwölf werden die Erscheinungen deshalb die Schau des in leiblicher Gestalt Auferstandenen gewesen sein. Nur als so geartete Schau sind sie für die Jünger wirklicher Ausdruck des Osterglaubens, d. h. nur so wird erklärlich, warum die Jünger die Erscheinungen Jesu mit Auferstehungsbegrifflichkeit interpretiert haben.45 Auffallend ist, dass der Osterglaube alsbald und spontan hervorbricht, wofür die Überlieferung ‘auferweckt am dritten Tag’ spricht, auch wenn die Zeitangabe nicht genau zu verstehen ist und sich nicht auf die Erscheinungen bezieht. Erklärlich ist diese Spontaneität nur dann, wenn im Jüngerkreis schon vor und angesichts des Todes Jesu die Frage nach seinem Sendungsanspruch so dringlich, sei es zweifelnd oder bejahend im Vordergrund stand, dass eine Lösung des Problems unausweichlich wurde. Man hat zu recht gemeint: ‘Die Entstehung der Christologie wird erst verständlich, wenn schon vorösterlich ein . . . Hoheitsanspruch zur Debatte stand, der in der Auferweckung durch Gott bestätigt wurde.’46 Dieser Sachverhalt lenkt noch einmal die Aufmerksamkeit auf das außergewöhnliche Sendungsbewusstsein Jesu als des eschatologischen Repräsentanten der Gottesherrschaft. Gerade Jesu Ankündigung gegen Ende seines Wirkens in Galiläa Lk 13.32: ‘ . . . am dritten Tag (d.h. übermorgen) bin ich am Ziel’47 und besonders seine Vollendungsverheißung Mk 14.25 werden Jesu Jünger vor die Frage nach Jesu endgültigem Geschick gestellt haben. Mk 14.25, gesprochen wohl in der Situation des letzten Mahles angesichts des drohenden Todes, vermag eine neue Tischgemeinschaft für ihn in der vollendeten Gottesherrschaft auszusagen, die ihm eine besondere Position beim eschatologischen Heilsmahl zubilligt: ‘Amen, ich sage euch: Nicht mehr werde ich vom Gewächs des Weinstocks trinken bis zu jenem Tag, an dem ich es neu trinken werde in der Gottesherrschaft.’
Zu Jesu Verständnis seines Wortes hat man gefragt: ‘Hat Jesus erhofft, daß er wie die einst gestorbenen Erzväter (Mt 8,11 par) trotz seines Todes am letzten Heilsmahl in der Gottesherrschaft teilnehmen kann?’48 Entsprechendes dürften 45 Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 299–337. 46 Theissen/Merz, Jesus, 480. 47 Zur Übersetzung vgl. W. Bauer, Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (Berlin/New York: W. de Gruyter, 61988) Sp. 1615; zur Frage der Authentizität von Lk 13.32 vgl. Becker, Jesus, 415–16. 48 Becker, Jesus, 419.
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Jesu Jünger erwogen haben, zumal jüdischer Glaube die Auferstehung der Erzväter erwartet hat (TestJud 25.1; TestBenj 10.6). Die innere Lage der Jünger vor und nach Jesu Tod wird in einer ähnlichen Weise diffus gewesen sein, wie es die sicher legendarische Emmausgeschichte beschreibt (Lk 24.13–34). ‘Sie reden miteinander und suchen den Sinn des scheinbar ganz unbegreiflichen Geschehens zu ergründen . . .’ Sie sind nicht sofort bereit, ‘das scheinbare Ende Jesu und ihrer Hoffnungen als Gegebenheit hinzunehmen . . .’49 Sie haben mit der Möglichkeit seiner Auferstehung rechnen dürfen, wenn sie denn Jesu Ankündigung Mk 14.25 und die Erwartung seiner dort vorausgesetzten göttlichen Rehabilitierung nicht aufgeben wollten. Tatsächlich bedeutet der Osterglaube entsprechend 1Kor 15.3–5 die grundlegende Wende: Jesus ‘erschien’ den Jüngern sowohl als leibhaft Auferweckter als auch himmlisch Erhöhter. Dabei haben die Erscheinungen des Erhöhten die entscheidende Funktion. Sie vor allem waren in der Lage, den vorher nur als Möglichkeit gedachten Glauben an Jesu Auferweckung zur gewissen Überzeugung zu transformieren. Erkennbar ist dies noch an der sprachlichen Struktur der Glaubensformel 1Kor 15.3–5, bei der der Verweis auf die Erscheinungen die Auferweckungsaussage bestätigt, ja wohl den sicheren Auferweckungsglauben erst ermöglicht. Entscheidend wichtig ist von daher die Gewissheit von Jesu himmlischer Erhöhung; denn nur als Erhöhter konnte er den Jüngern ‘erscheinen’. Gleichwohl ist die Genese dieser Erhöhungsvorstellung nur ansatzweise und hypothetisch zu erschließen. Sie hat wohl ihren Ansatzpunkt in Jesu eschatologischem Sendungsbewusstsein als dem entscheidenden Repräsentanten der Gottesherrschaft. Bekannte sich Gott zu seinem irdischen Agenten, indem er ihn trotz Tod letztgültig rehabilitierte, dann konnte dies in den Augen der Jünger bedeuten, dass mit Ostern der irdische Repräsentant der Gottesherrschaft zum himmlischen avancierte. Der vorliegende Versuch, den mit Ostern inaugurierten Auferstehungs- und Erhöhungsgedanken zu verstehen, der in der Christophanie vor den Jüngern seinen Ausdruck fand, bedarf der religionsgeschichtlichen Verifikation im Kontext jüdischen Glaubens. Gefordert ist ein religiöses Symbolsystem, das die Jünger instandsetzte, den getöteten Jesus als Auferstandenen und zu Gott Erhöhten zu erfahren. Notwendig ist also ein Deutesystem, das beide Aspekte in jüdischer Tradition anbot und gleichzeitig eine Affinität zur Verkündigung Jesu mit ihrer Theophanieerwartung in sich barg.
49 H. v. Campenhausen, ‘Der Ablauf der Osterereignisse und das leere Grab’ (SAHW. PH 4: Abhandlung, Heidelberg, 41977) 46.
214 ulrich b. müller V.
Die oben genannten Bedingungen erfüllt ansatzweise der ansonsten im Blick auf Jesu Botschaft eindrückliche Text 4Q 521.50 Hier geht es um Gottes ewige Königsherrschaft, aufgrund derer er eschatologisch handelt: ‘Er wird Erschlagene heilen und Tote wird er lebendig machen; Armen wird er Frohbotschaft verkünden’ (Fragm. 2 II Zeile 12), wobei im letzten Teilsatz ein Zitat von Jes 61.1 vorliegt wie bei Jesus in Q 7.22. Es geht um neues, Bisheriges übersteigendes Handeln Gottes – um ‘Wunder, die (noch) nicht geschehen sind’ (Fragm. 2 II Zeile 11).51 Gott begegnet als der, ‘der die Toten seines Volkes lebendig macht’ (Fragm. 7, vgl. 1 Sam 2.6; Dtn 32.39). Weiterführend ist vor allem das Danielbuch, insofern es am klarsten die Auferstehungszusage als Realisierung der Königsherrschaft Gottes begreift. Zugleich ergeht diese Zusage in einer konkreten Bedrohungslage für den Glauben der Frommen in Israel, die einerseits die existentielle Ursprungssituation des Auferstehungsglaubens erhellt, andererseits eine Krisenlage darstellt, die derjenigen der Jünger angesichts der Hinrichtung Jesu entspricht, so dass ein Vergleich möglich wird. Im Lichte einer Verheißung wie Dan 12.1–3 konnten diese die Glaubenskrise, die der Tod Jesu zunächst auslösen musste, am ehesten bewältigen. Im Kontext ihrer intensiven Theophanieerwartung, die ein alsbaldiges Eintreffen der endgültigen Heilswende erhoffte (‘es komme deine Herrschaft’ Lk 11.2), konnte eine Verheißung, wie sie Dan 12.1–3 formuliert, zum Schlüsselerlebnis für die Jünger in der Weise werden, dass sie nicht nur die Überzeugung von der Auferweckung Jesu ermöglichte, sondern am Ende sogar die seiner himmlischen Erhöhung. Die urchristlichen Auferstehungsaussagen, allen voran 1Kor 15.3–5, zeigen zwar keine direkten terminologischen Anklänge an Dan 12; dennoch finden sich entscheidende Gemeinsamkeiten im jeweiligen Denken, das ein Krisenbewältigungskonzept darstellt, das die Todesgrenze im Sinne jenseitiger Wirklichkeit übersteigt. Im Danielbuch wird das Thema ‘Königsherrschaft Gottes’ durchgängig entfaltet.52 Grundlegend erscheint es in Dan 2.44; 3.33; 4.31 und hat in 6.27 eine zusammenfassende Form gefunden: ‘ . . . sein Reich ist unzerstörbar und seine Herrschaft ohne Ende.’ Auch im zweiten Teil des Danielbuches, den Visionen Kap. 7–12, steht das Thema im Zentrum, jetzt zugespitzt im Dualismus der tiergestaltigen Repräsentanten irdischer Mächte und dem ganz anderen Reich des ‘Volkes der Heiligen des Höchsten’ (7.27). Die Übereignung der Herrschaft an dieses ist in 7.22 mit dem ‘Kommen’ des ‘Alten der Tage’ verbunden, in 7.9–10 und 50 Vgl. dazu J. Zimmermann, Messianische Texte aus Qumran (WUNT 2. Reihe 104; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1998) 343–89. 51 Zimmermann, Texte, 362. 52 O. Plöger, Das Buch Daniel (KAT 18; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1965) 174–8.
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7.13–14 grundgelegt im Rahmen einer Theophanie im Himmel, die das ‘Kommen’ des Menschensohngleichen schildert. In Dan 7 konzentriert sich die angedeutete Theophanie auf den himmlischen Bereich. Die Fortsetzung epiphanen Geschehens erfolgt in Dan 10. Hier begegnet eine Botensendung (10.5–6), die an Ez 1.26–27 erinnert, woran sich der Bericht über eine himmlische Kriegsszene anschließt (10.12–14, 20–21). Die himmlische Gestalt die der Seher in 10.5–6 schaut, offenbart ihm, dass Michael ihm (Gabriel) im himmlischen Kampf zu Hilfe gekommen ist (V.13), was sich in 10.20–21 wiederholt, wenn von der Hilfe des himmlischen Fürsten Michael, der Israel repräsentiert, die Rede ist. Gott greift in diesem Vorstellungszusammenhang nicht unmittelbar in das Weltgeschehen ein, sondern handelt durch einen ihm untergeordneten Mandatar, der endgültig zum Heil Israels wirkt, nämlich ‘der mit dem “Menschensohn” identifizierte Michael’, was der Zusammenhang von Dan 7 und 12 nahe legt.53 Die in Dan 10.12–21 angedeutete himmlische Kriegsszene zwischen den Völkerengeln und Michael, der Israel vorsteht, findet ihre Fortsetzung in 12.1–3, das die Schlussszene zu den himmlischen Kämpfen darstellt. Mit dem Auftreten des ‘großen Fürsten’ Michael greift Dan 12.1–3 besonders auf 10.21b zurück, womit der Text andeutet, dass ‘inzwischen Michael die . . . himmlische Entscheidung zugunsten Israel erzwungen hat.’54 Dementsprechend heißt es in Dan 12.1a: ‘Aber in jener Zeit wird auftreten Michael, der große Fürst, der eintreten wird für die Kinder deines Volkes . . .’
Die zitierten Satzteile signalisieren, dass Michael mit seinem Auftreten in das folgende eschatologische Gerichtsgeschehen involviert ist. Damit scheint er eine entsprechende Schwellenfunktion wahrzunehmen wie die Gestalt des Menschensohngleichen in Dan 7.13–14,55 mit dem er für den Endverfasser im Danielbuch wohl identisch ist.56 Die durch das Auftreten Michaels bewirkte Auferstehung der Toten ist so beschrieben (12.2): ‘Und viele von denen, die im Staubland schlafen, werden erwachen, die einen zum ewigen Leben, die anderen [. . .] zur ewigen Schmach.’
Der Ausdruck ‘erwachen’ sichert noch nicht die individuelle Auferstehung; in Jes 26.19 ist dies noch nicht gemeint. Die Unterscheidung ‘die einen zum ewigen 53 S. Beyerle, Die Gottesvorstellungen in der antik-jüdischen Apokalyptik (JSJS 103; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2005) 160. 54 Plöger, Daniel, 170. 55 K. Koch, ‘Das Reich der Heiligen und des Menschensohns’, Die Reiche der Welt und der kommende Menschensohn (Ges. Aufsätze Bd. 2; Neukirchen-Vluyn : Neukirchener, 1995) 140–72, hier 163. 56 J. J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 304–10, 318f.
216 ulrich b. müller Leben’ – ‘die anderen zur ewigen Schmach’ zielt jedenfalls auf eine jenseitige Wirklichkeit. Besonders aber legt der Kontext mit seinem zeitgeschichtlichen Hintergrund (Dan 11.31–45) es nahe, in 12.2 die individuelle Auferstehung anzunehmen. In der hellenistischen Religionsverfolgung ‘musste das nun auftretende ,Paradox’ des Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhangs aufgearbeitet werden, das darin bestand, dass ausgerechnet die Tora-Fürchtigen ermordet wurden, während Apostaten am Leben blieben . . . . Die Bewältigung dieser Krise . . . konnte ausschließlich durch eine Transzendierung der gewaltsam zu Tode Gekommenen erfolgen.’57 In Dan 12 initiiert nicht Gott selbst die eschatologische Wende zum Heil, sondern sein Mandatar Michael, der zum eschatologischen Gerichtsgeschehen auftritt. Dabei ergibt sich in Dan 12 eine Verhältnisbestimmung zwischen dem Auftreten Michaels und der Auferstehung, die ansonsten der traditionellen Beziehung zwischen der Theophanie Gottes und der Heilswende entspricht (AssMos 10; äthHen 1.3–8; 25.3). Das visionär geschaute Auftreten Michaels fungiert als Heilermöglichung, die Auferstehung als Heilsverwirklichung. Damit erreicht die Darstellung des Danielbuches in Kap. 12 ihren Höhepunkt, der durch die (teilweise nur angedeutete) Theophanie in Dan 7.22 (bzw. 7.13–14) und die Angelophanie in 10.20–21 vorbereitet ist. Insofern also das Danielbuch bzw. eine davon abhängige und damit übereinstimmende Erwartung zielgerichtet auf die Heilszusage der endzeitlichen Auferstehung zuläuft, konnte sie gerade die Jünger Jesu mit ihrer Theophaniehoffnung stimulieren, Jesu Geschick im Lichte dieser Verheißung zu deuten.
VI.
Es hat sich bereits abgezeichnet: In der trostlos erscheinenden Situation der Toragläubigen angesichts gewaltsamer Hellenisierungstendenzen bot die Auferstehungszusage die Möglichkeit, an der Souveränität des jüdischen Gottes festzuhalten, der für die Frommen, insbesondere für die zu Tode Gekommenen, die Todesgrenze zu ewigem Leben durchbrechen konnte. Diese Durchbrechung bedurfte des außergewöhnlichen Eingriffs, vermittelt durch den ‘großen Fürsten’ Michael (Dan 12.1–3). Es war dies die aktuelle Lösung in einer konkreten geschichtlichen Situation (so auch äthHen 90.33). Anders steht es bei späteren Zeugnissen der Auferstehungshoffnung, als diese für bestimmte Kreise des Judentums (die Pharisäer etwa) zur gültigen Lehrüberlieferung sich verdichtet hatte, nicht aber als neu entfaltetes Krisenbewältigungskonzept Toragläubigen helfen konnte. TestJud 25.4 verrät noch die Verwurzelung in aktueller 57 Beyerle, Gottesvorstellungen, 263; vgl. auch A. Chester, ‘Resurrection and Transformation’, Auferstehung – Resurrection (ed. Avemarie and Lichtenberger) 47–77.
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Verfolgungssituation, während andere Texte zur Vorstellung allgemeiner Totenauferstehung tendieren (z.B äthHen 51.1; 4Esr 7.32; syrBar 42.8; 50.2). Die im Danielbuch vorausgesetzte Problemlage der Frommen lädt durchaus zu einem Vergleich mit der Krisensituation ein, in der sich Jesu Jünger angesichts des Todes Jesu befunden haben. In Dan 11.33–35 heißt es von den ‘Weisen’, sie werden Vielen zur Einsicht verhelfen; ‘aber sie werden zu Fall kommen durchs Schwert und durch Flammen . . .’ Gerade die Frommen erhalten durch die Auferstehung Anteil an der Herrlichkeit der himmlischen Welt (Dan 12.3). Als Beispiel begegnet der Seher Daniel (Dan 12.13). Die Auferstehungszusage richtet sich damit an konkrete Einzelne. Das heißt aber , dass der Verfasser des Danielbuchs den ‘tröstlichen Zuspruch, der Jes 26,20 in einem ähnlichen Zusammenhang dem ganzen Volk gilt, auch auf sein persönliches Schicksal bezogen hat.’58 Gerade in Dan 12.13 liegt also ein gewisser Ansatzpunkt dafür vor, warum die Jünger beim Glauben an Jesu Auferweckung das Ereignis der endzeitlichen Auferweckung mit einem Einzelnen, eben Jesus, verbinden konnten. Mit Dan 12 bzw. einer verwandten, davon abhängigen Erwartung bot sich ein überzeugendes Symbolsystem an, das die Krisenerfahrung aufzuarbeiten geeignet war, dass gerade ausgezeichnete Fromme, im Falle Jesu gar der eschatologische Repräsentant der Gottesherrschaft getötet war. Jesus hat die Jünger zur Gebetsbitte aufgefordert: ‘Es komme deine Herrschaft!’ Zum semantischen Profil der ‘Königsherrschaft Gottes’, wie es in Dan 2.44; 3.33; 6.27 anklingt und in eschatologischer Konkretion in Dan 12 offenkundig ist, gehört die Hoffnung auf die Auferstehung der Frommen in Israel. Dass diese Hoffnung sich erfüllte und von den Jüngern im Medium visionärer Kommunikation wahrgenommen wurde, verdankt sich einmal dem ‘Überschuss’ an Heilserfahrung, die Jesu Jünger mit seinem Wirken in der sich realisierenden Gottesherrschaft gemacht haben, besonders aber seinem Sendungsanspruch, der entscheidende Repräsentant der Gottesherrschaft zu sein. Gott würde zu seinem Repräsentanten stehen, der sogar angesichts seines drohenden Todes die Gewissheit vermittelte, am baldigen Festmahl der endgültigen Gottesherrschaft teilzuhaben (Mk 14.25). Der Osterglaube verdichtete sich in den Erscheinungen, die für die Jünger die himmlische Bestätigung waren, dass ihre Hoffnung nicht getrogen hat. Die sprachliche Struktur der Glaubensformel 1Kor 15.3–5 zeigt deutlich, dass die Aussage ‘er erschien’ und damit die Erfahrung der Erscheinung den Glauben an Jesu Aufweckung gewiss machte. Dabei hat man anzunehmen, ‘dass die Jünger Jesu, die ja von der Erwartung des nahen Gottesreiches getragen waren, in der Auferweckung Jesu den Anbruch des Eschaton erblickten.’59 – in der Perspektive der Jünger der Beginn der endzeitlichen Totenauferstehung. 58 Plöger, Daniel, 173. 59 D. Zeller, Die Entstehung des Christentums, in: Christentum I. von den Anfängen bis zur Konstantinischen Wende (hrsg. von D. Zeller; Stuttgart u.a.: W. Kohlhammer, 2002) 61.
218 ulrich b. müller Entscheidend waren also die Erscheinungen des Erhöhten. Doch bereitet es Schwierigkeiten, die Genese der ältesten Erhöhungsvorstellung zu rekonstruieren, wenn man aus guten Gründen nicht bereit ist, sofort Ps 110.1 dafür heranzuziehen.60 Denn die christologische Interpretation von Ps 110.1: ‘Es sprach Jahwe zu meinem Herrn: Setze dich zu meiner Rechten . . .’ setzt mit der Anrede ‘mein Herr’ für Jesus bereits doch wohl dessen Erhöhung voraus und ermöglicht nicht erst den Glauben an diese, sondern präzisiert auf dieser Basis Jesu Hoheitsstellung eben ‘zur Rechten Gottes’ (Röm 8.34), um schließlich seine besondere Hoheitsposition gegenüber den Engeln zu bestimmen (1Petr 3.22; Hebr 1.13). Gleichwohl bieten sich zwei Denkmöglichkeiten an, die Überzeugung von Jesu himmlischer Erhöhung zu erklären: a) Die Jünger erwarteten ursprünglich den endgültigen Anbruch des Reiches Gottes. Entsprechend jenem Symbolsystem, das sich in Dan 12.1–3 im Kontext der Auferstehungszusage abzeichnet, erscheint nicht Gott selbst, sondern sein himmlischer Mandatar tritt auf. Jesu Jünger erfahren die ursprünglich erhoffte Theophanie in Gestalt der Christophanie ihres Herrn, wobei das visionäre Kommunikationsmuster Erscheinung die Priorität besitzt, was der Ausdruck w[fqh nahe legt (1Kor 15.3–5). Man erinnere sich: Visionen arbeiten im Rahmen eines vorgegebenen Symbolsystems (hier Dan 12) und mutieren dessen Elemente zu einer neuen Konfiguration. Das heisst: In der visionären Imagination der Jünger rückt Jesus in die Funktion des himmlischen Mandatars Gottes. Das ist schon deshalb möglich, weil bereits Jesu irdischer Sendungsanspruch ihn in ausgezeichneter Weise mit der Durchsetzung der Gottesherrschaft verband. Dies bedeutet aber nicht, dass er zum Völkerarchonten wie Michael wird. Er wird ungleich mehr als das: Er wird der kuvrio~ , dessen Wiederkunft man dann in der Aramäisch sprechenden Urgemeinde erflehte: ‘ Unser Herr, komm!’ (⫽ maranaqav 1Kor 16.22). Hier greift jene Überbietungstendenz, die schon das Selbstverständnis des Irdischen prägte: ‘Siehe, mehr als Salomo ist hier’ – ‘siehe, mehr als Jona ist hier.’ (Q 11.31–32). Im Maranatha wird dabei das älteste Stadium des Christologisierungsprozesses erkennbar.61 Entsprechend jüdischer Auferstehungserwartung beschränkte sich urchristlicher Glaube nicht auf Jesus allein, sondern schloss die ‘in Christus’ sind ein (1Kor 15.23). Diese Periodisierung ist in jüdischer Tradition deutlich angelegt (TestBenj 10.6–10): ‘Dann werdet ihr sehen Henoch, Noah und Sem und Abraham und Isaak und Jakob auferstehen zur Rechten mit Jubel. Dann werden auch wir auferstehen, jeder zu seinem Stamm . . . Dann werden auch alle auferstehen, die einen zur Herrlichkeit, die anderen zur Entehrung.’ 60 Anders M. Hengel, ‘“Setze dich zu meiner Rechten!” Die Inthronisation Christi zur Rechten Gottes und Psalm 110,1’, Le Trône de Dieu (Hg. M. Philonenko; WUNT 69; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1993) 108–94. 61 Der Maranatha-Ruf hat keinen Bezug zur sog. Menschensohnvorstellung der Bilderreden des äthHen. Es geht bei diesem Bittruf um die Parusie Christi, also sein Kommen vom Himmel auf die Erde. Beim sog. Menschensohn ist die Bewegungsrichtung eine ganz andere.
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Befremdlich mag zunächst wirken, dass bei dieser Überlegung Jesus sowohl Objekt (die Heilswende bewirkt seine Auferstehung) als auch Subjekt (Jesus initiiert die Heilswende) sein soll, wenn man an die in Dan 12.1–3 vorausgesetzte Heilskonzeption denkt. Bei näherem Zusehen löst sich das Befremden aber auf. Man hat eben davon auszugehen, dass zunächst die Hoffnungsmöglichkeit aufkam: Der gekreuzigte Jesus ist auferweckt. Im Blick auf Jesu Anspruch, der entscheidende irdische Repräsentant der Gottesherrschaft zu sein, konnte – sachlich ein zweiter Schritt – die Überzeugung sich durchsetzen: Er ist himmlisch erhöht, ja der himmlische Mandatar Gottes. Als solcher konnte er den Jüngern ‘erscheinen’ und damit die vorher noch unsichere Hoffnung auf Jesu Auferweckung gewiss machen, was der bestätigenden Funktion des w[fqh in der Glaubensformel 1Kor 15.3–5 entspricht. b) Das Judentum konnte dem unschuldig Leidenden die Rechtfertigung bzw. Erhöhung durch Gott zusprechen (Jes 52.13; 53.12). Ja, der Gerechte kann nach seinem Tod zur himmlischen Sphäre erhöht und der Schar der ‘Heiligen’ d.h. der Engel eingegliedert werden (Weish 5.5 und 5.15–16). Das Fragment 4Q 491 spricht von einem (ansonsten rätselhaften) Menschen (?), von dem es heisst: ‘ . . . zu den Elim werde ich gerechnet.’ ‘Das ist freilich noch keine zureichende Analogie für die singuläre Würde, die die frühe Gemeinde Jesus zuschrieb . . .’62 Besonders ergibt sich von diesen Texten keine erkennbare Brücke zur Vorstellung von der Auferstehung Jesu, so dass die Erklärung mit dem Dan 12 zugrundeliegenden Symbolsystem den Vorrang verdient. Freilich ist nicht auszuschließen, dass die Erhöhung des Gerechten, wie sie Weish 5 konzipiert, im Nachdenken der Jünger Jesu eine Rolle spielte und ihre Orientierung an Dan 12.1–3 im Sinne des Erhöhungsgedankens beeinflusste. Die Glaubensformel 1Kor 15.3–5 prädiziert Jesus als den ‘Christus’. Der entscheidende Ansatzpunkt für die Aufnahme des Hoheitstitels ‘Gesalbter’ wird in der Hinrichtung Jesu als ‘König der Juden’ liegen (Mk 15.26). Diesem Urteil konträr entgegen bekannten die Jünger Jesus als den ‘Gesalbten’, dessen irdische Sendung durch die göttliche Auferweckung und Erhöhung legitimiert war. In der Konsequenz dieser pointierten Aufnahme messianischer Tradition liegt dann die (bereits vorpaulinische) Glaubensaussage, wonach Jesus, ‘der geboren ist aus dem Samen Davids’, eingesetzt wurde zum Sohn Gottes ‘seit/aufgrund der Auferstehung der Toten’ (Röm 1.3–4). Dabei wirkt bei der Formulierung in Röm 1.3–4 die Überzeugung nach, die die Auferweckung Jesu als Geschehen der endzeitlichen Totenauferstehung begreift.
Er wird vor dem ‘Herrn der Geister’ erscheinen (52.9); dieser wird ihn auf den ‘Thron der Herrlichkeit’ im Himmel setzen (äthHen 61.8; 62.2). Es gib kein Herabkommen des Menschensohnes der Bilderreden auf die Erde (Müller, ‘Parusie’, 124–43, bes. 126f. 134). 62 Zeller, ‘Entstehung’, 64.
220 ulrich b. müller Dass Ostern ursprünglich als Auftakt der Endereignisse galt, verraten weitere Indizien. Die Rückkehr der Jünger aus Galiläa, wo die Ostererscheinungen wohl stattgefunden haben, hat ihren Grund in der Anschauung derselben, dass entsprechend jüdischer Erwartung die Endereignisse sich auf die Heilige Stadt Jerusalem konzentrieren würden. Dementsprechend erfahren sie dort auch das ekstatische Sprachphänomen der Glossolalie, was urchristliche Tradition als Pfingstereignis deutet und als Erfüllung prophetischer Verheißung interpretiert (Joel 3.1–5 zitiert in Apg 2). Die johanneische Tradition ihrerseits schaute Ostern und Pfingsten zusammen, insofern die Erscheinung des Auferstandenen und Geistempfang unmittelbar verbunden sind (Joh 20.22).
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 221–234. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S002868850800012X
Nochmals zu den ‘schwachen und unfähigen Elementen’ (Gal 4.9): Paulus, Philo und die stoicei`a tou` kovsmou* JOHAN N E S WOYKE Universität Siegen, Fachbereich 1: Evangelische Theologie, Adolf-ReichweinStraße 2, 57076 Siegen, Deutschland
The key for conceptualizing both the Galatians’ former pagan religion and an existence ‘under the Jewish law’ as ‘serving the stoicei`a’ (Gal 4.3, 9) lies in their characterization as ‘weak and impotent’ in Gal 4.9. As suggested by passages in the writings of Philo, the stoicei`a do not possess inherent creative power and thus are unable to solve the anthropological problem of sin. To overcome the passion of savrx, Philo suggests a process of forming and strengthening the immortal soul by way of the Mosaic law. Paul, by contrast, denies the renewing, life-giving power of the novmo~ and thus categorizes the law as stoicei`a tou` kovsmou. Keywords: Stoicheia (Weltelemente), Philo, Gesetz, Neuschöpfung, Abraham(stradition), Affektenlehre, Anthropologie, Götterpolemik
1. Skizzierung der exegetischen Problemlage
Auch wenn manche Exegeten nur zu gerne – im Blick besonders auf die ‘vielen Götter und Herren’ von 1Kor 8.5, die ‘Dämonengötter’ aus 1Kor 10.20–21 (vgl. 12.2) sowie die ‘Weltelemente-Götter’ von Gal 4.8–9 – bei Paulus die Vorstellung der christlichen Apologeten des 2. Jahrhunderts vorgezeichnet finden möchten, bei den Göttern der e[qnh handle es sich um personhafte Geistmächte:1 Die sprachgeschichtliche Erforschung des Begriffs stoiceia, zumal mit der Qualifikation tou` kovsmou, durch G. Delling, J. Blinzler und D. Rusam2 hat zu dem
* Für hilfreiche Hinweise danke ich Herrn Prof. Dr. Michael Bachmann. 1 Zur umfassenden Auseinandersetzung mit den relevanten Texten 1Thess 1.9b–10, 1Kor 8.4–6, 1Kor 10.19–20, 1Kor 12.2, 2Kor 6.14–16a, Gal 4.8–10 und Röm 1.23, 25 vgl. J. Woyke, Götter, ‘Götzen’, Götterbilder. Aspekte einer paulinischen ‘Theologie der Religionen’ (BZNW 132; Berlin/New York: W. de Gruyter, 2005). 2 G. Delling, ‘stoicei`on’, ThWNT 7 (1964) 670–87; J. Blinzler, ‘Lexikalisches zu dem Terminus ta; stoicei`a tou` kovsmou bei Paulus’, AnBib 17/18 (1963) 429–43; D. Rusam, ‘Neue Belege zu den stoicei`a tou` kovsmou (Gal 4,3.9; Kol 2,8.20)’, ZNW 83 (1992) 119–25.
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222 johannes woyke eindeutigen Ergebnis geführt, dass eine solche angelologische bzw. dämonologische Interpretation (zumindest) keinen lexikalischen Anhalt an Gal 4.8–9 findet. Für diesen Befund hat sich innerhalb der englischsprachigen Forschung, die dessen ungeachtet etwa in H. D. Betz und C. E. Arnold wieder Befürworter der dämonologischen Interpretation der ‘Elemente’ von Gal 4,9 vorweisen kann,3 jüngst M. C. de Boer stark gemacht.4 Nicht als Elementargeister oder -mächte, auch nicht allgemein als Grundprinzipien5 seien die stoicei`a tou` kovsmou zu verstehen. Vielmehr liege mit der betreffenden Wendung ein technischer Ausdruck vor, der – zumindest prima facie – die vier Elemente des physikalischen Universums bezeichne: Erde, Wasser, Luft und Feuer.6 Doch ist damit das eigentliche Interpretationsproblem noch nicht gelöst. Vielmehr scheint die physikalische Bedeutung der Wendung die exegetische Herausforderung geradezu neu zu begründen. Das Problem, so de Boer, bestehe darin, dass ‘this referential meaning is not adequate to the argumentative context in which Paul makes use of the phrase’.7 Schließlich wertet Paulus zunächst in Gal 4.3–4 die jüdische Existenz uJpo; novmon als Versklavung unter die stoicei`a tou` kovsmou, charakterisiert dann in Gal 4.9 die vorchristliche, pagane Religiosität der Galater als Dienst an den stoicei`a und parallelisiert dies durch die Setzung eines – restitutiv (‘zurück’) zu verstehenden – pavlin8 mit der gegenwärtigen, wohl auf judaisierende Tendenzen zurückgehenden Kalenderfrömmigkeit der galatischen Christen (4.9–10).9 In welcher sachlichen Verbindung steht nun aber das mosaische Gesetz zu den vier physikalischen Elementen? G. Delling etwa hatte eine Abstrahierung der ‘buchstäbliche[n] Deutung auf die Urstoffe’ auf ‘das, worauf die Existenz des Menschen vor Christus auch und gerade in der vorchristlichen Religion beruht’, vorgeschlagen, um die Parallelisierung des Zustandes uJpo; novmon (Gal 4.4d) mit dem des uJpo; ta; stoicei`a tou` kovsmou (4.3c) zu plausibilisieren.10 Nach J. Blinzler 3 C. E. Arnold, ‘Returning to the Domains of the Powers: Stoicheia as Evil Spirits in Galatians 4.3’, NT 38 (1996) 55–76; H. D. Betz, Der Galaterbrief. Ein Kommentar zum Brief des Apostels Paulus an die Gemeinden in Galatien (Hermeneia; München: Kaiser, 1988) bes. 358. 4 M. C. de Boer, ‘The Meaning of the Phrase ta; stoicei`a tou` kovsmou in Galatians’, NTS 53 (2007) 204–24. 5 So L. L. Belleville, ‘ “Under Law”: Structural Analysis and the Pauline Concept of Law in Galatians 3.21–4.11’, JSNT 26 (1986) 53–78, bes. 67–8 und D. R. Moore-Crispin, ‘Galatians 4:1–9: The Use and Abuse of Parallels’, EvQ 61 (1989) 203–23, bes. 210–11. 6 De Boer, ‘Meaning’, 205–7. 7 De Boer, ‘Meaning’, 208. 8 So M. Bachmann, Sünder oder Übertreter. Studien zur Argumentation in Gal 2,15ff. (WUNT 59; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1992) 123–9. In der Aufsatzüberschrift habe ich allerdings den repetitiven Wortsinn von pavlin (‘nochmals’) aufgenommen. 9 So die Mehrheitsmeinung innerhalb der exegetischen Forschung. Zu alternativen Deutungsansätzen vgl. Woyke, Götter, 354 Anm. 124. 10 Delling, ‘stoicei`a’, 684.
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hat Paulus den die Elemente qualifizierenden Begriff ‘aus der Kategorie des Physikalisch-Gegenständlichen in die Kategorie des Ethisch-Zuständlichen transponiert’, weshalb es bei der gesamten Wendung nunmehr um die ‘vor- und ausserchristliche[-] Seinsweise’ [sc.] gehe.11 Auch J. L. Martyn vermutet eine ‘typical instance of Paul’s transformation of language’. Dem Apostel seien bei dem Begriff der stoicei`a nicht mehr die einander entgegengesetzten physikalischen Grundstoffe im Blick, sondern die grundlegenden sozialen Barrieren von Mann und Frau, Sklaven und Freien, Juden und Griechen.12 Gegenüber solchen Versuchen bemüht sich de Boer mit Recht darum, den Bereich des Naturhaften nicht zu verlassen.13 Vielmehr vermutet er als – allerdings einzigen – Berührungspunkt, an dem Gesetz(esobservanz) und stoicei`a (-Verehrung) ‘functionally and conceptually equivalent’ seien, die mit beiden zusammenhängende Kalenderfrömmigkeit: ‘Paul’s rhetorical argument is based on the assumption that the calendrical observances required by the Law are no different in kind from the calendrical observances associated with ta; stoicei`a tou` kovsmou’.14 Dass Paulus in Gal 4.10 exemplarisch auf Kalenderfrömmigkeit als Zeichen der Rückkehr zu den vormals verehrten stoicei`a anspielt, leistet einer solchen Interpretation zwar Vorschub. Als Beleg für eine konzeptionelle Verbindung von stoicei`a-Verehrung und Kalenderfrömmigkeit vermag de Boer nun aber lediglich Weish 7.17–19 – dazu in einer Anmerkung noch Philo Aet. 107–110 – beizubringen.15 Dieser Text wiederum bietet eine Aufzählung der ‘untrüglichen Erkenntnis der seienden Dinge’ (tw`n o[ntwn gnw`s in ajyeudh`): das
11 Blinzler, ‘Lexikalisches’, 442. 12 J. L. Martyn, ‘Christ, the Elements of the Cosmos, and the Law in Galatians’, The Social World of the First Christians. Essays in Honor of W. A. Meeks (hg.v. L. M. White/O. L. Yarbrough; Minneapolis: Fortress), 16–39, 32. 13 So bereits Ph. Vielhauer, ‘Gesetzesdienst und Stoicheiadienst im Galaterbrief’, Rechtfertigung. FS für E. Käsemann zum 70. Geburtstag (hg.v. J. Friedrich u.a.; Tübingen: Mohr/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976), 543–55, 553. 14 De Boer, ‘Meaning’, 222. Wenigstens erwähnt werden sollte an dieser Stelle die Hypothese von Th. Witulski, Die Adressaten des Galaterbriefes. Untersuchungen zur Gemeinde von Antiochia ad Pisidiam (FRLANT 193; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), der die stoicei`a aus Gal 4.9 mit dem römischen Kaiserkult in Verbindung bringt (a.a.O, 141–52). Witulskis Interpretationsansatz basiert allerdings auf schwer zu plausibilisierenden literarkritischen Operationen, anhand deren er die Stichwortverbindung von Gal 4.9 zu 4.3 für sekundär erklärt (a.a.O., 71–81). Zudem lässt sich eine konzeptionelle Nähe von stoicei`a und römischem Kaiserkult schwerlich in Quellentexten nachweisen. Zur Kritik siehe Woyke, Götter, 326–7 Anm. 22, 341 Anm. 76 sowie 353 Anm. 124. 15 De Boer, ‘Meaning’, 219 samt Anm. 60. Man vgl. die Argumentation bei D. Lührmann, ‘Tage, Monate, Jahreszeiten (Gal 4,10)’, Werden und Wirken des Alten Testaments. FS für C. Westermann zum 70. Geburtstag (hg.v. R. Albertz u.a.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht/Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1980) 428–45 – ein Aufsatz, der freilich von de Boer nicht angeführt wird.
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Verstehen (eijdevnai) zunächst der ‘Zusammensetzung der Welt und des Wirkens der Elemente (suvstasin kovsmou kai; ejnevrgeian stoiceivwn)’ (V.17b), sodann von ‘Anfang und Ende und Mitte der Zeiten (ajrch;n kai; tevlo~ kai; mesovthta crovnwn), der Abfolge der Sonnenwende (tropw`n ajllagav~) und des Wandels der Jahreszeiten (metabola;~ kairw`n), des Kreislaufs der Jahre (ejniautou` kuvklou~) und der Stellung der Sterne (a[strwn qevsei~)’ (V.18–9) und schließlich von Phänomenen der belebten und der unbelebten Natur (fuvsei~ zwv/wn [. . .], diafora;~ futw`n [. . .], V.20). De Boer deutet nun allein V.18–9 als Spezifizierung des ‘Wirkens der Elemente (ejnevrgeian stoiceivwn)’,16 vermag dafür aber weder syntaktische noch semantische17 oder anderweitige, z.B. religionsgeschichtliche, Gründe geltend zu machen.18 Und was sollte Paulus dazu veranlassen, bereits bei seinem Rekurs zur jüdischen Tora-Frömmigkeit die stoicei`a tou` kovsmou ins Gespräch zu bringen? Zur Plausibilisierung seiner These muss de Boer als Argumentationsstrategie von Gal 4.1–10 postulieren, Paulus wolle gar nicht so sehr den jüdischen novmo~ als stoicei`a tou` kovsmou charakterisieren, sondern andersherum: ‘[I]f Paul succeeds in convincing the Galatians that they were also freed from the Law when they were freed from the stoicei`a tou` kovsmou he will have dissuaded them from turning to observance of the Law as the new preachers urgently recommended.’19 Doch folgt aus einer solchen Logik nicht zwangstläufig eben doch eine Charakterisierung des jüdischen novmo~ als stoicei`a tou` kovsmou? Und beginnt Paulus den Abschnitt Gal 4.1–10 nicht mit einer subtilen Parallelisierung beider Größen in den Versen 3 und 4?20 Überdies wird eine Interpretation von Gal 4.3, 9, die den Fokus fast ausschließlich auf den kontingenten Bereich praktischer Frömmigkeitsausprägung wie eben Kalenderfragen legt, kaum der grundsätzlichen theologischen Art und Weise gerecht, in der Paulus dort von den stoicei`a redet. Zwar spricht einiges dafür, dass wir es bei der
16 De Boer, ‘Meaning’, 219 Anm. 59. 17 Alle Akkusative von V.17b–20 sind gleichermaßen abhängig von eijdevnai. Aus inhaltlichen Gründen ist es freilich durchaus sinnvoll, die beiden erstgenannten Akkusative, also suvstasin kovsmou kai; ejnevrgeian stoiceivwn (V.17b) – dies ist im Übrigen bereits ein synthetischer Parallelismus: dem Aufbau des Kosmos liegt das Wirken der Elemente zugrunde –, als Überschrift für die weitere Aufzählung in V.18–20 zu deuten. Die in antiken Quellen häufig anzutreffende Betonung indes, dass die Körper aller Lebewesen aus den Elementen zusammengesetzt sind und beim Tod wieder in dieselben zerfallen (so z.B. Philo Spec. 1.266), zeigt, dass es arbiträr ist, die Nennung von Gestirnen und Jahreszyklen in V.18–9 als Ausdruck der ejnevrgeia stoiceivwn gegenüber V.20 zu isolieren. 18 Philo Aet. 107–110 bringt sogar lediglich einen Vergleich zwischen dem Zusammenspiel der Elemente und dem der Jahreszeiten. Siehe auch meine Kritik an ähnlich gelagerten Thesen wie der de Boers (etwa von D. Lührmann, s.o. Anm. 15) in Götter, 358 samt Anm. 145–7. 19 De Boer, ‘Meaning’, 222. 20 Vorausgesetzt ist dabei, dass in Gal 4.8 keine große Zäsur vorliegt. Zu Für und Wider samt Literatur sei auf Woyke, Götter, 323–8 (samt Anm. 7–25) verwiesen.
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vorchristlichen Frömmigkeit der Galater tatsächlich mit der – wahrscheinlich naturphilosophisch informierten21 – konkreten Verehrung von Feuer, Wasser, Erde und Luft zu tun haben. Jedoch – und dies zeigen neben Weish 13.1–9 und Philo Decal. 53–65, Spec. 2.255, Ebr. 106–10, Cont. 3–5 auch pagane Texte wie Herodot Hist. 1.131.1–2, Diodorus Siculus 1.11–12, Cicero Nat.Deor. 2.64–71, Plutarch Mor. 363D–364A – wird schwerlich von einer isolierten stoicei`a-Verehrung auszugehen sein, werden diese doch stets im Verbund mit Gestirnen, Himmel und Kosmos genannt.22 Dass Paulus in Gal 4 nun gerade die stoicei`a als Kategorie der vorchristlichen Götterverehrung der Galater, der jüdischen ToraFrömmigkeit sowie der Kalenderfrömmigkeit der galatischen Christen wählt, verweist auf einen bewussten metonymischen Gebrauch, der zugleich ins Grundsätzlich-Theologische geht.23 Zu fragen ist also nach wie vor, inwiefern Paulus den jüdischen novmo~ mit den von den Galatern vormals verehrten stoicei`a konzeptionell zusammenbringen kann. Zur Beantwortung dieser Frage erscheint es mir von erheblicher Bedeutung, das Augenmerk auf die Attribute ajsqenh` kai; ptwcav in Gal 4.9 zu richten: In welcher Hinsicht sind die von den Galatern vormals göttlich verehrten Grundstoffe der Welt im Zusammenhang der paulinischen Argumentation ‘schwach und unfähig’, und inwiefern entspricht dies eben auch einer im Galaterbrief – insbesondere in 3.2124 – konstatierten fehlenden Wirksamkeit des mosaischen Gesetzes?
2. ‘Schwach und unfähig’: Mosaisches Gesetz und Weltelemente
2.1 Die Befreiung von der Knechtschaft der savrx samt ihren paqhvmata kai; ejpiqumivai nach Paulus Der Schlüssel für die konzeptionelle Verbindung von novmo~ und stoicei`a liegt, so die These dieser Überlegungen, in Gal 3.21c–d: ‘Denn wenn [‹durch› Mose] ein Gesetz gegeben worden wäre, das lebendig machen kann (oJ dunavmeno~ 21 Bei Weish 13,1–9 und Philo Decal. 53–65, Spec. 2.255 (vgl. Spec. 1.13–20) wird gegen die Verehrung der Elemente und Gestirne, des Himmels und des Kosmos im Zusammenhang der Besprechung des ersten Dekaloggebots polemisiert. Die Behandlung des zweiten Dekaloggebots nimmt dann die Götterbilderverehrung in den Blick. Offensichtlich nehmen Weish und Philo hier die klassische antike Unterteilung der theologia tripertita in Naturphilosophie, öffentlichem Kult und Mythendichtung auf. Siehe Woyke, Götter, 412–29 (Exkurs 6), darin insbesondere die Seiten 421–7. 22 Bei der Auslegung der Einzelgesetze kann Philo Spec. 1.13–20 sogar auf die Nennung der vier Elemente neben Gestirnen etc. verzichten – möglicherweise, weil er sich auf Dtn 4.19 bezieht. Vgl. auch die Zusammenfassung des ersten Gebots Decal. 66, bei der die mit Gestirnen etc. zuvor erwähnten stoicei`a (Decal. 53–7) nun unberücksichtigt bleiben. 23 Siehe auch unten (bei) Anm. 39. 24 Dazu siehe im Folgenden.
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zw/opoih`sai), dann käme Gerechtigkeit (dikaiosuvnh) sicherlich aus dem Gesetz.’ Dieser Irrealis will selbstverständlich besagen, dass das mosaische Gesetz gerade nicht lebendig machen und Gerechtigkeit wirken kann und – notabene25 – dass solches in der Heilsgeschichte Israels vor dem Kommen der pivsti~ ΔIhsou` Cristou` auch gar nicht intendiert ist. Vielmehr ist die Funktion und Macht des novmo~ laut Paulus darauf beschränkt, Übertretungen des Gotteswillens als strafwürdig aufzuweisen (tw`n parabavsewn cavrin prosetevqh [oJ novmo~], 3.19b), somit alle Menschen und insbesondere eben auch Israel als ‘unausweichlich und unentrinnbar’ der Sünde ausgeliefert zu ‘entlarv[en]’26 (sunevkleisen ta; pavnta uJpo; aJmartivan, 3.22a) und so in Gefangenschaft zu halten (uJpo; novmon ejfrourouvmeqa sugkleiovmenoi, 3.23).27 Was Paulus als theologische Anthropologie im Römerbrief systematisch entfaltet,28 ist im Schreiben an die Galater bereits angelegt. Federführend ist dabei die Rolle dessen, was Paulus, wenn er dezidiert theologisch formuliert, savrx, ‘Fleisch’, nennt: nicht der Mensch in seiner Leiblichkeit an sich – das wäre in paulinischer Diktion sw`ma29 –, sondern die durch Affekte bzw. Leidenschaften (paqhvmata) und Begierden (ejpiqumivai), welche den Geboten Gottes widerstreben, charakterisierte Körperlichkeit des Menschen (Gal 5.24, vgl. 5.13).30 Der sarkischen ‘Triebhaftigkeit’ nachzugeben, führe zu einem Lebenswandel, wie ihn Paulus in Form eines Lasterkatalogs artikuliert (5.19–21): Handlungen, die der angemessenen Verehrung Gottes entgegenstehen (z.B. ajkaqarsiva, eijdwlolatriva), und solche, die das menschliche und gesellschaftliche Miteinander zerstören (etwa ejriqei`ai, aiJrevsei~). Als Konsequenz eines Lebens gemäß der savrx nennt Gal 6.8a Vergänglichkeit (fqorav).
25 Es geht Paulus eben nicht um eine Diskreditierung des mosaischen Gesetzes, sondern um eine Plausibilisierung der Heilsgeschichte Gottes mit Israel vor dem Hintergrund des für Paulus einschneidenden Ereignisses der ajpokavluyi~ ΔIhsou` Cristou` (Gal 1.12b). 26 In Anlehnung an Formulierungen von H.-J. Eckstein, Verheißung und Gesetz. Eine exegetische Untersuchung zu Galater 2,15–4,7 (WUNT 86; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1996) 208. 27 Für die Erwägung einer zusätzlichen, positiveren Deutung des uJpo; novmon ejfrourouvmeqa, nämlich auch im Sinne des Bewahrens vor Fehlverhalten, vgl. Bachmann, Sünder, 150 samt Anm. 272. Bachmann selbst schränkt indessen ebd. ein, dass der paidagwgov~ aus Gal 3.24 ‘Fehlverhalten [. . .] nicht grundsätzlich verhindern kann (vgl. 3,21 c), vielmehr als strafwürdig benennt (s. 3,19)’. 28 Siehe dazu J. Woyke, ‘“Sie vertauschten die Wahrheit über Gott mit der Lüge . . .”. “AntiKosmotheismus” im Römerbrief des Paulus?’, Schöpfung, Monotheismus und fremde Religionen. Studien zu Inklusion und Exklusion in den biblischen Schöpfungsvorstellungen (hg.v. L. Bormann; BThSt 95; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2008) 149–84. 29 Siehe aber die Antithese von kata; savrka zh`t e und pneuvmati ta;~ pravxei~ tou` swvmato~ qanatou`te in Röm 8.13. 30 Zu einem nicht pejorativen Gebrauch von savrx siehe aber im Duktus des Galaterbriefs insbesondere Gal 2.20, sodann auch 2 Kor 10.3, Röm 1.3 u.ö.
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Das Problem, das mit der savrx gegeben ist, gilt es also zu überwinden: dass nämlich der Mensch zur Gerechtigkeit vor Gott und gegenüber den Mitmenschen befähigt wird und er nicht der eschatologischen Vergänglichkeit anheim fällt, sondern zwh; aijwvnion erntet (Gal 6.8b) bzw. die basileiva qeou` erbt (5.21). In Gal 6.15 kann Paulus dies auf den Begriff der Neuschöpfung, der kainh; ktivs i~ bringen, was wiederum mit dem traditionell schöpfungstheologisch konnotierten Verb zw/opoievw31 aus Gal 3.21 korrespondiert. Nun fordert das mosaische Gesetz, ja bereits der Dekalog, nach allgemeiner frühjüdischer Auffassung zwar eujsevbeia kai; dikaiosuvnh, angemessenes Verhalten gegenüber Gott und den Mitmenschen (vgl. Arist 131; Philo Virt. 175 u.ö.). Doch vermag der novmo~ aus Sicht des Apostels letztlich primär nur,32 ‘die Sünder [. . .] bei ihrem Sein unter der Sünde zu “behaften”’33 (vgl. Gal 3.19) und damit den den Forderungen des Gesetzes Unterworfenen einerseits ihre Versklavung unter die Sünde (uJpo; aJmartivan, 3.22), andererseits ihre Existenz unter Gottes Fluch (uJpo; katavran, 3.10) aufzuzeigen. Nochmals: Nicht die Beschneidung und mit diesem formellen Übertritt zum jüdischen Volk auch nicht die Übernahme der Verpflichtung vollständiger Gesetzesobservanz (5.3) vermag nach Paulus den zumal nichtjüdischen Menschen von der Versklavung durch savrx und aJmartiva zu befreien und vor dem eschatologischen Gericht Gottes zu retten. Die dazu notwendige Neuschöpfung wird allein durch Gottes Geist bewirkt (vgl. Ez 37.5–6, 14), welcher wiederum den Galatern als Auswirkung der Evangeliumspredigt verliehen wurde (Gal 3.2, 5). Und dieses Evangelium beinhaltet, dass Gott seinen Sohn unter die Knechtschaft des Gesetzes sandte (Gal 4.4), dieser durch seinen Kreuzestod stellvertretend für uns zum Fluch wurde (3.13) und Befreiung von savrx und aJmartiva für diejenigen bewirkt, die an Gottes Heilshandeln in Kreuz und Auferweckung Jesu Christi glauben und durch die Taufe – im Bild gesprochen – Christus angezogen haben (3.27). Mit dem Thema der Befreiung von der Knechtschaft der savrx und der Einsicht, dass dies eben nicht vom mosaischen Gesetz bewirkt werden kann und soll, ist also ein Kernbereich des Galaterbriefs benannt. Doch was hat dies mit den 31 Siehe bes. Röm 4.17; JosAs 8.10, 12.1–2, 20.7 (in 1Kor 15 wird das Verb allerdings ausschließlich eschatologisch verwendet). Vgl. zu diesem Zusammenhang, allerdings im Römerbrief, Woyke, ‘Wahrheit’. 32 Zu positiven Aspekten des novmo~ im Zusammenhang des Galaterbriefs s.u. Anm. 42. 33 So Eckstein, Verheißung, 193. Eine Interpretation des cavrin parabavsew~ von Gal 3.19 in dem Sinne, dass das Gesetz hinzugefügt wurde, um die Sünde geradewegs hervorzurufen bzw. zu provozieren, ist vom Kontext nicht gedeckt (vgl. ebd.). Ähnlich Bachmann, Sünder, 74 Anm. 244: ‘Der Galaterbrief bietet indes, zumindest jenseits unserer Stelle, die Vorstellung, das Gesetz verführe geradezu zu Übertretungen, nicht, während ihm eine die Strafwürdigkeit von falschem Verhalten einschärfende Funktion des Gesetzes wichtig ist (s. bes. Gal 3,10–13), das gerade nicht lebendig macht (3,21), vielmehr irgendwie beteiligt ist, die ausnahmslose Verquickung mit aJmartiva aufzuzeigen (s. 3,11.22f.; vgl. 2,15–17).’
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stoicei`a tou` kovsmou aus Gal 4.3, 9 zu tun? Aufschluss darüber vermag, so meine These, eine Auslegung von Gen 15 durch Philo von Alexandrien geben. 2.2 Die Befreiung von der Knechtschaft des sw`ma/der savrx samt ihrer
pavqh nach Philo von Alexandrien Die in Betracht kommende Schrift Philos stellt die Schriftinterpretation von Gen 15 unter das Thema, wer Erbe der göttlichen Dinge sei (Her. 1 tiv~ oJ tw`n qeivwn pragmavtwn klhronovmo~ ejstivn). Dabei steht mit klhronovmo~ ein Motiv im Vordergrund, welches auch die Ausführungen von Gal 3 und 4 – dort in Variation mit den Begriffen uiJoi; ΔAbraavm (3.7) und ΔAbraa;m spevrma (3.29) einerseits und uiJoi; qeou` (3.26) andererseits – grundlegend bestimmt.34 In Philos allegorischer Auslegung kommt eine nomologische Position zum Vorschein, zu der die Ausführungen des Paulus, ebenfalls zu Abraham in Gen 15, regelrecht als Gegenentwurf erscheinen. Die Feststellung aus Gen 15.4, dass nicht der Knecht Elieser Abraham beerben werde, legt Philo dahingehend aus, dass Erben geistiger Dinge nur unkörperliche Wesen sein können (ajswvmatoi fuvsei~ nohtw`n pragmavtwn eijs i; klhronovmoi, Her. 66). Mithilfe der platonischen Unterscheidung des Geistigen und des Sinnlichen (to; me;n nohtovn, to; dΔ aijsqhtovn, Her. 75) wird Abrahams Auszug aus Chaldäa – bei Philo Sinnbild der Verehrung des Kosmos als Letztursache alles Werdens – in ein Land, das Gott ihm zeigen wird (vgl. Gen 12.3), interpretiert: Er habe die chaldäische zugunsten der Gott liebenden Anschauung verlassen, sei vom sinnlich wahrnehmbaren Erschaffenen zur allein geistig erfassbaren schöpferischen Ursache (ajpo; tou` gegonovto~ aijsqhtou` pro;~ to; nohto;n kai; pepoihko;~ ai[tion, Her. 289) ausgezogen. Daher lehre die Schrift – hier Gen 15.13 – den Tugendfreund, im Körper (sw`ma) nicht wie in der Heimat zu wohnen, sondern wie in der Fremde zu weilen (Her. 267). Wenn jemand die savrx verachte, habe er bereits den Körper verlassen, und wenn jemand alles sinnlich Wahrnehmbare als nicht wirklich existierend (mh; pro;~ ajlhvqeian o[nta) verwerfe, so habe er schon der Sinnlichkeit den Rücken gekehrt (Her. 71). Das mit dem sw`ma bzw. mit der savrx verbundene anthropologische Grundproblem, das er in der Ankündigung der ägyptischen Sklaverei von Gen 15 verborgen sieht, entnimmt Philo der antiken Affektenlehre: Die Seele des Menschen lebe in Knechtschaft (douleiva) der Affekte des Körpers (ta; swvmato~ pavqh) – Lust (hJdonhv), Begierde (ejpiqumiva), Schmerz (luvph), Furcht (fovbo~) –, welche Sprösslinge der savrx seien, in der sie wurzeln (Her. 268). Gott werde indes den Körper samt seinen Affekten für seine Sünden strafen, die Seele aber zur vollständigen Freiheit (ejleuqeriva) aus dem ringsum bewachten Gefängnis (ejk th`~ peripefrourhmevnh~ eiJrkth`~) hinausführen (Her. 271, 273). Zu diesem Exodus 34 Vgl. de Boer, ‘Meaning’, 208–9.
Nochmals zu den ‘schwachen und unfähigen Elementen’ 229
gewähre Gott den Seelen zudem Reisezehrung (Gen 15.14), womit als Mittel zur Tugendbildung (Her. 274) offenkundig vorrangig der Dekalog mit seinen Pflichten gegen Gott einerseits und gegen die Menschen andererseits (Her. 168) gemeint ist. Wenn nun in Gen 15.15 von Abrahams Sterben als einem ‘zu den Vätern Gehen’ die Rede ist, so sei damit die Versetzung der völlig geläuterten, unsterblichen Seele in den Himmel (Her. 276), nämlich in den Äther als fünften Urstoff gemeint (Her. 283). Demgegenüber werde der Körper der Vernichtung (fqorav) überantwortet, nämlich der Auflösung in die vier Urkräfte – also die stoicei`a – des Kosmos, aus denen er zusammengesetzt wurde (Her. 281–3, vgl. Spec. 1.266). Es werden bei Philo also in Anlehnung an aristotelische Kosmologie die vier irdischen Grundstoffe – Feuer, Wasser, Erde, Luft – von dem himmlischen, dem feurigen Äther, unterschieden und jene dem sterblichen Körper, dieser der unsterblichen Seele zugeordnet. Von Gott selbst gewährtes Heilmittel gegen die Herrschaft der die Seele knechtenden körperlichen Affekte ist dabei die Bildung (paideiva) der Seele mithilfe des mosaischen Gesetzes, welches nach Philo seinen ungeschriebenen Ausdruck im Naturgesetz findet, wofür wiederum Abraham das leuchtende Beispiel ist. 2.3 Philo, Paulus und die stoicei`a Auf den ersten Blick erscheint die Ausgangslage bei Philo und Paulus eine analoge zu sein. Beide thematisieren als anthropologisches Grundproblem die savrx mit ihren Affekten bzw. Begierden, die den Menschen davon abhält, Gott zu erkennen und angemessen zu verehren sowie gegenüber den Mitmenschen Gerechtigkeit zu üben. Indes vertritt Paulus im Gegensatz zu Philo keinen LeibSeele-Dualismus:35 Der ganze Mensch ist qua savrx unter der Knechtschaft der Sünde. Seine Erlösungshoffnung konzentriert sich entsprechend nicht auf eine Stärkung der unsterblichen yuchv, zumal durch die pädagogische Kraft des Dekalogs, sondern auf eine kainh; ktivs i~, eine völlige Neuschöpfung, durch die Kraft von Gottes schöpferischem pneu`ma, das nicht durch die Forderungen des Gesetzes, sondern vielmehr im Glauben an die Predigt des Evangeliums empfangen wird (so Gal 3.2). Indem der Mensch ejn Cristw`/ durch Gottes Geist lebt und mit ihm Schritt hält (vgl. Gal 5.25), ist es ihm bereits in der irdischen Existenz möglich, den Werken der savrx durch die Frucht des pneu`ma zu widerstehen.36
35 Zudem muss darauf aufmerksam gemacht werden, dass die paqhvmata kai; ejpiqumivai der savrx bei Paulus nicht mit den pavqh der antiken Affektenlehre deckungsgleich sind. Vielmehr bleibt ihr Maßstab, wie Gal 5.19–21 zeigt, das göttliche Gebot. 36 Siehe dazu bes. O. Hofius, ‘Widerstreit zwischen Fleisch und Geist? Erwägungen zu Gal 5,17’, Der Mensch vor Gott. Forschungen zum Menschenbild in Bibel, antikem Judentum und Koran. FS für H. Lichtenberger (hg.v. U. Mittmann-Richert u.a.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2003) 147–59.
230 johannes woyke Charakteristisch anders urteilt Philo, der, wenn er von der Unsterblichkeit der Seele ausgeht, diese gerade nicht den vier stoicei`a tou` kovsmou – oder, wie er sie in Her. 281 nennt, ajrcaiv te kai; dunavmei~37 – zuweist, sondern dem qualitativ andersartigen, himmlischen Grundstoff Äther. Entsprechend gehört dann auch der mosaische novmo~ als pädagogisches Mittel zur Verachtung der savrx und zur Läuterung der Seele ganz auf die himmlische Seite. Mit seiner Hilfe erlangt der Mensch die Befreiung von der ihn knechtenden savrx. Die Bedeutung der stoicei`a tou` kovsmou bleibt auf das Körperliche begrenzt (ta; me;n swmatika; tau`ta, Her. 283). Zwar besteht die Welt aus Erde, Wasser, Luft und Feuer (ejx w|n sunevsthken oJ kovsmo~) und in diese muss sich alles Erschaffene (e{kaston tw`n genomevnwn) wieder auflösen (Her. 281). Jedoch dürfen, so macht Philo an anderer Stelle deutlich, Material und Urheber des Gewordenen nicht verwechselt bzw. in eins gesetzt werden (Cher. 125–7); stets bedarf es zur Schöpfung der göttlichen Kunstfertigkeit (qeiva/ tevcnhÛ, Spec. 1.266, vgl. Op. 8–9). Hierin nun liegt der Grund, weshalb sich Philo mit Vehemenz (auch) gegen die stoische Deutung der mythischen Göttergestalten auf die stoicei`a tou` kovsmou wehrt, sei es in seiner Auslegung des ersten Dekaloggebots, sei es in seiner Beschreibung der Therapeutensekte: Selbst für den Fall, dass das Zusammenspiel von Mischung und Trennung der Elemente und damit auch der Bestand des Kosmos ewig andauern sollte: auch sie sind, im Gegensatz zu Gott, entstanden; es gab eine Zeit, da sie nicht waren. Folglich haben sie, auch wenn sie aller Schöpfung zugrunde liegen, aus sich selbst heraus keine schöpferische Macht, die allein das wahre Gottsein definiert (Decal. 53–8).38 Die stoicei`a sind unbeseelt und aus sich selbst heraus unbewegt (Cont. 4: ta; de; stoicei`a a[yuco~ u{lh kai; ejx eJauth`~ ajkivnhto~). Wer sie vergöttlicht, verehrt die gewordenen Dinge anstelle des Schöpfers (tou;~ gegonovta~ pro; tou` pepoihkovto~ timw;n kai; [. . .] gh`n h] u{dwr h] ajevra h] pu`r, ta; stoicei`a tou` pantov~, [. . .] sevbein ajxiw`n, Spec. 2.255, vgl. Decal. 61; s.a. Weish 13.3–5) – eine strafwürdige Torheit. Vielmehr bringen sich die Weltelemente selber – so wiederum Her. 197–200 in allegorischer Deutung des Räucheropfers von Ex 30.34–5 – dem Schöpfer als Opfer dar.
37 Zur terminologischen Unterscheidung und Überlappung der Begriffe stoicei`a, ajrcaiv und u{lh vgl. Philo Op. 8–9; Cher. 125–7 einerseits und D.L. 7.134–7 andererseits. 38 So ist der in Decal. 58, Spec. 1.13 u.ö. bei Philo fallende Begriff aujtokrath;~ qeov~ zu umschreiben (vgl. entsprechend auch die prutavnei~ kovsmou qeoiv in Weish 13.2). Vom Schöpfer, dem Urgrund des Seins, hingegen gilt: Sosehr er die Welt mit seinem Wesen erfüllt, so sicher weilt er jedoch außerhalb der Schöpfung (ejpibebhkw;~ de; kai; e[xw tou` dhmiourghqevnto~ w]n oujde;n h|tton peplhvrwke to;n kovsmon eJautou`, Post. 14). Daher ist es Philo im Gegensatz zur stoischen Philosophie gerade nicht möglich, neben dem schöpferischen Sein selbst auch dessen Wirkungen göttlich zu verehren (vgl. Ps.-Aristoteles Mu. 401a; D.L. 7.135).
Nochmals zu den ‘schwachen und unfähigen Elementen’ 231
Eine ähnliche Polemik dürfte auch hinter der Formulierung des Paulus in Gal 4.8–9 von den ‘schwachen und unfähigen Elementen’ stehen, welche die Galater vormals verehrten,39 konventionell verehrte Götter, welche aber in Wahrheit nicht – zumindest nicht als solche – existieren (fuvsei mh; o[nte~ qeoiv).40 So nimmt Paulus die naturphilosophisch inspirierte Elementen- und Gestirnsverehrung der Galater vor der Zeit seiner Evangeliumsverkündigung als terminologischen Ansatzpunkt, um eine grundlegende theologische Aussage auch über die judaisierend-nomologisch inspirierte Kalenderfrömmigkeit der galatischen Christen zu treffen. Inwiefern vermag Paulus nun aber den mosaischen novmo~ plausibel in konzeptionelle oder funktionale Beziehung zu den stoicei`a bringen? Eine wesentliche Analogie zwischen beiden besteht ganz offensichtlich darin, dass ihnen, obschon ihnen eine grundlegende Funktion in Gottes Welthandeln zukommt, doch keine schöpferische Kraft innewohnt, welche das anthropologische Problem der savrx – und damit auch das kosmologische Problem der fqorav – zu überwinden vermag. Im Gegenteil: Sie sind Instrument der Strafe Gottes, welche die savrx der Vergänglichkeit zuführt. Mehr noch: Beide bewirken indirekt die mit der savrx zusammenhängende Sünde: die Elemente, indem sie das Körperliche konstituieren, und das Gesetz, indem es bestimmte Verhaltensweisen als Übertretung des Gotteswillens überhaupt erst kennzeichnet und somit die Sünder in ihrer Versklavung unter der Sünde behaftet.41 Paulus identifiziert mosaisches Gesetz und Weltelemente nicht miteinander, sondern er klassifiziert den novmo~ unter die Rubrik der stoicei`a tou` kovsmou: seine Wirksamkeit ist insofern begrenzt – um es in systematisch-theologischer Terminologie zu sagen – auf die gubernatio dei in dieser vorfindlichen Welt.42 39 Zur vormaligen paganen Religiosität der galatischen Christen als stoicei`a-Verehrung siehe meine Ausführungen in Götter, 351–9. A.a.O., 357: ‘[D]ie Parallelisierung von qeoiv und stoicei`a in Gal 4,8f. [ist] eine metonymische Abstraktion, bei der die stoicei`a als prima pars pro toto der stoischen Weltverehrung genannt sind und damit zugleich die allgemeine theologische Kritik vorausgesetzt ist, die sinnlich wahrnehmbare Schöpfung sei fälschlich für die Ursache alles Werdens gehalten und göttlich verehrt worden, obgleich sie gegenüber dem wahrhaft göttlichen Sein geradezu nichtexistent ist.’ 40 Zur Auslegung der Wendung toi`~ fuvsei mh; ou\s in qeoi`~ aus Gal 4.8 siehe Woyke, Götter, 332–40. 41 Ohne Berücksichtigung der Debatte um Gal 3.19 (s.o. [bei] Anm. 33) hatte ich in Götter, 369 noch formuliert, der jüdische novmo~ gleiche den stoicei`a darin, dass er ‘wie diese indirekt die Sünde hervorbringt’ (kursiv im Original; vgl. a.a.O., 360). Die Betonung lag allerdings bereits in dieser Diktion auf dem Wort ‘indirekt’, und dies vor dem Hintergrund von Röm 7.7–8, wonach die aJmartiva das im novmo~ formulierte Gebot ‘Du sollst nicht begehren!’ zum Anlass nimmt, jegliche Begierde hervorzubringen (kateirgavsato ejn ejmoi; pa`san ejpiqumivan). Eine solche dezidierte Logik ist indes dem Galaterbrief wohl noch nicht zu entnehmen. 42 Auch wenn der novmo~ das Problem des Seins uJpo; aJmartivan nicht zu ändern vermag, so ist darin doch der Wille Gottes festgeschrieben, so dass Paulus in Gal 5.14 formulieren kann, im
232 johannes woyke
3. Bekehrung von den stoicei`a – Rückkehr zu den stoicei`a
Abschließend muss die Aufmerksamkeit noch auf eine strukturelle Analogie zwischen einer paulinischen und einer philonischen Formulierung gerichtet werden, in welcher die Radikalität der Position des Apostels gegenüber den Judaisten in Galatien in zugespitzter Weise zum Vorschein kommt. Im bereits besprochenen Zusammenhang der Auslegung Philos von Gen 15 stellt dieser die Frage, wer in Gen 15.15 die ‘Väter’ sein sollen, zu denen Abraham in Frieden hinweggehen wird. Dessen chaldäische Angehörige könnten es schlechterdings nicht sein, hatte Gott ihn doch aus seinem Vaterhaus hinausgeführt. Diesen Auszug aus Chaldäa beschreibt Philo an mehreren Stellen als Bekehrung von der göttlichen Verehrung des Kosmos, von Sonne, Mond und Sternen sowie – dies darf man nach Decal. 53–4; Spec. 2.255; Cont. 3–5; Her. 280–1 sicherlich hinzufügen – der Weltelemente hin zu Gott als der wahren Ursache aller Dinge (Abr. 68–70; Virt. 212–4; Praem. 58; Her. 289). Dass die Heilige Schrift in Gen 15.15 also weder die Chaldäer, noch Sonne, Mond, Gestirne oder aber Stoicheia im Blick hat, stellt Philo in Form rhetorischer Fragen heraus (Her. 277–9):43 Wenn er sich in göttlicher Besonnenheit den Seinen entfremdet hat (ajllotriwqevnta), wie (pw`~) sollte er sich ihnen vernünftigerweise wieder (pavlin) zum Vertrauten machen (oijkeiou`sqai)? Wie (pw`~) sollte er, welcher der zukünftige Fürst eines anderen Volkes und Geschlechts werden würde, dem alten (tw`/ palaiw`/) zugeteilt werden? Es hätte ihm Gott wohl kaum ein in gewisser Weise neuartiges, neues (kaino;n kai; nevon) Volk und Geschlecht gewährt, wenn er ihn nicht vollständig (kata; to; pantelev~) von dem ursprünglichen (tou` ajrcaivou) hätte trennen wollen. [. . .] So wird auch deutlich und bestimmt gesagt, ‘das Alte sei aus dem Angesicht des Neuen herauszutragen’ (Lev 26.10). Denn was nützen noch Altertumskunde und alte (palaiw`n), abgedroschene Sitten denen, auf die unvermutet, ohne dass sie es erwartet hatten, viele neue Güter (ajqrova kai; neva ajgaqav) herabströmen?
In analoger Weise stellt Paulus in Gal 4.8–9 mithilfe des so genannten soteriologischen Kontrastschemas44 – tovte me;n oujk eijdovte~ qeovn [. . .], nu`n de; gnovnte~
Gebot der Nächstenliebe sei pa`~ novmo~ erfüllt – analog ist hinsichtlich des gegenseitigen Lastentragens in Gal 6.2 vom novmo~ tou` Cristou` die Rede –, und gemäß Gal 5.23 widerstrebt der karpo;~ tou` pneuvmato~ dem novmo~ gerade nicht, gibt also dem novmo~ keinen Anlass, die mit dem göttlichen pneu`ma Schritt Haltenden der Sünde zu überführen und der göttlichen Strafe zu überantworten. 43 Eigene Übersetzung. Zum Vergleich wurde die klassische, von L. Cohn u.a. herausgegebene Ausgabe Philo von Alexandria: Die Werke in deutscher Übersetzung, Bd. 5 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2. Aufl. 1962) herangezogen. 44 Vgl. dazu grundlegend P. Tachau, ‘Einst’ und ‘Jetzt’ im Neuen Testament. Beobachtungen zu einem urchristlichen Predigtschema in der neutestamentlichen Briefliteratur und zu seiner Vorgeschichte (FRLANT 105; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972).
Nochmals zu den ‘schwachen und unfähigen Elementen’ 233
qeovn – sowie einer anschließenden durch pw`~ eingeleiteten rhetorischen Frage die Absurdität einer Rückkehr (pavlin)45 zum Alten, eben zu den stoicei`a tou` kovsmou, heraus. Die strukturelle Analogie ist derart augenfällig, dass man fast zu der Annahme genötigt ist, Paulus greife in der Auseinandersetzung mit seinen judaisierenden Gegnern eine hellenistisch-jüdische Auslegung von Gen 15.15 auf, die derjenigen Philos zumindest ähnlich ist. Muss dies allerdings im Bereich der Spekulation verbleiben, verhilft der Vergleich von Gal 4.8–9 und Her. 277–9 in jedem Fall dazu, die Provokation der paulinischen Ausführungen pointiert herauszustellen. Die Auswanderung Abrahams aus Chaldäa und damit seine Bekehrung von der Verehrung des Kosmos als letzter Wirkursache alles Werdens hin zum einen wahren Schöpfer präfiguriert für Philo den mosaischen Nomos (vgl. Abr. 3–6), und Abraham wird auch als Prototyp der Proselyten, also solcher, die sich dem jüdischen Volk anschließen, herausgestellt (vgl. Virt. 219). Demgegenüber charakterisiert Paulus die Hinkehr zu einem ‘nomistischen’ Judentum für solche, die in der Evangeliumsverkündigung den in Christus den Sünder rechtfertigenden Gott als den wahren Gott erkannt haben, als Rückschritt, der ihrer vormaligen paganen Religiosität46 analog ist. Und die an Abraham ergangene Verheißung ist laut dem Apostel nicht im mosaischen Gesetz erfüllt, sondern dieses weist über sich selbst hinaus auf Christus bzw. den Glauben an ihn. Gal 4.3, 9 als Gleichsetzung jüdischer und paganer Religiosität zu verstehen, wäre indes eine Fehlinterpretation. Vielmehr weist Paulus dem jüdischen novmo~ eine wichtige, aber heilsgeschichtlich letztlich episodenhafte Funktion zu, welche ihren Telos in der Neuschöpfung durch den Glauben an Christus findet.47 Es lässt sich letztlich nur als Ironie der Theologiegeschichte beschreiben, dass Philo trotz seiner dem Alten Testament letztlich fremden Anthropologie eines Leib-Seele-Dualismus – oder gerade durch sie – die pädagogisch-soteriologische Funktion des mosaischen Gesetzes als identity marker – um eine bekanntlich von James Dunn geprägte Formulierung aufzunehmen – des Judentums beibehalten 45 S.o. (bei) Anm. 8. 46 Zur vormaligen paganen Religiosität der galatischen Christen als stoicei`a-Verehrung s.o. Anm. 39. 47 Bachmann, Sünder, 124 Anm. 127 weist auf einen weiteren gewichtigen Unterschied zwischen der paulinischen Darstellung jüdischer Frömmigkeit einerseits und paganer Religiosität andererseits hin: Nur in Bezug auf die vormals paganen Galater spreche Paulus von einem aktiven Dienen (Gal 4.8–9: ejdouleuvsate, douleuvein) gegenüber den stoicei`a, während hinsichtlich der Juden vom passiven uJpo; ta; stoicei`a tou` kovsmou dedoulwmevnoi (Gal 4.3), einem zeitlich begrenzten Zustand, in den Israel durch Gott versetzt worden ist, die Rede sei. Zudem fällt das Fehlen des novmo~-Begriffs in Gal 4.8–10 auf; der fälschlichen göttlichen Verehrung der stoicei`a durch die vorchristlichen Galater korrespondiert eben keine analoge göttliche Überhöhung des novmo~ auf jüdischer Seite (– wohl aber eine Verkennung seiner Funktion und Wirksamkeit).
234 johannes woyke kann. Andererseits vermag Paulus trotz oder gerade aufgrund seines Festhaltens an der alttestamentlichen Anthropologie des sündhaften Wesens der Menschen, das einer Neuschöpfung bedarf (vgl. Jer 13.23, 31.31–4, Ez 37.26), den durch Mose vermittelten novmo~ nicht mehr als identitätsstiftend für diejenigen anzusehen, die aus ihrer Idolatrie zur Erkenntnis des Gottes Abrahams und Israels als des in Jesus Christus rechtfertigend handelnden Gottes gekommen sind.48
48 Nochmals sei, um Missverständnisse auszuschließen, auf den novmo~ als bleibende Bezugsgröße innerhalb der paulinischen Ethik verwiesen (vgl. o. Anm. 42). S.a. Woyke, ‘Wahrheit’, (bei) Anm. 91.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 235–253. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0028688508000131
1 Tim 2.12 and the Use of oujdev to Combine Two Elements to Express a Single Idea P H I LI P B . PAYN E PO Box 580, Edmonds, WA 98020–0580, USA
Paul typically uses oujdev to convey a single idea, as do the two closest syntactical parallels to 1 Tim 2.12. In the overwhelming majority of Paul’s and the NT’s oujk ⴙ oujdev ⴙ ajllav syntactical constructions, oujdev joins two expressions to convey a single idea in sharp contrast to the following ajllav statement. Furthermore, the earliest known commentary on 1 Tim 2.12, Origen’s, treats it as a single prohibition. Accordingly, the most natural reading of 1 Tim 2.12 conveys, ‘I am not permitting a woman to teach and [in combination with this] to assume authority over a man’. Keywords: oujdev, 1 Tim 2.12, Hendiadys, Conjunction, Woman, aujqentei`n
Introduction
This study applies analysis of grammatical constructions using the conjunction oujdev to the theologically significant question of the meaning of the prohibition regarding women in 1 Tim 2.12. It demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of the uses of oujdev1 in the undisputed letters of Paul combine two elements to express a single idea.2 Using only the epistles that scholarly consensus assigns to Paul,3 hereafter called Paul’s accepted letters, this study establishes four categories of usage where oujdev connects two elements. Next it identifies the categories of Luke’s use of oujdev and compares these to Paul’s. Then it analyzes the four instances of oujdev in disputed Pauline letters, three in 1 Timothy. Since 1 Tim 2.12 is the only NT verse that might explicitly prohibit women from teaching or having authority over men, this study focuses on it, noting relevant parallels to it throughout. Key to its meaning are oujdev and aujqentei`n. Since lexical and contextual evidence favors the meaning BDAG gives for aujqentei`n, ‘to 1 Mhdev is not included here since Paul tends to use it differently, to list separate items. 2 Hendiadys combines two expressions to convey ‘one by means of two’, e]n dia; duoi`n, but this article avoids this useful term because of disputes over its definition. 3 As listed, for example, by K. J. Neumann, The Authenticity of the Pauline Epistles in the Light of Stylostatistical Analysis (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990) 130.
235
236 philip b. payne
assume a stance of independent authority’,4 this article translates aujqentei`n ‘to assume authority’. This study shows that the two closest syntactical parallels to 1 Tim 2.12 both join two elements to convey a single idea. It also shows that Paul’s and the NT’s overwhelmingly dominant use of the oujk ⫹ oujdev ⫹ ajllav syntactical construction is for the oujk ⫹ oujdev statements to convey a single idea that sharply contrasts with the following ajllav statement. It argues that this is the most natural way to interpret 1 Tim 2.12 within its context and identifies many instances where oujdev joins an infinitive with positive connotations to an infinitive with negative connotations. The accepted letters of Paul contain thirty-one occurrences of oujdev, thirty-two including the second oujdev in many early manuscripts of Gal 1.12. Eight of these oujdev are not coordinating conjunctions and so are not analogous to 1 Tim 2.12; seven express the idiom ‘not even’: 1 Cor 11.14; 14.21; 15.13, 16; Gal 2.3, 5; 6.13. Each of these and the eighth, Rom 4.15, introduce an idea that is meaningful by itself. This article argues that, excluding the ambiguous case of 1 Thess 2.3, seventeen of the twenty-one oujdev coordinating conjunctions in the accepted letters of Paul make best sense conveying a single idea. The four exceptions each convey naturally paired ideas that focus on the same verb.
A. The Use of oujdev in the Accepted Letters of Paul
Paul typically uses oujdev to join together expressions that reinforce or make more specific a single idea.5 Appropriately, BDF §445 calls oujdev a ‘correlative’ and a ‘connective’ indicating ‘correlation’ of members and contrasts its use with ‘independent continuation’. When ‘not’ (ouj or oujk) occurs in the first expression,
4 BDAG 150. Cf. the detailed analysis in P. B. Payne, Man & Woman: One in Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009). The first clear instance of aujqentevw meaning ‘exercise authority’ is ca. 370 ce, Saint Basil, The Letters #69, line 45, Roy J. Deferrari, trans., Saint Basil (LCL) 2:40–3. G. W. Knight III, ‘AÁQENTEW in Reference to Women in 1 Timothy 2.12’, NTS 30 (1984) 143–57, 154 correctly identifies BGU 1208 as the crux, but pp. 145, 150, and 155 n. 13 falsely attribute to J. R. Werner’s letter of March 18, 1980 the translation: ‘I exercised authority over him’. Werner made carbon copies of his letter to Knight for the I Timothy files of the Wycliffe Bible Translators Translation Department and for himself, and provided copies of it and later correspondence with Knight to the current author, who provided a copy of this letter to NTS. Werner convincingly argues that aujqentevw in BGU 1208 and in 1 Tim 2.12 means, ‘assume authority to oneself’. 5 Non-Pauline examples of oujdev joining two infinitives in order to convey a single idea include LXX Isa 42.24b; Polybius Hist. 30.5.8.4–6; 30.24.2.3–4; 31.12.5–6; Diodorus Siculus Bibl. hist. 3.37.9.1–4; Josephus Ant. 6.20.3–5; 7.127.1–3; Plutarch De defectu oraculorum 426.B.1; De tranquillitate animi 474.A.12; 475.D.3. A. J. Köstenberger, ‘A Complex Sentence: The Syntax of 1 Timothy 2:12’, Women in the Church: An Analysis and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9–12 (ed. A. J. Köstenberger and T. R. Schreiner; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005) 53–84, 63–71 cites these.
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this negation encompasses the entire single idea. The ouj in oujdev underscores the continuing negation. Paul’s use of oujdev as a coordinating conjunction fits into four categories: 1. oujdev joining two equivalent or synonymous expressions to convey a single idea, 2. oujdev joining naturally paired expressions to convey a single idea, 3. oujdev joining conceptually different expressions to convey a single idea, and 4. oujdev joining naturally paired ideas focusing on the same verb. 1. Oujdev Joins Equivalent Expressions to Convey a Single Idea In seven instances (eight including the textual variant in Gal 1.12), oujdev joins two expressions that are equivalent in meaning. In each of these cases oujdev joins expressions to convey a single idea. This article italicizes all English translations of oujdev. 1) Rom 2.28: ‘For the true Jew is not the man who is outwardly a Jew, and true circumcision is not that which is outward and bodily’ (Weymouth; cf. Goodspeed, Williams,6 also translating oujdev ‘and . . . not’). The equivalence in meaning is clearly conveyed by the TEV: ‘After all, who is a real Jew, truly circumcised? Not the man who is a Jew on the outside, whose circumcision is a physical thing’. 2) Rom 9.6–7: ‘For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants . . .’ (NRSV, RSV). 3) 1 Cor 15.50: ‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God: and the perishable cannot inherit what lasts for ever’ (JB; cf. Goodspeed, NAB, TEV). 4) Gal 1.1: ‘Paul an apostle – not from men nor through man, . . .’ (RSV). The equivalence in meaning is conveyed by PHILLIPS: ‘Paul, who am appointed and commissioned a messenger not by man but by Jesus Christ . . .’ 5) Gal 1.12: ‘the gospel I preached is not of human origin. (oujdev) I did not receive it from any human source’ (TNIV; cf. JB). Ou[te (oujdev in a A D*.c F G P Y 0278. 33. 81. 104. 365. 1175. 1241S. 1739. 1881. 2464 al) emphasizes this with a third equivalent expression, ‘nor was I taught it’ (NRSV, TNIV, NIV). 6) Gal 4.14: ‘what must have tried you in my physical condition, you did not scorn and despise, but you welcomed me like an angel of God’ (Goodspeed). 7) Phil 2.16: ‘I had not run in the race and exhausted myself for nothing’ (JB; cf. Goodspeed, TEV).
6 R. F. Weymouth, The New Testament in Modern Speech: An Idiomatic Translation into Everyday English from the Text of the Resultant Greek Testament (5th ed.; London: James Clarke, 1943); E. J. Goodspeed, An American Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1939); C. B. Williams, The New Testament: A Translation in the Language of the People (Chicago: Moody, 1937). These will be cited by author’s surname.
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In all seven (or eight), oujdev joins two expressions having equivalent meanings. The second expression in each case reinforces the single idea and introduces no separate idea. 2. Oujdev Joins Naturally Paired Expressions to Convey a Single Idea In four instances, oujdev constructions convey a single idea by joining naturally paired expressions, couplets that by their very nature are closely associated with each other: 1) Rom 11.21: ‘For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you [engrafted branches] either’ (NIV). Verse 24 confirms the ‘how much more’ logic of this single, internally cohering idea. 2, 3) Gal 3.28: ‘There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and (kaiv) female . . .’ (NEB; cf. Fenton,7 Goodspeed, JB, TEV, Way,8 Weymouth, also translating oujdev ‘and’). Here oujdev parallels kaiv (‘and’), and in the same couplets in Col 3.11 and Rom 10.12, kaiv replaces oujdev. These must not be separate statements, ‘there is no Jew in Christ’ and ‘there is no Greek in Christ’, since both statements are obviously false. The context of discrimination against Greeks (Gal 2.11–3.14; 3.23–25) confirms that Paul means: ‘there is no Jew–Greek dichotomy in Christ’. The antagonistic barrier represented by each pair is overcome in Christ. Each pair functions together to convey a single idea. Paul’s meaning is: there is no ‘Jew–Greek’ dichotomy in Christ, no ‘slave–free’ dichotomy in Christ, and no ‘male–female’ dichotomy in Christ. 4) 1 Thess 5.5: ‘We have nothing to do with night and darkness’ (Beck9; cf. LB). Oujdev joins night with darkness to specify the single, internally cohering idea of night viewed as darkness, a metaphor for evil as separation from the light of God. In all four, oujdev joins naturally paired expressions to convey a single idea. In each case, the second expression specifies the meaning and is essential to convey the single idea. 3. Oujdev Joins Conceptually Different Expressions to Convey a Single Idea In six passages in the accepted letters of Paul, oujdev joins conceptually different expressions to convey a single idea. Each passage makes better sense in its context if it conveys one idea rather than two. 1) Rom 3.10: ‘There is no one who is righteous, not even one’ (NRSV, NIV). ‘Not even one’ gives an emphatic clarification that ‘no one’ is without exception. The two elements are intrinsically intertwined; they are not two separate ideas. 7 F. Fenton, The Holy Bible in Modern English: Translated into English Direct from the Original Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek (New York: Oxford University, 1903). 8 A. S. Way, The Letters of St. Paul (London: MacMillan, 1935). 9 W. F. Beck, The New Testament in the Language of Today (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia, 1963).
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2) Rom 9.16: ‘It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire and effort, but on God’s mercy’. Grammatically this could convey two separate ideas, namely that mercy does not depend on desire, nor does it depend on effort. The context, however, shows that Paul objects to mercy being dependent on the combination of desire and effort, continuing the concern of v. 12, ‘not by works’ (cf. v. 11). ‘Desire and effort’ in v. 16 conceptually parallels ‘pursued by works’ in vv. 31–32: ‘the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works’ (TNIV). Since Paul affirms ‘pursuit by faith’ but opposes ‘pursuit by works’, he must not oppose desire for righteousness itself, but rather, desire for righteousness achieved by works. Therefore, the single idea ‘desire combined with effort’ in 9.16 fits the context better than ‘desire or effort’ understood as two separate ideas. 3) 1 Cor 2.6: ‘wisdom not of this age, and specifically not of the rulers of this age’ (cf. JB). Paul’s use of ‘wisdom’ and ‘the wise’ interchangeably (1.19–20; 3.19–20) and 2.8’s continuing focus on the misunderstanding of ‘the rulers of this age’ (tw`n ajrcovntwn tou` aijw`no~ touvtou, repeated exactly from 2.6) support understanding 2.6’s oujdev construction as focusing specifically on the rulers of this age. 4) 1 Cor 5.1: ‘there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even (h{ti~ oujdev) among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife’ (NRSV). The relative pronominal adjective h{ti~ (‘which’) makes it explicit that oujdev introduces a qualifying description. MS 2147 omits h{ti~,10 showing that, with or without h{ti~, oujdev introduces this qualifying description. The text following oujdev narrows down what sort of illicit sex Paul has in mind, just as the text following oujdev in 1 Tim 2.12 may narrow down what sort of teaching is prohibited, ‘teaching combined with assuming authority over a man’. 5) 1 Cor 11.16: ‘We and the churches of God’ (PHILLIPS; cf. LB) ‘have no such custom’ (ASV, KJV). Paul’s consistent identification with the churches elsewhere supports this understanding, e.g. 1 Cor 4.17; 7.17. Nowhere else does Paul categorize himself as separate from the churches, which would be required if oujdev separates ‘we’ from ‘the churches of God’. The two elements joined by oujdev (we . . . the churches of God), as in 1 Tim 2.12 (to teach . . . to assume authority over a man), are at opposite ends of their clause separated in the same order by: 1. the complement of the main verb (toiauvthn sunhvqeian/gunaikiv), 2. oujk, 3. the main verb (e[comen/ejpitrevpw), and 4. oujdev. In both cases, the main verb (have/permit) is first person, present, active, indicative. These structural parallels support interpreting oujdev in 1 Tim 2.12 similarly, to join together a single idea.
10 R. J. Swanson, New Testament Greek Manuscripts: 1 Corinthians (Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale, 2003) 58 also notes that MSS 6 104 460 1241S 1243 1874* 1891* omit ‘and of a kind’ (kai; toiauvh). This shows that even without kai; toiauvth, oujdev still introduces this qualifying description.
240 philip b. payne 6) Gal 1.16–17: ‘without consulting any human being, without going up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me, I went off at once to Arabia . . .’ (NEB; cf. NIV). Paul’s testimony described in Acts 22.12–16 affirms Ananias’s consultation with Paul specifically regarding Paul’s mission. Furthermore, according to Acts 9.15–19 (cf. Acts 26.12–20), Paul met with Ananias and the disciples in Damascus for several days after his divine commission to the Gentiles. This testimony from Paul’s ‘fellow worker’ (Phlm 24), who was surely familiar with the most formative event in Paul’s life, affirms that Paul did consult at least with Ananias. If Gal 1.16 denies any human consultation, it contradicts Luke’s record of Paul’s consultation with Ananias and other disciples in Damascus. There is no contradiction, however, if oujdev combines elements to specify a particular meaning. This and Paul’s typical use of oujdev support its specifying function here, too. In every case in this third category, oujdev conjoins conceptually different expressions to convey a single idea. In each case, adding the second expression specifies the meaning: case 1 intensifies, cases 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 combine elements to focus on a particular meaning. Similarly, each case in the second category (joining naturally paired expressions to convey a single idea) also specifies the meaning. Thus, within Paul’s dominant use of oujdev to convey a single idea, his most common use of oujdev is to specify meaning.11 The fundamental function of oujdev in these cases is not to subordinate one expression to another, but simply to merge them together to convey a single more specific idea. In each case, the context and the expressions conjoined adequately elucidate the nature of their interrelationship. 4. Oujdev Joins Naturally Paired Ideas Focusing on the Same Verb Four occurrences of oujdev in Paul’s accepted letters join naturally paired but clearly-distinguishable ideas focusing on the same verb: 1) Rom 8.7: ‘the flesh . . . does not submit to God’s Law – indeed it cannot’ (NRSV). 2) 1 Cor 3.2: ‘I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready’ (NIV). 3) 1 Cor 4.3: ‘I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself’ (NIV; cf. NRSV). 4) 2 Cor 7.12: ‘So although I wrote to you, it was not on account of the one who did the wrong nor on account of the one who was wronged, but in order that your zeal for us might be made known to you before God’ (NRSV).
11 Ten out of seventeen occurrences in the accepted letters of Paul specify meaning. In Titus 2.13 also, hendiadys specifies meaning: ‘our blessed hope, (kaiv) the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ’ RSV; cf. NIV, BDF §442 (16).
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In all four cases, oujdev joins statements that together form a natural pair focusing on the same verb: does not submit/cannot submit,12 you were not yet ready/you are still not ready, judged by you/judge myself, and the one who did wrong/the one who was wronged. None of these parallels 1 Tim 2.12, since ‘to teach’ and ‘to assume authority’ are unrelated verbs and are not a natural pair. 1 Thess 2.3, the one remaining verse containing oujdev in the accepted letters of Paul, is hard to classify: ‘For our appeal does not spring from deceit, or impure motives, or trickery’ (NRSV). Both the first (plavnh) and third (dovlo~) nouns oujdev joins commonly mean ‘deceit’ (BDAG 822, 256), which fits this context perfectly. The second (ajkaqarsiva) identifies impure motives (BDAG 34), so each points to impure intent. It is ambiguous whether they are closely interrelated, equivalent expressions (category 1), conceptually different expressions that convey a single, internally-cohering idea (category 3), or three distinct ideas. Conclusions: oujdev in the Accepted Letters of Paul Paul’s overwhelmingly dominant use of oujdev to combine two elements is to express a single idea.13 Paul’s seventeen uses of oujdev to conjoin expressions that together convey a single idea fit into three categories: 1. seven join equivalent or synonymous expressions, 2. four join naturally paired expressions, and 3. six join conceptually different expressions. Paul uses oujdev unambiguously to convey separate ideas in only four cases, and in each case oujdev joins a natural pair focusing on the same verb. Strikingly, there is not a single unambiguous case where Paul joins two conceptually distinct verbs with oujdev to convey two separate ideas.
B. Paul’s and Luke’s Use of oujdev Contrasted
The occurrences of oujdev in Luke–Acts exhibit a significantly different pattern of uses than those in the accepted letters of Paul. Eight of Paul’s thirty-one uses of oujdev are not coordinating conjunctions but introduce an idea that is meaningful in itself. A higher proportion (14 of 38) of Luke’s uses of oujdev are not coordinating conjunctions. Roughly three-fourths (17 or 1914) of Paul’s 23 uses of oujdev to conjoin two elements express a single idea. In contrast, roughly half 12 Although not explicit, the context supplies ‘submit’, which is the necessary complement of ‘cannot’, as BDAG 262 confirms. 13 Paul’s use of oujdev parallels in many respects the English oral idiom ’n, as in ‘hit ’n run’, ‘eat ’n run’, ‘night ’n day’ and ‘black ’n white’. Both typically convey a single idea. 14 Including two ambiguous uses in 1 Thess 2.3.
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(10 of 19) of Luke’s uses of oujdev to conjoin two elements express a single idea, and in all but three of these, oujdev conjoins equivalent expressions. Paul’s accepted letters contain six instances where oujdev joins two conceptually distinct expressions that are not a natural pair to convey one idea, but Luke–Acts contains only one. Paul uses oujdev four times to focus on the same verb; Luke never does this. There is not even one unambiguous case where Paul uses oujdev to join conceptually distinct concepts to convey two separate ideas, but Luke uses oujdev nine times to do this.15 The following table itemizes these differences. Categories of oujdev in the Accepted Letters of Paul and in Luke–Acts joining separate expressions together
not joining
to express one idea joining:
to express two ideas that:
equivalents natural pairs two16 focus on the are separate total same verb Paul 8
7
4
6
4
0
3117
Luke 1418
719
220
121
0
922
33
C. The Use of oujdev in the Disputed Letters of Paul
Each of the four instances of oujdev in the disputed Pauline epistles fits one of the patterns identified above in the accepted letters of Paul. Three of these make best sense understood as joining conceptually different expressions to convey a single idea. The first is 2 Thess 3.7–8: ‘we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you’ (NRSV). At first glance this may appear to be a denial of two separate issues, idleness and eating free food. The conclusion of the sentence, however, that Paul and his com15 Luke 12.27, 33; 18.4; 23.15; Acts 9.9; 16.21; 17.25; 24.13, 18. 16 Cases where oujdev joins two conceptually different expressions together to convey a single idea. 17 The two ambiguous instances in 1 Thess 2.3 are in the total but not assigned to a category. 18 Luke 6.3; 7.7, 9; 12.26, 27b; 16.31; 18.13; 20.8, 36; 23.40; Acts 4.12, 32, 34; 19.2. 19 Luke 6.44; 8.17; 11.33; 12.24b; 17.21; Acts 2.27; 8.21. 20 Luke 6.43; 12.24a. 21 Acts 7.5. 22 Luke 12.27 work/spin, 12.33 thief comes near/moth destroys, 18.4 fear God/care about men, 23.15 I (Pilate)/Herod, Acts 9.9 ate/drank, 16.21 accept/do, 17.25 does not live in hand-made temples/is not served by human hands, 24.13 they did not find me arguing or stirring up a crowd/they cannot prove these charges, 24.18 crowd/disturbance.
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panions worked hard for their food, clearly stands in opposition to the combination of both elements joined by oujdev. This idea is reiterated in vv. 10–12, which explicitly prohibits freeloading, the combination of idleness and taking free meals from others. To eat food given as a gift (dwreavn) has positive connotations unless it is joined with the negative idea of idleness. Cultural convention supports that Paul would have shared meals without financially reimbursing each host. Furthermore, 1 Cor 9.3–14 argues that Paul should have this right; Phil 4.16–19 praises the Philippians for sending him aid; Rom 12.13 commands hospitality; and 1 Cor 10.27 commands acceptance of hospitality. Thus, the interpretation that Paul never accepted free meals stands in tension with the explication of vv. 7–8a in 8b–12, with cultural conventions, and with Paul’s teachings. All this supports interpreting oujdev in 2 Thess 3.7–8 as merging two concepts, one negative and one positive, to specify the single idea, freeloading. The second is 1 Tim 2.12. The next section of this article argues that its oujdev makes best sense in context conjoining two concepts to specify a single prohibition: the combination of a woman teaching and assuming authority over a man. The third is 1 Tim 6.16: ‘whom no man has seen and no man is able to see . . .’ (JB). Every line of this poem praises God’s nature: his authority, lordship, immortality, light-filled life, and invisibility. ‘No man has seen God’, however, conveys only human experience, not God’s nature, unless oujdev joins it to ‘no man is able to see’ to specify God’s invisibility. 1 Tim 1.17 supports this specific sense by affirming that God is invisible (ajovrato~). In both 1 Tim 2.12 and 6.16, oujdev immediately precedes an infinitive, and in both verses the verbs oujdev joins are about as far removed from each other in their clauses as possible. Thus, the distance between the two infinitives in 1 Tim 2.12 does not militate against its oujdev joining together a single, internally cohering idea. Each of these three, like the six instances of category 3 of oujdev usage in the accepted letters of Paul, makes best sense understood as conjoining two elements to express a single, more specific idea. The one remaining occurrence of oujdev in a disputed letter in the Pauline corpus is 1 Tim 6.7: ‘we have brought nothing into (eijsfevrw) the world, and we can bring nothing out (ejkfevrw) of it’. This highlights two derivatives of the same verb, fevrw (‘bring’), that form a natural pair: ‘bring in’ and ‘bring out’. Like the four instances of category 4 of oujdev usage in the accepted letters of Paul, its conjoined elements focus on the same verb and express a natural pair. Thus, each instance of oujdev in the disputed Pauline epistles fits one of the distinctive categories in Paul’s accepted letters, a category that occurs only once (category 3) or is absent (category 4) in Luke–Acts. Furthermore, each is either attributed in the first person to Paul (1 Tim 2.12: ‘I am not permitting23 a woman to 23 The present tense of this verb fits a current prohibition better than a permanent one.
244 philip b. payne teach . . .’ and 2 Thess 3.7–8: ‘we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it’) or is a memorable aphorism (1 Tim 6.16: ‘[God,] whom no one has seen or can see’ and 1 Tim 6.7: ‘we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it’).24 This fits the amanuensis hypothesis. Alternatively, if a pseudepigrapher wrote 1 Timothy, that person apparently borrowed vocabulary extensively from Paul’s letters. In order to account for so much distinctively Pauline word usage, either hypothesis should appreciate the value of considering Paul’s use of oujdev in evaluating its use in 1 Tim 2.12. D. 1 Timothy 2.12
Because 1 Tim 2.12 is often assumed to prohibit women both from teaching and having authority over men, it is widely regarded as the prime example of a statement in the Pastorals that is incompatible with authorship by Paul. As shown above, however, Paul typically uses oujdev not to convey two separate ideas, but to join two expressions together in order to convey a single idea. Consequently, to interpret oujdev in 1 Tim 2.12 as separating two different prohibitions for women, one against teaching and the other against having authority over a man, does not conform to Paul’s typical use of oujdev. Nor does it fit any of Paul’s categories of oujdev usage established above. The correspondence of each of the other occurrences of oujdev in 1 Timothy to one of the categories of Paul’s oujdev usage and the amount of distinctive Pauline vocabulary in the Pastoral Epistles favor an interpretation of 1 Tim 2.12 in harmony with Paul’s typical use of oujdev, namely to convey a single idea. The closest parallels to 1 Tim 2.12’s distinctive oujdev syntactical structure both convey a single idea, not two separate ideas. Of the passages in Köstenberger’s IBYCUS search of ancient Greek literature, only one other passage perfectly replicates 1 Tim 2.12’s syntactical structure: (1) a negated finite verb ⫹ (2) infinitive ⫹ (3) oujdev ⫹ (4) infinitive ⫹ (5) ajllav ⫹ (6) infinitive.25 This passage, Polybius Hist. 30.5.8, states, ‘As they wished none of the kings and princes to despair of gaining their help and alliance, (1) they did not desire (2) to run in harness with Rome (3) and (4) engage themselves by oaths and treaties, (5) but preferred to remain unembarrassed and able (6) to reap profit from any quarter’.26 The content after 24 These are the very kinds of statements that even a secretary with considerable freedom would be most likely to reproduce in Paul’s wording. The amanuensis thesis helps explain both the significant differences and the extensive similarities in expression between Paul’s accepted letters and the Pastoral Epistles. According to I. H. Marshall, ‘Review of Luke and the Pastoral Epistles, by Stephen G. Wilson’, JSNT 10 (1981) 69–74, 72, there are 55 words that occur in the NT only in the Pastorals and the other ten epistles in Paul’s name, and the Pastorals share 574 words with these ten letters. 25 Köstenberger, ‘A Complex Sentence’, 55, 63–71. 26 All classical translations are from the LCL.
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oujdev clarifies that ‘to run in harness’ is to ‘engage themselves by oaths and treaties [to Rome]’. Together these express the one idea of alliance with Rome. This one idea stands in contrast to the statement following ajllav, which affirms their openness to other alliances. This parallels the statement preceding the oujdev construction, which also affirms other alliances. Thus, an inclusio of parallel bracketing statements surround this oujdev construction. Similarly, in 1 Tim 2.12, the statement introduced by ajllav, ‘but to be in quietness (ejn hJsuciva)/ ’, parallels and reiterates the statement immediately preceding its oujdev construction, ‘Let women learn in quietness (ejn hJsuciva)/ in all subjection’. Just as in the Polybius example, this inclusio construction brackets the two infinitives joined by oujdev. Thus, Polybius’s syntax is completely parallel to 1 Tim 2.11–12’s, including the inclusio ⫹ (1) negated finite verb ⫹ (2) infinitive ⫹ (3) oujdev ⫹ (4) infinitive ⫹ (5) ajllav ⫹ (6) infinitive reiterating the inclusio. Since the two infinitives joined by the oujdev in Polybius convey a single idea, this closest structural parallel to 1 Tim 2.12 favors interpreting its oujdev construction as conveying a single idea, too. The next closest parallel to 1 Tim 2.12’s six-part structure also uses oujdev to join two infinitives to convey a single idea that stands in opposition to the statement introduced by ajllav. This passage is Josephus Ant. 7.127, ‘This defeat (1) did not persuade the Ammanites (2) to remain quiet (3) or (4) to keep the peace in the knowledge that their enemy was superior. (5) Instead they (6) sent [a participle, not an infinitive] to Chalamas . . .’ ‘To keep the peace in the knowledge that their enemy was superior’ reiterates ‘to remain quiet’. It is not a separate idea. It contrasts with: ‘Instead they sent to Chalamas’. Thus, both close structural parallels to 1 Tim 2.12 support interpreting its oujdev construction as communicating a single idea. The oujk ⫹ oujdev ⫹ ajllav syntactical construction contrasts the content of both the oujk statement and the oujdev statement to the following ajllav statement. The central core of this complex construction is a contrast between two ideas: ‘not this, but that’ (oujk . . . , ajllav . . . ). In nine27 of the instances analyzed above, Paul uses oujdev to combine two elements in order to specify a single idea, then uses ajllav to introduce an idea in sharp contrast to this single idea: Rom 2.28–29; 9.6–7, 16; 1 Cor 2.6–7; Gal 1.1, 11–12, 16–17; 4.14; Phil 2.16–17. There is only one clear instance in Paul’s letters where an oujdev construction conveys two separate ideas that contrast with the following ajllav statement, 2 Cor 7.12. Yet even its two ideas form a single natural pair that united together contrasts with the ajllav clause: ‘I wrote not for the sake of the one who did the wrong or the one wronged but to manifest your zeal . . .’ 27 Eleven if 1 Thess 2.3–4 is included, but even if it conveys two or three ideas, they are closely interrelated and stand together, not as independent ideas, in direct contrast to the immediately following ajllav statement. See above, p. 241.
246 philip b. payne There is only one28 occurrence in the entire rest of the NT outside the Pauline letters of this oujk ⫹ oujdev ⫹ ajllav construction, John 1.13. Here, oujk ⫹ oujdev ⫹ oujdev join three elements that all express human birth, and ajllav contrasts all of these virtually equivalent expressions to divine spiritual birth. In light of its rareness elsewhere in the NT, it is striking that this characteristically Pauline oujk ⫹ oujdev ⫹ ajllav syntactical construction occurs twice in letters whose Pauline authorship is disputed: 2 Thess 3.7–8 and 1 Tim 2.12. The statements joined by oujdev in both these passages make best sense understood as together conveying a single idea. The contrasting ‘but’ increases the probability that the oujk ⫹ oujdev portion of the construction conveys a single idea, since ‘not this, but that’ most naturally applies to two contrasting ideas. To summarize, both Paul’s and the NT’s overwhelmingly dominant use in oujk ⫹ oujdev ⫹ ajllav syntactical constructions, for the oujk ⫹ oujdev statements to convey a single idea that sharply contrasts with the following ajllav statement, supports this same understanding of 1 Tim 2.12. In what Baldwin says ‘may be the earliest commentary on 1 Tim 2:12’,29 Origen explains this oujdev construction as a single prohibition. After quoting 2.12, Origen describes it as ‘concerning woman not becoming a ruler over man in speaking’ (peri; tou` mh; th;n gunai`ka hJgemovna givnesqai tw`/ lovgw/ tou` ajndrov~).30 This expresses ‘to teach’ and ‘to assume authority over a man’ as a single prohibition. Origen’s use of ‘to become’ (givnesqai) implies entry into a position of authority over man. This may suggest a woman assuming this authority for herself, especially since Origen in this context affirms Priscilla, Maximilla, the four daughters of Philip, Deborah, Miriam, Hulda, and Anna. Blomberg interprets the oujdev construction in v. 12 in light of ‘Paul’s more informal pattern throughout 1 Timothy 2 of using pairs of partly synonymous words or expressions to make his main points’,31 citing vv. 1, 2a, 2b, 3, 4, 5, 7a, 7b, 8, 9a, and 9b. He concludes ‘that in every instance they are closely related and together help to define one single concept. This makes it overwhelmingly likely that in 1 Tim 2:12 Paul is referring to one specific kind of . . . teaching rather than two . . . activities’.32 28 Luke 11.33 uses oujdeiv~ instead of oujk, and its oujdev phrase is a textual variant. In Matt 5.14–15 and 9.16–17 (which also uses oujdeiv~ instead of oujk) the ajllav statement does not respond to the oujk statement, only to the oujdev statement. 29 H. S. Baldwin, ‘An Important Word: Aujqentevw in 1 Timothy 2:12’, Women in the Church (ed. Köstenberger and Schreiner) 39–51, 199 n. 30. 30 C. Jenkins, ‘Documents: Origen on 1 Corinthians. IV’, JTS 10 (1909) 29–51, 42. 31 C. L. Blomberg, ‘Neither Hierarchicalist nor Egalitarian: Gender Roles in Paul’, Two Views on Women in Ministry (ed. J. R. Beck and C. L. Blomberg; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001) 329–72, 363. 32 Blomberg, ‘Hierarchicalist’, 364, omitting ‘independent’ before ‘activities’ to avoid excluding legitimate conceptual overlap.
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Interpreting 1 Tim 2.12 as a single prohibition of women teaching combined with assuming authority over men fits its context perfectly. This prohibition fits the central concern of 1 Timothy, false teaching. Teaching combined with assuming authority is by definition not authorized. This is exactly what false teachers were doing in Ephesus. This single prohibition is particularly appropriate to the theme of this chapter, peace without self-assertiveness. Calls to quietness bracket this prohibition and counteract the aggressiveness inherent in women assuming authority for themselves over men. The immediately following two-fold explanation fits this interpretation well. 1 Tim 2.13’s ‘Adam was formed first, then Eve’ implies that woman should respect man as her source, just as the parallels in 1 Cor 11.8 and 12 do. Assuming authority for themselves over men disrespects men. Furthermore, 1 Tim 2.14 specifically states that Eve was deceived. Eve’s deception is relevant only if women’s deception is a reason for the prohibition of v. 12. The false teaching described in 1 Tim 4.7 as ‘old wives’ tales’ (NRSV) deceived women in particular (cf. 2 Tim 3.6–7). Mounce states that the text ‘explicitly pictures only women as being influenced by the heresy’.33 Some widows were ‘going about from house to house [house churches? and] . . . talk nonsense [fluvaroi ⫽ rubbish philosophy,34 characteristic of the false teachers35], saying things they ought not . . . Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan’ (1 Tim 5.13–15 TNIV). To prevent further deception and the potential fall of the church, 1 Tim 2.11–12 addresses both the reception and the teaching of the error. To prevent the reception of false teaching by more ‘Eves in Ephesus’, 1 Tim 2.11 commands women to learn in quietness36 and full submission. This submission applies most naturally to its closest referent, what they are ‘to learn’, namely submission to authorized church doctrine. Healthy doctrine will inoculate or cure these women from false teachings. 1 Tim 1.3 states that Paul had earlier instructed Timothy to command the instigators ‘not to teach any false doctrine’. Now, to prevent the group 1 Timothy specifically identifies as influenced by the false teaching from advocating it to the assembled church, 1 Tim 2.12 prohibits women from teaching combined with assuming authority for themselves over a man. The specification ‘man’ prohibits women from seizing authority to teach men since the greatest risk of women spreading the false teaching and causing con33 W. D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles (WBC; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2000) 120, though its instigators were men: 1 Tim 1.20; 2 Tim 2.17; 4.14. 34 Cf. G. D. Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus (GNC; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984) 83. 35 Cf. 1.4–7; 6.20; 2 Tim 2.23. 36 1 Cor 14.34–5 is weak support for the meaning ‘silence’ since 1 Cor 14.34–5 uses a different word and may well be an interpolation; cf. E. J. Epp, Junia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006) 15–20; P. B. Payne and P. Canart, ‘The Originality of Text-Critical Symbols in Codex Vaticanus’, NovT 42 (2000) 105–13.
248 philip b. payne tention was in the assembled church where men were present. The specification ‘man’ is essential, since without this limitation, 1 Tim 2.12 would also prohibit women from assuming authority to teach other women or children, contrary to Titus 2.3–5, 2 Tim 1.5, and 3.14–17. The specification ‘man’ also has the practical advantage that it avoids ambiguity. It is obvious when a man is present, but if 1 Tim 2.12 had read not ‘man’, but ‘in the assemblies’, there might be disagreement as to which assemblies should exclude women assuming authority to teach. The specification ‘man’ focuses on the primary threat of unauthorized women teaching when a man is present, without in any way undermining women’s freedom to assume authority to teach other women and children.37 If Tim 2.12’s oujdev construction is a single specific prohibition of women assuming authority to teach men, it does not contradict Paul’s statements that approve women teaching. 1 Cor 14.26 affirms, ‘each one [e[kasto~ encompasses men and women] has a psalm, a teaching (didachv), a revelation . . .’ Col 3.16 commands, ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you [plural, addressing the whole church, including women] teach (didavskw) and counsel one another with all wisdom . . .’ 1 Cor 11.5–13; 14.5, 24, 31, and 39 (cf. Acts 21.9) affirm women prophesying, which often entails teaching. Affirmations of women teaching are particularly prominent in the Pastoral Epistles. 1 Tim 3.1–2 affirms, ‘whoever [ti~ encompasses men and women] desires the office of overseer desires a good thing . . . [overseers must be38] able to teach (didaktikov~) . . .’. 2 Tim 1.5 and 3.14–17 state that Timothy learned the Holy Scriptures, ‘which are useful for teaching (didaskaliva)’, from his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. 2 Tim 2.2 commands Timothy to ‘entrust [Paul’s message] to faithful persons (a[nqrwpoi encompasses men and women), who will be able to teach (didavxai) others also’. Titus 2.3 commands Titus to teach older women to be ‘teachers of what is excellent (kalodidaskavlou~, a word the author apparently coined specifically for women)’.39 Thus, interpreting 1 Tim 2.12a as an unqualified prohibition of women teaching makes it prohibit what the Pastoral
37 ‘Man’ contrasts both with ‘woman’ and ‘child/boy’, e.g. 1 Cor 13.11; Eph 4.13; BDAG 79. 38 ‘One woman man’ clearly excludes polygamists and probably adulterers. It must be an exclusion only, not a requirement that all overseers be married, since that would exclude unmarried men like Paul (1 Cor 7.8). It is unwarranted to extract the single word ‘man’ from what is clearly an exclusion and turn it into a positive requirement that all overseers must be male. Similarly, ‘having children in subjection’ must be an exclusion only, not a requirement that overseers have at least two children. Unlike most translations (the CEV is an exception), neither list of qualifications for overseers, deacons, or elders (1 Tim 3.1–13 and Titus 1.5–9) contains a single masculine pronoun. 39 The following, ‘Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children . . .’ lists one of the groups (younger women) they are to teach and some of the things they are to teach, but neither is exhaustive, as 2 Tim 1.5 and 3.14–17 show.
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Epistles repeatedly affirm. Interpreting this oujdev construction to convey the single idea of women assuming authority to teach men, however, perfectly fits the theological context of the Pastoral Epistles and the Pauline corpus. 1 Tim 2.12’s ‘but to be in quietness’ further supports that ‘to teach and to assume authority over a man’ refers to a single idea. V. 11 describes ‘to be in quietness’ as ‘to be in full submission’, the opposite of assuming authority for oneself. It is possible, even desirable, to teach ‘in quietness’, but it is not possible for a woman ‘in quietness’ to teach while seizing authority over a man. Therefore, ‘to teach’, understood as a separate idea, does not contrast with ‘but to be in quietness’ nearly as well as does the single idea, ‘to teach and assume authority over a man’. Is ‘a Man’ the Object of a Separate Prohibition of Women Teaching? Some attempt to reconcile 1 Tim 2.12 with women teaching other women by proposing that oujdev in 1 Tim 2.12 separates two conceptually different prohibitions and that the first prohibition is not of women teaching, but rather of women teaching men. They assert that the final word of the second prohibition, ‘man’, in isolation from the phrase in which it occurs, limits the first prohibition. Moo argues for this since ‘in Greek, objects and qualifiers of words which occur only with the second in a series must often be taken with the first also (cf. Acts 8:21)’.40 Acts 8.21, however, uses oujdev to join synonyms to make one point, not two: ‘You have no part or (oujdev) share in this ministry’ (NIV). Acts 8.21 does not transfer only the qualifier but merges the two elements to convey one idea. Moo, however, alleges that 1 Tim 2.12 expresses two separate prohibitions. This removes the syntactical justification for requiring that their verbs have the same object. If Acts 8.21’s use of oujdev to join two elements to express one idea parallels 1 Tim 2.12, then 1 Tim 2.12 also joins two elements to express one idea. Thus, Acts 8.21 supports understanding 1 Tim 2.12’s oujdev construction as single prohibition. Unless 1 Tim 2.12 is the one exception, none of Paul’s oujdev constructions selectively transfers only a qualifier from the second element to the first. Whenever Paul does use text following oujdev to qualify the element before oujdev, the entire construction expresses this by combining the two elements to express one idea. Furthermore, Acts 8.21 and 1 Tim 2.12 differ in five ways that highlight crucial evidence against interpreting ‘man’ in isolation from the rest of its phrase as the object of ‘to teach’: 1. ‘You have no part’ in Acts 8.21 requires the additional ‘in this ministry’ to make sense. ‘I am not permitting a woman to teach’ in 1 Tim 2.12, however, makes sense without any addition and, indeed, corresponds with conventional wisdom at that time. So a typical reader would feel no need to look for a personal object for 40 D. J. Moo, ‘The Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:11–15: A Rejoinder’, Trinity Journal 2 198–222, 202.
NS
(1981)
250 philip b. payne ‘to teach’.41 Furthermore, nowhere else in 1 Timothy does ‘to teach’ (4.11; 6.2) or ‘to teach a different doctrine’ (6.3) have a personal object. Consequently, neither cultural convention nor the use of ‘to teach’ elsewhere in 1 Timothy supports importing ‘man’ in isolation as its personal object here. 2. It is only because ‘part’ and ‘share’ in Acts 8.21 are synonyms that the object of ‘share’ must also apply to ‘part’. Since the infinitives in 1 Tim 2.12 are not synonyms, there is no need for them to share the same object, unless they together convey one idea. 3. In Acts 8.21 the qualifier, ‘in this ministry’, is as close as possible to both synonyms, ‘part or share in this ministry’, but the Greek word order of 1 Tim 2.12 separates ‘to teach’ and ‘man’ to the maximum: ‘To teach, however, by a woman I am not permitting oujdev to assume authority over a man’. This reduces the likelihood that a reader would make this conceptual transfer. 4. The grammatical form of the transferred element in Acts 8.21 perfectly fits the first element, but ‘a man’ is genitive, the wrong case for ‘to teach’.42 A. T. Robertson states, ‘We have no right to assume in the N. T. that one case is used for another. That is to say, that you have a genitive, but it is to be understood as an accusative’.43 This is exactly the incongruity in case ajndrov~ is taken as the object of ‘to teach’. 5. The transference in Acts 8.21 does not teach anything in conflict with other NT statements, but to say a woman must not teach a man conflicts with Priscilla’s instruction of Apollos and Paul’s affirmations of women teaching.44 Thus, the evidence is overwhelming against interpreting 1 Tim 2.12a as a separate prohibition of women teaching men. E. Can oujdev Connect a Positive Concept with a Negative Concept?
When oujdev joins two synonymous expressions, it is natural that both will be either positive or negative. There is, however, no grammatical or syntactical 41 Moo, ‘Rejoinder’, 202 n. 5 appeals to H. W. Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges (New York: American Book, 1920) 364–5, §1634–5, but in all Smyth’s examples, in order for the first statement to make sense, the object of the second verb must also apply to the first verb. 42 ‘To teach’ can take either accusative (cf. Rom 2.21; 1 Cor 11.14; Col 1.28; 3.16) or dative (cf. Rev 2.14). 43 Robertson, Grammar, 454 (b). R. Y. K. Fung, ‘Ministry in the New Testament’, The Church in the Bible and the World (ed. D. A. Carson; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987) 154–212, 198–9 also argues that ‘man’ does not modify ‘to teach’. 44 Acts 18.26; cf. above, pp. 246, and below, p. 253 and n. 55. Paul repeatedly affirms Priscilla (e.g. Rom 16.3–4 ‘my fellow worker . . .’) and always does so using her more dignified name, Prisca. Following convention, Acts 18.2, 1 Cor 16.19, and 2 Tim 4.19 list Aquilla’s name before his wife’s, but when citing their ministry, both Paul and Luke always list her name before her husband’s, implying her prominence in ministry.
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rule that keeps oujdev from conjoining a positive activity with a negative activity. BDF § 445 states that the use of oujdev in the ‘correlation of negative and positive members is, of course, admissible’.45 Köstenberger, however, alleges that ‘the construction negated finite verb ⫹ infinitive ⫹ oujdev ⫹ infinitive . . . in every instance yield[s] the pattern positive/positive or negative/negative . . . I found no evidence [against this . . . This] should now be considered as an assured result of biblical scholarship’.46 Even though many of the passages Köstenberger quotes contradict his allegations, a few scholars have uncritically accepted his assertions as proving that oujdev cannot join a positive activity with a negative activity.47 In each of the following nine passages Köstenberger cites,48 seven joining two infinitives, oujdev joins a verb with positive connotations to a verb with negative connotations. 1) 2 Cor 7.12: ‘it was not on account of the one who did the wrong nor (oujdev) on account of the one who was wronged’ (NRSV). Here, one of the two parts joined by oujdev elicits sympathy (the innocent, ‘wronged’ party), the other antipathy (‘the one who did the wrong’). 2) 2 Thess 3.7–8: ‘we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it’ (NRSV; this passage is analyzed above, pp. 242–3). 3) LXX Sir 18.6: ‘Who can fully recount God’s mercies? It is not possible to diminish or (oujdev) increase them’. To diminish God’s mercies in any way is negative, even if impossible in an absolute sense. Scripture, however, encourages prayer to increase God’s mercies, e.g. Ps 40.11; 51.1; 79.8; 119.77, so their increase is positive even though people cannot control or fully recount them. 4) Diodorus Siculus Bibl. hist. 3.30.2.8: ‘Nor is there any occasion to be surprised at this statement or (oujdev) to distrust it, since we have learned throughout trustworthy history of many things more astonishing than this which have taken place throughout all the inhabited world’. Surprise is normally positive, and the immediately following statement identifies ‘astonishing things’ as ‘trustworthy history’. Distrust, however, is negative. 5) Josephus Ant. 15.165.3–4: ‘Hyrcanus because of his mild character did not choose either then or at any other time to take part in public affairs49 or (oujdev) start a revolution’. 45 BDF § 445 continues, ‘though it is not common in the NT. E.g. Jn 4:11 . . . (oujdev D sys, which seems to be better Greek)’. The passage BDF cites, ‘You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep’, is a rare case of negated and non-negated correlatives used together. If ‘negative and positive’ refers, instead, to expressions with negative or positive connotations, as this study does, examples are much more common. 46 Köstenberger, ‘A Complex Sentence’, 78, 77, 84 (emphases added). 47 E.g. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles, 129–30; Blomberg, ‘Hierarchicalist’, 363. 48 Köstenberger, ‘A Complex Sentence’, 59, 63–71. 49 This translates polupragmonei`n. Köstenberger, ‘A Complex Sentence’, 205 n. 13 cites LSJ 1442, ‘mostly in a bad sense’, but LSJ cites this not for the verb polupragmonevw in general,
252 philip b. payne 6) Plutarch Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata 185.A.1, depicts Themistocles as saying, ‘the trophy of Miltiades does not allow me to sleep or (oujdev) to be indolent’. The positive description of dreams in Plutarch Themistocles 26.2–3 evidences Themistocles’ positive view of sleep, as does sleep’s positive connotations. Indolence, however, is negative. 7) Plutarch Aetia Romana et Graeca 269.D: ‘we must not follow out (diwvkein ‘to pursue, seek’, a positive verb) the most exact calculation of the number of days nor (oujdev) cast aspersions (sukofantei`n,50 a negative verb) on approximate reckoning; since even now, when astronomy has made so much progress, the irregularity of the moon’s movements is still beyond the skill of mathematicians, and continues to elude their calculations’. Plutarch’s explanation praising the progress of astronomy shows that he regards the pursuit of exact calculations positively. He opposes exact calculation here only because it is in combination with casting aspersions on approximate reckoning. 8) Plutarch Quaestiones convivales 711.E.3: ‘the wine seems not to be harming us (ajdikei`n) or (oujdev) getting the best of us (kratei`n51)’. This combines negative and positive verbs to convey a single idea: the harm wine causes when it gets the best of someone. 9) Plutarch Bruta animalia ratione uti 990.A.11: ‘our sense of smell . . . admits what is proper, rejects what is alien, and will not let it touch52 or (oujdev) give pain53 to the taste, but informs on and denounces what is bad before any harm is done’. Smell prevents harm by warning against touching what is alien and thereby experiencing pain. Oujdev does not convey two alternatives: touch or give pain. It combines positive and negative verbs to convey the single idea that smell prevents touch that would cause pain. These nine examples show that oujdev can connect two verbs, one conveying a positive concept, the other a negative concept. Oujdev can also join positive and negative nouns, such as Gal 3.28’s ‘slave and free’. Gal 4.7–9 and 5.1 confirm that Paul regards slavery negatively but freedom positively. If oujdev joins expressions to describe the abuse of something positive, like teaching, the most natural way to express this is to associate it with something negative. What 1 Tim 2.12 prohibits, it must regard as negative: a woman teaching combined with assuming authority over a man.
but just for the second of three meanings. LSJ’s first and third meanings are positive, as is the translation Köstenberger cites. 50 All the meanings LSJ 1671 lists are all decidedly negative. 51 The many meanings LSJ 991 lists are clearly positive. 52 Qigei`n is almost always a positive concept, LSJ 801.
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Conclusion
Paul typically uses oujdev to convey a single idea, as do the two closest syntactical parallels to 1 Tim 2.12. In the overwhelming majority of Paul’s and the NT’s oujk ⫹ oujdev ⫹ ajllav syntactical constructions, oujdev joins two expressions to convey a single idea in sharp contrast to the following ajllav statement. Furthermore, the earliest known commentary on 1 Tim 2.12, Origen’s, treats it as a single prohibition. Blomberg supports this by identifying eleven other instances in this chapter where pairs of complementary expressions convey main points. Understood as a single prohibition, 1 Tim 2.12 conveys, ‘I am not permitting a woman to teach and [in combination with this] to assume authority over a man’. The only established category of oujdev usage in the entire Pauline corpus that makes sense of this passage joins conceptually different expressions to convey a single idea.54 There is not a single undisputed parallel in any of the letters attributed to Paul that supports treating 1 Tim 2.12 as two separate prohibitions, of women teaching (or of women teaching men) and of women having authority over men. Consequently, this oujdev construction makes best sense as a single prohibition of women teaching with self-assumed authority over a man. This understanding fits the text and its context lexically, syntactically, grammatically, stylistically, and theologically. This single specific restriction perfectly fits the danger of false teaching by women in Ephesus. It does not contradict Paul’s and the Pastoral Epistles’ affirmations of women teaching nor does it prohibit women such as Priscilla (who instructed Apollos in Ephesus according to Acts 18.24–8 and later was evidently still in Ephesus55) from teaching men, as long as their authority is properly delegated, not self-assumed. It simply prohibits women from assuming for themselves authority to teach men.
53 Every meaning for lupei`n in LSJ 1065 is decidedly negative. 54 The expressions oujdev joins in 1 Tim 2.12 are not equivalent in meaning (category 1) or a natural pair (category 2), nor do they convey naturally paired ideas focusing on the same verb (category 4); cf. above, pp. 3–10. 55 1 Timothy addresses Timothy in Ephesus (1.3). Evidence that 2 Timothy was also written to Ephesus includes: 2 Tim 1.18; 2.17; 4.12, 14; cf. 1 Tim 1.20. 2 Tim 4.19 greets Prisca and Aquila; cf. Acts 18.19; 1 Cor 16.19; BDAG 143; H. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) 299.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 254–274. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0028688508000143
Reactions in Early Christianity to Some References to the Hebrew Prophets in Matthew’s Gospel* J . LION E L NORTH 4, Trinity Road, Darlington, Co. Durham, DL3 7AS, England
Ascribing inspiration to the composition and canonisation of the NT did not exempt it from the flux of history. Its contents were variously copied, quoted and interpreted. For example, early-church responses to Matthew’s use of some of the OT prophets illustrate the freedom with which perhaps the most Jewish of the evangelists, having appropriated some of Judaism’s greatest figures, was in turn appropriated by early Christianity, how also he was read by pagans and Jews, and how all, in good faith or not, sought to expose or defend or correct what readers thought to be its problems. Keywords: Old Testament quotations; Fulfilment; Church Fathers; Scholars and Scribes; Matthew
I. Introduction
A time-honoured and fruitful way of investigating the reception-history of the OT in the NT is first to scrutinise the Hebrew original of quotations in a particular NT writer, then their translations, primarily those into Greek, Syriac and Latin, their use in quotations in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo and other intertestamental writers, not excluding the historian Josephus and the post-biblical rabbis; then against this background to see how and for what purpose the NT author appropriated their substance. Maarten Menken is one of those who are carefully making this approach their own, especially from the point of view of textual form.1 But to conclude an examination of NT-use with the NT itself does not go far enough. It can be argued that the NT is part of a continuum that extends from the OT to the present day since its interpretation of the OT is woven into much of
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* I am grateful to audiences at Leeds and Durham, and to the editor and her reader for their helpful comments. 1 Cf. M. J. J. Menken, Matthew’s Bible: The OT Text of the Evangelist (BEThL 173; Leuven: Peeters, 2004).
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Christian liturgy and doctrine. But the NT became Scripture first for early Christianity, so this article will move away from Jewish antecedents and what may be regarded as a well-worked approach, and will look forward to early-church reactions to Matthew’s editing of a selection of prophetic texts. Whether as anonymous copyists of MSS, transcribing, or as influential leaders and writers, quoting, alluding, interpreting, how did Christians in the first five centuries respond to the evangelist’s use of these prophets? By attempting an answer through discussion of four major texts and, briefly, four others, another method may be added to our arsenal of methods by which the after-life of the OT in any part of the NT can be examined, also adding another source to our source-materials for early-church history.2 II. Matthew 2.6
Micah 5.2LXX, which may be one source from which the language of Matt 2.6 is drawn, reads, Kai; suv, Bhqleem oi\ko~ tou` Efraqa, ojligosto;~ ei\ tou` ei\nai
ejn ciliavs in Iouda, ejk sou` moi ejxeleuvsetai tou` ei\nai eij~ a[rconta ejn tw`/ ΔIsrahl.3 In the context the prophet’s purpose is to contrast a contemporary king, humiliated by the Assyrians and besieged inside the walls of his capital Jerusalem (5.1), with another, ancient (5.2d), king, shortly to be born not in Jerusalem but in a nearby village, Davidic but insignificant, and then his eventual greatness and victory over the hitherto all-conquering enemy. Matthew’s quotation, rhetorically placed on the lips of the chief priests and scribes responding to King Herod’s enquiry in Jerusalem, reads, kai; su; Bhqlevem, gh` ΔIouvda, oujdamw`~ ejlacivsth ei\ ejn
toi`~ hJgemovs in ΔIouvda: ejk sou` gavr ejxeleuvsetai hJgouvmeno~, o{sti~ poimanei` to;n laovn mou to;n ΔIsrahvl (2.6, NA27). Questions like ‘What has happened to Ephrathah?’ or ‘Why the doubling of the mention of Judah?’ or ‘Why has hJgemovs in replaced ciliavs in?’ are questions for students of textual form, their answers perhaps contributing to Matthew’s overall purpose, but the early church showed more concern about his reversal of the thrust of Micah’s text in moving from ojligostov~ (for ojlivgisto~, ‘least’) to oujdamw`~ ejlacivsth (‘in no wise least’), and about the contribution that it in particular made to Matthew’s purpose. It reflects the situation inaugurated by the recent advent of the true king of Israel: it was unthinkable that the birthplace of such a one be called insignificant. Matthew’s 2 This increasingly popular field of study is surveyed in D. J. Bingham, Irenaeus’ Use of Matthew’s Gospel in Adversus Haereses (TEG 7; Louvain: Peeters, 1998) 4–12; D. C. Allison Jr., Studies in Matthew, Interpretation Past and Present (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2005) Chapters 1–6, and, more widely, in J. van Oort, ‘Biblical Interpretation in the Patristic Era, A “Handbook of Patristic Exegesis” and Some Other Recent Books and Related Projects’, VigChr 60 (2006) 80–103. 3 Septuaginta (ed. A. Rahlfs; Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1935)/Duodecim Prophetae (Septuaginta vol. 13; ed. J. Ziegler; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 3rd ed. 1984).
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preference for a superlative adjective over the Hebrew positive (ry[x) (and a genuine one at that, ejlacivsth not ojligostov~), creates a more emphatic litotes, further underlining the fame of Bethlehem: ‘in no wise least’ is stronger than ‘in no wise little’ and implies ‘greatest’. Matthew has found prophetic words which must be authoritative in themselves, yet capable of development, even to contradict what the prophet meant.4 This volte face caused a problem for early readers. There are examples where scribes and scholars resolved it by reworking Micah to make it agree with Matthew, but the opposite could happen, Matthew reworked to fit Micah. The latter took two forms. (a) Codex Bezae (D) reads mhv for oujdamw`~, harmonising with the insertion in Micah, discussed below; the OL MS and patristic tradition along with Syriac offers considerable support.5 (b) More radically, a previously unnoticed reading in one of three MSS of a lectionary, written in what used to be called Jerusalem, or Palestinian, Syriac but nowadays more precisely known as Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA), omits oujdamw`~. If it is not a scribal error, this omission is odd in an Aramaic-speaking, possibly Jewish-Christian, community, one therefore that might be assumed to have been particularly sympathetic to Matthew’s purpose. Instead, it joins non-Jewish parts of the church which did not appreciate what Matthew was about and which preferred fulfilment and a bland harmonising of Micah and Matthew to a controversial rewriting of the prophet, to make room for the true king of Israel. The reworking of Micah is more widespread, being found in LXX MSS, Greek and Latin Fathers and versions. It took two forms. (a) Justin Martyr, John Chrysostom (each twice) and Theodoret of Cyrrhus quoted Micah 5.2, explicitly from the prophet, but with the quotations conformed to the evangelist’s oujdamw`~ ejlacivsth.6 (b) More obliquely, the apparatus criticus in the Holmes–Parsons edi4 Cf. G. Geiger, ‘Falsche Zitate bei Matthäus und Lukas’, The Scriptures in the Gospels (ed. C. M. Tuckett; BEThL 131; Leuven: Peeters, 1997) 479–86, 480: ‘Dann fügt er oujdamw`~ ein, womit er, zumindest grammatikalisch, die Aussage Michas ins Gegenteil verkehrt[. . .]Damit hat er wesentlich am Text manipuliert’. Aware of other possibilities, J. Lust and Menken cautiously adopted this explanation: Lust speaks of ‘Matthew’s emphatic negative’; cf. ‘Mic 5,1–3 in Qumran and in the NT and Messianism in the LXX’, The Scriptures (ed. Tuckett), 65–88, 78; cf. 86; Menken describes ‘the tendentious oujdamw`~’ as ‘at odds with their [MT or LXX] tenor’ (Matthew’s Bible, 255–63 [257–8]). 5 Originally J. Mill regarded ‘mhv;’ as secondary (H KAINH DIAQHKH NOVUM TESTAMENTUM cum Lectionibus Variantibus [Oxford: Clarendon, 1707], 4, in loc.), but 20 years later in the Prolegomena (the first 60 pages or so having been printed off by 1686), xliib, he preferred mhv: Pro mhv, quod dilutius paulo videbatur, irrepsit postea ex margine, oujdamw`~. For The Palestinian Syriac Lectionary of the Gospels see A. S. Lewis and M. D. Gibson, ed. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1899) xxvi, 256. 6 Justin 1 Apol. 34.1; Dial. 78.1; cf. E. Massaux, Influence de l’Évangile de saint Matthieu sur la littérature chrétienne avant saint Irénée (Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis II/42; Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain/Gembloux: Duculot, 1950) 496, 524–5; Chrysostom
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tion of the LXX shows that 21 minuscule MSS have inserted mhv before ojligostov~. This is to be expected since most LXX MSS were copied by Christian scribes familiar with their Matthew and half of these 21 MSS are especially associated with the Christian editor and martyr Lucian of Antioch (†312 ce). Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Theophylact followed suit. Similarly, Tertullian, Cyprian and Hilary read non es minima. Ziegler’s apparatus adds references to CopticBohairic, Arabic and OL renderings which read a negative. In a fourth rendering another CPA lectionary included Micah 5.2–5 along with a negative.7 What does this early insertion of mhv amount to? It may cause surprise that the particular negative Lucian or a predecessor chose to insert was not Matthew’s oujdamw`~ or even ouj but mhv. The reason is rhetorical, to transform a statement into a question which unequivocally expects the answer ‘No!’: ‘No! Of course not!’ was more decisive than an open question. But rhetoric ought to be ancillary to theology. Lucian or a predecessor slants Micah to the gospel; the theological cost is that in this new guise Matthew’s quotation does not subvert Micah’s intention by contradicting it; having in effect been transformed into yet one more fulfilment-text, it is decisively fulfilled.8 Con. Jud. et Gent. 3 (PG 48.816); Theodoret Haer. Fab. Comp. 5.14 (PG 83.500–1; see also n. 7 below ). We shall come across many other examples of assimilation in MSS and Fathers, but Eusebius, sometimes regarded as ‘notoriously inaccurate in his scriptural quotations’, in six quotations of Micah 5.2 in Demonstratio Evangelica ‘keeps fairly closely to the [different] Matthaean and LXX readings’, in particular never quoting a negative before ojligostov~; cf. D. S. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘An Analysis of some Quotations from the First Gospel in Eusebius’, Demonstratio Evangelica’, JThS, NS 1 (1950) 168–75 (168–70). Cyril of Alexandria also read only ojligostov~ (twice?) in Comm. in XII Proph (Pusey 1.674; 2.127 [si v. l.]). 7 For LXX see R. Holmes and J. Parsons, eds., Vetus Testamentum Graecum cum Variis Lectionibus (4/5 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1798–1827) vol. 4, unpaginated, in loc.; F. Field, ed., Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt: Veterum Interpretum Graecorum in totum Vetus Testamentum Fragmenta (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1875) 2.994; J. Ziegler, ed., Duodecim Prophetae, 217, in loc., where he also records other examples of less significant assimilation of LXX MSS to Matt 2.6. O. Procksch, Studien zur Geschichte der LXX, Die Propheten (BWAT 7; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1910), argued for the originality of mhv on the strength of Holmes and Parsons’ minuscules (pp. 19, 69–70), oujdamw``~ at Matt 2.6 itself (pp. 73, 89–90, 97), Justin (p. 111) and OL (pp. 120–1), esp. 73, 111: ‘ursprünglich und echt’ (but now see n. 8). For the Fathers see Theodore, Theodoret and Theophylact at PG 66.372; 81.1768; 126.1132 and n. 34, all in loc.; Tertullian Adv. Jud. 13.2 (CC 2.1384); Cyprian Test. 2.12 (CC 3.44–5); Hilary Tr. in Ps. 131.13 (CSEL 22.672). Tertullian and Cyprian are particularly interesting in that predating Lucian they augment evidence for a ‘Proto-Lucianic’ stratum which Lucian incorporated. For the lectionary see A. S. Lewis, ed., assisted by E. Nestle and M. D. Gibson, A Palestinian Syriac Lectionary Containing Lessons from the Pentateuch, Job, Proverbs, Prophets, Acts, and Epistles (Stud. Sin. 6; London: Clay, 1897) lii, 24. 8 Procksch’s argument is now undermined by our earliest MS for Micah in Greek: dated to the late-first century bce, therefore copied by a Jewish scribe, it follows the Hebrew in not reading mhv; cf. E. Tov et al., eds., The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXIIgr) (DJD 8; Oxford: Clarendon, 2d ed. 1995) 40–1.
258 j. lionel north Before we leave the assimilation of the prophet to the evangelist and vice versa, an approach quite different from both is found in Jerome’s scholarly treatments of Micah 5.2. In his Commentary on Micah, finished in 393, he carefully listed in Latin three renderings of ry[x: parvulus translated the Hebrew ( Vg), minima the LXX ojligostov~ and nequaquam minima Matthew’s oujdamw`~ ejlacisthv. The last two, as he recognises, contradict each another, and Jerome places the responsibility for this not on Matthew’s theology but on Matthew’s priests and scribes as they reply to Herod. It is they who misquote Micah by carelessly (neglegentia) inserting oujdamw`~, perhaps to provide the king with scriptural warrant for eliminating a rival (as if Herod needed one). Three years later, in Letter 57, Jerome repeated the wording of the three versions of Micah (though minima is replaced by modicus); the verborum ordinisque discordia between LXX and Matthew is again noted but without the charge of negligence (perhaps this was something he had found in his commentary’s source). Eight years later, in Letter 108, specifically quoting Micah, he returns to LXX minima, but now prefaces it with nonne. Occurring in a question nonne expects an affirmative answer: ‘You are the least, aren’t you?’. This rhetorical change of phrasing involves no change of meaning but what is noteworthy is that (a) these three comments, extending over a period of eleven years, reveal a Jerome always the scholar refusing to explain away discordia but honing his scholarship partly to serve his anti-Jewish polemic; (b) Jerome regarded Matthew’s reading as a witness to the OT text of equal weight with the Hebrew and Greek.9
III. Matthew 23.35–6
Matt 23.35–6 contains the first of the four references to Zechariah who, along with Isaiah, is the most significant prophetic figure in the gospel.10 In the last and longest of the seven Woes! against the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus charged them with hypocrisy for seeking to distance themselves from the actions 9 Jerome Comm. in Mic. 2.5.2 (PL 25.1254–5 CC 76.481–2); epp. 57.8; 108.10 (PL 22.575; 885 CSEL 54.516–7; 55.317). Ziegler quoted ep. 108.10 for mhv but Jerome’s nonne presupposes ouj. Opus imperf. in Matt. Hom. 2.5–6 (PG 56.640) hints that the priests behaved maliciously in not quoting the whole verse to Herod; had they done so, he would have realised the futility of anger. 10 Cf. C. M. Moss, The Zechariah Tradition and the Gospel of Matthew (Berlin: de Gruyter, forthcoming); P. Foster, ‘The Use of Zechariah in Matthew’s Gospel’, The Book of Zechariah and its Influence (ed. C. [M.] Tuckett; Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003) 65–85. The essay in this collection which bears most specifically on our theme is by J. S. Boccabello, ‘Why Would a Pagan Read Zechariah?: Apologetics and Exegesis in the Second-century Greek Apologists’, 135–44; he discusses the use made by Justin of 12.10–14 and 9.9, and Theophilus of Antioch’s use of 1.1 and 7.9–10. I transliterate the various spellings of the prophet’s name in the sources in the same way, namely, Zechariah.
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of their sacrilegious predecessors, yet planning to inflict much the same punishment on their own opponents. Matthew’s Jesus puts no statute of limitation on the responsibility that they will shortly bear: upon you will ‘come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation’ (RV). This forbiddingly retrospective judgment suggests responsibility for all such deaths, shortly to include responsibility for the death of Jesus himself, as Eusebius was (twice) not slow to point out (ai|ma [. . .] kai; aujtou` ge ejpi; pa`s i tou` Cristou`), and accepted with the words ‘His blood be on us, and on our children’ (27.25).11 John Chrysostom and Jerome asked, ‘Who is this Zechariah son of Barachiah?’, Jerome adding, ‘because we read of many Zechariahs’.12 The patronymic ‘son of Barachiah’ must be taken from Zech 1.1, 7, where ‘the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo’. The well-known problems with this identification include the fact that there is no other report that this Zechariah was martyred, and the fact that the use of the second-person plural (ejfoneuvsate) suggests, though it does not require, that this murder was something of which his hearers were personally guilty, over 500 years after the supposed event. Chrysostom and Jerome go on to list the answers that the church had given, showing the unease careful readers of the church’s favourite gospel early felt.13 Before we consider these there is the solution offered by Luke. He simply shies away from the problem: Luke 11.51 makes no mention of Barachiah, and the immediacy of the second-person plural is avoided with the more general intransitive ‘who perished’ (tou` ajpolomevnou). But Luke’s timid lead was not always followed by his copyists. One way out of the impasse was for some Syriac and Georgian MSS to substitute ‘son of Barachiah’ for ‘Zechariah’: with no Zechariah and seven different Berachiahs in the OT, anything was possible! But D, with Syriac and Coptic support, is ambiguous: it too adds the patronymic but, in spite of the problem it causes, keeps ‘Zechariah’; this must be a harmonisation to Matthew. On the other 11 See both passages in Dem. Ev. 9 (n. 14), also J. Ulrich, Euseb von Caesarea und die Juden, Studien zur Rolle der Juden in der Theologie des Eusebius von Caesarea (PTS 49; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1999) 211 but in n. 375 he misses R. Kampling, Das Blut Christi und die Juden: Mt 27,25 bei den lateinischsprachigen christlichen Autoren bis zu Leo dem Großen (NTA, NF 16; Münster: Aschendorff, 1984). In spite of his title Kampling includes Origen (pp. 39–59), an inclusion justified on p. 15. 12 Chrysostom Hom. 74.2 in Matt. 23.35–6 (PG 58.681), excerpted in J. A. Cramer, Catenae Graecorum Patrum in NT (8 vols.; Oxford, 1844) 1.193; Jerome Comm. in Matt. 4.23.35–6 (CC 77.219–20 / SC 259.178–82). If their identical question implies a common source, Origen must come to mind. De Inventione Nominum calculated that quattuor sunt Zachariae sacerdotes (PLS 4.910). 13 For Matthew’s popularity amongst early Christians, cf. H. Greeven, ‘Erwägungen zur synoptischen Textkritik’, NTS 6 (1959–60) 281–96 (288–90).
260 j. lionel north hand, D removes the second problem by reading the less specific ‘whom they killed between the altar and the sanctuary’ (ejfovneusan). Copyists and Fathers tackled Matt 23.35 much as Luke and his copyists had. The original hand of Codex Sinaiticus (a), two Greek lectionaries and probably Eusebius (four times) omitted ‘son of Barachiah’.14 But this is clearly the harder reading and is either deliberate, to harmonise with Luke or avoid the problem, or through homoeoteleuton after Zacarivou; it must be retained. But, if omission of ‘son of Barachiah’ had been the way forward, a new set of possibilities opened up. If there are seven different Berachiahs in the OT, there are nearly 30 different Zechariahs, and the absence of a patronymic leaves one free to search for other bearers of that name. (a) To take his evidence further (see n. 12), Jerome reported that the Gospel of the Nazarenes identified Matthew’s Zechariah as the son of Jehoiada the priest, who according to 2 Chron 24.20–22 was stoned to death in the court of the Temple for attacking the people’s idolatry. This Zechariah was Jerome’s and probably Chrysostom’s solution to the problem (see nn. 12, 22). (b) There was Zechariah the father of John the Baptist, another early and popular candidate. Three stories were current about him, all connected with the circumstances of the births of John and Jesus, and all designed to counter the fact that there is no evidence in the NT that this Zechariah was murdered. (i) The Protevangelium Jacobi (second century) lays the blame for this Zechariah’s death on Herod when Zechariah refused to reveal the whereabouts of his infant son during the Massacre of the Innocents; (ii) Origen reports the tradition that after the birth of Jesus, Mary resumed the place for private prayer reserved in the Temple for unmarried girls. Some tried to stop this as it was public knowledge that she had recently given birth and was no longer eligible; Zechariah her uncle was killed when he defended Mary’s right to be there. In addition, Origen did not accept that Jesus could be referring to the prophet Zechariah because, in his view, it would be only for their own murders that the contemporaries of Jesus could be held responsible, not for ‘a cold case’ committed 500 years earlier. So, it seems that he chose to keep ‘Zechariah son of Barachiah’ and a catena fragment throws light on this: it reports that Origen claimed that Josephus had called the father of John the Baptist ‘Zechariah son of Barach’.15 Though extant texts do not verify this
14 Eusebius Dem. Ev. 8.2.20; 9.11.14; 9.13.12 (GCS 23.370; 430; 433) (Wallace-Hadrill, ‘An Analysis’, did not deal with these quotations); idem, Theoph. 6 (PG 24.640), but its Syriac version does read the phrase (GCS 3/2.190*). 15 Protevangelium Jacobi 23–24 Papyrus Bodmer V, Nativité de Marie (ed. M. Testuz; ColognyGenève: Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, 1958) 120–4. For its account of the death of Zechariah see H. R. Smid, Protevangelium Jacobi, A Commentary (ANT 1; Assen: van Gorcum, 1965) 178–80. As edited by Klostermann and Benz, the status of ‘Josephus’ in Origen’s catena fragment is left unclear. They edited two forms: (a) in Comm. in Matt., ’ΔIwvshppo~ de; iJstorei` to;n uiJo;n bara;c Zacarivan ei\nai patevra ΔIwavnnou tou` baptistou` (GCS 12/3/1[41].190, §457 II); (b) in
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particular claim, Josephus does speak of a ‘Zechariah son of Baris’ (J.W. 4.334–44, v.ll. Barouchos; Bariscaeos) who was killed by two Zealot hotheads ‘in the midst of the Temple’ after a show-trial in the winter of 67–68 ce ; Origen identified Jesus’s ‘Zechariah son of Barachiah’ with him.16 (iii) Epiphanius relates a story he had read in a Gnostic text entitled the Nativity of Mary, that the reason why God had struck Zechariah dumb in the Temple was to prevent his revealing to the waiting people that in a vision he had seen God there, in the form of an ass; when finally the dumbness was removed and he did report this, the people killed him for blasphemy.17
Comm. ser. in Matt., where there is no mention of Barach’s name, they added brackets, eijko;~ [kaqwv~ fhsin ΔIwvshppo~] Zacarivan nu`n levgesqai to;n ΔIwavnnou patevra (GCS 11/2 [21976].42; both forms are printed in PG 13.1631 n. 79). The editors may have been following A. von Harnack who in 1919 had commented, ‘diese 3 Worte [bracketed above] fehlen im Lat. und sind ein dreister Zusatz’ which has been ‘gefälscht’ (Der kirchengeschichtliche Ertrag der exegetischen Arbeiten des Origenes [II. Teil: Die beiden Testamente mit Ausschluss des Hexateuchs und des Richterbuchs] [TU 42/4; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1919] 47 n. 1, 51). Though the words may be original and their omission due to homoeoteleuton after eijkov~, note that elsewhere Origen claimed to have found information in Josephus which cannot be traced in the historian’s extant work; cf. Comm. in Matt. 10.17 (GCS 10/1[40].22 / SC 162.218; cf. 113–17), repeated a few years later at Con. Cels. 1.47; 2.13 (GCS 1.97; 143 / SC 132.198; 324). A. Schalit judged Bavrei~ to be ‘korrumpiert’; cf. Namenwörterbuch zu Flavius Josephus (Leiden: Brill, 1968) 24. 16 Since the sixteenth century other scholars also have thought that Jesus’ reference could be construed as a prophecy which was fulfilled a generation later in Josephus’s ‘Zechariah’; e.g. in 1507–8 the young Zwingli had annotated a Latin Josephus to the effect that it might explain the reference (CR 99/1[12/1].388); 20 years later he repeated this claim in his commentaries on Matthew and Luke, in loc. (Opera [ed. M. Schuler and J. Schulthess; 10 vols.; Zürich: Schulthess, 1829–42] 6/1.376; 645). C. Wolff, Jeremia im Frühjudentum und Urchristentum (TU 118; Berlin: Akademie, 1976) 94 n. 2 and Foster, ‘The Use of Zechariah’, 66–8 appear still to favour this explanation, but note H. St. J. Thackeray’s comment, ‘The theory, which rests on a rather remote resemblance of names, is on many grounds untenable’ (in loc., LCLJosephus 3.99), a comment endorsed by T. W. Manson, The Sayings of Jesus (London: SCM, 1949) 103–5 and [P.] M. Casey, An Aramaic Approach to Q (SNTSMS 122; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2002) 98–104 (102). Manson may be following J. Wellhausen when he further claims that Chrysostom believed that Jesus was referring to Josephus’s Zechariah; cf. Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien (Berlin: Reimer, 2d ed. 1911) §12 (‘Zacharias Barachiae’) 118–23. I cannot find this reference; perhaps Wellhausen confused Chrysostom, who had a different view of the matter (cf. nn. 12, 22), with Origen. H. Alford, The Greek Testament (4 vols.; London: Rivingtons, 2d ed. 1854–61) 1.215, in loc., reported the same claim for Augustine, but the Augustinus-Lexikon-Institut at Würzburg does not confirm this; nor is either claim confirmed by H. Schreckenberg, Die Flavius-Josephus-Tradition in Antike und Mittelalter (ALGHJ 5; Leiden: Brill, 1972); idem, Rezeptionsgeschichtliche und Textkritische Untersuchungen zu Flavius Josephus (ALGHJ 10; Leiden: Brill, 1977). 17 See Epiphanius Panarion 26.12 on Gevnna Mariva~ (GCS 25.290–2). (Gevnesi~ Mariva~, the main title of the Protevangelium Jacobi in Bodmer Papyrus V [Testuz, 30; 126] is a different
262 j. lionel north (iv) This identification is often repeated. Roger Cowley has investigated it through Ethiopic materials (ultimately derived from Greek–Antiochene– Nestorian sources).18 In some of them elaboration became ever more grotesque; e.g. when Zechariah died trying to protect Mary from Herod (b[i] above), his blood, which in the Protevangelium congealed (24.2–3, ai|ma pephgov~ [. . .]l livqon gegennhmevnon, Testuz, 122–4), in these later sources remained viscous for years; as though freshly shed and crying out for vengeance, it ‘oozed’, ‘seethed’, ‘bubbled’ and ‘boiled’. Roger Beckwith has concerned himself with Matt 23.34–6//Luke 11.49–51 because here Jesus seems to show his familiarity with, and so offer proof for, an ancient form of the canon where the order of the OT books, beginning with Genesis (Abel), finished with 2 Chronicles (Zechariah son of Jehoiada). Inter alia he argued that when Jesus refers to ‘Zechariah son of Barachiah’ he means ‘Zechariah son of Jehoiada’, since Jewish exegetical practice allows ‘Zechariah son of Jehoiada’ to be called ‘Zechariah son of Barachiah’, even though 300 years separate the two men.19 These data are largely though not entirely derived from Z. H. Chajes, a Polish rabbi and scholar publishing in modern Hebrew at Zolkiev, 1845.20 The title of ch. 21 speaks for itself, ‘The Quoting of various persons under one and the same name’. Here Chajes refers to rabbinic lecturers who ‘adopted as one of their methods that of calling different personages by one and the same name if they found them akin in any feature of their characters or activities or if they found a similarity between any of their actions. Even where there was only some resemblance in the names of different persons, they blended the two in one’. Chajes provided many examples from the Midrashim and Talmudim of what Beckwith calls this ‘rabbinical haggadah’ and ‘homiletic identification’, some taken from Azariah de Rossi (†ca. 1578); Beckwith provided more. On this basis it is not difficult to see that Matthew (or Jesus) could easily identify the two Zechariahs: they had identical names, both were priests, both were prophets, work from this text; though it mentions it, it does not explain Zechariah’s dumbness [Testuz, 72]). Jerome (n. 12) reported an opinion that Zechariah was killed because he had predicted Salvatoris [. . .] adventu[s]. 18 R. W. Cowley, ‘The “Blood of Zechariah” (Mt 23:35) in Ethiopian Exegetical Tradition’, Studia Patristica 18/1 (ed. E. A. Livingstone; Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications/Leuven: Peeters, 1985) 293–302. 19 R. T. Beckwith, The OT Canon of the NT Church and its Background in Early Judaism (London: SPCK, 1985) 211–22; add R. H. Gundry, The Use of the OT in St. Matthew’s Gospel with Special Reference to the Messianic Hope (NT.S 18; Leiden: Brill, 1967) 125 with n. 2 (he also had made use of Chajes [cf. n. 20]), and H. J. Schoeps, ‘Die jüdischen Prophetenmorde’, Aus Frühchristlicher Zeit, Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1950) 126–43 (127–32, 138–41). 20 Z. H. Chajes, The Student’s Guide through the Talmud (trans., New York: Philipp Feldheim, 2d ed. 1960) 172. This phenomenon resembles the patristic communicatio idiomatum.
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both were good men; so they could both die in the same way. They were identified much later on in the Midrash and Targum to Lam 2.20: in a description of the murder of Zechariah son of Jehoiada, he is called Zechariah son of Iddo, namely, son of Berachiah.21 The studies of Chajes and Beckwith can now be supplemented. There are reports of early Christians trying to circumvent the problem in Matthew’s text by assuming that people could bear two names. Origen says it should come as no surprise if the father of the prophet and the grandfather of John the Baptist had the same name; Cowley, working off what he calls a ‘commentary tradition’ still current in the Ethiopic Orthodox Church, quotes a modern Ethiopian scholar, that ‘son of Barachiah is either a scribal error, or it is that Jehoiada had two names’.22 To conclude: the early church was puzzled by the addition of the patronymic ‘son of Barachiah’ and determined to find an explanation for it, whether it drew on Jewish or Christian traditions or its own ingenuity. If error it be, others will decide whether the erroneous addition should be attributed to Matthew or Jesus. IV. Matthew 27.9–10
Matt 27.9–10 is the most complex of the passages considered in this article, not least with its reference to Jeremiah.23 It is the last of the ten fulfilment-texts 21 See H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum NT aus Talmud und Midrasch (6 vols.; Munich: Beck, 1922–61) 1.940–3 (941–2). 22 Origen Comm. ser. 25 in Matt. (GCS 11/2 [21976].43; only GCS read the plural oJmwnuvmou~). Probably following Origen, Chrysostom’s solution (n. 12, using diwvnumo~) was copied as a scholion into the margins of three Greek NT MSS, in loc., viz. 237 238 259 in the form ‘[Scripture] calls Zechariah Jehoiada, for he had two names’ (duwvnumo~, not recorded in Liddell–Scott–Jones but the Diccionario Griego-Español, s.v., attests it from Jerome for Sara and Jerusalem). Perhaps in criticism of Origen, Didymus the Blind mentions the need, specifically in connection with this prophet’s name, to avoid the temptations of oJmwnumiva (Comm. in Zech. 1.6 [SC 83.192]); Cowley, ‘ “Blood of Zechariah” ’, 293, 295–6, 302. 23 See Wolff, Jeremia, 159–66; Menken, ‘The References to Jeremiah in the Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 2,17; 16,14; 27,9)’, EThL 60 (1984) 5–24 (6–12); idem, Matthew’s Bible, Chapter 11; idem, ‘Messianic Interpretation of Greek OT Passages in Matthew’s Fulfilment Quotations’, The LXX and Messianism (ed. M. A. Knibb; BEThL 195; Leuven: Peeters, 2006) 457–86 (478–9 n. 56, 484–5); M. Knowles, Jeremiah in Matthew’s Gospel: the Rejected-Prophet Motif in Matthaean Redaction (JSNTSup 68; Sheffield: JSOT, 1993) 52–81; Geiger, ‘Falsche Zitate’, 481–2. Early-church responses to Matthew’s remaining citation from Jeremiah, namely 38(31).15 at 2.18, were limited to Justin’s explicit quotation of the inspired prophet in its Matthean form (Dial. 78.8) (cf. Massaux, Influence, 527–8) and the omission of ΔIeremivou (v. 17) by seven Greek MSS, probably due to homoeoteleuton before tou` profhvtou. H. F. D. Sparks, ‘St. Matthew’s References to Jeremiah’, JThS NF 1 (1950) 155–6, suggested that Jeremiah’s name was prominent in Matthew because it stood first in ‘a Canon of the Latter Prophets[. . .]the earliest extant Jewish list of books’; cf. Strack and Billerbeck, Kommentar, 1.1029–30.
264 j. lionel north and, if we exclude the Triumphal Entry (21.4–5), the only one to refer to the final hours of Jesus’ life, justifying as it does the action of the authorities in disbursing the money that Judas had returned to them by purchasing the potter’s field (27.6–10; cf. 26.15): ‘Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one on whom a price had been set, on whom some of the people of Israel had set a price, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me’ (NRSV). The problems here are long well known. Jerome admitted to a correspondent, ‘This [passage] is simply not found in Jeremiah’;24 as the book is found today it does not have even the key phrases, ‘thirty pieces of silver’ and ‘potter’s field’. In 18.2–12 Jeremiah does describe God’s apparently strange work as a potter’s normal work (cf. Lam 4.2), and twice speaks of the ‘potter’s house’, as in ch. 19 of the spoilt clay pots which the potter then smashes in the sinister Hinnom ravine, a piece of prophetic symbolism appropriately performed in one of Jerusalem’s landfill sites.25 In ch. 32, a chapter, full of fields, which records Jeremiah’s purchase of ‘a field’ from his cousin for 17 shekels of silver, there is still no ‘potter’s’ field. As Jerome went on to say, although exaggerating the amount of difference, some of Matthew’s words are to be found in Zech 11.12–13, a difficult passage where the Hebrew text has been said to be ‘not only corrupt but also mutilated’. Here this prophet does have thirty pieces of silver, though there is no mention of a ‘potter’s field’. There is a potter, but with help from the Syriac even he is lost: by the change of a single letter (y → a) the Syriac replaces ‘potter’ with ‘treasury’, 24 [H]oc in Hieremia penitus non invenitur, sed in Zacharia aliis multo verbis ac toto ordine discrepante[. . .]pro Zacharia quippe Hieremiam posuit [Matthew] (ep. 57.7; CSEL 54.512–13); similarly, Comm. in Matt. 4.27.9–10 (CC 77.264–5 / SC 259.276–8) and Tract. in Ps. (CC 78.67). Jerome’s views were adapted into a Breviarium in Psalmos which was once attributed to him (PL 26.1045–6). 25 Hinnom was a place where potters might find their clay, where in Matthew’s day burial for the unwanted would be cheap, and where, in Jerome’s day, with Judas Iscariot in mind, would be located Luke’s Akeldama (Acts 1.19) or ‘Bloodacre’, in B. Green’s gothic phrase (The Gospel according to Matthew in the RSV [NCB; Oxford: Oxford University, 1975] 218). Eusebius’s Onomasticon sited Akeldama to the North of Mt Sion; in De situ et nominibus locorum Hebraicorum Jerome preferred a site to its South-west; both reports are conveniently found en face, GCS 3/1.38–9, s.v.; cf. Qafevq (Topheth), GCS 3/1.102–3, s.v. P. Benoit, doyen of Jerusalem topography, followed Jerome in Exégèse et Théologie (2 vols.; Paris: Cerf, 1961) 1.340–59 (352–3) (ET Jesus and the Gospel [London: DLT, 1973] 1.189–207 [200–1]). Benoit also noted links between this location and some of Jeremiah’s phraseology (1.355 n. 2 [ET 1.203 n. 2]). Perhaps relying on Aristion, who according to Eusebius Hist. Eccl. 3.39.4; 7; 14, had been a disciple of the Lord and a much-used source, Papias sensationalised the death of Judas with clinical details of his punishment: obesity, blindness, priapism (the result of hanging?), the stench of worm-infestation. On its reception see Lake in F. J. Foakes Jackson and K. Lake, eds., The Beginnings of Christianity, Part I, The Acts of the Apostles (5 vols.; London: Macmillan, 1920–33) 5.22–30.
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allowing the NRSV to translate, ‘Throw it into the treasury – this lordly price at which I was valued by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury in the house of the Lord’.26 Matters do not improve when we turn to the LXX: ‘Throw them into the cwneuthvrion (furnace, or foundry) and check if it is good coin, how I have been valued for them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and put them into the furnace in the house of the Lord’. Here ‘furnace’ has replaced ‘potter’ or ‘treasury’ because the LXX-translator thought the passage implied that only a blacksmith with his furnace could assay the silver content of the thirty coins, to check whether God had been defrauded by being paid with counterfeit coin. In search of sense the path has led from from Hebrew ‘potter’ to Syriac ‘treasury’ to Greek ‘furnace’.27 So much for the transmission of Zechariah’s corrupt, mutilated text; at Matt 27.7–10 there is no doubt that there is a potter, mentioned twice, and a field, mentioned four times; these, along with the silver, are important to the evangelist, though the source of ‘potter’s field’ still cannot be traced. The early church confronted the problems here as it had at 23.35. First, some obvious textual criticism was employed. In some MSS ‘Jeremiah’ was substituted by ‘Zechariah’; at least three Greek MSS, with weighty support from Latin and Syriac, avoid the problem by omitting ‘Jeremiah’ with no replacement; in two MSS ‘Isaiah’ is found, wrongly but not unreasonably since Isaiah several times does speak of God as a potter (29.16; 30.14; 41.25; 64.8). But it is clear that whatever agenda Matthew had had in mind in saying ‘Jeremiah’, it escaped these scribes and their communities. Secondly, literary criticism: Origen challenges anyone to find this statement in Jeremiah’s text; he suspects a clerical error (‘Jeremiah’ written for ‘Zechariah’) or hazards the guess that it might be found in an apocryphon attributed to Jeremiah; as canonical precedent he invokes the fact that Paul twice quotes such apocrypha.28 Eusebius suggested that ‘Jeremiah’ was the result of deliberate falsification (katav tina rJa/diourgivan) or of a careless clerical error and substitution. These explanations were also known to Jerome (above and n. 24), but he also speaks in terms of a Jeremiah-apocryphon which a Jewish-Christian member of the Nazarene sect had brought to his attention. He remarks that if we 26 Matthew mentions the Temple treasury (27.6, korbana`~); has that influenced the Syriac rendering in Zechariah or vice versa? 27 Eusebius Dem. Ev. 10.4.10–11 (GCS 23.462) reports two other Greek versions: Aquila’s plavsthn follows the Hebrew, Symmachus the LXX; cf. Field, Origenis Hexaplorum, 2.1026. For lexical details on ‘potter’, ‘treasury’ and ‘furnace’, see T. Jansma, ‘Inquiry into the Hebrew Text and the Ancient Versions of Zechariah ix–xiv’, OTS 7 (1950) 1–142 (105). 28 Comm. ser. 117 in Matt. (GCS 11/2 [21976].249–50); cf. idem, Comm. ser. 28 in Matt. (GCS 11/2 [21976].49–52); id., Comm. in Matt. 10.18 (GCS 10/1[40].24 / SC 162.226); see Harnack, Ertrag, 42–4. Anonymus Dialogus cum Iudaeis, saeculi ut videtur sexti §8 (CCSG 30.72) mentions four current explanations and (xxxv) discusses the one it prefers, namely, ‘Un apocryphe de Jérémie?’.
266 j. lionel north ignore the order of the words and the use of particular vocabulary, the sense of Matthew is derived from Zechariah. Augustine proceeded differently; the liberal in him says that if the Christian reader is offended by ‘Jeremiah’ when he/she knows that the citation really comes from Zechariah, let them read ‘Zechariah’ or no name at all – there is MS support for either decision. But the textual critic in him is not happy with that because (a) ‘Jeremiah’ is the reading of the majority of Greek MSS; (b) there is no reason why it should have been added since to introduce it introduces an error; it must be original; (c) on the other hand, there was every reason why it should have been removed, removal would eliminate error (all this is excellent textual criticism). Finally, repeating the same approach he had used in De Cons. Evan. 2.127–8 (see p. 271), the theologian in Augustine invokes the mysteries of providence: since all the prophets were inspired by one and the same Holy Spirit, what was ascribed to Jeremiah was equally Zechariah’s and vice versa.29
V. Matthew 21.5
The proclamation in Zech 9.9 is cited at Matt 21.5, preceding the response to it of the Jerusalem crowds at the Triumphal Entry (21.9). As far as the text is concerned, (a) NA27 correctly reads only ‘through the prophet’ (21.4), singular and nameless, but the quotation was soon recognised as a combination of phrases from two prophets, Isaiah (62.11) and Zechariah (9.9), with the result that some MSS actually supplied these names, some ‘Isaiah’, others ‘Zechariah’.30 (b) If Matthew’s intention at 21.5b was to minimise the juridical implication of the prophet’s description of the coming king by omitting ‘triumphant and victorious is he’, OSCuretonian has missed it by adding [divkaio~]. (c) Some Christians were puz29 Eusebius Dem. Ev. 10.4.13 (GCS 23.463); Jerome as in n. 24 (his commentary on Zech 11.12–13 follows Didymus the Blind [SC 85.858–66] in ignoring Matt 27.9–10 [CC 76A.856–7]); Augustine De Cons. Evan. 3.29–31 (CSEL 43.304–8). It is not clear if Augustine’s repeated aliud pro alio nomen (§30) refers to the phenomenon Chajes alleged for rabbinic method (see above). In support of Augustine’s theological explanation, C. Wordsworth quoted a Jewish saying from Surenhusius: Zechariam habuisse Spiritum Jeremiae; see The NT of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the Original Greek (2 vols.; London: Rivingtons, 1872) 1.102, in loc. Anonymus, 72, expressed a similar sentiment: kai; Zacariva~ kai; ÔIeremiva~ eJni kai; tw`/ aujtw`/ fwtizovmenoi pneuvmati. 30 On the passage as a whole see Menken, Matthew’s Bible, Chapter 6; idem, ‘Messianic Interpretation’, 461–4, 477–8; W. Weren, ‘Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem: Mt 21,1–17 in the Light of the Hebrew Bible and LXX’, The Scriptures (ed. Tuckett), 117–41 (124–33), and three essays in The Book of Zechariah (ed. Tuckett): T. Collins, ‘The Literary Contexts of Zechariah 9:9’, 29–40; A. van der Kooij, ‘The LXX of Zechariah as Witness to an Early Interpretation of the Book’, 53–64 (57–63) and Foster, ‘The Use of Zechariah’, 65–85 (74–6). Isa 62.11 was considered by R. Beaton, Isaiah’s Christ in Matthew’s Gospel (SNTSMS 123; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2002) 183–6.
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zled by the evangelist’s development (21.7) of the apparent allusion to the prophet’s two animals (21.5b) and with visualising how Jesus could have ridden both; Origen and Jerome said it was undignified, stupid and ludicrous (see below). There is MS evidence for their puzzlement. While the first aujtw`n in v. 7, which must refer to two animals, was retained by the bulk of MSS, it was omitted by OSCuretonian, and made singular by D Q F f 13 33, with OL, Coptic and Syriac support, following Mark 11.7 and Luke 19.35 who have only the foal. The second aujtw`n, which may refer to the animals, was omitted by three OL MSS, and made singular by a3 D Q, with Latin and Syriac witnesses, again to follow Mark and Luke. Of course this aujtw`n could be kept and the problem it had posed avoided if its referent were iJmavtia; to that end ejpekavqisen was corrected to ejpekavqisan and understood transitively: ‘they [the disciples] sat him [Jesus] down on them [the clothes]’, not ‘he [Jesus] sat on them [the animals]’; this follows Luke’s ejpebivbasan to;n ΔIhsou`n. Matthew may have confused matters even further by adding a third aujtw`n after iJmavtia (the clothes of the disciples); it is read by Vg (and TR) but is absent from a* B D Q, with four OL MSS. While Origen, Jerome and Augustine recognised other problems (see below), they did not discuss the number or antecedents of the two or three examples of aujtw`n. Without comment Jerome (and probably Augustine) read inposuerunt super eos vestimenta sua, et eum [Jesus] desuper sedere fecerunt (Vg). The Triumphal Entry pericope provoked Origen to two major discussions.31 He treats Zech 9.9–12 allegorically and this treatment must be set within a wider context.32 As is well known, problems, including those created by unacceptable conclusions and irreconcilable discrepancies between biblical texts, were transmuted into theology by the practice of exegesis by allegory.33 It is particularly in connection with the Entry pericope, along with the closely related Cleansing of the Temple, that he states in Comm. in Jn his reasons for allegorising. Not only does a literal interpretation of the Cleansing impute both contradiction to the evangelists (§§129–30) and unworthy, insolent, wilful and unruly behaviour to Jesus himself (u{bri~ [twice], to; aujqavde~ kai; qrasuvteron kai; to; a[takton, §§145–7; 169), but Origen also uses similar language of details of the Entry; if understood literally, some would have been undignified and stupid (a[xio~ [four times], blaceiva,
31 Comm. in Jn 10.119–224 (GCS 4.191–208 / SC 157.454–516), passim, where his exposition switches to and fro between the Triumphal Entry and the Cleansing of the Temple (references in §V are to the conveniently short sections in GCS/SC); idem, Comm. in Matt. 16.14–8 (GCS 10/1[40].518–39/PG 13.1417–37), passim (references are to PG-columns); also cf. idem, Hom. in Lc. 37 (GCS 9[49[35]] [21959].209–12 / SC 87 [21998].436–40). 32 Cf. Comm. ser. 27 in Matt. (GCS 11/2 [21976].47), hoc [Zech 9.9–10] si quis secundum litterae historiam intellegere velit de Christo, non convenit. Matthew does not quote Zech 9.10–12, but it cannot be ignored since for Origen it explains 9.9. 33 Cf. Comm. in Jn 10.10–14; 129–30; 174–5 and §VII with n. 47.
268 j. lionel north §§160; 164–6). The only conclusion from all this that Origen would draw was that a literal interpretation was impossible (ajduvnaton, §130) and that he was compelled to allegorise (§§130–1; 199–206; also see below). Thus, the ass is the OT, the foal the NT; on them Jesus, the Word, is carried into Jerusalem, the soul (§§174–5; 188; cf. 178–9). Slightly less certainly, the ass also represents the Jews and the foal the Gentiles (§§180; 185–6; 193; 207). But Comm. in Matt., which Comm. in Jn already anticipated (§191) and which modified several of the earlier commentary’s emphases, sometimes to the point of contradiction, concentrates on the animals as the Jews and Gentiles, adding the names of the two disciples, Peter and Paul, and interpreting their being sent for the two animals as their two subsequent missions to the Jews and Gentiles (1432BC; cf. 1424AB). Once more Origen refused a literal interpretation in Hom. in Lc. 37, entitled De eo, quod a discipulis pullus asinae solutus est: he wrote quod [scil. asinus vinctus erat] quidem mihi videtur magis ad altiorem intellegentiam quam ad simplicem historiam pertinere (§1, ‘On the disciples’ release of the foal of the ass: The fact [that the ass had been tied up] seems to me to relate to a loftier understanding rather than to straightforward history’), adding that the pullus asinae is his Christian readers and the apostles’ clothing is their good works (§4). So much for the context and application of the quotation. The quotation itself is introduced in Comm. in Jn §§160–3, beginning with Zech 9.9LXX (§160; cf. §124; §155). He was driven to allegorise it not only because he could not see in the story of Jesus any literal fulfilment of its sequel (9.10–12; §161) but because Jewish critics were making, in his view, the same incontrovertible point (§163). In §162 we may have another Jewish criticism, that Matthew was misquoting 9.9 (similarly, John 2.15 at §128; esp. §202). He responds by minimising the differences between Matthew and Zechariah: (a) ‘Tell daughter Sion!’ [only] ‘abbreviates’ ‘Rejoice greatly, daughter Sion! Proclaim, daughter Jerusalem!’ (he does not deal with how an address to the prophet becomes an address to the city); (b) Matthew ‘passes over in silence’ ‘just and saving’,34 and (c) [only] replaces ‘a yoked animal and a young foal’ with ‘an ass and foal, the offspring of a yoked animal’. Zechariah 9 is resumed in §§202–6: after pointing out differences between Zechariah and John, the prophet’s martial language in vv. 10–2 is interpreted as the destruction of heresy and sensuality; that is why Jerusalem should rejoice.35 Comm. in Matt. introduces lengthy theological speculation. Origen inserts Zech 9.9–12LXX into his exegesis by saying that it ‘enhances [ejpiteivnei]) our investigation of the passage [in Matthew]’ (1420C–21A). But he does not want to go into
34 Comm. in Jn 10.162, ejpitemnovmeno~ to; profhtikovn: paresiwvphsen de; kai; to; ÔÔdivkaio~ kai; swvzwn aujtov~ΔΔ; cf. idem, Comm. in Matt. 1421B, protetagmevna tou` ÔÔprau?~ΔΔ oujk ejxevqeto oJ Matqai`o~, ou{tw~ e[conta: ÔÔdivkaio~ kai; swvzwn aujtov~ΔΔ. 35 Comm. ser. 27 in Matt. (GCS 11/2 [21976].46–7) offers a similar interpretation.
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detail, showing that he anticipates problems. Without denying its importance he explicitly leaves the quotation to those ‘who wish to compare [Zechariah and Matthew] at the literal level (iJstoriva), to examine every detail (o{la) in the passages under consideration’ (1421A). But he does relent over a few details. Repeating the differences between the wording of Matthew and Zechariah noted above in (a)–(c) and adding one difference between John and Zechariah (1421B), he tries to explain how in one breath Jerusalem can be urged to rejoice, when in the next, harmonising with Luke 19.41 and 13.34, he says that Jesus wept over Jerusalem and accused it of murdering the prophets. His explanation depends on what Hebrews (12.22) and Galatians (4.26) say about another Jerusalem: it is the heavenly Jerusalem to which they and Matthew refer while Luke is referring to the earthly city (1421C–24B). In 1428C–29A Origen attempts another explanation why Jerusalem should rejoice by allegorising the martial sequel in Zech 9.10–2. With these exceptions, when we turn to 1429 bc, we see why Origen had sounded uneasy about going into detail; he had consulted his Hexapla and found some variation between five Greek renderings of Zech 9.9b which he quotes in full. This embarrassment of riches overwhelmed him so that he falls back on what he had said earlier: ‘Someone [else] can fit these [renderings] into the [literal] history (iJstoriav) in the gospel passage in question’ (1429B). But Origen being Origen, again he relents. Though the Hexapla had reminded him that yn[ had been variously rendered prau?~ by LXX and Aquila, ejpakouvwn by Theodotion and ptwcov~ by Symmachus and the Quinta, he foresaw no problem: had not ‘the Saviour entered Jerusalem humble and obedient and poor’?36 Origen was closely followed by Jerome. It was from the Triumphal Entry pericope that in Comm. in Matt. he deduced the need for allegory: Jesus’ riding both animals at the same time was both impossible and degrading: [C]um historia vel inpossibilitatem habeat vel turpitudinem, ad altiora transmittimur ut asina ista, quae subiugalis fuit et edomita et iugum legis traxerit, synagoga intellegatur, pullus asinae lascivus et liber gentium populus quibus sederit Iesus, missis ad eos duobus discipulis suis, uno in circumcisionem et altero in gentes.
The tethered ass is observant Judaism, the unbridled foal represents Gentiles, the two disciples Peter and Paul and their respective missions, the disciples’ clothing is the teaching of virtue or the explanation of Scripture or various church doctrines. On the other hand, in what is only a passing remark in his commentary on 36 Cf. Field, Origenis Hexaplorum, 2.1024. Justin had quoted Zech 9.9 twice, once when debating with Trypho, from LXX, with divkaio~ kai; swvzwn aujtov~ (Dial. 53.3), once without when debating with paganism in the persons of the royal household and court (1 Apol. 35.11) (cf. Massaux, Influence, 497, 237–8, but he does not discuss Dial. 53.3); cf. Boccabello, ‘Why would a Pagan read Zechariah?’, The Book of Zechariah (ed. Tuckett), 139–40. wn[, cognate with yn[, was also rendered by both prau?~ and ptwcov~.
270 j. lionel north Amos, Jerome seems to imply that clothing refers to the Law and the Prophets. In Tract. in Mc. Evan. Jerome confronts the evangelists’ different accounts of Jesus’ mounting the animal(s), only to concentrate on the ludicrous and impossible character, if understood literally, of Jesus riding both at the same time; that is why the two animals must be allegorised: Ascendit itaque asinam. Sed dicit alius evangelista quod pullum ascendit: alius vero dicit quod pariter et in asinam et in pullum ascendit. Rem dico ridiculam. Numquid singulos pedes in ambobus asinis habere poterat?
Augustine adopted another method to explain the differences between Matthew and the other evangelists. In De Cons. Evan. 2.127–8 he argued that there was no maxime contrarium or repugnantia between Matthew’s addition of the ass and the silence of the other three. But he had to admit aliquantum diversa[. . .]locutio between Matthew’s and John’s forms of the quotation from Zechariah; he explained this by resorting to the old view that while John wrote in Greek – his point would be that John therefore used the Greek OT (codices ecclesiastici interpretationis usitatae) – Matthew wrote in Hebrew and so quoted the Hebrew Bible. Jerome having said that he will deal with Zechariah only if he lived long enough (si vitae spatium fuerit), Augustine alone faced the challenge posed by the undoubted distantia between the wording of the Hebrew and Greek OT, but he vigorously defended their equal authority because the same Holy Spirit inspired both, in the same way as he defended the evangelists’ concors quaedam diversitas or even dissonantia (De Cons. Evan. 3.30; see n. 29).37
VI. Matthew 13.35; 26.31; 2.15, 23
If ‘Isaiah’ is not original at 13.35, it is the best-attested example of the church’s insertion of the name into Matthew’s text. Words, perhaps uttered only ‘through the prophet’, are attributed to ‘Isaiah’ by, Jerome says, multa evangelia usque hodie; some of these are still extant: a* Q f 1.13 33. The Neoplatonist philosopher and critic Porphyry (†ca. 303) had already quoted Matthew in that form in about 260 ce and this had enabled him to mock Matthew’s lack of education (inperitus) for so doing. Perhaps a century later ‘Isaiah’ was also added in Ps. Clem. Homily 18.19. But against Porphyry Eusebius and Jerome insisted that the quotation was from the psalmist Asaph at Ps 77(78).2. Eusebius implies that 37 Jerome Comm. in Matt. 3.21.1–7 (CC 77.181–3 / SC 259.100–4); idem, Comm. in Amos 1.2.6–8 (CC 76.236); idem, Tract. in Mc. Ev. 7 (CC 78.484–7 / SC 494.178); Augustine De Cons. Evan. 2.127–8 (CSEL 43.228–31); an early editor entitled Augustine’s discussion De asina et pullo, quomodo Mattheus ceteris congruat, qui solum pullum commemorant (De Cons. Evan. Quaest. 2.66, CSEL 43.72). On Augustine’s strategy see C. Harrison, ‘ “Not Words but Things:” Harmonious Diversity in the Four Gospels’, Augustine, Biblical Exegete (ed. F. van Fleteren and J. C. Schnaubelt; New York: Lang, 2001) 157–73.
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‘Asaph’ is read in ‘accurate copies’ and Jerome guessed – since he cannot have known – that it was read in omnibus veteribus codicibus; probably to account for its absence in current MSS he surmised that, on finding ‘Asaph’ in Matthew’s original, its first copyist deleted it because he was not familiar with the name; in the process, thinking to correct an error, by substituting the better-known name of Isaiah, he created one. So, not for the first time, Matthew is exonerated, and it is the prima ecclesia which is charged by Jerome with being composed of uneducated Gentiles who knew no better (ignorantes, nescientes, inperiti[. . .]gentes, Tract. in Ps., 66–7). Presumably it is they who deserve Porphyry’s mockery. Understandably, in Comm. in Matt. Jerome substituted another proposal: if ‘Isaiah’ is original, sensible readers (prudentes), unable to find the quotation in Isaiah’s text, removed it.38 Following Jerome’s prima ecclesia at Matt 13.35, some scholars have restored ‘Isaiah’ in loc.: in deference to a, his favourite MS, Tischendorf accepted it into the last edition of his NT; Hort lent it his support but Westcott, his more conservative colleague, would admit it only into their margin.39 38 Ps. Clem. Homilies 18.15 (GCS 42.248); Eusebius Comm. in Pss. (PG 23.901) (cf. Field, Origenis Hexaplorum, 2.224); Jerome Tract. in Ps. (CC 78.66–7), the only passage to mention Porphyry and recast in Breviarium (PL 26.1045–6); idem, Comm. in Matt. 2.13.35 (CC 77.110–11 / SC 242.284). hzjh (LXX oJ profhvth~) is used of Asaph at 2 Chron 29.30. The contrast Jerome implies between the readings of ‘many gospels still extant’ and ‘all old codices’ merits attention. 39 C. Tischendorf, Novum Testamentum Graece (2 vols.; Leipzig: Giesecke & Devrient, 81869–72) in loc.; B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek (London: Macmillan, 2d ed. 1907), Introduction, 282; Appendix (separately paginated), 13 (Hort); 143 (F. C. Burkitt). See also E. Nestle, Einführung in das Griechische NT (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2d ed. 1899) 212 (‘sicher echt’) (ET Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Greek NT [London: Williams & Norgate, 1901] 251), Menken and other advocates listed in his Matthew’s Bible, 92 n. 4; add D. Senior, ‘The Lure of the Formula Quotations: Re-assessing Matthew’s Use of the OT with the Passion Narrative as Test Case’, The Scriptures (ed. Tuckett), 89–115 (94 n. 11). Beaton does not make it clear whether he believes that 13.35 is an ‘Isaianic citation’ (Isaiah’s Christ, 91 n. 17). On the citation in general, cf. M. J. J. Menken, ‘The Psalms in Matthew’s Gospel’, The Psalms in the NT (ed. S. Moyise and M. J. J. Menken; London: T & T Clark, 2004) 61–82 (66–9); idem, ‘Messianic Interpretation’, 476–7 n. 55. All references to Isaiah in Matthew’s text and its transmission can now be listed: the name is original at 3.3; 4.14; 8.17; 12.17; 13.14 (though there is a little evidence for omission), 35?; 15.7, and was interpolated at 1.22; 2.5 (OLa; vertically in a mg.), 15,23 (OLl; VgZ mg.); 13.35?; 21.4; 27.9. The latter happened because his name had become, as Jerome explains, vocabulum manifestius (Comm. in Matt., n. 37), and Isaiah himself was non solum prophetam, sed evangelistam et apostolum (Prol. Comm. in Isaia, CC 73.1), a commonplace he repeated at ep. 53.8 (CSEL 54.460) and Prol. in Isaia (Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam Versionem [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 4th ed. 1994] 1096); cf. Augustine Civ. Dei 18.29 (CC 48.619); Cyril of Alexandria Prol. Comm. in Isaia (PG 70.13). For an innovative discussion see J. F. A. Sawyer, The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1996) Chapters 2–3, as it relates to ‘Christian Origins’ and the ‘Early Church’.
272 j. lionel north Zech 13.7 is cited by both Matthew (26.31) and Mark (14.27), but it is Matthew, not Mark, who is Eusebius’s source of the quotation from Zechariah. Against Mark he adopted two peculiarities of Matthew’s quotation: his word-order (the verb preceding its subject) and the addition of poivmnh (after the Shepherd’s death his sheep will inevitably, though momentarily, be lost). In fact, illustrating Matthew’s popularity in the early church (see n. 13) several witnesses to Mark’s text adopted Matthew’s word-order and ‘flock’, while before Eusebius, Justin, Irenaeus and Didascalia Apostolorum had done much the same when they quoted Zech 13.7.40 After Eusebius, the form of Zech 13.7 in codex Alexandrinus (A), where, after the first verb, the wording is identical with Matt 26.31, suggests that its scribe rewrote Zechariah with Matthew in mind. Whether quoting or copying the Hebrew prophet, it is the Christian evangelist Matthew who is uppermost in the Christian subconscious, to the point of dictating what the prophet wrote. Modern scholarship has busied itself with ‘the prophet’ and ‘the prophets’ at 2.15, 23,41 but the early church seemed less concerned since only Jerome showed much interest in them. Though he thought Septuagintal errors deserved pardon not reproof, he often combined the verses as jointly proving that Matthew used only the Hebrew Bible or his own gospel’s Hebrew original. Once he was responding to the emperor Julian’s criticism of the evangelist’s misuse of Hos 11.1 at 2.15, but usually the context was the hostility his preference for and defence of the Hebrew provoked from Christian contentiosi, logodaedali et fastidiosi aestimatores.42 Three points were made about 2.23. (a) Some LXX MSS, inter alia at Judg 13.5,7; 16.17, adopted translations of or glosses on nazeivr vel sim. which used derivatives of *aJgi- and *aJgni-; perhaps following these and/or Origen and Eusebius, Jerome defined ryzn Nazwrai`o~ by ‘holy’ or ‘pure’.43 (b) In Comm. in 40 Eusebius Eclog. Proph. 3.27 (PG 22.1153); idem, Comm. in Pss. (PG 23.305; 756); Justin Dial. 53.6 (cf. Massaux, Influence, 554–5; also 70); Irenaeus Dem. 76 (SC 406.190); Didascalia (Funk [5.14.3], 272/Connolly [ch. 21], 181). Cf. Field, Origenis Hexaplorum, 2.1028; Geiger, ‘Falsche Zitate’, 481; Menken, Matthew’s Bible, Chapter 12 (221–2). Justin and Irenaeus explicitly attribute the verse to Zechariah; Justin substitutes aujtou` for th`~ poivmnh~ and Didascalia adds it, with some Vg and significant Syriac support. Bam. 5.12 paraphrases: o{tan patavxwsin to;n poimevna aujtw`n, tovte ajpolei`tai ta; provbata th`~ poivmnh~; cf. P. Prigent, Les Testimonia dans le Christianisme primitif, l’Épître de Barnabé I–XVI et ses Sources (EtB; Paris: Gabalda, 1961) 164–6. 41 Cf. Menken, Matthew’s Bible, Chapters 8, 10; Geiger called 2.23 ‘der umstrittenste Vers’ (‘Falsche Zitate’, 481). 42 These two sentences summarise material in De Vir. Ill. 3 (TU 14/1.9); Comm. in Hos. 3.11.1–2 (CC 76.119–22); Comm. in Matt. 1.2.15–6; 23 (CC 77.14; 16/SC 242.84; 88); epp. 20.2; 57(33).7; 121.2 (CSEL 54.104–5; 514–6; 56.9–10). 43 Jerome Lib. Interpr. Hebr. Nom. (CC 72.137; 147; cf. 142); idem, Comm. in Matt. 1.2.23 (CC 77.16 / SC 242.88); Origen Orat. 3.4 (GCS 2.306); Eusebius Dem. Ev. 7.2.46–51 (GCS 6[23].336–7). After Jerome this etymology is found in Opus imperf. in Matt. Hom. 2.23 (PG 56.646). Origen interpreted hyryzn at Lam 4.7 similarly (frag. 102 in Lam. 4.7 [PG 13.653/GCS 3.271–2]), and this
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Matt. (n. 43) he suggested that rxn (Isa 11.1) makes the same point. Though apparently abandoned,44 this authoritative combination influenced parts of the Latin transmission (n. 39) and lends early support to the view that both Judges and Isaiah lie behind Nazwrai`o~. (c) To explain the reference to the anonymous ‘prophets’, Chrysostom was ready to invoke lost prophecies and Opus imperf. in Matt. extra-canonical prophecies.45
VII. Conclusion
Chronologically, this paper has worked at the interface between the NT and early Christianity, methodologically assuming a symbiosis between textual criticism and interpretation. The examples in §VI briefly confirm what was said at length in §§II–V about the first four, that the room for inventiveness was considerable, but it only appears remarkable that the evangelist most obviously familiar with the Jewish antecedents and environment of the so-called Jesus-movement, the evangelist who frames some of the circumstances of the birth of Jesus himself within the well-known fulfilment-texts, that it is he who deals with some of Judaism’s prophetic figures in an arbitrary manner. With the aid of Jewish exegetical procedures as well as Christian sources, there can be no surprise that Matthew, the scribe who adds kainav to palaiav (13.52), could make Micah contradict himself, blend two Zechariahs, perpetrate the Jeremiah-pastiche, and accept a pair of animals instead of the other evangelists’ singleton, nor that, using the tools of Hellenistic scholarship,46 scholars in the Hellenistic church followed suit. In part their purpose was to meet the attacks of Hellenists like Porphyry and Julian, in part to provide the Church with an identity over against Judaism, though not immune to the temptations of identity theft and a ruthless reshaping of its Scriptures; in part their own integrity recognised some of the problems and they tried every device to resolve what in a rather more positive context Origen called scriptural skavndala kai; proskovmmata kai; ajduvnata.47 The Fathers did not accept the possibility of authorial error but the deliberate malice of pagans and Jews and
44 45 46
47
plural form was applied to Christians by Tertullian (Adv. Marc. 4.8.1 [CC 1.556 / SC 456.104]) and by Gregory of Elvira(?) Tractatus Origenis de Libris Sacrosanctarum Scripturarum 2.25; 12.32 (PLS 1.369; 433 / CC 69.18; 97), who refers specifically to their purification in baptism. On phonetic grounds (z x) (Comm. in Isaia 4.11.1–3 [CC 73.147–8]); Jerome had already observed this in Lib. Interpr. Hebr. Nom. (CC 72.137). Chrysostom Hom. 9.4 (PG 57.180–1; cf. 123.172); Opus imperf. Hom. 2.23 (PG 56.646). J. Lössl rightly claims that ‘early Christian biblical exegetes stood in the tradition of ancient classical scholarship. In their handling of the relevant texts they subscribed to the same implicit and explicit rules and dynamics of textual interpretation’; ‘When is a Locust just a Locust? Patristic Exegesis of Joel 1:4 in the Light of Ancient Literary Theory’, JThS, NS 55 (2004) 575–99 (599). De Princ. 4.2.9 (GCS 5[22].321 / SC 268.336).
274 j. lionel north the ignorance and clerical slips of Christians were different matters, and, to counter them, they variously brought into play textual criticism, conjectural emendation and harmonisation; grammatical, rhetorical, literary and historical criticism, the last prepared to assume that parts of Scripture had been lost or to look outside the canon to find support, real or imagined, in parallels from Josephus and apocrypha; guesswork was not unknown. So far from being embarrassed by discordia between Hebrew and Greek Bibles or between the four gospels or between them and the LXX, the almost endless possibilities of allegory and belief in providence goaded many into discovering ‘a large and a progressive faith’.48
48 F. J. A. Hort, Two Dissertations (London: Macmillan, 1876) x.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 275–281. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0028688508000155
S HORT STU DY
‘ . . . thereafter he shut the door’ Matthew 25.10c in the ‘Schøjen Codex’ – A Short Note TJ ITZE BAAR DA Troskerslaan 27, 1185 BV, Amstelveen, The Netherlands
Keywords: Matthew 25.10; Coptic; Schøjen Codex
In an earlier issue of this periodical attention was paid to the problem of retranslating a ‘versional’ text into a supposed Greek ‘original’.1 The reason for that article was the ‘reconstruction’ of a quite extraordinary Greek text as the hypothetical source of an early Middle-Egyptian Coptic text of the Gospel of Matthew. This reconstruction was presented in the splendid edition of the Gospel of Matthew in Middle-Egyptian Coptic that was published by the late Professor Hans-Martin Schenke.2 The deviations of this ‘retranslation’ led Schenke to his daring thesis that the Coptic text was based on a Greek text that was completely different from our present Greek Matthew, being an independent translation of the Hebrew or Aramaic Gospel of Matthew mentioned by Papias. In this short note the reader will find another example of the problematic character of such retranslations.
1. Introduction
Professor Schenke has greatly contributed to our knowledge of the text of Matthew’s Gospel in Middle-Egyptian Coptic. In 1981 he had already published a complete text of Matthew in this dialect (the Scheide Codex).3 This edition was 1 T. Baarda, ‘The Reading “Who wished to enter” in Coptic Tradition, Matt 23.13, Luke 11.52, and “Thomas” 39’, NTS 52 (2006) 583–91. 2 H.-M. Schenke, Das Matthäus-Evangelium im mittelägyptischen Dialekt des Koptischen (Codex Schøjen) (Oslo: Hermes Publishing, 2001). 3 H.-M. Schenke, Das Matthäus-Evangelium im Mittelägyptischen Dialekt des Koptischen (Codex Scheide) (TU 127; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1981).
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276 tjitze baarda published without a translation, which meant that it was almost neglected by textual critics of the NT.4 But the more recent publication, ‘the Schøjen Codex’, could not be neglected because of the far-fetching conclusions that Schenke had drawn from the Coptic text.5 Both these Middle-Egyptian Coptic texts bring us back respectively to the early and late fourth century. These early dates would be of great importance for textual criticism of the NT Greek text of that period, if Schenke had not claimed that, differently from the Scheide text, the Schøjen text was not a translation of a Greek text of Matthew such as we have it in our NT today, but one of the other early attempts to translate the Aramaic or Hebrew pre-Greek text into Greek (compare Papias!). Although this new and sometimes enigmatic Coptic text is in many ways a real challenge for both Coptisants and NT textual critics, my overall impression was and is that this hypothesis was wrong and that the Schøjen text belonged to the early textual transmission of the so-called ‘canonical’ Gospel of Matthew. In a review and in an accompanying article I have stressed the fact that a final judgment about Schenke’s hypothesis is only possible after a full-scale examination of the whole manuscript. This short note on a minor variant reading is just another attempt to show that there may be a reasonable doubt about the probability of Schenke’s hypothesis.6
2. Two Different Texts?
In Matt 25.10c, the text of the canonical Matthew reads kai; ejkleivsqh hJ quvra, ‘and the door was shut’. The Schøjen codex, however, reads here mennsws hafqtem epra, ‘thereafter he shut the door’.7 This is a reading quite different from the ordinary text, first in that it replaces the passive voice by an active voice, and second in that it substitutes the conjunction ‘and’ by another construction. Schenke’s reconstruction of text of the Greek Vorlage (meta; tou`to e[kleisen th;n quvran) makes this very clear. Could this assumed difference be an indication that the Schøjen text was indeed a witness to an independent Greek version of the hypothetical Aramaic or Hebrew Matthew? Before this question can be answered
4 However, in the 27th edition of Nestle–Aland this text was already adduced as ‘mae’ (in GNT4: copmeg). 5 Cf. Baarda, ‘Review of H.-M. Schenke, Das Matthäus-Evangelium im mittelägyptischen Dialekt des Koptischen (Codex Schøjen) (Oslo, Hermes Publishing, 2001)’, NT 46 (2004) 302–6. The accompanying article (‘Mt. 17.1–9 in “Codex Schøjen”’), ibidem, 265–87. 6 This short note was part of a broader discussion of ‘The Parable of the Ten Virgins in the Schøjen Codex’ (August 3, 2005) that I gave in the Seminar of Textual Criticism in the meeting of the SNTS in Halle (Saale). 7 Schenke’s translation: ‘Danach verschloss er die Tür’.
‘. . . thereafter he shut the door’ 277
there is a preliminary question, namely whether Schenke’s reconstruction is correct.
3. Where Do We Start?
Schenke introduces his reconstruction of the Greek Vorlage by remarking that his attempt to reconstruct the supposed Greek text was based on a specific premise: the peculiar ‘Andersartigkeit’ of the Coptic text of Matthew in Codex Schøjen was caused by the fact this Greek text was different from the ‘canonical’ Greek Matthew and that the Coptic text was not a free translation or an arbitrary version of our Greek Matthew.8 Despite the rather peculiar text-form of the Schøjen codex I would prefer to start from another premise, namely that this Gospel – which bears the name ‘Gospel according to Matthew’ (peuaggelion n=kata maveos)9 – must be taken for a translation of the ‘canonical’ Greek Matthew, until the proof of the contrary is provided. This means that before taking refuge in Schenke’s hypothesis one should first seek a rational explanation of assumed variant readings within the natural process of translation and transmission of the text.
4. How to Render ejkleivsqh hJ quvra?
Since the passive voice does not exist in Coptic, translators had to replace it by other constructions of which the 3rd plural active is the most common one. If the translator had followed this pattern we might have expected here hauqtem epra, ‘they shut the door’.10 The question is, then: Why did the translator of the Schøjen text not follow this general pattern here if he had before him the ‘canonical’ Greek text? Or was his model text different from our Greek text and did it actually have the active voice? I dare to doubt that latter possibility. First of all one has to consider the possibility that the translator was influenced by the close parallel of Matt 25.10–12 which is found in Luke 13.25–28,11 where the owner of the house shut the door (ajkokleivsh/ thvn quvran). In view of the several occasions in which a possible influence of parallel passages12 is found one cannot wholly exclude that also this parallel was in the mind of the translator.
8 Schenke, Codex Schøjen, 279. 9 Schenke, Codex Schøjen, 392 (= p. 92v., lines 23–25). 10 This is the reading of the Scheide text (Schenke, Scheide Codex, 114); cf. Sahidic auqtam m=pro and Bohairic aumaqvam m=piro. 11 The parallel is close in that it has also the cry, ‘Lord, open to us’, and the reaction, ‘I do not know . . . ’ (v. 25). 12 Cf. Baarda, ‘Mt 17.1–9 in “Codex Schøjen”’, 271, 273, 274.
278 tjitze baarda However, if this idea would seem too far-fetched, another – and hopefully more probable – explanation may be considered. Being at the point of rendering ejkleivsqh with hauqtem, ‘they shut’, the translator may have asked himself who actually shut the door. Was it not the bridegroom himself, for the foolish virgins asked him to open up for them. Now, if the bridegroom himself could open the door, he may also have shut it himself. And thus he rendered the passive here with the 3rd person singular of the active voice.
5. The Coptic Translation of Luke 11.7
If one wonders whether a translator would reason in such a way, reference may be made here to a similar case. It is found in the similitude of ‘the importunate friend at midnight’ in Luke 11.7, where the main figure says h[dh hJ quvra kevkleistai, ‘the door is already shut’. The normal circumlocution would have been auqtam, ‘they have shut’ in Sahidic, but the Sahidic version reads here aiouw eiqtam m=paro, ‘I have already shut my door’.13 The same is true for the Bohairic: aiouw gar aimaqvam m=paro, ‘For I have already shut my door’.14 The translators would normally have rendered kevkleistai with ‘they shut’, but it is obvious that the translators asked themselves, ‘the door is shut, but who shut it?’. It is apparently a translator’s freedom that we encounter in these Coptic translations. There is no reason to assume that they consulted a Greek manuscript which read ‘I have shut’, for the whole Greek tradition has the passive form,15 and in this case one cannot take one’s refuge in the hypothesis of an independent Greek translation of a Semitic text of Luke as Schenke does in the case of the Schøjen codex of Matthew’s text. In view of this observation there seems no reason to assume that the translator of the Schøjen text had before him a text that differed from the ‘canonical’ Greek Matthew.
13 G. Horner, The Coptic Version of the New Testament in the Southern Dialect otherwise called Sahidic and Thebaic. Vol. 2. The Gospel of S. Luke (Oxford: Clarendon, 1911) 214 (tr. 215). Horner mentions that two witnesses add gavr, an addition also found in the text published by H. Quecke, Das Lukasevangelium Saïdisch, Text der Handschrift PPalau Rib. Inv.- Nr. 181 mit den varianten der Handschrift M 569 (Barcelona: Papyrologica Castroctaviana, 1977) 181. 14 G. Horner, The Coptic Version of the New Testament in the Northern Dialect otherwise called Memphitic and Bohairic. Vol. 2. The Gospels of S. Luke and S. John (Oxford: Clarendon, 1898) 156 (tr. 157). In two witnesses, piro, ‘the door’, is found. 15 The following variant readings are listed in the major edition of ‘The New Testament in Greek’ III, The Gospel According to St. Luke, Edited by the American and British Committees of the International Greek New Testament Project (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984) 246: (1) hJ quvra h[dh in 118 205 209 1194; (2) add. gavr F Q 13 69 124 346 543 788 826 983 1604 (vide notes 12–13); (3) hJ quvra mou in Pap75 1012 Lect. 10, 1056, 1642. There is no textual apparatus that mentions the reading ‘I have shut’ of Sah-Boh, apparently because all editors assumed that it was a free rendering of the Greek text.
‘. . . thereafter he shut the door’ 279
6. Parallels in Syriac Exegetical Tradition
In the Syriac tradition the Greek text is followed: a[rt hl djtaw (in Sys) or a[rt djttaw (Syp.h), i.e. ‘the door is shut’. Either of these texts was apparently the reading in the Syriac Diatessaron from which the Arabic Diatessaron was derived: , ‘and was-shut the-door’.16 Although the reading ‘was shut’ was admittedly the one and only Syriac reading, it is interesting to see that in references to our verse some Syriac authors use the active form. For example, in Isho’dad’s commentary on the verse17 we read the following words: ‘If he did not know them, how come that he shut the door (djOa a[rt) before them’. In a sermon ascribed to Ephraem,18 we read ‘Woe to me, when there the bridegroom denies me (saying) that he does not know me, and shuts his door (dja h[rtlw) before me’. It is obvious that even if a passive verb is used in the versions, the readers could think that the bridegroom shut the door.
7. An Ethiopic Parallel
While analysing all translations of Matt 25.1–13 in early versions I actually found a parallel of the Schøjen reading in a late Ethiopic manuscript which Zuurmond listed in his apparatus (Ms. 39; fifteenth or sixteenth century) as a text with a peculiar form that did not belong to any of the main textual types which can be discerned in Ethiopic transmission.19 Whereas all other manuscripts read a passive form ( in the text-types A-B-D-E, or in text type C),20 Ms. 39 reads the active voice: : ‘and he shut the door’.21 Although there may have been some influence of the Coptic versions in Ethiopic Gospel traditions,22 it seems to me very unlikely that a text like the one preserved in the Schøjen codex would have served as model for this Ethiopic variant reading. A more likely explanation might be that the editor of the text preserved in Ms. 39 16 A.-S. Marmardji, Diatessaron de Tatien (Beyrouth: Imprimerie Catholique, 1935) 410 (ch. XLIII.18). It is to be noted that vowels and diacritical points are missing in Ms. A (as is clear from the photograph of the manuscript). 17 M. D. Gibson, The Commentaries of Isho’dad of Merv, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1911) 166: line 2 18 E. Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermones I (CSCO 305 [Syr. 130]; Louvain: CSCO, 1976) 74 [Sermo v.368–371]). 19 R. Zuurmond, Novum Testamentum Aethiopice. Part 3. The Gospel of Matthew (Aethiopistische Forschungen 55; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2001) 252 (A-Text apparatus); for Ms. 39, see pp. 1, 5; cf. R. Zuurmond, Novum Testamentum Aethiopice. Part 1. The Synoptic Gospel: General Introduction (Aethiopistische Forschungen 27; Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1989) 79. 20 Resp. wa-ta‘aswa hohǝt and wa-ta ‘a¯swa hohǝt. ˙ ˘ ˘ ˙ ˘ ˘ 21 I.e. wa-‘aswa hohǝta˘. ˙ ˘ ˘ 22 Cf. the cautious opinion of Zuurmond, Novum Testamentum Aethiopice, Part 1, 112f. (§ 12F).
280 tjitze baarda misinterpreted the expression in an Arabic translation that he used as tool for his revision. When the words kai; ejkleivsqh hJ quvra are translated into Arabic one would expect add .23 However, if the words are not or not fully vocalized in a manuscript one might read these words as add , ‘and he shut the door’.24 It seems quite probable that this was the cause of the deviant Ethiopic reading.
8. ‘Danach . . . ’
There is another variant reading in v. 10c that asks for explanation. Instead of a mere kaiv the Coptic text reads mennsws, ‘after it, thereafter’. Schenke (tr. ‘Danach’) reconstructs as the Greek Vorlage text: meta; tou`to. Of course, as so often in re-translations, this is a random choice. One might equally conjecture meta; tauto,25 e[peita,26 or u{steron.27 If one must assume that there was a specific Greek expression behind the Coptic reading mennsws, one might perhaps consider u{steron as a possibility,28 but in my view there is no reason to assume that a Greek equivalent of mennsws was present in the underlying Greek text. 29 lit. In the next verse, 11a, u{steron is most probably rendered with h.i[hay], . ‘in the end, finally [Schenke: zuletzt]’.30 The translator may have felt that before hihay, ‘finally’, another time indication was necessary after the entering of the five wise virgins with the bridegroom (it was only after that entering that the bridegroom shut the door),31 and before, finally, approached the foolish virgins.
23 This (wa-’ug˙ liqa al-ba¯bu) is the reading in edited manuscripts, e.g. P. de Lagarde, Die vier Evangelien Arabisch (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1864) 34; B. Levin, Die Griechisch-Arabische Evangelien-Übersetzung (Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksell, 1838) 46 (Arab.). The same reading in B. Walton, Biblia Polyglotta, vol. 5 (London: Thomas Roycroft, 1657) 129. 24 I.e. wa-’ag˙ laqa al-b¯aba. 25 On the basis of M. Wilmet’s Concordance du Nouveau Testament. Vol. 2. Les mots autochtones, 2. o-s (CSCO 183, Subs. 13; Louvain: CSCO, 1957) 751–5, we must assume that this wording and that of Schenke’s reconstruction are very rare. 26 Wilmet notes 13 times for this word. 27 Wilmet notes 13 times for this word. 28 This word is the first word in the next verse. In that case one has to assume that the translator rendered it twice, first with v. 10c, second with v. 11a. 29 As so often Schenke follows here the Scheide text, but in this case he might be right. In all cases in the Scheide and Schøjen codices where hihay is found, the Greek text reads: u{steron; cf. Scheide: Matt 4.2; 21.29, 32, 37; 22.27; 25.10; 26.60; Schøjen: 21.30; 22.27; and most likely 21.32 and 35.10. 30 In Greek, the neuter (adverb) u{steron has two meanings, ‘later, thereafter’, and ‘finally’. 31 Interesting is that the redactor of the Liège harmony of the Dutch Diatessaron felt the need to add ‘ende alse si in waren’ (= and when they were inside) ‘so wart de doere geloken’ (= then the door was shut); cf. C. C. de Bruin, Het Luikse Diatessaron (Diatessaron Leodiense) (Leiden: Brill, 1970) 222:16.
‘. . . thereafter he shut the door’ 281
The structure of the text with both menn=swf, ‘thereafter’ (first) and hihay, ‘finally’ (second) is also found in Matt 21.30.32 ‘Thereafter he came to the second, he spoke to him in the same way; he (i.e. the second) said “No!”, but finally he feltregret (and) he went’. Again here, the Greek text has only an equivalent for the word ‘finally’ (u{steron) but not for the word ‘thereafter’. It was apparently part of the freedom or linguistic skill of the translator that he inserted ‘thereafter’ before ‘finally’. Therefore, there seems no compelling reason to assume that the translator had found in v. 10c the reading meta; tou`to which Schenke had assumed in his retranslation. So there is no reason to follow Schenke in his reconstruction of the form of text in the so-called ‘independent’ Greek Matthew: meta; tou`to ejkleisen th;n quvran. If there ever was such an ‘independent’ Greek text behind the Schøjen text – which I severely doubt – then still the deviant Coptic text in the Schøjen, which Schenke calls forth as witness, could have been based on a Greek text with the same form as in ‘canonical’ Greek text, namely, kai; ejkleivsen hJ quvra. Further study of the Schøjen text is necessary to find out whether there are more convincing variants that might support the hypothesis of Schenke.
32 The Schøjen text presupposes a text like that of Ms. B pc.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 317–337. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000167
Paul après Paul: une histoire de réception* DAN I E L MARG U E RAT Faculté de Théologie, Université de Lausanne, Anthropole, CH 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
The article addresses the problem of the reception of Paul: how does the construction of the image of Paul in the Deuteropauline letters (Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians), the Pastoral letters, the Acts of the Apostles and the apocryphal Acts of Paul relate together? The difficult question of the relationship between Paul in his letters and Paul in Acts is treated first. A typology of the reception of Paul is proposed following three poles: documentary (his letters), biographical (his life) and doctoral (his permanent authority for the Church). The conception that Paul’s letters were the only regulation for the memory of Paul in the first century is denied. This three poles typology is applied to some topics of the Pauline tradition: the status of the apostle, the suffering of the apostle, and his teaching. It is possible to observe finally how the writings which honor the memory of the apostle have interpreted these topics by working out a feature present in the writings of the apostle. Keywords: Paul, reception of Paul, Acts, Pastorals, Ephesians, Acts of Paul
La question de la réception de Paul est aussi ancienne que la critique historique. Je l’énonce ainsi: dans cette destinée fabuleuse qu’a connue la figure de Paul dans le premier christianisme, comment comprendre et relier ses différentes traces? Quel paradigme appliquer pour relier à la fois les épîtres deutéro-pauliniennes (Col, Ep, 2 Th), les Pastorales (1–2 Tm, Tt), les Actes des apôtres et les Actes apocryphes de Paul? Chacun de ces écrits se livre en effet à une construction spécifique de la figure de Paul. Les Deutéro-pauliniennes tout comme les Pastorales reprennent explicitement des motifs thématiques et biographiques des lettres de l’apôtre. Les Actes s’en distinguent en dressant de Paul l’image non pas d’un écrivain, mais d’un missionnaire fondateur d’églises. Quant aux Actes apocryphes de Paul, émanant de la fin du IIe siècle, ils font droit autant à la figure du missionnaire qu’à * Cet article est la Presidential Address que j’ai prononcée lors de la 62e assemblée de la SNTS à Sibiu, le 1er août 2007. Une première version de la thèse que j’expose ici a été présentée à l’Université de Manchester dans le cadre de la Manson Memorial Lecture le 26 octobre 2006. Je remercie les collègues qui, en ces deux occasions, m’ont fourni d’intéressantes suggestions.
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318 daniel marguerat celle de l’écrivain (3e lettre aux Corinthiens). La façon dont je définis mon sujet indique que sur le plan littéraire, j’adopte la position qui me paraît toujours et encore comme la plus éclairante, même si elle est objet de débat: les Deutéropauliniennes et les Pastorales font partie d’un ‘après Paul’, quelles que soient les instances d’élaboration (secrétaire? école paulinienne?) de cette tradition postpaulinienne. Je traite donc ces épîtres comme provenant non de la main de l’apôtre, mais relevant de l’héritage de la pensée paulinienne. Je commencerai (1) par poser le problème de la réception de Paul à propos de la relation entre les Actes des apôtres et la correspondance paulinienne. Je proposerai en second lieu un modèle de la réception de Paul (2). Puis j’appliquerai ce modèle à trois thèmes communs entre Paul et les écrits appartenant à son héritage: le statut de l’apôtre (3.1), la souffrance de l’apôtre (3.2) et l’enseignement (3.3). Brève conclusion (4).
1. Le Paul des épîtres et le Paul des Actes: entre rupture et harmonisation
La question du rapport entre l’image de Paul telle qu’elle ressort de ses écrits et l’image qui émerge des Actes est posée avec acuité depuis l’école de Tubingue. Elle donne lieu, encore et toujours, à l’affrontement de deux thèses: d’un côté les deux images de Paul sont déclarées inconciliables (thèse de rupture), de l’autre elles sont harmonisées. Les divergences entre les données des épîtres et celles des Actes sont connues; je ne fais que les rappeler brièvement. Elles surgissent au niveau informatif: Paul se reconnaît piètre orateur (1 Co 2.4; 2 Co 10.10), alors que Luc lui attribue à l’image des orateurs anciens de brillants discours (Ac 13; 14; 17; 20; 22; 26).1 L’assemblée de Jérusalem, qui doit trancher le désaccord entre la mission de Paul aux non-juifs et les judéo-chrétiens de Jérusalem, se conclut dans les Actes par l’imposition de quatre abstentions pour les non-juifs (Ac 15.20, 29), alors que Paul se vante en Ga 2.5–10 que rien ne lui fut imposé hormis la collecte pour Jérusalem. Paul s’élève contre le retour des chrétiens à la circoncision (Ga 5.1–12), mais en Ac 16.3 il circoncit Timothée. On relève par ailleurs de troublants silences: pourquoi l’auteur des Actes ne mentionne-t-il ni les conflits théologiques auxquels Paul a dû faire face dans ses communautés, ni son activité épistolaire? Pourquoi Luc refuse-t-il à l’homme de Tarse le titre d’apôtre, qui joue pourtant un rôle fondamental dans la compréhension que Paul a de lui-même (Ga 1.1; 1 Co 9.1; 15.9)? Sur le plan théologique, les désaccords deviennent flagrants. Il est connu que le combat théologique essentiel de Paul s’est déroulé sur le terrain de la Torah: pour l’apôtre, 1 J. C. Lentz, Luke’s Portrait of Paul (SNTSMS 77; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
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le salut en Jésus-Christ est un salut ‘sans les œuvres de la Loi’ (Rm 3.20), et on lit en Galates que Paul n’admet là-dessus pas le moindre compromis; or cette polémique est absente des Actes, qui montrent un Paul affichant un attachement sans faille aux coutumes des pères (Ac 28.17b). De plus, à la cristallisation de la théologie paulinienne sur la croix répond, dans les discours des Actes, une focalisation du kérygme sur la résurrection du Christ: le désaccord entre juifs et chrétiens dans les Actes ne porte pas sur la croix, comme pour Paul, mais sur la résurrection de Jésus (Ac 2.22–36; 3.15–21; 13.26–39; 23.6–9; 26.6–8). La thèse de la rupture a trouvé son expression classique dans un fameux article de Philipp Vielhauer de 1950.2 L’auteur soutenait avec véhémence l’idée que Luc contrevenait dans les Actes à l’enseignement de Paul, d’une part en défendant une théologie naturelle dans le discours de Paul à Athènes (Ac 17.22–31), d’autre part en abandonnant la position paulinienne sur la Torah au nom d’une continuité christianisme/judaïsme, en quittant la christologie de la croix et en témoignant d’une eschatologie affaissée. Bref, concluait-il, ‘der Verfasser der Apg ist in seiner Christologie vorpaulinisch, in seiner natürlicher Theologie, Gesetzesauffassung und Eschatologie nachpaulinisch. Es findet sich bei ihm kein einziger spezifisch paulinischer Gedanke’.3 Voici Luc renvoyé de l’école paulinienne pour mauvais résultats! Or dans sa massivité, la position de Vielhauer s’est avérée intenable. Il n’est pas exact de dire qu’Ac 17 défend une théologie naturelle; l’échec de la connaissance païenne de Dieu y est aussi affirmé qu’en Rm 1.18–32: Dieu met fin maintenant, dit le Paul lucanien à Athènes, aux crovnoi th`~ ajgnoiva~ (Ac 17.30a), les temps d’ignorance, en annonçant la nécessité de se convertir à Celui qu’il a désigné comme Juge du monde (17.30b); la nécessaire metanoia fait intervenir le moment du changement qui rompt avec la théologie naturelle. En outre, opposer la circoncision de Timothée (Ac 16.3) à la non-circoncision de Tite (Ga 2.3) ne tient pas compte du fait que Tite est païen alors que Timothée est de mère juive; cela correspond à la position qu’énonce l’apôtre en 1 Co 9.20–21: ‘J’ai été pour les juifs comme un juif [. . .] pour les sans-loi comme un sans-loi’; Paul fait explicitement état d’une position différenciée de sa part en fonction du statut religieux. En outre, opposer la version paulinienne de l’assemblée de Jérusalem (Ga 2.5–10) à celle de Luc (Ac 15.5–21) ne tient pas compte de la différence des genres littéraires: Paul argumente, alors que Luc décrit une pratique.4
2 P. Vielhauer, ‘Zum “Paulinismus” der Apostelgeschichte’, Aufsätze zum Neuen Testament (ThB 31; München: Kaiser, 1965) 9–27. 3 ‘Zum “Paulinismus” der Apostelgeschichte’, 26. 4 L’argument est exploité dans la littérature gréco-romaine par T. Hillard, A. Nobbs et B. Winter, ‘Acts and the Pauline Corpus I; Ancient Literary Parallels’, The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting, vol 1 (ed. B. W. Winter et A. D. Clarke; Grand Rapids/Carlisle: Eerdmans/Paternoster, 1993) 183–213.
320 daniel marguerat Il faut ajouter à cela que méthodologiquement, la visée propre de chaque écrit doit être prise en compte. Luc décrit Paul comme un débatteur à l’externe, avec la synagogue ou avec des auditoires païens, donc comme un outsider; dans sa correspondance, l’apôtre prend position au sein d’un débat à l’interne, il argumente comme un insider. Le Paul de Luc proclame l’Évangile, le Paul des épîtres en fait l’exégèse. On peut également attendre d’un écrit biographique qu’il fasse état de traits de l’apôtre que l’intéressé passe sous silence dans ses lettres ou mentionne brièvement; c’est le cas des actes de guérison, j’y reviendrai plus tard. Le défaut méthodologique de la position de Vielhauer est de superposer deux genres littéraires en considérant les lettres de Paul comme la norme à laquelle devraient se plier les Actes; en bref, sa thèse de la trahison lucanienne du paulinisme n’est plus défendable. On pourrait montrer d’ailleurs que l’opposition frontale construite par Vielhauer entre Luc et Paul est fortement imprégnée de la controverse théologique entre Barth et Brunner dans les années 1930, et que Vielhauer pense devoir rédupliquer le ‘non’ signifié par Barth à Brunner sur les relations entre la nature et la grâce.5 À l’autre extrémité, harmoniser les données des épîtres et des Actes, n’est pas satisfaisant pour autant.6 Si elles plaident à juste titre pour la complémentarité des données de l’apôtre et de Luc, les positions déployées de part et d’autre sur la question de la Torah ne sont pas superposables. Vielhauer a raison: l’acuité du débat sur la validité de la Loi n’est plus du tout le souci de Luc. La christologie des Actes n’est pas du tout celle de Paul, focalisée sur la croix. Pas plus que celle de la rupture, la thèse harmonisante n’est à mes yeux défendable jusqu’au bout. Que faire, sinon de sortir de l’alternative entre rupture et harmonisation? Une approche différenciée de la réception paulinienne devrait le permettre.
2. Une typologie de la réception de Paul
De quelles informations l’auteur des Actes disposait-il pour écrire son œuvre? Défendre l’idée d’un auteur compagnon de Paul ne me paraît guère possible, dans la mesure où l’état de la chrétienté reflétée par les Actes est proche de celui des Pastorales, dans les années 80. Il a été maintes fois montré que le discours d’adieu aux anciens d’Éphèse (Ac 20.18–35) témoigne d’une situation analogue à celle qu’adressent les Pastorales: annonce de tensions internes, 5 E. Brunner, Natur und Gnade (Tübingen: Mohr, 1934); K. Barth, Nein! Antwort an Emil Brunner (TEH 14; München: C. Kaiser, 1934). Je dois ces références à M. Wolter. 6 F. F. Bruce, ‘Is the Paul of Acts the Real Paul?’, BJRL 58 (1976) 282–305; C. J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (WUNT 49; Tübingen: Mohr, 1989); S. E. Porter, The Paul of Acts: Essays in Literary Criticism, Rhetoric, and Theology (WUNT 115; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999); A. Mittelstaedt, Lukas als Historiker. Zur Datierung des lukanischen Doppelwerkes (TANZ 43; Tübingen: Franke, 2006).
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contestation de l’intégrité de Paul et polémique contre des prédications déviantes.7 Maintenir l’idée du témoignage oculaire ne fait qu’aggraver le problème: comment un témoin, un auditeur jour après jour de Paul, pourrait-il omettre son activité épistolaire ou taire le titre d’apôtre pour lequel il s’est battu? Il faut donc nous réinterroger sur les informations dont dispose Luc. Le modèle de l’harmonie et le modèle de la rupture ont en commun un présupposé: Luc a connu les lettres de Paul, mais pour des raisons inexplicables ne les cite pas. Question: en est-on si sûr? Est-on certain que Luc a eu connaissance de la correspondance paulinienne? L’intense travail mené actuellement sur la littérature apocryphe chrétienne conduit en effet à nous réinterroger sur les modalités de transmission de la tradition. L’existence de nombreux évangiles apocryphes ou actes apocryphes d’apôtres nous fait réaliser qu’en dehors et à côté de la tradition qui s’est fixée dans les écrits canoniques, nombre de traditions orales ou partiellement écrites, que vont recueillir plus tard les apocryphes, circulaient dans les communautés. Nous savons plus distinctement aujourd’hui que la rédaction des écrits canoniques n’a pas, et de loin, épuisé les possibilités de la tradition sur Jésus et les apôtres. Bien d’autres traditions, et des communautés vivant de ces traditions répétées de bouche à oreille ou véhiculées par des prophètes ou des enseignants, composaient le tissu du christianisme aux deux premiers siècles. Que s’est-il passé après la mort de Paul, autour de l’année 60? La circulation de ses lettres est attestée déjà de son vivant (2 Co 10.10). Ses écrits ont été progressivement collectés et rassemblés, les premières traces d’un canon des épîtres pauliniennes datant de la fin du premier siècle. 1 Clément, Ignace d’Antioche et Polycarpe de Smyrne font état d’une connaissance de ses écrits, mais sans s’intéresser à la personne de l’apôtre.8 Entre 60 et 100, que s’est-il passé d’autre? L’héritage de Paul a été préservé selon d’autres modes, selon d’autres voies que le rassemblement de ses écrits. C’est à mon avis un anachronisme que d’imaginer Luc écrivant l’histoire de Paul avec, sous les yeux, les lettres de l’apôtre. Entre les Actes et le canon des lettres pauliniennes, une étape historique est négligée: le phénomène complexe et multiforme de la réception de Paul. 2.1 Les trois pôles de la réception de Paul Parler de ‘réception’ signale, par rapport aux confrontations immédiates auxquelles se livrent les tenants de la rupture ou de l’harmonie, un changement de paradigme. Le phénomène de réception implique qu’une dialectique d’iden7 J. Dupont, Le discours de Milet. Testament pastoral de saint Paul (Actes 20,18–36) (LeDiv 32; Paris: Cerf, 1962); B. Roberts Gaventa, ‘Theology and Eccesiology in the Miletus Speech: Reflections on Content and Context’, NTS 50 (2004) 36–52. 8 A. Lindemann, ‘Der Apostel Paulus im 2. Jahrhundert’, Paulus. Apostel und Lehrer der Kirche. Studien zu Paulus und zum frühen Paulusverständnis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999) 294–322.
322 daniel marguerat tité et de déplacement caractérise la relation entre une pensée originelle et sa reprise ultérieure. La diversité des formes qu’a prise la tradition paulinienne correspond à ce constat: d’un côté des lettres imitent le style de l’apôtre et présentent un enseignement en son nom, ce sont les épîtres deutéro-pauliniennes et les Pastorales; d’un autre côté, la mémoire de l’apôtre est magnifiée par le rappel de son action: c’est le cas des Actes des apôtres et des Actes de Paul. François Bovon a défendu la thèse que la réception de l’apôtre, au premier siècle, avait pris ces deux formes: d’un côté Paul survit dans les lettres comme ‘document’, de l’autre dans les écrits biographiques comme ‘monument’.9 La proposition est intéressante, mais réclame un correctif: tant Colossiens et Éphésiens que 2 Timothée poursuivent l’activité épistolaire de Paul, mais sans négliger pour autant la dimension biographique du personnage, notamment sa vie de souffrance (Col 1.1–11; 1.24–2.4; Ep 3; 2 Tm 1.12–2.7; 4.6–8). Poursuivant cette intuition, je dirais que la réception de Paul s’est organisée autour de trois pôles: documentaire, biographique et doctoral. Le pôle ‘documentaire’ retient en Paul l’écrivain: ses écrits sont recueillis, recopiés, reconfigurés pour certains, rassemblés en une collection qui s’intégrera au canon du Nouveau Testament. Sur le pôle ‘biographique’, Paul est célébré comme le héraut de l’Évangile, le missionnaire des nations, dont on narre les hauts faits (Luc le fait dans les Actes); une hagiographie se prépare ici, dont les Actes de Paul seront le dépôt un siècle plus tard. Sur le pôle ‘doctoral’ , Paul est invoqué comme le docteur de l’Église: on imite ses sentences dans des lettres pseudépigraphiques, on étend son enseignement dans le domaine de l’ecclésiologie et de l’éthique, on écrit en son nom; ce sont les Deutéro-pauliniennes et les Pastorales. Le plus important à réaliser est que ces trois types de réception sont parallèles et synchrones; ils se déroulent entre les années 60 et 100. Ils représentent trois façons d’assumer l’absence de l’apôtre, soit en fixant la mémoire de sa vie (héritage ‘biographique’), soit en préservant ses écrits (héritage ‘documentaire’), soit en l’instituant comme icône théologique garante de l’interprétation orthodoxe (héritage ‘doctoral’; cf. Col 2.5). Chacune de ces gestions de l’héritage paulinien sélectionne les traits qui lui conviennent dans la figure de l’apôtre et confère à cette figure un statut spécifique. La figure de l’apôtre s’est donc construite sur trois voies parallèles. J’insiste: le canon des épîtres pauliniennes ne constitue pas le socle documentaire commun, la toile de fond sur laquelle se serait construite toute la réception de l’apôtre. La réception documentaire constitue en elle-même une filière dans la réception de la figure de Paul, une filière spécifique, qui retient de lui son statut d’écrivain polémiste. Encore une fois, il est anachronique de penser que puisque nous avons sous les yeux aujourd’hui sa correspondance, ses 9 F. Bovon, ‘Paul comme Document et Paul comme Monument’, Chrétiens en conflit. L’Épître de Paul aux Galates (ed. J. Allaz, etc.; Essais bibliques 13; Genève: Labor et Fides, 1987) 54–65.
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lettres constituaient au premier siècle l’unique medium de connaissance de l’apôtre. Ce que nous savons de la rareté de l’écrit dans l’Antiquité doit nous conduire à penser le contraire: le souvenir de l’apôtre s’est maintenu prioritairement par les récits traditionnels préservés dans les communautés qu’il avait fondées. Seuls les lettrés avaient accès à l’écrit; en aucun cas, la mémoire sociale de l’apôtre ne s’est transmise suivant des canaux purement littéraires. Les conséquences du paradigme que je propose sont importantes pour la construction de la figure de Paul. Le pôle ‘doctoral’ poursuit l’activité littéraire de l’apôtre et se nourrit de ses écrits; cette activité de lecture et de relecture peut être repérée aux effets d’intertextualité qu’entretiennent les lettres pseudépigraphes avec les lettres proto-pauliniennes.10 Il n’en va pas de même sur le pôle ‘biographique’, ce que traduit le silence de Luc sur les écrits de Paul: la connaissance que l’auteur a de son héros n’est pas une connaissance littéraire. Luc travaille avec la mémoire de la vie et de l’enseignement de Paul préservée dans son milieu, où vingt ans après, le débat de Paul sur la Torah a perdu son actualité. Le souvenir en a été préservé (Ac 15.1–35; 16.1–6; 21.17–26), mais la discussion comme telle est absente des Actes: non parce que Luc aurait mal lu Paul, mais parce qu’il dépend d’une autre source d’information. En revanche, la mémoire des communautés fondées par l’apôtre des Gentils lui fournit un abondant matériau narratif absent des épîtres. Il est donc inadéquat de mesurer la fiabilité de l’historiographie lucanienne à une norme que constituerait le corps des écrits pauliniens, dans la mesure où précisément, ces écrits ne constituaient pas encore la norme de la tradition paulinienne. 2.2 Paul guérisseur Un exemple: l’image de Paul guérisseur. Le livre des Actes nous rapporte de lui cinq actes miraculeux (13.9–11; 14.8–10; 16.16–18; 28.7–8), ainsi qu’une résurrection de mort (20.7–12) et un sommaire de guérisons (19.11–12). L’école de Tubingue a pointé le doigt sur le procédé de syncrisis entre Pierre et Paul systématiquement construit dans les Actes, et conclu que Luc aurait distribué entre Pierre et Paul les mêmes qualités pour modeler le portrait de l’un sur l’autre. Jacob Jervell a eu raison de protester en invoquant l’activité thérapeutique de Paul attestée par ses lettres.11 Il a attiré l’attention sur les ‘signes de l’apôtre’ (ta; shmei`a tou` ajpostovlou) revendiqués par l’apôtre en 2 Co 12.12. La modalité des ‘signes de l’apôtre’ est explicitée par la triade ‘signes, prodiges et actes de puissance’, que
10 A. Merz, Die fiktive Selbstauslegung des Paulus. Intertextuelle Studien zur Intention und Rezeption der Pastoralbriefe (NTOA 52; Göttingen/Fribourg: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht/Academic Press, 2004). 11 J. Jervell, The Unknown Paul: Essays on Luke–Acts and Early Christian History (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984) 76–95.
324 daniel marguerat l’on retrouve dans les Actes.12 En Rm 15.18b–19, l’apôtre synthétise son ministère à l’aide des mêmes termes: Christ a œuvré par lui ‘pour l’obéissance des nations, par la parole et l’action, par la puissance des signes et prodiges (ejn dunavmei shmeivwn kai; teravtwn)’ . Aux Thessaloniciens, il parle de l’Évangile ‘qui n’a pas été pour vous en parole seulement, mais en puissance et en Esprit saint’ (1 Th 1.5). Bref, ce sur quoi Paul demeure si discret, la mémoire ‘biographique’ nous l’a préservé. Les Actes l’inscrivent au sein d’un schématisme de corrélation Jésus–Pierre–Paul, alors que les Actes de Paul, dans leur relecture des Actes canoniques, cèdent à l’amplification légendaire; mais sur le fond, c’est-à-dire en décrivant Paul comme un guérisseur, ces écrits n’ont rien inventé. Plus encore: ils nous permettent de mieux comprendre ce que fut ‘l’effet Paul’ dans les communautés qu’il a fondées, et qui l’ont accueilli, à l’instar des Galates, comme ‘un ange de Dieu’ (Ga 4.14). 2.3 Les points de contact Les contacts terminologiques entre les Actes et le langage paulinien ne sont pas nombreux.13 Le même verbe porqei`n désigne l’opposition de Paul au mouvement chrétien (Ga 1.13; Ac 9.21) ainsi que la formule zhlwth;~ uJpavrcwn (Ga 1.14; Ac 22.3). Dans l’épisode de la fuite de Damas, on lit les mêmes expressions ‘à travers la muraille’ (dia; tou` teivcou~) et ‘faire descendre’ (cala`n) en 2 Co 11.33 et Ac 9.25. Ces contacts s’expliquent aisément par la diffusion de la légende paulinienne: comme on s’en aperçoit à la lecture de Ph 3.6, Paul a lui-même contribué à la diffusion de son image de persécuteur repenti. Les contacts terminologiques touchant son enseignement, présents dans le discours de Pierre chez Corneille (Ac 10.43) et dans l’homélie de Paul à Antioche de Pisidie (13.38–39), seront abordés sous 3.3; il ne s’agit pas de citations, mais d’une utilisation de logia de l’apôtre en circulation dans les communautés pauliniennes. J’illustre ma thèse sur les deux points de contact narratif entre les Actes et les lettres pauliniennes: le résultat de l’assemblée de Jérusalem et la fuite de Damas. Alors que Paul fait le bilan de l’assemblée de Jérusalem à l’intention des Galates: ‘À eux, nous ne nous sommes pas soumis, même pour une concession momentanée, afin que la vérité de l’Évangile fût maintenue pour vous’ (Ga 2.5), le récit des Actes met en place les quatre abstinences du décret apostolique (Ac 15.20, 29): idolâtrie, immoralité (porneiva), viande étouffée et sang sont interdits aux pagano-chrétiens. Encore une fois, l’opposition frontale du texte de Paul et du texte de Luc a le plus souvent conduit à soupçonner Luc d’insérer ici un disposi-
12 Ac 2.22; 8.13. Voir aussi 2.19, 43; 4.30; 5.12; 6.8; 7.36; 14.3; 15.12. 13 Cf. W. O. Walker, ‘Acts and the Pauline Corpus Reconsidered’, JSNT 24 (1985) 3–23 ou The Pauline Writings (ed. S. E. Porter et C. E. Evans; The Biblical Seminar 34; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995) 55–74.
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tif tardif et local adopté par des communautés judéo-chrétiennes; peut-être Luc a-t-il effectivement recueilli un tel dispositif. Le plus important à mon avis est qu’il rend ainsi compte de la pratique effective de Paul. Lorsque Paul requiert, à Corinthe (1 Co 8) ou à Rome (Rm 14), l’égard des forts envers les faibles, il plaide en effet sotériologiquement pour la liberté des forts, mais leur recommande pragmatiquement l’abstinence: ‘Si en prenant telle nourriture tu attristes ton frère, tu ne marches plus selon l’amour; garde-toi, pour une question de nourriture, de faire périr celui pour lequel Christ est mort’ (Rm 14.15). Ne retrouve-t-on pas dans le dispositif du décret apostolique cet écho de l’attitude de l’apôtre, à la fois théologiquement ferme et éthiquement souple, au nom de l’agapè?14 On conçoit que dans la stratégie rhétorique de Ga 2, Paul défende le principe sotériologique et non ses modulations éthiques; celles-ci ont été retenues dans la mémoire de l’apôtre recueillie par Luc. Le second point de contact narratif est le fameux incident de la fuite dans la corbeille, par dessus la muraille de Damas. L’hostilité qui fait fuir l’apôtre est attribuée par Paul à l’ethnarque du roi Arétas (2 Co 11.32–33), par Luc aux juifs (Ac 9.25). Les deux versions ne concordent donc pas. Les propositions consistant à créditer Luc d’une relecture falsifiante de l’épisode de 2 Co 11 n’ont pas manqué dans l’exégèse. Mais il est plus vraisemblable qu’une anecdote aussi spectaculaire ait donné lieu, dans la tradition orale, à de multiples variantes; c’est là que l’auteur des Actes a puisé sa version, choisissant sans nul doute celle qui convenait le mieux à son propos, à savoir de présenter les juifs dans le rôle des persécuteurs d’un Paul tout juste converti de son activité de persécuteur du Christ (9.26–30).15 Ici encore, la tradition à laquelle puise l’auteur des Actes ne se nourrit pas premièrement des écrits de l’apôtre, mais de son histoire de vie. On est en droit, bien entendu, de s’interroger sur la plausibilité historique d’un tel paradigme. Un aussi grand admirateur de Paul qu’est l’auteur des Actes a-t-il pu ignorer l’existence des lettres attribuées à son héros? L’existence dans les communautés pauliniennes de la copie de certaines lettres ne pouvait guère passer inaperçue. On ne peut donc pas affirmer avec certitude que Luc ne les a pas connues; mais au vu de son œuvre, on peut constater qu’il les a ignorées. Leur éclipse dans les Actes ne prouve pas l’ignorance littéraire de l’auteur, mais signale que dans le milieu traditionnel auquel il appartient, les lettres ne régulaient pas la mémoire de l’apôtre. Considérer qu’une connaissance ‘authentique’ de Paul passe par la médiation exclusive de ses écrits, au mépris de la trace que son action a laissée dans l’histoire, est un préjugé qui date du siècle des Lumières.
14 K. Loening, ‘Das Evangelium und die Kulturen. Heilsgeschichtliche und kulturelle Aspekte kirchlicher Realität in der Apostelgeschichte’, ANRW II,25.3 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1985) 2604–46, surtout 2623–5. 15 Voir D. Marguerat, Les Actes des apôtres (1–12) (CNT 5a; Genève: Labor et Fides, 2007) 340–1.
326 daniel marguerat E.J. Goodspeed a lancé en son temps l’idée que le canon des lettres pauliniennes avait été constitué par un admirateur anonyme de Paul, dont l’intérêt avait été éveillé par la lecture des Actes récemment publiés, et qu’il était allé collecter ses lettres dans les communautés fondées par l’apôtre.16 Compte tenu du processus long et complexe qui a présidé à la constitution du canon paulinien et à la reconfiguration de plusieurs de ses lettres, cette idée romantique doit être abandonnée; mais l’intuition qui la guidait peut être retenue: au moment où Luc écrit, le canon des lettres pauliniennes n’est encore ni vraiment constitué, ni achevé – car la rédaction des Pastorales est en cours – ni surtout érigé en corpus référentiel de la mémoire de l’apôtre.17 J’illustre maintenant cette gestion différenciée de l’héritage paulinien en montrant comment la présence de motifs sur le pôle ‘biographique’ et le pôle ‘doctoral’ développe des potentialités inscrites dans les lettres de l’apôtre. Autrement dit: je veux montrer comment le choix de motifs différents, sur l’un ou l’autre des pôles de la réception paulinienne, correspond à des potentialités présentes dans les lettres de Paul, mais développées diversement en fonction des besoins de la tradition.
3. Une réception différenciée de Paul
Comment la figure de Paul a-t-elle été construite dans les écrits que j’affilie aux pôles biographique et doctoral? et peut-on identifier dans les lettres de Paul la source traditionnelle des motifs retenus dans cette construction différenciée selon les écrits? Je répète que ce qui différencie à mes yeux la filière biographique de la filière doctorale, c’est que les écrits ‘doctoraux’ se livrent à une relecture des épîtres proto-pauliniennes, tandis que les écrits ‘biographiques’ dérivent d’une mémoire de l’apôtre non normée par les écrits de la main de Paul. 3.1 Le statut de Paul Quel statut est accordé à Paul du point de vue de l’histoire du salut? Dans les Actes des apôtres, la situation est claire. Le récit témoigne d’un intérêt marqué pour le personnage de Paul, qui domine la narration dès le chapitre 13. Paul est le skeu`o~ ejklogh`~ (9.15), l’instrument choisi par Dieu pour proclamer l’Évangile hors de son espace originaire, le judaïsme. Luc voit en lui l’homme providentiel par qui le témoignage du Ressuscité gagnera l’e[scaton th`~ gh`~ (1.8). La concentration progressive de la narration sur la figure de Paul est le résultat d’une stratégie narrative: introduit subrepticement dans le récit à l’occasion du martyre d’Étienne (7.58–8.3), converti (9.1–31), actif à Antioche (11.25–26), Saul/Paul est le 16 E. J. Goodspeed, New Solutions of the New Testament Problems (Chicago, 1927). 17 C. K. Barrett, ‘Acts and the Pauline Corpus’, ET 78 (1976) 2–5.
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compagnon de Barnabé en Ac 13–14, puis il joue le premier rôle dans le second voyage missionnaire d’Ac 15–21; dès le chapitre 22, il figure seul en témoin accusé, proclamant l’Évangile à la face de Jérusalem et de l’officialité de l’Empire. Luc a savamment organisé une montée en puissance de son héros d’Ac 7 à Ac 28.18 Mais il faut tout aussitôt ajouter que l’intrigue des Actes met en place une série de personnages avant lui: Paul est précédé. Il n’est ni le premier, ni – comme on le dit trop souvent – le partenaire d’un récit à deux têtes, Pierre et Paul. Luc, pour qui l’argument de la continuité est théologiquement structurant, a mis en place, entre le temps des Douze apôtres à Jérusalem (Ac 1–6) et le temps de Paul (Ac 13–28), une série de figures intermédiaires: Étienne qui provoque la crise avec le judaïsme jérusalémite (6.8–7.60), Philippe qui évangélise hors de la Judée (8.5–40), Barnabé qui introduit Paul dans la communauté de Jérusalem (9.27) et l’associe à l’évangélisation d’Antioche (11.25–26). Cette succession narrative insère Paul dans une chaîne de témoins qui préserve le lecteur de l’isoler. Plus important encore, Paul n’est pas l’inaugurateur de l’ouverture de la mission aux non-juifs; ce privilège est attribué à Pierre, dans la fameuse rencontre avec Corneille qui sanctionne l’abandon de la barrière millénaire entre le pur et l’impur (10.1–11.18). Ce dispositif narratif est signifiant: l’ouverture programmatique à l’évangélisation des non-juifs, à laquelle Dieu pousse Pierre, est insérée entre le récit de la conversion de Paul à Damas (Ac 9) et le début de sa mission (Ac 13); Paul ne fait que poursuivre une ouverture inaugurée par Pierre et mise en œuvre avant lui par les chrétiens hellénistes réfugiés à Antioche (11.19–20). Ce statut second de Paul par rapport aux Douze se vérifie dans le surprenant refus lucanien de lui accorder le titre d’ajpovstolo~, réservé aux compagnons de Jésus (1.21–22).19 Peut-on imaginer qu’un lecteur des épîtres ose une pareille privation? L’image finale d’un Paul accueillant et prêchant à Rome à ‘tous ceux qui viennent à lui’ (28.30), juifs et nonjuifs, concrétise le lien que constitue dans les Actes l’homme de Tarse entre Israël et l’Église – un lien que Luc réaffirme malgré la notification du refus signifié par Israël à l’Évangile (28.26–27). Dans les Deutéro-pauliniennes, Paul est aussi une figure d’inclusivité, non plus entre Israël et l’Église, mais entre juifs et païens. Le slogan de Ga 3.28, mais aussi Rm 3.22–23 et 10.12–13 devaient résonner dans la tradition paulinienne. En Colossiens, Paul apparaît comme le proclamateur par excellence de la parole de Dieu (1.25), une parole identifiée à l’Évangile (1.5) et interprétée comme un musthvrion (1.26); ce mystère caché depuis les siècles et maintenant manifesté, et dont Paul est le destinataire privilégié, n’est pas simplement Christ, mais Christ ejn 18 D. Marguerat, ‘L’image de Paul dans les Actes des Apôtres’, ACFEB, Les Actes des Apôtres. Histoire, récit, théologie (ed. M. Berder; LeDiv 199; Paris: Cerf, 2005) 121–54. 19 Je considère que l’exception de 14.4, 14, où ajpovstolo~ désigne au pluriel Barnabé et Paul, est un lapsus signalant que l’auteur est conscient du titre apostolique accordé à Paul, mais décide de ne pas le lui attribuer.
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uJmi`n (1.27), ‘Christ parmi vous’. La catégorie du musthvrion, fondamentale en Colossiens (1.26, 27; 2.2; 4.3), trouve sa concrétisation ultime dans la présence de l’Évangile parmi les nations, et l’existence de l’église de Colosses en est un signe. L’épître aux Éphésiens apporte au musthvrion son interprétation ecclésiologique. Le mystère, dont Paul a reçu connaissance par révélation (3.3), est toujours le ‘mystère du Christ’, mais son contenu est décrit en 3.6: ‘les païens sont associés au même héritage, au même corps, à la même promesse dans le Christ Jésus par l’Évangile’. Éphésiens dégage donc les implications ecclésiologiques du ‘Christ parmi vous’ de Colossiens: il s’agit de créer l’homme nouveau à partir des juifs et des païens, et de les réconcilier tous les deux avec Dieu en un seul corps au moyen de la croix (2.15–16 condense 2.11–22). Le ‘mystère’ n’est donc autre que l’interprétation ecclésiologique et missiologique de l’Évangile paulinien. Ce qui est significatif ici, c’est que Paul n’est plus seulement le récepteur de la révélation, mais son proclamateur autorisé par Dieu. Il devient partie intégrante de l’Évangile qu’il annonce, puisqu’il s’agit pour lui d’accomplir (plhrw`sai) la parole de Dieu (Col 1.25). Paul appartient désormais au musthvrion.20 Le tableau change notablement dans les Pastorales. Paul est le seul auteur des lettres (diff. Col 1.1) et le seul apôtre nommé dans les lettres. Paul est le prw`to~ (1 Tm 1.15), le premier des pécheurs sauvés, le modèle (uJpotuvpwsi~ 2 Tm 1.13) de tous ceux qui viennent à la foi. Il est à l’origine de la kalh; paraqhvkh (2 Tm 1.14), le ‘bon dépôt’ que Timothée a charge de préserver. Paul exhorte ainsi à garder son enseignement, sa saine doctrine, régissant la vie de l’Église suivant le modèle de l’oi\ko~ gréco-romaine: 1 Tm et Tt sont les témoins de cette organisation de la maison, distribuant à chaque catégorie (épiscope, diacre, ancien, veuve, esclave) sa place, son comportement et son rôle. Paul est posé ici comme le fondateur et l’organisateur de l’Église. La priorité qui lui est reconnue comme prw`to~ (1 Tm 1.15) est à la fois une priorité temporelle dans l’ordre de la conversion et une priorité théologique en tant que modèle des croyants à venir. La contradiction est flagrante avec la déclaration de 1 Co 15.8–9, où l’apôtre se dégrade face aux premiers bénéficiaires des apparitions pascales en se posant comme l’e[scato~ pavntwn, le dernier de tous, le moindre, l’ejlavcisto~; c’est à Céphas que, de fait, le statut de prw`to~ est reconnu (1 Co 15.5). Mais en réalité, une tension domine le passage puisque Paul affirme au verset 10: ‘mais j’ai travaillé plus qu’eux tous (perissovteron aujtw`n pavntwn ejkopivasa)’. Il y a tension entre la postériorité de 20 ‘“Paulus” nun selbst zum Inhalt der Verkündigung gehört, also in das “Mysterium” hineingehört’. H. Merklein, ‘Paulinische Theologie in der Rezeption des Kolosser- und Epheserbriefes’, Paulus in den neutestamentlichen Spätschriften (ed. K. Kertelge; QD 89; Freiburg: Herder, 1981) 25–69, citation 29. Entre Colossiens et Éphésiens, une différence est perceptible dans la mesure où le Paul des Colossiens est seul habilité à proclamer le mystère (Col 4.4), aucune référence n’étant faite à la tradition apostolique commune; en revanche, le musthvrion en Ep 3.5 est révélé ‘par l’Esprit à ses saints apôtres et prophètes’.
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Paul (l’e[scato~ pavntwn) et sa revendication d’une grâce plus efficiente en lui. Paul lui-même ne se présente jamais comme le premier d’une lignée, et Éphésiens le pose comme ‘le dernier de tous les saints’ (Ep 3.8). L’argument de la priorité, dont on sait qu’il était largement diffusé dans la philosophie populaire, s’est donc inversé entre 1 Co 15.5 et 1 Tm 1.15, si bien que la priorité pétrinienne de 1 Co 15 a été affectée à Paul en 1 Tm.21 Il m’apparaît que les Pastorales radicalisent le paradoxe paulinien de 1 Co 15, mais en le simplifiant à partir du perissovteron de 1 Co 15.10, qui devient l’élément dominant; c’est ainsi qu’elles construisent le type du ‘premier pécheur/premier sauvé’. Le fondement théologique n’en est pas moins maintenu: de part et d’autre l’agir vient de Dieu, en 1 Co (cf. 15.10a) comme en 1 Tm (cf. le passif divin hjlehvqhn, ‘j’ai été pris en miséricorde’, de 1.13, 16). 2 Tm, qui occupe une place singulière au sein des Pastorales, se distingue par l’ancrage biographique qu’elle assure à l’enseignement de Paul, à la différence de 1 Tm et Tt. Son image de l’auteur emprisonné à Rome et prêchant (1.17) reprend le dernier tableau d’Ac 28.30–31 pour en faire la situation d’énonciation de l’épître; elle envisage donc visiblement le temps après Paul. La sédentarisation forcée de l’apôtre explique la situation instable de l’Église où d’anciens collaborateurs agissent sans être fiables; c’est dans cette fragilité successorale qu’intervient 2 Tm. Le réseau des collaborateurs de Paul est largement cité (1.5, 15–18, 20; 2.17; 3.12–13; 4.9–21). Ceux qui l’ont abandonné (1.15; 4.9–10) contrastent avec ceux qui lui sont fidèles (1.16; 4.11). La tradition paulinienne mêle ici des données venues des épîtres et des Actes à des données propres, avec un souci de relier le pôle ‘doctoral’ au pôle ‘biographique’.22 De l’intégration de Paul dans une chaîne de témoins (Actes) à la posture de fondateur de l’Église (Pastorales), on voit se dessiner une ligne évolutive où Paul reçoit un statut progressivement hiératique. Les Deutéro-pauliniennes, qui affectent à l’apôtre une fonction de médiateur du ‘mystère’ (Col/Ep), occupent une position médiane dans cette évolution. Elle s’accentue encore si l’on passe aux Actes de Paul, un écrit que Tertullien attribue à un presbytre admirateur de Paul – un auteur mal inspiré selon lui (De Baptismo 17.5). Ce à quoi l’on assiste ici, c’est à la superposition de la figure du Christ et de celle de l’apôtre. Les exemples ne manquent pas. Traînée au théâtre pour être brûlée, Thècle cherche Paul des yeux et voit ‘le Seigneur assis, sous les traits de Paul’; au moment où elle le fixe des yeux, celui-ci s’en va au ciel (AcPl 3.21). Paul avait été auparavant chassé de la ville, et c’est le Christ qui emprunte son visage pour rassurer Thècle 21 Avec M. Wolter, Die Pastoralbriefe als Paulustradition (FRLANT 146; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988) 51–6. 22 Cette conjonction des pôles est-elle un indice que 2 Tm a été rédigée avant les autres Pastorales en un temps où le souvenir de Paul était encore vif ou (plutôt) le signe que l’écriture de 2 Tm témoigne d’une volonté tardive d’harmonisation entre les différents pôles de la réception de Paul?
330 daniel marguerat avant l’épreuve. Plus tard, lorsque Paul est emprisonné avec ses compagnons avant d’être livré aux bêtes, il prie Dieu pour être délivré. Un miracle se produit: les portes de la prison s’ouvrent, les gardes sont endormis, mais voici qu’un ‘jeune homme ressemblant [au] corps de Paul, éclairant non avec une lanterne, mais par le rayonnement de son corps, les précédait jusqu’à ce qu’ils parvinssent à la mer’ (9.20). C’est le Christ sous les traits de Paul qui les guide vers la délivrance. Le procédé est subtil, notons-le. Jésus n’est pas confondu avec Paul, mais il arbore ses traits. La conviction que le Seigneur intervient au travers de lui est si forte qu’elle génère une image brouillée: est-ce Paul qui agit, ou plutôt Jésus? On perçoit ici l’émergence d’un stade de vénération de l’apôtre atteint vers le milieu du IIe siècle: Paul n’est plus le disciple, l’apôtre, mais le saint, le bienheureux; son image rejoint celle du Christ jusqu’à fusionner temporairement avec elle. Par glissements successifs, le Christ est absorbé par la sphère divine, et l’apôtre tend à s’identifier avec le Sauveur. Au terme de l’itinéraire biographique des Actes de Paul, l’apôtre est décapité sur ordre de Néron. Après son exécution, il apparaît devant l’empereur et devant sa cour: ‘César, voici Paul, le soldat de Dieu; je ne suis pas mort, mais je vis’ (14.6). Le retour de Paul à la vie réduplique le miracle de Pâques, et sa résurrection devient une preuve confondant les païens incrédules. De médiateur, l’apôtre est devenu source de la révélation. Ce qui m’apparaît au terme de cette concentration croissante sur l’unicité de Paul, c’est que les différents statuts accordés à l’apôtre correspondent à diverses faces de la compréhension que Paul avait de lui-même. Chaque pôle de la réception paulinienne a concrétisé une potentialité présente dans les écrits de l’apôtre. L’inscription de Paul dans une chaîne de témoins (Ac), son statut second par rapport au fondement apostolique (Ep), correspondent au positionnement de l’apôtre en 1 Co 15.5–11, où il s’aligne en dernier lieu après Céphas, après le cercle des Douze et une série de témoins, comme le dernier des apôtres. Paul se déclare précédé d’une tradition apostolique. Mais lorsque les Pastorales construisent la figure du fondateur de l’Église, elles valorisent une tradition qui s’est développée à partir d’autres déclarations de Paul: là où il se dit au bénéfice d’une révélation qui ne doit rien aux médiations humaines, mais à une révélation directe de Jésus Christ (Ga 1.11–12); là où Paul se pose en tant que père (1 Th 1.11) ou mère (1 Th 1.7) de la communauté; là où il se déclare ‘bonne odeur du Christ’ (2 Co 2.15) pour l’Église. De même, dans le conflit avec les chrétiens de Galatie, Paul n’hésite pas à réfuter toute possibilité d’un ‘autre Évangile’ que celui qu’il annonce, et qui se confond avec ‘l’Évangile du Christ’ (Ga 1.6–7). L’image de Paul contenue dans ses lettres n’est ni lisse, ni uniforme. On rencontre chez lui cette ambivalence d’être à la fois inscrit dans une tradition qui le précède et à l’origine d’un mouvement qui tient de son Évangile. L’histoire de sa réception a amplifié cette ambivalence jusqu’à construire des images de l’apôtre aussi divergentes.
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3.2 La souffrance de l’apôtre Le fondement christologique donné à la souffrance de l’apôtre, et par elle à la souffrance de la communauté, est une structure théologique fondamentale de la théologie de Paul. Ce fondement se concrétise par la catégorie de la koinwniva: ‘pour le connaître, lui et la puissance de sa résurrection, et la communion (koinwniva) à ses souffrances, étant conformé (summorfizovmeno~) à sa mort’ (Ph 3.10). La communion aux souffrances du Christ est commentée par la tournure participiale summorfizovmeno~ tw`/ qanavtw/ aujtou`, dont le présent signale qu’elle ne s’applique pas au baptême, mais aux épreuves de la vie apostolique. Ainsi la condition apostolique est le lieu d’une double expérimentation, à la fois de la puissance de la résurrection (sous horizon eschatologique: Ph 3.11) et de la conformité au destin souffrant du Christ. Le même champ sémantique mort/résurrection apparaît en 2 Co 13.4, où le parallélisme structurel aligne le destin de l’apôtre sur celui de Jésus: il a été crucifié dans la faiblesse, mais il vit de la puissance de Dieu; et nous aussi sommes faibles en lui, mais nous vivrons avec lui de la puissance de Dieu pour vous.23
La même catégorie de la koinwniva s’applique à la souffrance des croyants. Les chrétiens de Corinthe ont été ‘participants (koinwnoiv)’ de ses souffrances (2 Co 1.7), ils ont enduré ‘les mêmes souffrances’ (2 Co 1.6). La souffrance apostolique constitue l’horizon de compréhension de la souffrance de la communauté, de la même façon que celle du Christ constitue l’horizon de compréhension de la souffrance de l’apôtre.24 Cette double corrélation communauté/apôtre et apôtre/Christ est explicitée dans les sentences d’imitation: ‘et vous, vous nous avez imités, nous et le Seigneur’ (1 Th 1.6; voir 1 Co 1.11). Que devient ce fondement christologique de la souffrance apostolique dans la réception de Paul? Regardons les Deutéro-pauliniennes. Dans sa construction de l’image de Paul prisonnier, l’épître aux Éphésiens a retenu la souffrance de l’apôtre ‘pour vous, les nations’ (Ep 3.1). Mais la dimension christologique est plutôt à chercher dans la fameuse formule de Col 1.24: ‘Je me réjouis maintenant dans les souffrances pour vous et je remplis ce qui manque aux détresses du Christ dans ma chair pour son 23 Cette conformité à la souffrance du Christ revient sous une terminologie changeante: les paqhvmata tou` Cristou` sont accordées avec profusion à l’apôtre (2 Co 1.5), il porte en son corps la nevkrwsi~ tou` ΔIhsou` (2 Co 4.10), il porte les stivgmata tou` ΔIhsou` (Ga 6.17). Ces génitifs ont valeur qualitative: c’est la participation à la souffrance de Jésus qui est le marqueur irréfutable de l’apostolat et le garant de son authenticité (2 Co 10–13). Cette communion au destin du Crucifié assure dans la vie de la communauté la dimension salutaire de la croix: ‘de sorte que la mort est à l’œuvre en nous, mais la vie en vous’ (2 Co 4.12). 24 M. Wolter, ‘Der Apostel und seine Gemeinden als Teilhaber am Leidensgeschick Jesu Christi: Beobachtungen zur paulinischen Theologie’, NTS 36 (1990) 535–57, surtout 551.
332 daniel marguerat corps, qui est l’Église’. La difficulté bien connue de ce verset vient du fait qu’il semble postuler une insuffisance de l’œuvre salutaire du Christ, que dément l’hymne christologique de 1.15–20. Sans vouloir explorer le dossier complexe, à la fois sémantique et théologique, de ce verset, je me contente de deux remarques pour justifier ma lecture.
Nu`n caivrw ejn toi`~ paqhvmasin uJpe;r uJmw`n kai; ajntanaplhrw` ta; uJsterhvmata tw`n qlivyewn tou` Cristou` ejn thÛ` sarkiv mou uJpe;r tou` swvmato~ aujtou`, o{ ejstin hJ ejkklhsiva D’une part, le verset se compose de deux énoncés parallèles: l’un est consacré aux souffrances ‘pour vous’, l’autre aux détresses ‘pour son corps, qui est l’Église’. Nous sommes donc au-delà de l’ecclésiologie de Paul, qui comprend la communauté locale comme une concrétion du corps du Christ; mais cela nous fait conclure que le déficit des détresses qualifie non pas son engagement pour l’église de Colosses, mais pour l’Église universelle conçue comme une entité cosmique. D’autre part, l’ordre syntactique place ejn thÛ` sarkiv mou après ta; uJsterhvmata tw`n qlivyewn tou` Cristou`. Le déficit n’affecte pas les détresses du Christ en ellesmêmes, mais leur présence dans la chair de Paul; c’est dans l’histoire de Paul qu’elles ont encore un accomplissement à trouver.25 Par ailleurs, qlivy i~ désigne toujours chez Paul les tribulations de l’apôtre et de ses églises. Bref, Colossiens reprend la structure paulinienne de l’engagement apostolique comme participation aux souffrances du Christ, mais lui donne une extension qui correspond à la dimension universelle de son ecclésiologie. Dans les Pastorales, seul 2 Timothée dresse l’image d’un Paul souffrant. D’emblée, Timothée est exhorté à co-souffrir avec Paul pour l’Évangile (2 Tm 1.8); il est donc invité à s’engager dans une vie d’épreuves dont l’apôtre est le modèle (1.12). Mais le passage le plus intéressant est 2.11b–13, qui établit une corrélation entre le destin de souffrance et la sanction eschatologique qu’il recevra. C’est un morceau traditionnel, formé déjà d’éléments composites; il rappelle par sa structure la sentence de Q 12.8–9, et par le sunapeqavnomen Rm 6.8: ‘Car si nous sommes morts avec lui (sunapeqavnomen), nous vivrons avec lui (suzhvsomen). Si nous tenons ferme, nous régnerons avec lui (sumbasileuvsomen). Si nous le renions, lui aussi nous reniera . . .’. La koinonia paulinienne est présente dans les constructions au préfixe sun-, mais qu’en est-il du fondement christologique? Le contexte de 2.8–13 indique que la clef d’interprétation de ce credo réside dans la situation de Paul: sa souffrance permettra le salut des élus (2.10). La référence historico-salutaire a donc changé: la souffrance est devenue la passion de Paul pour l’Église; elle permet de vérifier 25 Je rejoins ici, notamment, la lecture proposée par J.-N. Aletti, Saint Paul. Épître aux Colossiens (EtB 20; Paris: Gabalda, 1993) 134–7.
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la corrélation eschatologique de la solidarité. C’est l’existence engagée de l’apôtre qui fournit sa condition de crédibilité à notre passage, et l’on remarque ici à quel point le statut paradigmatique conféré à l’apôtre dans les Pastorales exerce sa pression sur la christologie.26 Jusqu’ici, nous avons constaté que Col 1 maintient le fondement christologique de la souffrance de l’apôtre, tandis que 2 Tm 2 l’évoque sans le travailler théologiquement. Qu’en est-il des Actes des apôtres? D’emblée, la destinée souffrante de Paul est affichée lors de sa conversion à Damas; il est l’instrument choisi pour ‘porter le nom’ du Christ et s’engager sur un chemin d’épreuve: ‘c’est moi qui lui montrerai tout ce qu’il doit souffrir (paqei`n) pour mon nom’ (Ac 9.16). Significativement, sa conversion est immédiatement suivie (eujqevw~ 9.20) d’une activité de prédication dans les synagogues de Damas, à quoi les juifs réagissent en complotant sa mort (9.23). Sa fuite de Damas l’amène à Jérusalem, où à nouveau un complot de juifs hellénistes menace sa vie (9.29). La séquence de 9.1–30 est programmatique de la destinée de Paul, qui passe du statut de persécuteur du Christ à celui de témoin persécuté du Christ. L’épisode d’Antioche de Pisidie (13.13–52) présente le scénario qui se répétera tout au long de la mission paulinienne: une réception initialement favorable de sa prédication à la synagogue est suivie d’une seconde entrevue, où Paul est violemment rejeté. Luc a reproduit ce scénario avec une régularité frisant la monotonie: à Iconium (14.1–7), à Thessalonique (17.1–9), à Bérée (17.10–14), à Corinthe (18.1–10), à Éphèse (19.8–10), le schéma se répète, Paul récoltant l’hostilité d’une grande part de la synagogue (synthétisée sous l’appellation oij ΔIoudai`oi), mais éveillant l’intérêt de craignant-Dieu et de Grecs. L’hostilité n’est pas exclusivement juive, à voir l’émeute des orfèvres d’Éphèse (19.21–40). Les difficultés rencontrées ne sont pas non plus propres à Paul; elles frappent aussi ses collaborateurs, Silas, Jason, Sosthène ou Alexandre: tous participent aux détresses de Paul. Le fondement christologique de ces épreuves paraît à première vue absent, parce qu’il n’est pas formulé. Or méthodologiquement, il n’est pas recommandé d’interroger une théologie narrative de la même manière qu’une théologie argumentative. Luc n’explicite pas dans les Actes le fondement christologique, mais il le signifie narrativement, et c’est rendre justice aux outils dont dispose un narrateur que d’y prêter attention. Je rappelle pour mémoire que Vielhauer ne s’était basé dans son analyse que sur les discours des Actes, négligeant leur partie narrative; ce défaut méthodologique a aussi contribué à l’unilatéralité de sa lecture. Le procédé que met en œuvre l’auteur des Actes est perceptible dans la séquence finale du livre, les chapitres 21–28, où Paul n’est plus le missionnaire fondateur de 26 Sur ce texte, voir Y. Redalié, Paul après Paul. Le temps, le salut, la morale selon les épîtres à Timothée et à Tite (Monde de la Bible 31; Genève: Labor et Fides, 1994) 193–9.
334 daniel marguerat communautés, mais le témoin mis en procès.27 À partir de son arrestation à Jérusalem (Ac 21) et jusqu’à son arrivée à Rome (Ac 28), Paul est le témoin emprisonné appelé à se justifier de son innocence. L’auteur des Actes a multiplié les apologies de Paul: devant le peuple de Jérusalem (Ac 22), devant le sanhédrin (Ac 23), devant Félix (Ac 24), devant Agrippa et sa cour (Ac 26), devant la délégation juive de Rome (Ac 28). Or, tout au long de cette séquence, il a multiplié aussi les analogies avec la Passion de Jésus. Paul se retrouve seul face au peuple qui veut sa mort (21.36; 22.22), comme Jésus s’est retrouvé seul. Paul comparaît devant le sanhédrin, devant l’autorité romaine et devant le roi Agrippa (Ac 21.40–26.32) comme Jésus a comparu devant le sanhédrin, devant Pilate et devant le roi Hérode (Lc 22.66–23.25). Paul comme Jésus est accusé de propager un enseignement qui agite le peuple et se répand largement (Ac 24.5; Lc 23.5). À trois reprises Pilate innocente Jésus (oujde;n euJrivskw ai[tion Lc 23.4; oujde;n a[xion qanavtou 23.15; oujde;n ai[tion qanavtou 23.22); à trois reprises, une autorité romaine affirme l’innocence de Paul (mhde;n de; a[xion qanavtou h] desmw`n Ac 23.29; mhde;n a[xion qanavtou 25.25; ajpoleluvsqai ejduvnato 26.32). Le cri de la foule réclamant la mort de Paul (ai\re aujtovn Ac 21.36; ai\re ajpo; th`~ gh`~ to;n toiou`ton Ac 22.22) fait écho au cri de la foule à la Passion (ai\re tou`ton Lc 23.18). Luc a mis en place un dispositif narratif qui, par un jeu d’échos intertextuels à l’interne de son œuvre, sollicite chez le lecteur une mémoire d’évangile. La syncrisis Jésus/Paul fait comprendre que le destin du témoin réduplique celui de son maître. Ainsi, contrairement aux apparences, le fondement christologique de la souffrance de Paul est préservé dans ce témoin du pôle ‘biographique’ que sont les Actes des apôtres. La narration le suggère plutôt qu’elle ne le décrit, et c’est au lecteur de faire le travail de connexion entre les deux parties de l’œuvre de Luc, les Actes et l’évangile.28 Quant aux Actes de Paul, la superposition entre la figure de l’apôtre et celle du Christ, déjà relevée auparavant, se vérifie. L’annonce du martyre de l’apôtre est faite par le Christ lui-même: ‘Paul, je vais être crucifié une nouvelle fois’ (AcPl 13.2). La koinonia entre Jésus et Paul tend à l’identification. La dévotion vouée à l’apôtre efface la distance entre le Seigneur et son serviteur. 3.3 L’enseignement: Luc et Paul Je reviens pour terminer sur le face-à-face avec lequel j’ai commencé: Luc et Paul. Comment identifier la réception de la théologie paulinienne dans l’image 27 M.-E. Rosenblatt, Paul the Accused: His Portrait in the Acts of the Apostles (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1995). 28 J’ai développé ailleurs l’idée que réaliser l’unité de Lc–Ac est le résultat d’un travail suggéré par le narrateur, mais qui incombe au lecteur: ‘Luc–Actes: une unité à construire’, The Unity of Luke–Acts (ed. J. Verheyden; BEThL 142; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1999) 57–81; voir aussi D. Marguerat, The First Christian Historian. Writing the “Acts of the Apostles” (SNTSMS 121; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 43–64.
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lucanienne de Paul? Comment évaluer le paulinisme dans la théologie que Luc prête à Paul dans les Actes? Le parcours de ma réflexion a débuté par le refus d’un face-à-face immédiat entre les lettres de l’apôtre et le texte des Actes, pour envisager Luc construisant son portrait de Paul à partir des traditions narratives sur sa vie. Je vois Luc comme un enquêteur, un curieux, un reporter, collectant au cours de ses nombreux voyages la mémoire de l’apôtre fondateur préservée dans les communautés. Il ne m’étonnerait pas que Luc appartienne à une mouvance d’évangélistes perpétuant non seulement la mémoire, mais aussi la pratique missionnaire de leur héros. La question qui se pose dès lors est de savoir de quel accès à la théologie de Paul disposait Luc. Les contacts terminologiques avec les lettres, on l’a dit, sont peu nombreux. Outre quelques termes déjà relevés,29 quelques formules théologiques pauliniennes surgissent dans le discours de Pierre chez Corneille (10.34b–35, 43b) sur le Dieu impartial et le pardon octroyé à la foi au Christ, et dans l’homélie de Paul à Antioche de Pisidie (13.38b–39) sur l’incapacité de la Loi à sauver.30 Des formules pauliniennes sont donc présentes, mais sans le libellé des épîtres; c’est trop peu pour parler d’intertextualité. J’y vois la confirmation que Luc n’est pas un lecteur des épîtres, mais dépend d’un résumé, une sorte d’epitomè de la théologie de Paul, où il sait puiser des formules adéquates. C’est le même Luc qui, adéquatement, résume la première prédication de Paul converti à Damas par les mots ‘proclamer que Jésus est le fils de Dieu’ (9.20). Le chantier du paulinisme de Luc devrait donc être réouvert sur cette base. Cette valorisation des Actes en tant que réception de Paul, je l’esquisse, pour finir, sur trois champs: la sotériologie, le rapport à Israël et la christologie. Sur la sotériologie: la déclaration d’Ac 13.38 sur le pardon de ‘tous les péchés dont vous n’avez pu être justifiés par la loi de Moïse’ montre que Luc défend la disqualification de la Torah en tant que chemin de salut; Ac 15.9–11 vient le confirmer. Ac 10,34–35 et 10,43 attestent que le salut par la foi est accordé à quiconque croit, indépendamment de son statut religieux. On sait que le verbe de la justification dans le NT n’est nulle part aussi présent qu’en Lc–Ac (8 occurrences de dikaiovw: Lc 7.29; 7.35 par. Mt 11.19; 10.29; 16.15; 18.14; Ac 13.38, 39). Mais il faut surtout remarquer que les énoncés sur la justification impossible par la Loi et sur l’impartialité de Dieu ont été insérés dans les Actes en des lieux stratégiques: d’une part le discours de Pierre chez Corneille (1.34–43), d’autre part l’homélie programmatique de Paul à Antioche de Pisidie (13.16–41); ils sont à chaque fois suivis de leurs conséquences ecclésiologiques, où l’on retrouve l’articulation ty-
29 Voir plus haut, p. 324. 30 Ac 10.34b–35 est proche de Rm 2.10–11, mais ejrgazevsqai dikaiosuvnhn n’est pas paulinien. En Ac 10.43b, seule la dernière formule trouve une analogie en Rm 1.16; 3.22; 10.11. Ac 13.38b–39 peut être rapproché de Ga 2.16, à l’exception de la négative oujk ejx e[rgwn novmou.
336 daniel marguerat piquement paulinienne entre la justification et l’ecclésiologie. Le maintien de l’ethos mosaïque chez le Paul lucanien (Ac 28.17), son attachement aux coutumes des pères, témoigne du fait que la Torah assume ici une fonction identitaire; elle marque la continuité entre Israël et l’Église, et pour Luc, le christianisme n’est pas imaginable sans cette continuité visible. Le rôle dévolu à la Loi est identitaire, il n’a plus de relevance théologique. Sur le rapport à Israël, je n’estime pas que la position lucanienne soit vraiment éloignée de ce que Paul défend en Rm 9–11. Il s’agit plutôt d’une reprise en différé. Que les promesses de salut soient destinées au peuple élu et que Jésus soit le sauveur d’Israël (Ac 13.23) est l’affirmation constante des discours des Actes destinés aux juifs; cf. Rm 9.4–5. Qu’Israël ait rejeté le Messie que Dieu lui destinait (Rm 10.1–4), la dernière scène des Actes en tire le constat par la citation d’Es 6.9–10 (Ac 28.26–27). Que le salut soit destiné ‘au juif, puis au Grec’, le scénario de la mission paulinienne, débutant toujours par la fréquentation de la synagogue, en est la traduction narrative. Mais d’une part Luc se tait sur le salut eschatologique d’Israël (cf. Rm 11.25–26); d’autre part, il pense le rapport au judaïsme dans une situation de séparation en cours entre Église et Synagogue, qui n’est pas la situation de Paul. Cela n’empêche pas Luc d’espérer une chrétienté où judéo-chrétiens et pagano-chrétiens se retrouvent, à l’image de Paul accueillant à la fin des Actes ‘tous ceux qui viennent vers lui’ (Ac 28.31). C’est sans doute sur le plan de la christologie que les différences entre Luc et Paul sont les plus spectaculaires. Ce n’est pas seulement la dimension sacrificielle que Luc hésite à affecter à la mort de Jésus, mais une valeur rédemptrice; c’est à la vie entière de Jésus, et non à l’instant de sa mort, que Luc reconnaît une dimension de rédemption (Ac 2.22; 3.26; 10.36–39; 13.23–26). Sa compréhension de la croix est dominée par la formule de contraste, qui oppose à l’action mortifère des humains l’agir résurrectionnel de Dieu: ‘Le Dieu de nos pères a ressuscité Jésus que vous, vous avez maltraité en le pendant au bois’ (Ac 5.30; cf. 2.23–24; 3.13–15; 10.39–40; 13.28–30). La croix est le lieu de l’échec d’Israël, à quoi Dieu répond par l’initiative salutaire de la résurrection. Cette valeur rédemptrice reconnue à l’envoi de Jésus et l’insistance sur la culpabilité humaine dans sa mort me paraissent renvoyer, non à Paul, mais à ce que l’on sait de la théologie des Hellénistes telle qu’elle apparaît dans le discours d’Étienne en Ac 7 (voir notamment 7.51–53).31 On
31 La compréhension de la croix des chrétiens hellénistes d’Antioche est plutôt marquée par une théologie de la providence et du martyre (D. Boyarin, Dying for God. Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999]). Je dois cette référence à F. Bovon, ‘La mort de Jésus en Luc–Actes. La perspective sotériologique’, ‘Christ est mort pour nous’. Études sémiotiques, féministes et sotériologiques en l’honneur d’Olivette Genest (ed. Alain Gignac, Anne Fortin; Sciences bibliques – Études/Instruments 14; Montréal: Médiaspaul, 2005) 370–1.
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trouverait ici la confirmation que la réception de Paul chez Luc se combine avec un héritage du judéo-christianisme helléniste.32
4. Conclusion
1. Ma proposition de considérer la réception de Paul autour de trois pôles devrait permettre de moduler la relation avec les écrits de Paul selon que l’on se situe en régime d’intertextualité (pôle ‘doctoral’) ou de construction d’une mémoire biographique. Elle devrait décharger les Actes du fardeau indu de devoir justifier leur label paulinien devant le tribunal des écrits de l’apôtre; ceux-ci ne constituaient pas la norme du savoir sur Paul. 2. Notre connaissance du Paul historique ne doit pas hésiter à prendre au sérieux la mémoire biographique telle qu’elle s’est déposée dans les Actes. L’influence de Paul a été faite d’une pratique et d’un discours; la mémoire biographique nous a préservé le souvenir de sa pratique missionnaire plutôt que de son discours. 3. Tout phénomène de réception implique cohérence et déplacement, continuité et rupture face à l’origine. À quel moment la réception de Paul quitte-t-elle la cohérence pour rompre avec son modèle, sinon même le trahir? L’exégète doit aussi répondre à cette question.33 Mais j’invite à le faire sous deux conditions: d’une part en ayant vérifié notre connaissance de qui fut Paul, d’autre part en ayant reconnu la nécessité et la légitimité du phénomène de réception.
32 J. Pichler, Paulusrezeption in der Apostelgeschichte (Innsbrucker Theologische Studien 50; Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1997) 314–54. 33 Lire à ce sujet les propos éclairants d’U. Luz, ‘Rechtfertigung bei den Paulusschülern’, Rechtfertigung. Festschrift E. Käsemann (Tübingen/Göttingen: Mohr/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976) 365–83.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 338–354. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000179
Attitudes towards Sexuality in Qumran and Related Literature – and the New Testament* WI LLIAM R . G . LOADE R Murdoch University, Murdoch WA 6150, Australia
Investigation of attitudes towards sexuality in Qumran and related literature shows that the myth of the Watchers served as an aetiology of wrongdoing, but not of sexual wrongdoing in particular as one might have expected, nor as its paradigm. Intermarriage was a major concern, although conflicts over sexual wrongdoing which feature in early sectarian writings disappear in what appear to be later ones. Extensions to holy space and time produce greater restrictions on sexual relations, but without disparaging them in proper space and time. Eschatology which leaves no space for sex created challenges for defending its place in the interim. Keywords: sexuality, Qumran, Dead Sea Scrolls, Watchers, celibacy, sex
The aim of this study is to discuss four particular aspects of research into attitudes towards sexuality in Qumran and related literature and to comment briefly on their potential relevance for understanding the theme in the NT. The term, ‘sexuality’, is used in a broad sense to cover matters pertaining to sexuality, rather than the more defined sense of sexual theory or sexual orientation. ‘Qumran and related literature’, should, strictly speaking, encompass not only sectarian and non-sectarian writings found at Qumran, but also the Hebrew scriptures. The focus here is on the former inasmuch as they have formed part of the first two years of the present author’s five-year research program, which is to investigate attitudes towards sexuality in Judaism and Christianity in the Hellenistic Greco-Roman era.1 The present study does not include Tobit and Sirach, but, on the other hand, includes works of which only fragments are found at Qumran, such as Jubilees and early Enoch literature. Accordingly, the discussion both reaches conclusions and raises questions which require further research.2
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* Main paper read at the SNTS General Meeting at Sibiu, Romania, in 2007. 1 The research is funded through an Australian Professorial Fellowship (2005–2010) from the Australian Research Council. 2 Detailed exegetical discussion underlying the observations here are to be found in William Loader, Enoch, Levi, and Jubilees on Sexuality: Attitudes Towards Sexuality in the Early Enoch
Attitudes towards Sexuality in Qumran and Related Literature 339
1. The Myth of the Watchers
Within the collection known to us as 1 Enoch we find the Book of the Watchers, chs. 1–36, and within that early Enochic work, we find in chapters 6–11 an account of the myth of the Watchers, followed in chs. 12–16 by an account of Enoch’s encounter with the Watchers in the heavenly world. Known to us independently in what appears to be a cut down version in Gen 6, the myth of the Watchers has a long and complex history which is beyond the current task to pursue, but which leaves us an account in 1 Enoch 6–11 still showing considerable unevenness.3 Homogenised, it tells of two descents (8.1–2; 6.1–6; 7.1; 9.6, 7–9), later reflected in the two descents of stars in the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 86.1–2, 3–6). Asael descends and teaches metallurgy to human beings, including the skill to make weapons of war, but also ornaments and cosmetics, with which women could enhance their attractiveness (8.1–2). Asael’s descent and instruction was contrary to divine will and was the beginning of chaos (9.6; 10.4–8). As the myth developed later, he becomes the main villain (13.1; cf. already 10.8) and is equated with Azazel (so The Parables of Enoch; 1 Enoch 54.5; 44.4; 4QAgesCreat B/4Q180 1 7–8). In chs. 6–11, however, he also belongs to the troop of 200 Watchers who came down in a second descent under the leadership of Shemihazah (6.7). The Watchers come with a clear intent, responding to the beauty of human women (6.1–2). They engage in sexual intercourse with the women, but also pass on secrets to them about spells and sorcery (7.1; 8.3). In doing so they crossed a boundary of species and defiled themselves, an aspect heightened in its significance in chs. 12–16, which identifies many of them as having been priests in the heavenly temple (12.4; 15.3; cf. 9.1). The defilement with women’s blood, as it puts it (15.4; cf. also 10.11; 7.1), will have focused not on particular flows of blood such as menstrual or virginal blood, but human blood in an absolute sense.4 The effects were catastrophic. The women became pregnant and gave birth to Nephilim, understood as giants, and these proceeded to create chaos on earth, engaging in warfare, devouring the earth’s resources, drinking blood, spreading wickedness and violence among human beings (7.2–5), and finding their end in mutual self-destruction (10.9). Perhaps, as Nickelsburg conjectured, the chaos in the decades following Alexander’s demise inspired the sense of helplessness
Literature, the Aramaic Levi Document, and the Book of Jubilees (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), and William Loader, The Dead Sea Scrolls on Sexuality: Attitudes Towards Sexuality in Sectarian and Related Literature at Qumran (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming). 3 See the reviews of research in Loader, Enoch, Levi, and Jubilees, 39–52; Archie T. Wright, The Origin of Evil Spirits: The Reception of Genesis 6.1–4 in Early Jewish Literature (WUNT 2.198; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005) 29–37; George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1–36, 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 165–72. 4 On this see Loader, Enoch, Levi, and Jubilees, 12–15.
340 william r. g. loader which their deeds evoked.5 Their mutual self-destruction was divinely initiated. Then, according to chs. 12–16, from their corpses emerged what would later be called the bastard spirits, let loose in the world like viruses to afflict humanity (15.8–12). The Watchers’ deed, seen as a gross act of sexual immorality, changed history forever. It also provided a monotheistic faith with a creative explanation for all kinds of ills, moral and medical, and created a framework of thought according to which hope lay in the future when God would finally round up the evil spirits and execute judgment on the imprisoned angels (10.12–15; 16.1). The myth exercised wide influence. The fragmentary Book of the Giants depends on it. In Jubilees it comes at the halfway point of its history (4.33; 5.1),6 though its theism modifies the outcome to ensure a greater sense of divine control and hope for humanity: with Mastema the number of demons is negotiated down to 10%, but they still afflict humans with diseases (10.1–11). Noah is taught antidotes against them (10.12–14), and, significantly, they also become leaders of the Gentile nations (15.31–32). The Epistle of Enoch dissents even further, insisting that people’s wrongdoing is their own fault; it was not sent to earth from above (98.4). The Genesis Apocryphon appears to devote its first two columns to the myth, its fragmentary remains still enabling us to recognise reference to the angels’ imprisonment and dread of judgment (0.5–13), the mutual destruction of the giants (0.15), the divulgence of forbidden knowledge (1.2, 11), and apparently a version of the myth shared by Jubilees (1.26–27). For both depict only one descent, and that, on a divine commission (Jub. 4.15; 7.21), so that the turn to sin occurred not in heaven but on earth, and both delete the negative role of women (cf. 1 Enoch 8.1–2; 16:3). Lamech feared that Noah was the fruit of a liaison of Bitenosh with a Watcher, but, as in 1 Enoch 106–107, is assured this is not so (2.1–26; 5.2–8). The Damascus Document makes the Watchers’ deed the first in a history of failures through sexual wrongdoing (2.18; cf. 2.17–3.12a) in order to confront its opponents with their false interpretations in this area.7 One of the Thanksgiving Hymns speaks in dread of the plight of the imprisoned Watchers (1QHa/xviii.34b–36; cf. also xxiv.15 and fr. 2 ii ⫹ 6.6). A number of documents found at Qumran allude to the myth and use it to frame their anthropology and eschatology and inform their exorcisms.8 5 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 170. 6 On this see Helge S. Kvanvig, ‘Jubilees – Read as a Narrative’, Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection (ed. Gabriele Boccaccini; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) 75–83 (77). 7 See Loader, Dead Sea Scrolls on Sexuality, 98–107. 8 4QInstra/4Q416 1 10–12; 4QAgesCreat /4Q180 1 7–8; 4Q181 2 1–2; 4QNoah ar/4Q534 1 ii ⫹2 15–16; 4QcommGen A/4Q252 i 1; 4QShira/4Q510 1 4–6 ⫽ 4QShirb /4Q511 10 1–2; 4QShirb/4Q511 2 ii.3; 35 7; 48, 49 ⫹ 51 2–3; and 182; 4QIncantation/4Q444 1–4 i ⫹5 3; 11QapocPs/11Q11 5.6.
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For all the shocking and grotesque act of the Watchers’ sexual wrongdoing, however, and the extensiveness of its influence, there is a surprising lack of interest in using or developing it aetiologically to address issues of sexuality. The giants do not imitate their fathers by engaging in sexual wrongdoing, not even where in their depiction as violent warmongers one might have expected it, for instance in sexual violence. Similarly the bastard spirits show no particular bent towards sexual wrongdoing. When the Watchers head the list of sexual wrongdoers in the Damascus Document (2.16–18), they are simply number one in the list of sexual failures, not their cause. Jubilees has Noah cite their deed (7.22–23), but only as a warning about judgment. Thereafter it plays no role. This is consistently the case in all the material considered which the myth inspired. It is not used as an explanation for the generation of sexual wrongdoing. So, my first conclusion is negative: the myth did not inspire writers to focus on sexual wrongdoing, as one might have expected. This also makes it somewhat questionable that the myth itself functioned in this way paradigmatically, as some have speculated. It could have been code, for instance, for attacking those priests who married Samaritans,9 or who later married Gentiles10 or outside their priestly families.11 If there is a concern about intermarriage behind the myth, it is more likely to relate to marrying presumably Gentile women who will have been seen as the bearers of forbidden knowledge (1 Enoch 16.3),12 and then it would apply to all, not just to priests. However, nothing of this nature is said or reflected in later use of the myth in the material considered. Similarly it could have been used to attack others who abandoned their natural order to engage in acts of homosexuality or bestiality, but nowhere there is this in evidence. There are echoes of the myth in the NT. Jude 6 cites ‘the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling’ and whom God ‘has kept
9 So Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, Prophets of Old and the Day of the End: Zechariah, the Book of Watchers and Apocalyptic (OTS 35; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 198–203. 10 So David Winston Suter, ‘Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch’, HUCA 50 (1979) 115–35; David Winston Suter, ‘Revisiting “Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest”’, The Origins of Enochic Judaism: Proceedings of the First Enoch Seminar, University of Michigan, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy, June 19–23, 2001 (ed. G. Boccaccini; Henoch 24; Torino: Silvio Zamorani Editore, 2002) 137–42; cf. also Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 230–2. 11 See Martha Himmelfarb, ‘Levi, Phinehas, and the Problem of Intermarriage at the Time of the Maccabean Revolt’, JSQ 6 (1999) 1–24 (12). Himmelfarb considers intermarriage between priests and people as also the target of 4QMMT and Aramaic Levi Document (3–12), but see the discussion of the latter in Loader, Enoch, Levi, and Jubilees, 101–3, 106–11; and of the former, in Loader, Dead Sea Scrolls on Sexuality, 53–90. 12 In this regard, see Siam Bhayro, The Shemihazah and Asael Narrative of 1 Enoch 6–11: Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary with Reference to Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Antecedents (AOAT 322; Münster: Ugarit, 2005) 23–6, who underlines the concern with divination, while not linking it specifically to the issue of intermarriage.
342 william r. g. loader in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day’, dependent on the form of the myth in 1 Enoch. It serves as an example to assure hearers that God’s judgment will fall on the author’s opponents, and stands beside the wilderness generation and Sodom and Gomorrah, whose sexual sins Jude highlights.13 Unlike in the Damascus Document, the charges of sexual wrongdoing against the opponents appear to be no more than disparaging rhetoric.14 Jude even cites 1 Enoch 1.14, interpreting it now of Jesus’ coming to exercise judgment (Jude 15–16). 2 Peter similarly aligns the Watchers’ deed with Noah’s generation and Sodom and Gomorrah (2 Pet 2.4–8a), as illustrations to assure future judgment particularly against ‘those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, and who despise authority’ (2.10), which here, too, reflects disparaging rhetoric.15 The tradition in 1 Pet 3.19–20 also reflects the myth in having Jesus preach to the imprisoned spirits, though no content is intimated.16 It may also have influenced the depiction of the 144,000 of Rev 14.4 as those who, unlike the Watchers, had not defiled themselves with women,17 but had apparently already in this life chosen the celibate life of angels.18 Arguably the anthropological and eschatological framework which the myth enabled lived on in early Christian understanding of the present and future kingdom of God and exorcism (Matt 12.28; Luke 17.21), and in its notions of judgment, including judgment of angels (Matt 25.41; 1 Cor 6.3). Possibly Paul’s linkage between angels and women in urging that they not remove their veils is to be understood against the myth’s image of potentially lusting angels (1 Cor 11.10),19 perhaps more likely than that he fears imperial spies concerned with so-called ‘new women’.20 Nowhere, however, do traces of the myth indicate belief that the event generated sexual wrongdoing in particular. 13 See Richard Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (WBC 50; Waco: Word, 1983) 54–6; Anton Vögtle, Der Judasbrief; Der Zweite Petrusbrief (EKK 22; Düsseldorf: Benziger; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1994) 40–2. 14 Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 54, comments: ‘Jude’s intention in stressing here the peculiar sexual offences of both the Watchers and the Sodomites is probably to highlight the shocking character of the false teachers violation of God-given order’. 15 See Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 248–50, 255–7. 16 See Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996) 252–62; J. Ramsay Michaels, 1 Peter (WBC 49; Waco: Word, 1988) 207–9. 17 See D. C. Olson, ‘“Those who have not defiled themselves with women”: Revelation 14.4 and the Book of Enoch’, CBQ 59 (1997) 492–510. 18 On this see William Loader, Sexuality and the Jesus Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) 210–12. 19 See William Loader, The Septuagint, Sexuality, and the New Testament: Case Studies on the Impact of the LXX in Philo and the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) 102. 20 See the detailed case for this interpretation in Bruce Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) esp. 77–96.
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2. Intermarriage and Incest
While it is questionable whether the Watcher myth in the Book of the Watchers encodes a warning against intermarriage with Gentiles, there can be no doubt that this theme is a major concern in Jubilees. There in the angel’s retelling of Genesis stories sexual wrongdoing is a regular theme.21 Concern with intermarriage is rooted not only in its view of Israel’s need to remain separate as a holy and priestly people from the beginning of creation (2.19–22),22 but also in the concern that it leads to bad moral influence, especially in areas of sexuality. Thus Rebecca warns Jacob not to marry Canaanite women because they are sexually wanton and evil (25.1, 7; 27.8). From Noah to Abraham to Isaac and Rebecca, to Jacob, the message is the same. While there are traces of earlier concerns expressed in Exod 34 and Deut 7 that such marriages lead to idolatry, Abraham’s family of origin being a case in point (11.9, 11–24; 12.1–8), the primary concern is sexual wrongdoing. When Judah marries a Canaanite wife, the consequences are chaotic, leading ultimately to the scandal of Judah and Tamar (41.1–21; 34.20). The story of Dinah’s abduction (30.1–4) becomes the basis for the author launching an assault on intermarriage in which prohibitions originally applied to priests in Lev 21 are applied to all Israelites, forbidding all intermarriage, even insisting on the dissolution of all existing mixed marriages which are seen as a defilement of the people and the temple (30.5–23). Jubilees equates such marriages to passing one’s children to Molech (30.10; cf. Lev 18.21). Levi’s vengeance for Dinah needs no excuse, indeed receives Jacob’s blessing, for all who fight such practices are, like Phinehas and Abraham, friends of God (30.23; cf. Gen 49.5–7 and 34.30). The story of Dinah features also in the Aramaic Levi Document. It, too, celebrates Levi’s actions (12.6 / 78), and similarly appears to apply prohibitions originally related to priestly marriage not only to priests, still its primary focus, but to all.23 It may even lay blame on Dinah whom it appears to depict as defiling her family (1.1 / 1c).24 Isaac’s advice to Jacob not to marry a Canaanite is advice for all
21 See the extensive discussion of the theme in Loader, Enoch, Levi, and Jubilees, 155–96, 298–301. 22 So James C. VanderKam, ‘The Origins and Purposes of the Book of Jubilees’, Studies in the Book of Jubilees (ed. Matthias Albani, Jörg Frey, and Armin Lange; TSAJ 65; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997) 3–24 (18–19); similarly James C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), where he also notes: ‘Impurity is also associated with improper marriages and illicit sexual relations’ (125). 23 4QLevib ar/4Q213a 3–4 / 3a; 6.3–4 / 16–17; and see the discussion in Loader, Enoch, Levi, and Jubilees, 91–103, 107–8. 24 On this see Henryk Drawnel, An Aramaic Wisdom Text from Qumran: A New Interpretation of the Levi Document (JSJSup 86; Leiden: Brill, 2004) 106–7; Loader, Enoch, Levi, and Jubilees, 88–9.
344 william r. g. loader (6.3–4 / 16–17; cf. Gen 28.1). Concern with intermarriage of priests in particular with Gentiles continues as a theme in the related documents, the Testament of Qahat (4Q542 1 i.5–6a, 9) and the Visions of Amram, where Amram emphasises his refusal to take a Canaanite wife (4Q543 4 2–4 ⫽ 4Q544 1 7–9 ⫽ 4Q547 1–2 iii 6–9a). It continues in the Apocryphon of Jeremiah (4Q390 2 i.10). Some see it also in 4QMMT, but narrowed to concern about intermarriage between priests and people.25 It seems much more likely, however, that 4QMMT reflects the broader concern with marriage to Gentiles by both priests and people.26 It refuses their sacrifices, because that, it argues, would be the equivalent of engaging in illicit sexual relations, since Gentiles have no place in the covenant (B 8–9). So they certainly have no place in marriage. It uses Deut 23 to insist that there can be no place for Ammonites or Moabites joining the people through marriage, not just for ten generations, but never (B 39–49). Similarly it abhors the defilement of Israel’s seed and especially the holy seed of the priesthood through such mixing (B 75–82). And again, probably targeting the practice of marrying captive wives, it insists that this amounts to bringing an abomination into one’s house, for which David and Solomon provide adequate evidence (C 4–9, 25–26). Here, too, we find an allusion to Phinehas and Abraham, the friends of God, whose acts of faith counted as righteousness before God (C 31–32; cf. Gen 15.6; Ps 106.31), an expression used quite differently by Paul. The concern with intermarriage to Gentiles finds echoes also in the Genesis Apocryphon in Noah’s model behaviour in arranging the marriages of his offspring and in his vision which worries about mingling trees which should remain separate (6.8–10; 12.9–12; 14.16–17).27 Most of this literature where these concerns are expressed is recognised as being either non-sectarian or early sectarian. The concerns have their roots especially in the post-exilic period. The strictures of Ezra 9 and Neh 12 are formative and leave verbal traces. While not identified as an issue in the accounts of 1 and 2 Maccabees,28 the extensiveness of the concern probably reflects a real danger at a time when such marriages became an option, including through captive wives (see 1 Macc 5.23, 51; 8.10; cf. 2 Macc 5.24). It is interesting in this regard to note that intermarriage does not feature as a prohibition in the Temple Scroll except for the king (11QTa/11Q19 56.18). It, too, 25 So E. Qimron in E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqsat Ma‘ase ha-Torah (DJD X; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994) 172; Himmelfarb, ‘Levi, Phinehas’, 6–10. 26 See Loader, Dead Sea Scrolls on Sexuality, 53–90. 27 Further possible allusions to forbidding intermarriage of both priests and people with Gentiles include: 4QHalakhah A/4Q251 17; 4QMiscellaneous Rules/4Q265 whose citation of Mal 2.10 in 3.1–2 may indicate that the warning against intermarriage in Mal 2.11–12 is implied; 4QCatenaa/4Q177 with its allusion to Deut 7.15 in 1–4; 4QapocrJosha/4Q378 10.1–2; and 4QDibHama/4Q504 xvi.12–20. 28 On this see Himmelfarb, ‘Levi, Phinehas’, 17–22, who notes the silence about the issue at the time of the Maccabean revolt.
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addresses captive wives, citing Deut 21.10–14, but then makes a significant addition to increase the waiting time before they can eat priestly food, thus expressing hesitation but still accepting such marriages (63.10–15; cf. 2.12–15). Indeed this document thus appears to contemplate marriage of priests to Gentiles. The same may also be true of the Damascus Document, if, as appears possible, it alludes to laws concerning the captive wife in Deut 21.10–14 (4QDe/4Q270 4.19), and if, as Wassen suggests, the issue of sexual intercourse with menstruants arose with non-Jewish spouses.29 Even without these possible references, it is striking that the Damascus Document, which makes so much of sexual wrongdoing as an issue of contention between its group and others, never makes intermarriage an issue.30 This is also the case with other documents widely recognised as sectarian. Other issues which we do find directly addressed by the Damascus Document, such as incest,31 also rarely make an appearance later. Incest may be the charge against a certain Hananiah in 4Q477, but otherwise in its general sense we find references to incest in the earlier works, 1/4QInstruction (4QInstrd/4Q418 101 ii.5) and the Apocryphon of Jeremiah (4Q387 fr. A; 4Q383 fr. A; cf. also Pss. Sol. 8.9–11). The Apocryphon of Jeremiah seems closely related to Jubilees where incest receives special emphasis as the angel expounds Reuben’s and Judah’s sins (Jub. 33.9–20; 41.23–26).32 The prohibition of marrying nieces, forbidden but apparently not contentious in the Temple Scroll (66.15–16; cf. Lev 18.13), and assumed as illegitimate in Jubilees,33 has clearly become so in 4QHalakhah A/4Q251 and the Damascus Document (5.7–11). This is part, in turn, of a wider phenomenon in the sectarian material. On the one hand, issues of sexuality regularly feature in the earlier material, and often in the context of conflict about some who seek to alter the Law. This is especially so in the Damascus Document where it is the main issue in contention, but also in 29 Cecilia Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document (SBL Academia Biblica 21; Atlanta: SBL, 2005) 120. 30 There are some places where it may be implied, but each is uncertain. They include the warning about unsuitable partners in 4QDf/4Q271 3 9–10 (alluding to Deut 22.10–11 about mixing animal species and fibres); the ‘history’ of sexual wrongdoing in 2.16b–3.12a which designates Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as ‘friends of God’ linked elsewhere with Phinehas and intermarriage (cf. Jub. 19.9; 30.20; Ps 106.31), refers to the wilderness generation, and possibly alludes to relations with Moabites and Midianites and may see it as an aspect of the kings’ wrongdoing (2.9–10). 31 In relation to marrying nieces: CD 5.7b–11a; 4QDe/4Q270 2 ii.16); and generally: in the lists of 6.14–7.4b and 8.3–9. 32 Cf. also 4QcommGen A/4Q252; 4QNarrative A/4Q458; 4QNarrative A/4Q458 17. 33 Jubilees revises the Genesis accounts to remove traces of niece marriages in the cases of Seth and Azura (4.11), Abram and Sarai (12.9; cf. Gen 11.29; 12.20); and Milcah (19.10). Strikingly, Aramaic Levi Document, the Testament of Qahat, and the Visions of Amram have no scruples about reporting the marriage of Miriam, Amram’s daughter, to his brother, and Amram himself to his aunt, Jochabed.
346 william r. g. loader 4QMMT, and even leaves a trace in the Wiles of the Wicked Woman in response to whom, it warns, some seek to alter the statutes (1 15). On the other hand, in the Thanksgiving Hymns, the Pesharim, and to a lesser degree, the Community Rule, which also mention conflict with a group of false interpreters, often using the same terms such as the ‘seekers of smooth things’ and also making charges of changing the law (1QHa vi.15; xii.5–22; 1QS/1Q28 11.1–2; cf. CD 4.13–5.12), we find no indication that the substance of the conflict has anything to do with issues of sexuality. Rather, the conflict is expressed in the form of one group bedevilling the other, ad hominem disqualification and abuse. It makes sense to see these documents as reflecting a time and place where the conflict had escalated, as conflicts frequently do, to the point where matters of substance have been subordinated to mutual disqualification. This means that most of the issues of contention surrounding laws about sexuality occur in the earlier documents. While traces of the language of those conflicts sometimes appear in later sectarian documents, such as allusions to the ‘eyes of lust’ (1QS/1Q28 1.6; 1QpHab 5.7b–8a), these now belong among lists of sins from which the faithful have turned aside in the past. The Thanksgiving Hymns, which often depict such conflict, never mention issues of sexual wrongdoing. One might have expected the issue of intermarriage to Gentiles to have become a major issue in early Christianity, especially for any who had imbibed the spirit of Jubilees. This is surprisingly not the case. Paul may draw freely on such traditions or their favourite texts in 2 Cor 6.14–7.1, but is probably employing them metaphorically to urge isolation of his opponents.34 He is the only one to address the comparable issue of marriage to non-believers and does so in 1 Cor 7 with great sensitivity, leaving any initiative for divorce with the non-believing partner (7.10–16). His discussion shows no sign that the issue had been previously contentious, or if he does, reflects the positive side of the argument which hypothesised sanctified status for the marriage and its offspring.35 Some see Matthew’s reworking of the pericope on divorce as sanctioning divorce by Gentiles who lived in incestuous marriages,36 but this seems unlikely, especially since in such cases what is required is not divorce, but recognition that the marriage never was valid.37 I am not convinced, therefore, that the word 34 So Christian Wolff, Der zweite Brief des Paulus an die Korinther (THNT 8; Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1989) 148; cf. Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Milton Keyes: Paternoster, 2005) 20–1. 35 See Loader, Sexuality and the Jesus Tradition, 169–71. 36 So Joseph A. Fitzmyer, ‘The Matthean Divorce Texts and Some New Palestinian Evidence’, To Advance the Gospel: New Testament Studies (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2d ed. 1998) 79–111 (88–9); Francis J. Moloney, ‘Matthew 19:3–12 and Celibacy’, “A Hard Saying”: The Gospel and Culture (Collegeville: Liturgical, 2001) 35–52 (38–9). 37 So David Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) 157–8.
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porneiva here means incest. According to Mark 6.18, Antipas’s incest, by marrying his step brother’s wife, was the butt of John’s strict rebuke (presumably supported by Jesus). Paul addresses an instance in Corinth (1 Cor 5.1), but otherwise incest is not a prominent issue.
3. Sexuality in Space and Time
The Temple Scroll envisages a new temple of enormous proportions to serve the people in the time before God alone creates the final temple. Its provisions do not go beyond the framework of thought already established in the biblical laws, except that it extends the space, multiplies the barriers, enhances the strictness, homogenises the purity provisions and gives special emphasis to seminal impurity. Thus, not only does it provide for a separate court for women, children and proselytes after the third generation (39.7–9; 40.5–6), who are all also excluded from the Passover (17.8–9; similarly Jub. 49.17), it also extends to the entire city the provisions which forbid entry into the temple of those unclean through seminal emission and thus effectively bans sexual intercourse in the city (45.6–12).38 For whatever length of time, men and women living there would need to be celibate, as, of course, would anyone being in the temple precincts. The latter is part of the reason why reading ‘the city of the temple’ as meaning only the temple precincts seems unlikely. Rather, we see an expansion of the realm of holiness to include the city, which corresponds also to what we find in the Damascus Document (CD 12.1b–2a). Jubilees depicts the Garden of Eden as a sanctuary (3.12; 4.26; 8.19) and so also as a place of celibacy. Adam and Eve abstain from sexual intercourse in the garden. Jubilees also witnesses an extension in relation to time: there is to be no sexual intercourse on the sabbath (50.8; cf. 2.25–26), and is followed in this by the Damascus Document (CD 11.5; 4QDe/4Q270 2 i.18–19; 4QDe/4Q270 7 i.12–13 / 4QDb/4Q267 9 vi.4–5). Jubilees’ eschatology envisages that all shall be as infants, presumably pre-puberty and so not sexually active (23.28). Speculation might join these pieces together to create an image of an age to come, perhaps a return to Eden, in which there would be neither marrying nor being given in marriage, a view later preserved in the Jesus tradition (Mark 12.25). But this is not what we find in the other documents considered. No others speak of a perpetual infancy. Instead, in a wide range of texts we read of a promise of abundance, to which belongs abundant offspring.39 The Damascus Document speaks of people living for a thousand generations, a way of imaging 38 See Loader, Dead Sea Scrolls on Sexuality, 10–28. 39 1QS/1Q28 4.6b–8; CD 2.11b–12a; 4QpPsa/4Q171 1–10 iii.1–2a, 10–11; 4QInstrg/4Q423 3 1–5/ 1Q26 2 2–4.
348 william r. g. loader endlessness rather than setting limits (CD 7.6 / 19.1–2; similarly already 1 Enoch 10.17–18). The Temple Scroll looks to a time of Israel multiplying (59.12). As 11QSefer ha-Milh≥amah/11Q14 1 ii.11 // 4QSefer ha-Milh≥amah/4Q285 8 8 puts it, taking up the promise of Exod 23.26, there will be no miscarriage in the time of future blessing, clearly assuming that marriage and sexual relations as a normal part of life in the future and identifying the cause. It then provides the reason: because God and the holy angels will be with them, a reason not for abstinence, but for fertility (ii.14b // 8 10–11). They envisage an embodied existence (with or without remainder; cf. Jub. 23.31), usually portrayed in astral, shining images, recalling Dan 12, but clearly entailing life in families, marriages, and with engagement in sexual intercourse. Nothing suggests that the frequent images of long life entail curtailment of sexual relations, as if their function were solely procreative. Good in the future matches good in the present and vice versa. This applies also to the structure of society in which the future also envisages a sanctuary where doubtless the same requirements of abstinence apply and a wider reality in which, presumably, normal human relations continue. The reports of Philo40 and Josephus41 of Essenes42 who disparage sexual desire and so live in celibacy do not match what we find in our documents. Behind their tendentious accounts we may well, however, have a reliable indication that celibacy was a feature of the Essenes, according to Josephus with some exceptions.43 Enough overlap exists to consider an Essene connection for some of the documents. If so, then it is surprising that celibacy scarcely features. I consider the best evidence to be CD 6–7, where among the men of perfect holiness who uphold the law are some who marry and live in camps (6.14–7.4a) and others who do not (7.4b–9a / 19.1–5a). The issue is clearly one of different location. Perhaps the absence at Qumran of signs of family in buildings and cemetery44 indicates a settlement of permanent or temporary celibates, living like inhabitants of the Temple Scroll’s sacred city. Otherwise, family life is everywhere presupposed, though special assemblies, as in the Rule of the Congregation, call for times of abstinence like the people’s approach to Sinai in Exod 19. An earlier fragment of that document in cryptic script (4Q249e) has been reconstructed to read as requiring that men turn-
40 Prob. 75–91; Apologia Pro Judaeis (Hypothetica) (cited in Eusebius Praep. Ev. 8.6–7); cf. also Philo Contemp. 1–2, 11–40, 63–90 41 B.J. 2.119–61; A.J. 18.18–22. 42 See also Pliny Nat. Hist. 5.17.4 (73); Hippolytus Refutation of all Heresies 9.18–28. 43 See the discussion in Loader, Dead Sea Scrolls on Sexuality, 369–76. 44 On this see Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) 163–87; Sidnie White Crawford, ‘Not According to Rule: Women, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran’, Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov (ed. Shalom M. Paul et al.; SVT 94; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 127–50 (140–4).
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ing twenty, already married and presumably already having had children, begin their celibacy,45 but this seems scarcely credible and what may be a shortened text compared with that of 1QSa/1Q28a probably refers to illicit sexual intercourse within marriage, such as we find in 4QDe/4Q270 7 i.12–13; 4QDb/4Q267 9 vi.4–5. There is, therefore, no clear pathway from the trajectory I speculated from Jubilees to early Christianity through the documents we have considered. I am no longer convinced that the celibacy traceable in them was proleptic, in anticipation of all being celibate in the world to come, as it appears to have been in parts of the Jesus tradition.46 I wonder about the image of becoming like little children in early Christian eschatology (Mark 10.14; Matt 18.3; Gos. Thom. 22.1–4; Gos. Eg.; 2 Clem 12.2–6). Here I see more work to be done. More broadly, restriction on sexuality in special places and times, a wide cultural assumption, come to expression in the midst of Paul’s defence of sexual relations in marriage, when he commends abstinence for times of prayer (1 Cor 7.5; cf. T. Naph. 8.7).47 Another interpretation of the reference to the presence of the angels in 1 Cor 11 relates it to such concerns, finding an echo of the common rationale for restriction in our documents: because the holy ones are present.48
4. Sexuality and Order
Images of the future inevitably have an impact on the present, not least because they frequently reflect projections into the future of people’s aspirations for the present, however inspired or otherwise. Within a demonological framework inspired by the myth of the Watchers, the future will bring the demons’ demise, the final great exorcism, and, by implication, creation’s restoration. Such is the eschatology of the Book of the Watchers and a number of documents found at Qumran. Sometimes the fault is located in the human self, predetermined by the proportion of one’s given lots of light and darkness (cf. 4QHoroscope/4Q186). Hope 45 S. J. Pfann, ‘Cryptic Texts: 249a–z, 250a–j and 313–313b’, Qumran Cave 4.XXVI: Cryptic Texts (ed. S. J. Pfann); Miscellanea, Part 1 (ed. P. S. Alexander et al., in consultation with J. VanderKam and M. Brady; DJD XXXVI; Oxford: Clarendon, 2000) 515–701 (559). 46 See the discussion in Loader, Sexuality and the Jesus Tradition, 215–29. 47 On this see William Loader, ‘Sexuality in The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the New Testament’, Transcending Boundaries: Contemporary Readings of the New Testament: Essays in Honor of Francis J. Moloney (ed. Rekha M. Chennattu and Mary L. Coloe; Biblioteca di Scienze Religiose 187; Rome: Las, 2005) 293–309 (294–8). 48 Cf. 1QM/1Q33 7.6; 1QSa/1Q28a 2.8b–9a; CD 15.17/4QDa/4Q266 8 i.9; 4QFlor 1.3–5; 4QMMT B 42–57; 11QTa/11Q19 45.12–14; and Joseph A. Fitzmyer, ‘A Feature of Qumran Angelology and the Angels of 1 Cor 11.10’, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament (London: Chapman, 1971) 187–204; Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians (SacPag 7; Collegeville: Liturgical, 1999) 412.
350 william r. g. loader then entails more radical change, at least according to the deterministic Treatise on the Two Spirits. It speaks of the rooting out of one’s (apparently God-given) share of the lots of darkness (1QS/1Q28 4.20–22). Theistic determinism has ways of smoothing out such contradictions, but, paradoxically and typically, authors who espouse it insist on continuing to give instruction and exhortation as if human will can be changed and people can become the elect or cease to be so. This is also the case in 1/4QInstruction, where some find in 4QInstrc/4Q417 1 i.16b–18a creation of two kinds of humanity,49 but where in all probability we are still dealing with an existential dualism.50 The issue becomes particularly acute in the Thanksgiving Hymns where authors attribute the lamentable human condition, both its persistent ritual impurity and its moral propensity to sin, to the lowly substance of its creation: dust, water, and, by derivation, clay, and perhaps also in allusion to its procreation: spit and water.51 More radical still, human depravity begins in the womb (xii.29–30). But then we recognise in this the rhetoric of the psalms (e.g. Ps 51.7). Language functions here as a vehicle of doxology and self-deprecation before the divine. If we pressed its logic we would end up accusing the creator and we would envisage eschatology as disembodiment. It is not very far down the track before one could attribute such creation to God’s mistake, or to the fallibility of God’s helpers, as in Philo, or to a depraved deity, and then declare procreation and passion, sexuality and women, to be works of evil. The rhetoric remains, however, in
49 So John J. Collins, ‘In the Likeness of the Holy Ones: The Creation of Humankind in a Wisdom Text from Qumran’, The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues (ed. Donald W. Parry and Eugene C. Ulrich; STDJ 30; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 609–18 (616–17); Matthew J. Goff, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom of 4QInstruction (STDJ 50; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 94–9; Matthew J. Goff, Discerning Wisdom: The Sapiential Literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls (VTSup 116; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 34. 50 See the review of discussion in Benjamin Wold, Women, Men, and Angels: The Qumran Wisdom Document Musar leMevin and its Allusions to Genesis Creation Traditions (WUNT 2.201; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005) 132–41 and Loader, Dead Sea Scrolls on Sexuality, 312–22. 51 E.g. v.19b–22a; ix.21b–23a; xx.24–27, 31–32; similarly 1QS/1Q28 11.20b–22; and see the discussion in Loader, Dead Sea Scrolls on Sexuality, 243–54, which includes discussion of Jörg Frey, ‘Flesh and Spirit in Palestinian Jewish Sapiential Tradition and in the Qumran Texts: An Inquiry into the Background of Paulinian Usage’, The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought: Studies in Wisdom at Qumran and its Relationship to Sapiential Thought in the Ancient Near East, the Hebrew Bible, Ancient Judaism, and the New Testament (ed. Charlotte Hempel, Armin Lange, and Hermann Lichtenberger; BETL 159; Leuven: Peeters–Leuven University, 2002) 367–404; Carol A. Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran (STDJ 52; Leiden: Brill, 2004); and Hermann Lichtenberger, Studien zum Menschenbild in Texten der Qumrangemeinde (SUNT 15; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980).
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solution, as it were. Nowhere is human sexuality blamed. The genitals never feature negatively in the lists of lowly substances. Women are not the enemy – although the document, the Wiles of the Wicked Woman, certainly depicts grave dangers for men when women misdirect their passions, and never say anything like this about men. None of the documents disparages human sexual desire, in contrast to what Philo and Josephus project onto the Essenes. Jubilees celebrates creation of woman as the fulfilment of Adam’s desire for a companion, including a sexual companion, having seen this in the animals, and accordingly he meets his new mate in immediate sexual intimacy, and that without prospect or intent of procreation (Jub. 3.1–7). The positive appreciation of sexual intimacy, even within polygynous marriages, where need for intimacy with one’s beloved and need for procreation through others are kept in balance, as with Jacob, Leah, and Rachel (Jub. 28.1–24), is a significant feature of Jubilees, which also places great emphasis on women’s leadership, albeit within a patriarchal framework.52 Similarly Genesis Apocryphon seems almost to enjoy its depiction of Sarai’s sensual beauty, topped off by her wisdom (20.2–7), and has Bitenosh remind Lamech of their heightened pleasure in sexual intercourse, to which she attributes the conception of the wondrous baby Noah (2.9–10, 13–14). Marital love features also in the Visions of Amram, who asserts his faithfulness to Jochabed.53 What still appears best understood as a Marriage Liturgy (4Q502)54 also celebrates human love and sexuality. Within the space of marriage, and not beyond or before it, the documents assume the appropriateness of sexual relations. Jacob’s claim in Jubilees not to have engaged in sexual relations before marriage or not even to have touched a woman – and that at the age of 63! (25.4) – reflects an ideal, which we may assume was valued. The community rules of the Damascus Document provide for oversight of marrying, divorcing, and care of children (CD 13.16a–19; 4QDa/4Q266 9 iii.4–9). Divorce (and so the freedom to remarry) appears to be assumed, though the faithful should never marry a woman divorced for adultery (4QDf/4Q271 3 11).55 That document imposes monogyny, the requirement only for the king in the Temple Scroll (57.15–19), on all (4.20–21). Genesis 1–3 inspires the portrait of marriage in 1/4QInstruction, which seems also to assume monogyny, though probably as a reflection more of necessity than of rule.56 Adultery is eschewed, but rarely 52 See the major study of Betsy Halpern-Amaru, The Empowerment of Women in the Book of Jubilees (JSJSup 60; Leiden: Brill, 1999). 53 4Q543 4 2–4 = 4Q544 1 7–9 = 4Q547 1–2 iii 6–9a. 54 So James R. Davila, Liturgical Works (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) 182, 189; Baillet, DJD 7, 81–105; cf. Joseph M. Baumgarten, ‘4Q502, Marriage or Golden Age Ritual?’, JJS 34 (1983) 125–35. 55 See the discussion in Loader, Dead Sea Scrolls on Sexuality, 113–18. 56 See especially 4QInstrb/4Q416 2 iii.15b–iv.13.
352 william r. g. loader mentioned. In Jubilees Joseph is the model of resistance (39.5–9). The Damascus Document and related texts offer elaborate advice about arranging appropriate marriage partners.57 Always the assumption is that the man rules (e.g. 4QInstra/4Q415 9 6–11), based usually on an interpretation of the Genesis creation stories. Typically, far greater attention is given to women’s potential misdemeanours than to men’s, not least in determining virginity and examining allegations of adultery.58 While the violent abduction of Dinah stands under judgment, enhanced with the detail that ‘she was a small girl, twelve years of age’ (30.2), Jubilees quickly shifts the focus to its other concern, intermarriage. Its interest in Reuben’s sin against Bilhah is also not the violence done to her, but the incest and its prevention of Jacob ever sleeping with her again, following the provisions of Deut 24. This also determines the version which it and the Genesis Apocryphon give of Sarai’s abduction by Pharaoh. Sexual intercourse with one’s slaves is apparently still approved, certainly according to the Temple Scroll, and perhaps even in the Damascus Document in the context of monogyny. Homosexual acts scarcely receive any attention. The Damascus Document lists their proscription (4QDe/4Q270 2 ii.16b–17a / 6QD/6Q15 5 3–4).59 One document appears to describe the depraved acts at Sodom and Gomorrah as sexual wrongdoing (4QUniden/4Q172 4 1, 3).60 Jubilees depicts wickedness at the time of the Watchers’ sin a number of times in terms of animate beings perverting their order (5.2, 3, 10, 19), as by implication had the Watchers, an argument which will reappear in later documents attacking homosexual acts (T. Naph. 3.1–5 and 4.1), but as we have noted, never makes this connection, nor does it apply it to bestiality.61 In the instances cited the behavioural manifestation is violence and bloodshed not sexual wrongdoing. Working backwards through the allusions, Paul’s excursus in Rom 1.18–32 is a good example of argument against homosexual acts on the basis that it perverts 57 4QDf/4Q271 3 8–16; cf. 4QOrda/4Q159 2–4⫹8 8–10a. 58 4QDf/4Q271 3 12b–16; 4QOrda/4Q159 2–4⫹8 8–10a; 4QDe/4Q270 4 1–8. 59 The explicit prohibition, which is based on Lev 18.22–23, may be associated in 4QDe/4Q270 2 ii.17b–18 (cf. 6QD/6Q15 5 4) with an allusion to the warning in Lev 18.24–25 about defiling oneself by imitating the sexual practices of Canaan and being vomited out of the land. 4QRPe/4Q367 3 3–4 cites Lev 20.13 condemning homosexual acts between men as an abomination. Prohibition of cross-dressing features in 4QDf/4Q271 3 3–4, and more clearly in 4QOrda/4Q159, based on Deut 22.5. 60 4QCatenaa/4Q177 appears to allude to the story in iv.10 and may be referring to it also in 9 (par. 4QBéat/4Q525 22). 4QAgesCreat/4Q180 mentions divine concern about whether Sodom and Gomorrah’s sin warranted destruction (2–4 ii.5–9; cf. Gen 18.20–21), but nothing is preserved concerning the nature of the sin. 4QDanSuz? Ar/4Q551 paraphrases the similar incident of attempted male rape in Judg 19. 61 Perhaps in omitting from the Genesis story that God first brought animals to Adam as potential companions (3.1–2; cf. Gen 2.18–19), Jubilees reflects this concern.
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one’s created nature, but none of our documents would have inspired it. It finds its inspiration elsewhere.62 Early Christian communities must have had to address abuses and inequalities. I have found nothing in the Qumran documents related to child abuse (cf. Mark 9.42).63 Sexual relations with slaves in one’s household must have been an issue for Christians (cf. 4QDe/4Q270 4 13–17; Lev 19.20–22), but we hear nothing in the NT texts (cf. Col 3.22–4.1; Eph 6.5–9). They appear to assume monogyny – on grounds of pragmatics or more than that? Prohibiting divorce looms large, unlike in the literature we have considered, contrary to earlier readings.64 Adultery and misdirected sexual desire and behaviour are important (Matt 5.27–30; 1 Cor 6.9–20) and premarital chastity is assumed (cf. Matt 1.18–19). There is nothing as celebratory of sexual intimacy as what we find in Jubilees, but use of Gen 1.27 and 2.24 in Mark 10.2–9 (Matt 19.3–9; cf. 1 Cor 6.16–17) does indicate a valuing of marital partnership including sexual union, without an indication that procreation is its sole warrant (similarly the reluctant affirmation in 1 Cor 7.1–7). Luke adds a rationale, when reworking Mark 12.25 about not marrying or giving in marriage in the age to come: he has Jesus explain that eternal life like the angels necessarily excludes the need for sexual relations (20.36). It is perhaps derived from 1 Enoch 15.5–7, in which the angels are told that as immortals they have no need of progeny, therefore no need for sexual relations and therefore no need of women. This also matches some philosophical views of Luke’s day.65 But this does not appear to be the view of Mark or Paul, whose position is closer to the documents we have considered and who see a role for sexual relations beyond procreation. The language of dualism, especially in Paul, who, like 1/4QInstruction, can use ‘flesh’ mainly, though not exclusively, to depict human depravity, bears some similarity to what we have found. It similarly does not disparage human sexuality, though it had the same potential to be read in ways that did – and later, was so read.66 The literature of the NT, on the one hand, affirms human sexuality and its expression within marriage as part of normal human life as created by God, much as do the documents we have considered. There is even some similarity in the fact that here, too, we find celibates. The major difference, on the other hand, however, lies in its eschatology, which though also understood as embodied, appears to envisage a collapse of the sacred and the secular of God’s creation into a realm 62 On this see Andrie B. du Toit, ‘Paul, Homosexuality and Christian Ethics’, Neotestamentica und Philonica: Studies in Honour of Peder Borgen (ed. David E. Aune; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 92–107. 63 See Loader, Sexuality and the Jesus Tradition, 20–7, 59–60. 64 See the discussion of the individual texts in Loader, Sexuality and the Jesus Tradition, 61–120. 65 Musonius Rufus fr. 12; Plutarch Mor. 144B; Occellus Lucanus Nature of the Universe 45. 66 See the discussion in Frey, ‘Flesh and Spirit’.
354 william r. g. loader where some things no longer have a place. These include marriage and human sexuality. This seems to underlie Mark 12.25 and finds graphic expression in Revelation, which envisages a city with no temple at all, for God and the Lamb are its temple (21.22; cf. also 21.27). Effectively, this makes it all a sanctum and so sanctum rules apply. The implication of having present and future structures of reality that do not match is that problems inevitably arise in relating the two. This also affects how one sees the present, especially where theological syntax has been driven from the beginning by the notion that we begin already now to participate in what is to come. One would expect some to espouse celibacy already now and, perhaps, even demand it of all. It is noteworthy that in both Matthew and Paul, where celibacy is affirmed, there is an emphatic assertion that this is not to be universalised and in the latter, especially, that marriage and sexual relations are also to be affirmed (Matt 19.11–12; 1 Cor 7.7).
Concluding Comment
Sexuality is central to human existence and so inevitably leaves its traces across a wide range of Jewish and Christian literature. These texts are to be engaged in their own right and their own context. They reflect, of course, perspectives preserved among those sufficiently privileged to be able to write, though much of the evidence is incidental, reflecting what authors understood was usual in their setting. We are privileged to access their work, but left with much unknown concerning everyday life and how attitudes towards sexuality expressed themselves there. Building the wider picture through investigating both the other pertinent literature and what can be learned from other sources about the religious and social context belongs to the ongoing task. Engaging these texts is one small part of also engaging our own human existence today.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 355–374. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000180
Pourquoi Jésus a-t-il reçu le baptême de Jean?* AR MAN D P U IG I TÀR R ECH Camí de l’Horta, 7, 43470 La Selva del Camp, Catalonia, Spain
Mc (et, en partie, Mt et EvHe) montrent que le Jourdain a été le cadre d’une double scène au début de la vie de Jésus: son baptême par le Baptiste et une vision sans témoins qui l’aurait suivi. Le baptême de Jean, à l’eau, scèlle la conversion présente et prépare le pardon, le don eschatologique futur, comme le montre la formule ‘baptême de conversion pour le pardon des péchés’. De son côté, Jésus a accepté de recevoir ce signe, le ‘baptême de Jean’, parce qu’il l’a reconnu comme l’expression de l’arrivée du kairos. D’autre part, la vision de type prophétique qu’il a eu après son baptême l’a confirmé dans son choix. Keywords: Jesus’ baptism, Baptism of John, Kingdom of God, Theophany, Jesus’ sinless
Un des événements les plus ‘sûrs’ de la vie de Jésus d’un point de vue critique est le baptême qu’il a reçu dans le Jourdain. L’exégèse actuelle et de tous les temps n’hésite pas à le présenter comme un fait historique qui aurait eu lieu quelque part dans la région du Jourdain, le seul fleuve palestinien qui mérite ce nom.1 Les sources écrites, presque contemporaines, renseignent sur les protagonistes de la scène.2 Ceux-ci sont seulement deux: le baptiste – Jean – et le baptisé * Main Paper presenté au 62e Congrès de la SNTS à Sibiu, 2007. 1 Cf. J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Vol. 2. Mentor, Message, and Miracles (New York: Doubleday, 1994) 100–5. 2 En plus des évangiles synoptiques (Mc 1.9–11; Mt 3.13–17; Lc 3.21–22) et de Jean (1.32–34; 3.26), il faut compter avec l’Évangile des Hébreux (Jérôme Adv. Pelag. 3.2; In Isaiam 11.2; voyez, respectivement, CCL 80 et CCL 73). On se demande si parmi ces sources on doit y inclure la collection de sentences Q. Malgré les réserves manifestées par Risto Uro (‘John the Baptist and the Jesus Movement: What Does Q Tell Us?’, The Gospel Behind the Gospels: Current Studies on Q [ed. R. Piper; NTSup 75; Leiden: Brill, 1995] 231–57, esp. 237–9), je serais plutôt d’accord avec ceux qui donnent une réponse affirmative à cette question. Meier, par exemple, affirme: ‘some form of baptismal story stood in Q’ (A Marginal Jew, 2.103). Aussi J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making 1; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) 362–4. En ce qui concerne les textes et les auteurs anciens qui expliquent le baptême de Jésus, voyez J. Bornemann, Der Taufe Christi durch Johannes in der dogmatischen Beurteilung der christilichen Theologen der ersten vier Jahrhunderte (Leipzig, 1896); D. A. Bertrand, Le baptême de Jésus. Histoire de l’exégèse aux deux premiers siècles (BGBE 14; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1973); D. Vigne, Christ au Jourdain. Le Baptême de Jésus dans la tradition judéo-chrétienne (EB n.s. 16; Paris: Gabalda, 1992).
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356 armand puig i tàrrech – Jésus. Autour d’eux, ces sources ne parviennent pas à identifier d’autres personnages, soit d’autres baptisés à côté de Jésus, soit quelques membres de l’entourage de Jean le Baptiste (disciples, sympathisants), soit tout simplement une foule anonyme.3 L’unique texte où l’on indique que Jésus est baptisé en même temps que ‘tout le peuple’ et, par conséquent, peut-être, ‘avec tout le peuple’ est Lc 3.21,4 mais c’est précisement là que l’on évite d’expliciter le nom de celui qui l’a baptisé. Par conséquent, les sources les plus anciennes se réfèrent au baptême de Jésus comme une affaire presque ‘personnelle’ entre celui-ci et Jean, sans témoins oculaires qui l’auraient garanti (Mc 1.9–11; Mt 3.13–17; Jn 1.32–34; douteux seulement Lc 3.21–22).5 Évidemment, cette présentation très sobre de l’événement – surtout si l’on le lit d’après Mc 1.9 – indique la normalité absolue dans laquelle s’est deroulé le baptême de Jésus par le Baptiste. On ne mentionne pas des témoins de ce baptême parce qu’il n’y avait rien à temoigner: le baptême de Jésus dans le Jourdain a été tout à fait typique, un de plus parmi les milliers que le Baptiste a effectué. On n’entrevoit pas un ‘choeur’ de personnes, qui rendent témoignage de ce qui se passe. En plus, il est vrai que la tradition chrétienne ne pouvait guère se sentir à 3 Cette observation s’applique même à Mt 3. Ulrich Luz remarque que la voix du ciel s’exprime en troisème personne (‘celui-ci est mon Fils bien-aimé’, v. 17) et ceci peut indiquer, d’après lui, qu’elle s’adresse à Jean le Baptiste et surtout à la foule du peuple (‘die Volksmassen, die seit 3,5 anwesen zu denken sind’). Cf. U. Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (Mt 1–7) (EKK I/1; Zürich-Einsiedeln-Köln: Benzinger et Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1985) 156. En tout cas, il s’agit d’une indication tout à fait indirecte. En plus, en 3.5 on précise que la foule est arrivée ‘de Jérusalem, la Judée et la région du Jourdain’. Le seul qui paraît être ‘venu de Galilée jusqu’au Jourdain’ (v. 17) est Jésus. Il est clair, en tout cas, que dans Mt 3.13–17 il n’y a pas d’autre mention directe si ce n’est celles de Jésus et de Jean. 4 ‘The aorist participle baptisqevnto~ may suggest that Jesus was baptised along with the people (BD 4042)’ (I. H. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text [Exeter: Paternoster, 1978] 152). 5 L’iconographie chrétienne reproduit sans cesse le typos de la scène du baptême de Jésus avec deux personnages: Jésus, au centre, debout dans le fleuve Jourdain, et Jean, sur le rivage, en tant qu’immerseur. C’est déjà la représentation habituelle dans les sarcophages les plus anciens des catacombes romaines (voir J. Strzygowski, Ikonographie der Taufe Christi [München: Riedel, 1885] 19). Plus tard, sur les mosaïques de Ravenna de l’époque de Justinien (VI s.) l’on trouve des anges serviteurs qui tiennent dans la main les vétêments de Jésus, nu dans les eaux. Un autre motif appparenté représente des anges qui tiennent l’Évangile dans une main et avec l’autre ils montrent la colombe, entourée d’un rayonnement céleste (p. 46). La lecture cosmique de la scène nous arrive avec le motif du fleuve Jourdain personnifié (mosaïques de Ravenna, V s.) (pp. 29–30). Et même, sur un régistre typologique on trouve quelques biches (Ps 42.2) dans la représentation des catacombes romaines de Pancien (VI s.). Les variantes iconographiques sont nombreuses et curieuses. Ainsi, dans le Musée National d’Art de Roumanie (Bucarest), on montre une icône provenante de Targoniste (1674), sur laquelle Jésus, debout sur une pierre (!) placée au centre du fleuve, est regardé par quatre serpents démoniaques et douze poissons. On ne représente donc aucuns autres personnages terrestres à part Jean et Jésus.
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l’aise devant le fait indéniable que Jésus, Seigneur et Sauveur, a reçu le baptême de Jean, en se soumettant ainsi au Baptiste et à son ‘baptême de conversion pour la remission de péchés’ (Mc 1.4; Lc 3.3).6 D’autre part, notons que dans Mc 1 et Mt 3 la scène du baptême de Jésus en fait se divise en deux volets: l’immersion de Jésus dans le Jourdain, gérée par Jean le Baptiste – précédée d’un bref dialogue entre les deux dans Mt 3.14–15 – et la vision de Jésus lui-même, qui se produit ‘à l’instant où il remontait de l’eau’ (Mc 1.10) ou après qu’il soit remonté de l’eau (Mt 3.16). Cette vision – le verbe ‘voir’ apparaît dans Mc 1.10 et Mt 3.16 – se centre sur les cieux qui se déchirent/s’ouvrent (Mc 1.10; Mt 3.16) et/ou l’Esprit qui descend sur lui (Mc 1.10; Mt 3.16); en plus, cette vision est accompagnée d’une voix céleste qui proclame Jésus comme Fils de Dieu (Mc 1.11; Mt 3.17; Lc 3.22; EvHe-Isaiam 11.2). En tout cas, la vision de Jésus postérieure au baptême est devenue, chez Luc et dans EvHe, une téophanie éblouïssante et presque tangible. Chez Jean, on assiste même à un bouleversement du récit tel qu’il se trouve dans Mc et Mt. La vision est attribuée à Jean le Baptiste lui-même, lequel rend témoignage et proclame: ‘J’ai vu l’Esprit, tel une colombe, descendre du ciel et demeurer sur lui’ (Jn 1.32).7 Il paraît donc clair que la tradition la plus 6 L’expression, qui se trouvait dans Mc (1.4) et Q (Lc 3.3), a été transposée par Matthieu à la dernière cène (26.28). Le fait que la tradition chrétienne primitive supporte avec une difficulté évidente le baptême de Jésus par Jean se montre dans les déclarations du Baptiste sur son infériorité par rapport à Jésus. Ainsi, en Mt 3.14 Jean affirme qu’il devrait être le baptisé et Jésus le baptiste. De même, en Jn 1 (vv. 26, 31, 33) Jean insiste sur le fait que son baptême d’eau prépare la ‘manifestation à Israël’ (v. 31) de Jésus, celui ‘qui enlève le péché du monde’ (v. 29): celui qui devrait demander le pardon de son péché devient ainsi le rédempteur des péchés de tous! En Lc 3, par contre, Jean a été tout simplement écarté du récit; et puisque celui qui baptise Jésus reste sans visage explicite, la question de la supéritorité de Jean s’efface. Or, seul Mc 1.9 raconte le baptême sans aucune préoccupation pour les rapports entre Jean et Jésus, par une phrase depouillée et minimale: ‘Jésus . . . se fit baptiser par Jean dans le Jourdain’ (Ihsou`~ ejbaptivsqh eij~ to;n ΔIordavnhn uJpo; ΔIwavnnou). Il n’y avait rien d’autre à expliquer. Tout de suite, dans les vv. 10–11, on racontera avec la même sobriété, que Jésus est reconnu comme Fils de Dieu par le monde céleste. 7 Le texte de Lc 3 s’éloigne notamment des autres deux synoptiques dans le fait que l’ouverture du ciel et la descente de l’Esprit sont présentés comme des événements tout à fait ‘objectifs’, sans aucune référence à une vision de Jésus. Comme souligne F. Bovon: ‘Luc place l’événement sur le plan réel de l’histoire’, L’Évangile selon Saint Luc 1–9 [CNT IIIa; Genève: Labor et Fides, 1991] 175). Jésus reste en prière tandis que se produit une vraie ‘théophanie’ constituée par trois éléments: le ciel qui s’ouvre, l’Esprit qui descend ‘sous une aparence corporelle, comme une colombe’ (v. 22) et la voix qui vient du ciel et qui proclame la filiation divine de Jésus. En fait, Jésus se trouvait déjà en prière pendant son baptême. Chez Luc, la prière comme état de grande profondeur spirituelle caractérise les moments les plus significatifs de la vie de Jésus, et ceci devient un exemple pour les chrétiens. Dans EvHeIsaiam 11.2 la téophanie est focalisée sur l’Esprit Saint, qui descend, repose sur Jésus et lui parle (‘Mon Fils . . . ’). Sur Jean, cf. M. Stowasser, Johannes der Täufer im Vierten Evangelium: Eine Untersuchung zu seiner Bedeutung für die johanneische Gemeinde (ÖBS 12; Klosterneuburg: Österreichisches Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1992)
358 armand puig i tàrrech ancienne a été conservée par Mc (et Mt, avec des adjonctions), tandis que Lc, Jn et EvHe en seraient des développements. Jésus aurait eu donc une vision qui, en tout cas et d’après les sources existantes, n’a été témoignée par personne, même pas par Jean le Baptiste.8 Par conséquent, d’après Mc (et, en partie, Mt et EvHe) le Jourdain aurait été le cadre d’un double événement de la vie de Jésus: son baptême par le Baptiste et une vision sans témoins qui l’aurait suivi.9 Il paraît convenable de travailler sur ce point de départ, mais en faisant une distinction entre les deux événements. En fait, notre recherche va s’attarder fondamentalement sur les raisons qui ont pu conduire Jésus à s’approcher de Jean Baptiste, même si on ne peut négliger le sujet et les contenus de la vision tels qu’ils apparaissent dans les récits de Mc et Mt.10
1. Le baptême de Jean
Ce qu’on appelle dans le NT ‘le baptême de Jean’ (Ac 1.22) a été le point de départ de l’activité de Jésus hors de Nazareth. En fait, Jésus habitait ‘dans sa patrie’ (Mc 6.1) quand il a décidé d’aller rencontrer Jean pour se faire baptiser. Cette information, fournie par Mc 1.9, se complète avec celle de Jn 1.45–46 sur la ville d’où Jésus est venu: Nazareth. L’Évangile des Hébreux (cité par Jérôme, Adv. Pelag. 3.2) rapporte dans ce sens une petite histoire qui reflète bien le mouvement des gens de la Galilée attirés par la prédication du Baptiste. Marie, la mère de Jésus, et ses frères lui adressent cette invitation: ‘Jean le Baptiste baptise pour la rémission des péchés; allons (nous aussi) nous faire baptiser par lui.’11
8 Dans quelques textes chrétiens dont la première rédaction peut se placer au II siècle on présente le Baptiste comme celui qui voit l’Esprit Saint, comme une colombe, ‘descendre sur lui’ (cf. déjà Jn 1.32) et, en même temps, comme celui qui entend ‘aussi la voix de Dieu le Père’. Cf. Descensus Christi ad Inferos 2.2. 9 Lentzen-Deis souligne que la vision de Jésus au Jourdain est présentée sous la forme littéraire d’une Deute-Vision, rattachée au moment précis où Jésus remonte de l’eau après son baptême. Cette précision montre l’arrière-fond ‘historique’ qu’on veut accorder à ce baptême et, en même temps, sa haute qualification théologique (Die Taufe Jesu nach den Synoptikern. Literarkritische und gattungsgechichtliche Untersuchung [FTS 4; Frankfurt a.M.: Josef Knecht, 1970] 288). 10 Il est clair que, comme l’afirme Ben F. Meyer (The Aims of Jesus [London: SCM, 1979] 123), les épisodes du baptême et des temptations de Jésus doivent être compris en fonction de son identité. Cependant il me semble que, malgré les données plutôt minces, on peut essayer de préciser le projet de Jésus au début de son activité publique. 11 Voici le texte latin de l’Évangile des Hébreux, tel qu’il est cité par Jérôme: ‘Ioannes Baptista baptizat in remissionem peccatorum; eamus et baptizemur ab eo.’ Cette information sur la Galilée complète ce qu’on lit en Jn 1 à propos de la provenance galiléenne de quelques disciples sympathisants du Baptiste.
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1.1 Les sources chrétiennes et Josèphe Évidemment l’expression ‘pour la rémission des péchés’ est la même qui apparaît dans Mc 1.4 et Lc 3.3 (Q). S’agit-il d’une formule empreinte de théologie chrétienne, comme le suppose J. Jeremias?12 En tout cas, le message de Jean est plein de références à la pénitence et à la conversion face au jugement imminent de Dieu. Jean le Baptiste est un prophète eschatologique qui secoue les esprits pour les ramener à une vie de ‘justice et piété’ (dikaiosuvnh kai; eujsebeiva) (Ant. 18.117), c’est-à-dire, une vie qui donne ‘un fruit digne de votre conversion’ (karpo;n a[xion th`~ metanoiva~, Q, Mt 3.8 par. Lc 3.8, ici avec la phrase en pluriel). Par conséquent, il y a un penchant éthique dans la prédication de Jean qu’on ne saurait pas opposer à son message eschatologique et qui est reccueilli en même temps par Josèphe, par Q et par Lc (3.11–14).13 La seule différence est que les sources chrétiennes prefèrent le terme ‘conversion’ (metanoiva) plutôt que le terme ‘justice’ (dikaiosuvnh), mot utilisé par Josèphe. En tout cas, le sens des deux termes est proche: il y a en cause l’exhortation à une conduite éloignée du péché et du vice, à une vie en acord avec la volonté divine – et c’est pour cela que Josèphe unit la ‘justice’ à la ‘piété’ –14 face à l’arrivée du jugement divin – l’aspect du Baptiste que Josèphe ne reccueille pas.15 12 Jeremias croît que cette expression se rattache à Ac 2.38 (recevoir le baptême au nom de Jésus Christ ‘pour le pardon des péchés’) et qu’elle est influencée par la communauté primitive (Neutestamentliche Theologie. Erster Teil: Die Vekündigung Jesu [Gütersloh: G. Mohn, 1971] 52). Par contre, H. Thyen soutient avec des bonnes raisons que l’expression de Mc 1.4 appartient au message originale de Jean (‘BAPTISMA METANOIAS EIS APHESIN HAMARTION’, Zeit und Geschichte. FS R. Bultmann [ed. E. Dinkler; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1964] 97–125). Néanmoins, la question se pose sur le sens du baptême de Jean: ‘sacrement’ eschatologique ou rite qui préconise le salut futur. 13 La recherche actuelle sur le Jésus historique aime souligner le contraste entre les évangiles synoptiques et Josèphe à propos de la prédication de Jean: eschatologique pour les premiers, éthique pour le second. Voir, en guise d’exemple, G. Theissen – A. Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (London: SCM, 1998) 200–201. Il est vrai que Josèphe avait des bonnes raions pour présenter Jean éloigné du radicalisme zélote en ôtant la dimension la plus ‘ébranlée’ de son message (p. 200). Pourtant, le message de Jean ne se borne pas à proclamer la fin de ce monde et le jugement terrible et immédiat de Dieu. Il n’est pas n’importe quel prophète de signes qui mène les gens vers une ‘solution’ chimérique et presque magique. Jean parle de celui qui va arriver après lui (‘le plus fort’) – évidemment, il ne s’agit pas de Dieu, qui ne porte pas de sandales à délier – et, surtout, il propose une conversion concrète qui doit se réaliser maintenant et en vue d’un futur qui ne peut tarder. En tout cas, le message eschatologique de Jean n’est pas tellement différent de celui des prophètes d’Israël qui annoncent l’arrivée du jour du Seigneur et qui insistent sur l’urgence de se convertir: ainsi pour Joël l’annonce de ce jour effrayant (1.15–2.11) est suivi d’un appel vigoureux à la conversion (2.12–17). C’est aussi le sens laison qui s’établit entre ‘échapper à la colère qui vient’ (Mt 3.7 par. Lc 3.7) – une expression rapportée au jugement futur- et ‘produisez un fruit digne de votre conversion’ (Mt 3.8 par. Lc 3.8) – se convertir comme le but premier du message de Jean. 14 Voir aussi Ant. 15.375. 15 On peut se demander si Josèphe a voulu éviter la dimension plus apocalyptique du message de Jean à cause précisement de son échec. Un lecteur gréco-romain de la fin du I siècle se
360 armand puig i tàrrech La différence majeure donc entre les sources chrétiennes et Josèphe se place sur la motivation eschatologique de la prédication du Baptiste. En effet, le changement du coeur – la ‘purification de l’âme’, selon la terminologie d’Ant. 18.117 – se rattache au baptême comme la condition prélable pour le recevoir et s’oriente, dans le cas des sources chrétiennes, vers le jugement imminent de Dieu. Par contre, dans Josèphe, il n’y a pas de repères sur ce point. L’auteur juif a voulu ignorer cette dimension du message de Jean, mais il n’a pas evacué le contenu éthique de l’appel de Jean aux foules. En effet, d’après les sources chrétiennes – Mc (1.4) et Q (Mt 3.8 par. Lc 3.8) – Jean prêche un baptême qui présuppose la conversion et, pour sa part Josèphe présente le Baptiste comme ‘un homme bon’ qui insiste sur la pratique de la ‘vertu’ (Ant. 18.117). Par conséquent, on ne devrait pas opposer de façon absolue Josèphe (qui aime présenter Jean comme un philosophe au style grec) et Q (qui décrit Jean comme un prophète eschatologique juif). Une analyse nuancée montre que l’élément éthique du message de Jean est commun à l’ensemble des sources existantes: Jean était un prophète, reconnu comme tel par le peuple, qui s’adressait à toute sorte d’auditeurs pour les pousser à une conversion radicale.16 Or, la question laissée de côté par Josèphe (et Marc!) reste le point vers lequel s’oriente cette conversion: l’arrivée prochaine du Dieu juge et sauveur, le kairos qui va se réaliser. Mais Jean le Baptiste, soit dans Q et Mc ou dans Josèphe, est le prophète de la conversion totale à Dieu. La proximité du jugement, l’arrivée du kairos constitue le cadre et le point de départ – non le contenu – du message du Baptiste. Ce contenu se centre sur la conversion.
1.2 Le pardon des péchés et la conversion Le baptême de Jean avec de l’eau, orienté à la conversion, n’inclut pas le pardon des péchés, il prépare ce pardon, qui sera accordé à ceux qui seront purifiés lors du jugement divin à la fin de l’histoire humaine. Sur ce point aussi, il y a
serait moqué d’un prophète juif qui, soixante-dix ans auparavant, avait râté sa prédiction de la fin du monde. Et, évidemment, Josèphe veut donner au lecteur une image tout à fait positive du Baptiste, une figure qu’il admire ne serait qu’à cause de son séjour de trois ans dans le désert auprès de Bannus, un ascète qui pratiquait des rites de purification (Vita 11–12). 16 Il est assez significatif de rapporter les destinataires de la prédication du Baptiste d’après les sources: les juifs (Ant. 18.117), ceux qui habitent la Judée, Jérusalem et la région du Jourdain (Mc 1.5; Mt 3.5), les foules (juives) (Lc 3.7, 10), le peuple (juif) (Lc 3.15, 18, 21; 7.29), les dirigeants religieux juifs (pharisiens et sadducéens, Mt 3.7), les collectifs marginalisés par l’élite religieuse juive (publicains et soldats, Lc 3.2, 14; 7.29; prostituées, Mt 21.31). Le résultat paraît assez clair: toute sorte de gens s’approchaient de Jean pour se faire baptiser. Les grands absents étaient les dirigeants du peuple, qui ne l’on pas cru (grands prêtres, scribes et anciens, Mc 1.27 par. Mt 12.23 par. Lc 20.1; pharisiens et légistes, Lc 7.30; prêtres et lévites, Jn 1.19). Cf. E. Lupieri, Giovanni Battista fra legenda e storia (Biblioteca di Cultura Religiosa 53; Brescia: Paideia, 1988).
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une coïncidence remarquable entre Josèphe et les sources chrétiennes.17 Josèphe précise que le baptême de Jean ne sert pas ‘à acquérir le pardon des péchés, mais est comme une purification du corps, pourvu que l’âme soit déjà tout à fait purifiée par [la pratique de] la justice’ (mh; ejpiv tinwn aJmartavdwn paraithvsei
crwmevnwn ajllΔ ejfΔ ajgneiva/ tou` swvmato~ a{te dh; kai; th`~ yuch`~ dikaiosuvnh/ proekkekaqarmevnh~) (Ant. 18.117). Évidemment il s’agit d’une distinction (corpsâme) familière à toute sorte de lecteurs, auxquels on présente le baptême de Jean d’un point de vue pharisien, comme si l’immersion baptismale était un simple rite de purification rituelle à côté d’autres purifications propres de la religion juive.18 Dans les sources chrétiennes – Mc et Q – la formule est ‘baptême de conversion pour le pardon des péchés’ (bavptisma metanoiva~ eij~ a[fesin aJmartiw`n) (Mc 1.4; Lc 3.3; cf. Ac 5.31). Or, cette expression doit être comprise en deux temps: le présent, caractérisé par l’engagement dans la voie de la conversion et le baptême de Jean qui la scelle, et le futur, le moment eschatologique où le pardon promis sera mis en acte par la miséricorde de Dieu. La préposition eij~ exprime le but de la conversion ou le repentir: le baptême est le rite qui exprime l’engagement de la conversion dans le présent et qui annonce la grâce du pardon que Dieu va accorder dans le futur à ceux qui se font baptiser.19 En tout cas, il serait excessif de faire de Jean un ‘médiateur du pardon’: le pardon reste le grand don eschatologique, dont Jean est l’annonciateur. Le fait que le baptême soit nécessaire ne fait pas donc de Jean un instrument du pardon divin. Il reste un précurseur de ce pardon.20 En même temps il se présente comme un vrai prophète qui exige une 17 Un bon nombre d’auteurs, à la suite de Hartwig Thyen (cf. n. 12), caractérisent le baptême de Jean comme ‘sacrement eschatologique’. Cf. H. Thyen, Studien zur Sündvergebung im Neuen Testament und seinen alttestamentlichen und jüdischen Voraussetzungen (FRLANT 96; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970) 132. Voyez, par exemple, Meier, A Marginal Jew, 2.97 n. 179. Aussi Uro, ‘John the Baptist’, 249. Le problème, comme l’a bien vu Goppelt, est de savoir si ce baptême est un moyen qui communique le pardon ou bien s’il est un signe qui le promet seulement. Cf. L. Goppelt, Theologie des Neuen Testaments. A: Jesu Wirken in seiner theologischen Bedeutung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975) 88. Cf. aussi J. Becker, Johannes der Täufer und Jesus von Nazareth (BiSt 63; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1972). 18 Josèphe aurait pu penser, comme on a dèjà remarqué, à son expérience personnelle chez Bannus, son maître, qui faisait des ablutions jour et nuit pour se purifier (pro;~ aJgneivan) (Vita 11) (cf. n. 15). Notons que la distinction proposée par Josèphe entre corps-âme se retrouve dans 1 P 3.22 avec le binome chair-conscience: ‘le baptême, n’est l’enlèvement d’une souillure de la chair, mais l’engagement envers Dieu d’une bonne conscience’ (bavptisma ouj sarko;~ ajpovqesi~ rJuvpou ajlla; suneidhvsew~ ajgaqh`~ ejperwvthma eij~ qeovn). 19 Cf. R. L. Webb, ‘John the Baptist and His Relationship to Jesus’, Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (ed. B. Chilton and C. Evans; Leiden: Brill, 1998) 178–229. Webb souligne avec raison que l’expression eij~ a[fesin aJmartiw`n doit être traduite ‘with a view to forgiveness of the sins’ (‘John the Baptist’, 191 n. 39). 20 Le baptême de Jean ne suppose pas qu’on reçoive le pardon (Josèphe!). Il n’est pas un sacrement selon la compréhension chrétienne. Ce baptême promet le pardon mais il ne peut pas
362 armand puig i tàrrech conversion radicale, le repentir des péchés dans l’urgence d’une annonce de l’arrivée prochaine de Dieu. En fait, les gens qui allaient au Jourdain devaient se soumettre à la confession de leurs péchés (Mc 1.5; 3.6). Jean –et/ou ses disciples– écoutaient donc cette confession, mais son/leur baptême n’accordait pas le pardon. Le baptême de Jean affrontait deux sortes d’incompréhensions: ceux qui méconaissaient la nature de ce baptême et ceux qui de facto le méprisaient. Les uns et les autres méritent une apostrophe de la part du prophète du Jourdain. La première apostrophe de Jean (‘engeance de vipères, qui vous a montré le moyen d’échapper à la colère qui vient?’, Mt 3.7 par. Lc 3.7) s’adresse à ceux qui croyaient que la seule reception du baptême de Jean leur concèderait de façon mécanique et absolue, d’échapper au jugement, comme si ce baptême était un rite ‘magique’ en marge de la conversion et de la confession des péchés.21 On rencontre également cette position dans le commentaire que Josèphe fait sur la validité du baptême de Jean: ‘ainsi (d’après l’opinion de Jean) il fallait que (la conversion) se manifeste pour que le baptême lui soit agréable (à Dieu)’ (ou{tw ga;r dh; kai; th;n bavptisin ajpodekth;n aujtw`/ fanei`sqai) (Ant. 18.117). C’est-à-dire, Jean insiste sur le fait que son baptême n’est pas un saufconduit, puisqu’il ne libère pas de la colèrejugement qui vont arriver. Il faut donc attendre à la fin pour connaître la destinée de chacun: le salut ou la condannation, le baptême final dans l’Esprit ou le baptême de feu, le blé recueilli dans le grenier ou la bale brûlée au feu.22 Le jugement
le garantir, et cette promese se base sur la conversion du coeur, qui, pour cette raison, devient necessaire. Cependant, la reception du pardon va se réaliser au moment où le jugement divin va avoir lieu: sauver ou condamner. Webb voudrait que ce pardon se réalise déjà dans le baptême de Jean: ‘the baptism should be understood to mediate the forgiveness in some way’ (‘John the Baptist’, 191). Mais, qu’en serait-il alors du don eschatologique? Comment devrait-on interpréter les critiques de Jean (Mt 3.7 par. Lc 3.7) sur la fausse sécurité des gens qui attendaient un jugement favorable en marge de la conversion? 21 Déjà H. Schürmann, Das Lukasevangelium. Erster Teil. Kommentar zu Kap. 1,1–9,50 (HThK 3/1; Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 1969) 183. I. Howard Marshall formule ainsi la position de Jean devant quelques gens qui lui demandaient son baptême: ‘John wanted the people to be baptised – but only if they were repentant’ (Luke, 139). 22 Sur ce point on ne peut pas suivre R. Uro, pour qui il n’y a qu’un seul baptême (‘John the Baptist’, 250–1). Si on rattache le pardon au baptême de Jean, le baptême final (celui réalisé dans l’Esprit et le feu) n’aurait aucun sens. Par contre, le baptême de Jean est effectif parce qu’il représente la voix prophétique, inspirée divinement, à propos du kairos présent et de l’urgence de la conversion. Il mène au salut mais il ne l’accorde pas. Pour cela, Jean peut affirmer: ‘Moi, je vous baptise d’eau . . . lui [celui qui est plus fort], il vous baptisera dans l’Esprit (Saint) et le feu’ (Mt 3.11 par. Lc 3.16; Mc 1.8). Le baptême du Jourdain prépare le baptême eschatologique. Voyez J. D. G. Dunn, ‘Spirit-and-Fire Baptism’, NovT 14 (1972) 81–92; Jesus and the Spirit: a Study of the Religious and Charismatic Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as reflected in the New Testament (London: SCM, 1975). En tout cas, comme M. Quesnel m’a suggéré, Jean et Jésus représentent en fait une vraie alternative au temple
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va arriver à travers ‘celui qui est plus fort’ (oJ ijscurovterov~) que Jean lui-même. Ce personnage doit être identifié avec ‘celui qui vient après moi’ (oJ de; ojpivsw mou ejrcovmeno~) (Mc 1.7; Mt 3.11).23 L’identité de cette figure eschatologique, à qui on donne deux titres (‘celui qui est plus fort’, ‘celui qui vient’) tout à fait insolites dans la christologie synoptique, est imprécise dans l’annonce que Jean en fait. En tout cas, elle ne doit pas être nécessairement identifiée avec Jésus. Jean annonce l’action finale divine qui sera portée à terme par un plenipotentiaire sans nom que Dieu va certainement envoyer et qui va bientôt arriver.24 La deuxième apostrophe de Jean (‘Ne vous avisez pas de dire / N’allez pas dire en vous-mêmes: “Nous avons pour père Abraham”’, Mt 3.9 par. Lc 3.8) s’adresse à ceux qui méprisent le baptême de Jean au nom de leur appartenance au peuple d’Abraham, comme si cet appartenance pouvait les sauver.25 Plus encore, on peut se demander si ceux-ci sont des gens convaincus que leur salut est tout à fait assuré par le fait qu’ils se montrent fidèles à la pratique de la Loi. Leur fidélité aux commandements serait dans ce sens une excuse incontournable pour refuser Jean et son message appellant à la conversion. On dirait que, devant l’appel de Jean, emerge un Israël impénitent, qui place sa sécurité dans sa justice. Or, cet Israël doit être identifié avec les dirigeants du peuple, les leaders religieux qui n’ont pas voulu croire le prophète du Jourdain.26 En tout cas, à deux reprises on trouve dans les synoptiques un reproche que Jésus leur adresse à propos de Jean: ‘Pourquoi n’avez-vous pas cru en lui?’ (Mc 11.31), ‘vous ne l’avez pas cru’ (Mt 21.32).27 La raison est donnée dans la parabole des enfants qui jouent sur la place:
23 24 25 26
27
comme lieu de pardon. Le temple semble perdre chez eux son rôle médiateur du pardon divin: soit le baptême de Jean que la prédication de Jésus deviennent des spaces privilégiés et uniques où l’on promet (Jean) ou accorde (Jésus) ce pardon. Cf. aussi Mt 11.3 par. Lc 7.19, où l’expression ‘celui qui vient’ se rapporte explicitement à Jésus. C’est aussi la conclusion de R. L. Webb dans son étude John the Baptizer and Prophet: A Socio-Historical Study (JSNTSup 62; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991) 284–8. Uro, ‘John the Baptist’, 244. Matthieu (3.7) propose déjà une interprétation et donc modifie Q (Lc 3.7) en introduisant comme destinataires ‘les pharisiens et les sadduccéens’, qui viennent se faire baptiser et qui, pour cela, sont objet des invectives de Jean. Voyez Luz, Matthäus, 1.147–8. En tout cas, ce choix ne s’accorde pas avec le refus que les leaders religieux juifs manifestent par rapport à Jean et son baptême (Mt 21.25, 32)! De son côté, Luc écrit en se rapprochant davantage aux faits: ‘les pharisiens et les légistes ont repoussé le dessein de Dieu pour eux en ne se faisant pas baptiser par lui (Jean)’ (Lc 7.30). Il paraît donc que, malgré Mt 3.7 – et l’opinion favorable de Josèphe, un pharisien, par rapport à Jean- les leaders religieux juifs se sont rarement rendus au Jourdain pour se faire baptiser par Jean. Notons que les destinataires de la controverse sur l’autorité de Jésus sont ‘les grands prêtres, les scribes et les anciens’ (Mc 11.27), voire, les autorités du temple (également Lc 20.1 et Mt 21.23, ici sans les scribes). Ces autorités forment l’audience matthéenne de la parabole des deux fils (Mt 21.28–32).
364 armand puig i tàrrech d’après ‘cette génération’,28 Jean, homme ascétique, est censé être possédé du démon (Mt 11.18 par. Lc 7.33). D’autre part, il y a le peuple, qui pense que Jean est vraiment un prophète (Mc 11.32), et les pécheurs (publicains et prostituées), qui sont allés le trouver pour se repentir (Mt 21.32; Lc 7.29). Ceux-ci, en particulier, sont les fils que Dieu peut susciter à Abraham: la grâce divine peut faire que même un coeur de pierre devienne un coeur de chair (cf. Ez 11.19; 36.26), et, donc qu’un pécheur se convertisse et recupère sa condition originelle de fils d’Abraham, le père du peuple. Jean ne veut pas exclure de son baptême ceux qui se sentent exclus à cause de leur péché.29 Bref, le baptême de Jean se situe sur le seuil de la conversion et du repentir. Il faut donc se tourner vers le bien et pratiquer la justice envers le prochain de façon radicale parce que le jugement de Dieu ne va pas tarder: la hâche est déjà à la racine des arbres. Le moment est grave et plein d’une urgence eschatologique, proche à l’appel prophétique du Jour du Seigneur. En effet, Jean poursuit la voie ouverte par les grands prophètes d’Israël, et il est considéré comme un vrai prophète par le peuple (Mc 11.32) et par Jésus (Mt 11.9 par. Lc 7.26), malgré le refus qui subit de la part des autorités religieuses contemporaines. Josèphe, un pharisien, l’appelle ‘un homme bon’ (Ant. 18.117). La clé de son activité est le baptême qu’il administre dans la région du Jourdain, non loin de Jérusalem. Ce baptême est conçu comme un rite qui scèlle l’engagement pour une conversion authentique de la part de ceux qui le reçoivent. Or, l’appel à donner des fruits qui témoignent de la conversion se situe au centre de son message: il n’y a pas de baptême sans repentir. En tout cas, Jean n’est pas un prophète millénariste mais un prophète eschatologique qui ne se laisse pas engloutir par l’arrivée de la fin. Par conséquent, pour lui le présent n’est pas accessoire ni provisoire mais il se penche vers un futur qui jaillit, le futur du salut ou de la condamnation: le baptême dans l’eau, signe de la conversion présente, prépare le pardon, le don eschatologique futur, comme le montre la formule ‘baptême de conversion pour le pardon des péchés’. Cependant, dans ce cadre d’un message clair et robuste on trouve deux éléments indéfinis. D’une part, on constate le caractère indéfini de l’identité de ‘celui qui vient’ et ‘qui est plus fort’, une figure eschatologique qui agit comme plénipotentiaire divin à qui on attribue le baptême dans l’Esprit et le feu. Or, ce baptême contraste avec le baptême de Jean, de telle façon que le Baptiste se considère tout à fait inférieur à cet envoyé: devant lui il se considère comme un esclave, indigne 28 ‘Cette génération’ est la formule qui se trouvait probablement dans Q (‘tout le peuple’, Lc 7.29, est une modification lucanienne). Son sens est indéfini, et elle se rapporte aux contemporains (‘die Zeitgenossen’) de Jean et de Jésus (Luz, Matthäus, 2.187, d’acord avec Légasse). Elle inclut donc les dirigeants religieux du peuple, souvent critiques envers les deux prophètes. 29 Cf. Lc 19.9: ‘le salut est entré dans cette maison, car lui aussi [Zachée] est fils d’Abraham.’
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de délier ses sandales (Mc 1.7; Lc 3.16; Jn 1.27) ou bien de les lui enlever (Mt 3.11). Jean, en tout cas, ne se pronnonce sur l’identité précise de cette figure mystérieruse, et, déjà en prison, à la fin de sa vie, il se pose encore des questions à ce propos (Q, Mt 11.3 par. Lc 7.19). D’autre part, Jean ne se prononce pas non plus sur sa propre identité. Ni dans Q ni chez Marc il n’y a pas aucune expression dans ce sens.30 Peut-on songer à Élie? Certaiment, on detecte que Jean est vêtu de poil de chameau avec une ceinture de cuir autour des reins et qu’il habite dans le désert menant une vie ascétique (Mc 1.6). En tout cas, ni le rapprochement – même s’il y a des différences textuelles – entre Mc 1.6 de 2 R 1.8 ni la référence au désert ni les échos de Ml 3 ne justifient l’identification du Baptiste avec Élie.31 Jean – comme, d’ailleurs, Jésus! – s’est montré très réticent à donner une identification de luimême (cf. Mc 11.27–33). Chez Jean, dans le meilleur style des prophètes d’Israël, la force repose sur le message, sur sa parole prophétique qui résonne dans le désert de Judée et qui retentit jusqu’à la lointaine Galilée. C’est pour cela que probablement l’identification la plus claire de Jean soit celle qui dérive d’Es 40.3 (‘la voix de celui qui crie dans le désert’), texte sur lequel Jean a pu comprendre sa mission.32 La ‘voix’ de Jean va s’épanouir sur tout le pays juif jusqu’à une petite ville – plutôt un village – galiléenne d’où va arriver Jésus, un homme déjà adulte, attiré par la parole vraie du Baptiste.
2. Jésus, baptisé par Jean
Les réflexions précédentes nous permettent d’entrer dans le cœur de notre question: les raisons qui ont poussé Jésus à quitter Nazareth, peut-être avec d’autres membres de sa famille (EvHe-Pelag. 3.2) et d’autres galiléens, et rejoindre Jean au Jourdain. Ce voyage auprès de Jean le Baptiste constitue une plaque tournante dans la vie de Jésus: celui-ci laisse tout (famille, travail) et il s’incorpore à l’entourage de Jean. Un changement si spectaculaire à un âge mûr doit se faire sur 30 Par contre, la question sur l’identité de Jean va se poser avec force dans les sources postérieures à Q et Mc. Ainsi en Mt 3.3 et Lc 3.2–4 Jean est directement appellé ‘la voix de celui qui crie dans le désert’ annoncée par Esaïe (40.3). Le processus arrive au maximum dans l’évangile de Jean: Jn 1.6–8; 1.19–28 (‘qui es-tu?’); 3.27–30. Ici le Baptiste affirme: ‘Je suis la voix de celui qui crie dans le désert’ (ejgw; fwnh; bow`nto~ ejn th/` ejrhvmw/) (1.23). 31 Quoique qu’il fasse des observations intéressantes, Joel Marcus propose une thèse – ‘John the Baptist identified himself with Elijah, and Jesus with Elisha’ – qui, à mon avis, est difficilment soutenable. Voir ‘John the Baptist and Jesus’, When Judaism and Christianity Began: Essays in Memory of Anthony J. Saldarini (ed. A. J. Avery-Peck, D. Harrington, et J. Neusner; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2004) 1.179–97, esp. 188. Il faut donc donner la raison à Meier (Marginal Jew, 2.46–48), pour qui la typologie Élie-Jean manque d’appuis suffisants. Également, Theissen-Merz (Historical Jesus, 206 n. 18). 32 Theissen-Merz, Historical Jesus, 206. La citation apparaît dans les synoptiques et Jean (voir n. 30).
366 armand puig i tàrrech des bonnes raisons, soupesées et assimilées. Jésus n’improvise pas. Il y a une décision qui ne peut se baser que sur une conviction: Jésus reconnaît comme sien le projet de Jean. En tout cas, il n’est pas le seul à s’y reconnaître. Comme on a montré, Jean est un prophète fortement apprécié par le peuple et qui, par ses paroles et par sa conduite, attire les gens. Son appel à la conversion jaillit dans le désert, lieu traditionnel de la rencontre d’Israël avec le Dieu de l’alliance (Os 2, par exemple), et s’encadre dans l’annonce du jugement divin imminent. Autour de Jean, fourmille un peuple hétérogène et bigarré qui désire recevoir son baptême. On comprend donc que maints auteurs ont interprété la décision de Jésus de se faire baptiser comme une adhésion au peuple eschatologique de Dieu.33 En tout cas, d’après cette interprétation, il ne s’agit pas de tout le peuple mais d’un ‘open remnant’, d’un reste d’Israël qui serait destiné au salut.34 Jésus aurait accepté le baptême de pénitence comme le moyen établi par Dieu pour constituer ce groupe d’israélites sauvés, qui, lors du jugement, partageraient le salut promis.35 Donc Jésus se serait rallié au projet de restauration d’Israël initiée par le Baptiste, qui se proposerait de préparer le peuple au jugement.36 La restauration d’Israël serait le but majeur de l’activité de Jean, que Jésus aurait partagé pleinement.37 Par conséquent, pour Jésus, le baptême aurait été le moyen de se montrer solidaire avec son peuple, de s’abaisser comme membre de l’Israël pécheur – ce qui ne signifie pas nécessairement l’existence en lui d’un péché personnel. Bref, la décision de Jésus de se faire baptiser reposerait sur ses sentiments de compassion et solidarité pour un peuple – le sien – afin de bâtir une communauté nouvelle qui résiste à l’épreuve du jugement divin. On n’est pas loin, finalement, de la vieille exégèse patristique et médiévale du baptême de Jésus comme la péricope ‘par excellence’ de son obéissance et de son humilitas.38 2.1 Le signe de Jean comme début du kairos Pourtant, sans vouloir nier la valeur de ce qui demeure une interprétation vénérable et très répandue, basée sur la proximité miséricordieuse de Jésus à son peuple, il me semble qu’il y a une possibilité, autre et complémentaire, d’envi33 Déjà Jeremias, Neutestamentliche Theologie, 52 n. 7. 34 D’après B. F. Meyer, le but de Jean serait le suivant: ‘gather the remnant of Israel destined for salvation’ (Aims, 120). 35 Voyez Meier, Marginal Jew, 2.110. 36 Meyer, Aims, 117: ‘to make Israel ready for the jugement.’ 37 Meyer, Aims, 123: ‘the reconstitution of Israel in view of the eschaton.’ 38 Déjà en Mt 3.15 le baptême est conçu comme une obéissance totale à la volonté divine, un ‘accomplissement de tout ce qui est juste’ devant Dieu (plhrw`sai pa`san dikaiosuvnhn). En ce qui concerne l’exégèse patristique et médiévale, voyez Biblia Patristica: Index des citations et allusions bibliques dans la littérature patristique (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1975). Voyez aussi n. 2 de cette étude.
Pourquoi Jésus a-t-il reçu le baptême de Jean? 367
sager la question. À mon avis, le point du message de Jean qui saisit Jésus et qui le mène au Jourdain est la perception de l’eschaton, l’éblouissement du temps attendu et plein, l’arrivée du temps de Dieu. Jean débute sur un message qui brise la réalité présente dans l’espérance et la certitude que Dieu va bientôt se manifester dans l’histoire des hommes. L’urgence eschatologique est le fondement de son appel. Or, c’est le signe que Jésus attendait pour commencer sa mission. Jean annonce le kairos et Jésus s’identifie à cette annonce.39 Dès qu’il sait qu’au Jourdain on annonce le kairos de Dieu, il comprend que son heure est arrivée. La mission de Jean Baptiste sera en même temps le point de départ de Jésus. Un prophète reconnaît un autre prophète, un message suscite un autre message. Jean est l’étincelle, Jésus sera le feu (cf. Lc 12.49; Ev. Thomas 10). Jésus ne retarde pas son départ vers le Jourdain. Le baptême de Jean est le signe divin qu’il attendait, le signe du kairos qui devrait bouleverser le présent en le transformant en temps plein du salut. Il convient de rappeler ici la phrase de Jésus rapportée au besoin de discerner et comprendre le poids et la qualité du moment présent et de ce qui s’y passe (Mt 16.3 par. Lc 12.56, Q) (cf. aussi Thomas 91). Jésus exhorte les gens à reconnaître ‘ce temps-ci’ (to;n kairo;n de; tou`ton, Lc 12.56), c’est-à-dire, à discerner ‘les signes des temps’ qui s’y manifestent (ta; de; shmei`a tw`n kairw`n, Mt 16.3).40 Le temps présent est chargé de sens et il faut le découvrir. C’est pourquoi, à ceux qui demandent un signe extraordinaire qui l’accrédite comme Messie, Jésus répond qu’ils ont déjà ‘le signe de Jonas’ (to; shmei`on ΔIwna`, Lc 11.29 par. Mt 12.39, qui ajoute tou` profhvtou) (Q). Notons que tout comme Jean Baptiste – et Jésus lui-même –, Jonas est le prophète qui a prêché la conversion. Le rappel de Jonas sur les lèvres de Jésus sert à proposer la prédication de la conversion, comme signe que les gens devraient comprendre; en effet, Jésus souligne que les gens de Ninive ‘se sont convertis à la prédication de Jonas’ (Mt 12.41 par. Lc 11.32), le prophète envoyé, malgré lui, à la grande capitale. De même, la prédication et le baptême de Jean concernant la conversion – faite, comme chez Jonas, sous la menace de la colère divine – et son baptême ont représenté pour Jésus le signe attendu. Le ‘signe de Jean’ a été si décisif pour Jésus que celui-ci s’est mis à l’ombre de Jean le Baptiste et il a considéré le prophète du Jourdain comme ‘le plus grand parmi ceux qui sont nés d’une femme’ (Mt 11.11 par. Lc 7.28) (Q) (cf. aussi Thomas 46.1). Pour Jésus, Jean est resté toujours le signe du kairos. Le kairos de Jésus repose donc sur la prédication de la conversion initiée par Jean, quoiqu’il aura un nom propre et distinct: ‘Royaume de Dieu’ (cf. Mc 1.14: peplhvrwtai oJ kairo;~ kai; h[ggiken hJ basileiva tou` qeou`: metanoei`te). 39 B. F. Meyer écrit: ‘In John’s view, the supremely critical moment had come for Israel, a kairos charged with imperatives of purification’ (Aims, 116). 40 Il est difficile de trancher sur ce point à propos du texte de Q. Celle qu’on appellée ‘édition critique’ (The Critical Edition of Q [ed. J. M. Robinson, P. Hoffmann, et J. S. Kloppenborg ; Leuven: Peeters, 2000]) prend parti pour Lc, mais avec des hésitations.
368 armand puig i tàrrech Aux yeux de Jésus la grandeur de Jean est double: personnelle et eschatologique. Jean est un vrai prophète mais, surtout, celui qui déclenche l’éclat de l’eschaton. Les paroles de louange et reconnaissance que Jésus adresse à Jean soulignent, tout d’abord, la figure ascétique et radicale d’un prophète qui s’est opposé à l’arrogance d’Hérode Antipas et qui n’a pas voulu flater son pouvoir (Mt 11.7–8 par. Lc 7.24–25) (Q) (cf. aussi Ev. Thomas 78.1–2). Jésus remarque la vie austère de Jean – celui qui ‘ni mange ni boit’ (Mt 11.18 par. Lc 7.33), reconnue par tous comme une vie propre d’un prophète (Mc 11.32). Le style de vie du Baptiste exerce une fascination sur Jésus, même si celui-ci ne va pas le suivre sur ce point.41 Cependant, Jésus re relie à Jean, comme le montre la parabole des enfants sur la place (Mt 11.16–19 par. Lc 7.31–34): le kairos est arrivé et il est temps d’entrer dans le jeu, de danser ou de se plaindre.42 On ne peut pas rester en dehors des changements qui se produisent: Dieu entre dans l’histoire et on doit réagir.43 Or, les changements ont commencé par la prédication de Jean. Jésus s’exprime ainsi dans le logion sur les violents et le Royaume: ‘La Loi et les Prophètes jusqu’à Jean. Depuis lors (ajpo; tovte) (ou depuis les jours de Jean) le Royaume de Dieu est assailli avec violence et des violents l’arrachent’ (Mt 11.12–13 par. Lc 16.16) (Q).44 Il semble évident que la préposition ajpo a un sens inclusif,45 et que, par conséquent, le kairos débute avec Jean le Baptiste.46 Jésus n’hésite donc pas à placer Jean au temps du Royaume, au temps du salut. Jean est le point qui relie le passé et le présent. Il annonce le kairos prochain, mais, aux yeux de Jésus, il en fait déjà partie dans la mesure que sa prédication de la conversion est le ‘signe’ qui conduit Jésus à initier sa propre prédication: le Royaume comme présence du salut dans l’histoire. Jésus donc a reconnu le ‘signe de Jean’, son baptême, comme l’expression de l’arrivée du kairos et, par conséquent il a décidé de se faire baptiser dans le Jourdain.47 41 Au contraire de Jean, Jésus se présente comme quelqu’un qui ‘mange et boit’ (Mt 11.19 par. Lc 7.34). 42 On ne saurait dire si Jésus s’identifie avec un des quatre acteurs de la parabole (ceux qui jouent de la flûte, ceux qui chantent un chant funèbre, ceux qui dansent, ceux qui se plaignent). Il semble plutôt que cette parabole doit être interprétée comme un ensemble qui vise une seule affirmation: c’est le temps du Royaume, on ne doit pas en rester en dehors, comme ces enfants qui ne veulent pas participer aux jeux de leurs copains. 43 Jésus place Jean à côté de lui-même. La raison est bien comprise par B. F. Meyer qui écrit: ‘John and Jesus alike were signs of the eschatological break in the times’ (Aims, 124). Il est vrai que chez Jésus le futur est envisagé comme temps de jugement et temps d’accomplissement de la promesse. P. Pokorný l’a justement souligné (Die Entstehung der Christologie. Voraussetzungen einer Theologie des Neuen Testaments [Stuttugart: Calwer, 1985] 20–30). 44 On modifie légèrement l’hypothèse de reconstitution de Q proposée par CEQ (cf. n. 40). 45 Marshall, Luke, 628; Luz, Matthäus, 2.180 n. 61; Meier, Marginal Jew, 2.160. 46 Jeremias, Neutestamentliche Theologie, 54. 47 On voit bien que la décision de Jésus n’est pas le résultat d’une ‘impulsion spontanée’ (ainsi, J. Guillet, citée par Vigne, Baptême, 134) mais le fruit d’un discernement spirituel, d’un choix intérieure à laquelle on n’a pas, pourtant, un accès direct.
Pourquoi Jésus a-t-il reçu le baptême de Jean? 369
2.2 A-t-il péché Jésus? Si la principale raison de Jésus pour aller au Jourdain est celle que nous venons de proposer, la question classique sur la peccabilité de Jésus prend une autre tournure. D’emblée, on devrait écarter la position de D. F. Strauss, pour qui Jésus serait allé au Jourdain tout simplement pour demander le pardon de ses péchés.48 Jésus a compris – et accepté- le baptême de conversion administré par Jean comme signe non équivoque de l’arrivée de l’eschaton, de l’éclosion du temps dernier, comme indice d’accomplissement du dessein divin dans l’histoire humaine. Un temps différent arrive, soit pour Israël et pour toute l’humanité, soit pour Jésus, lui-même, qui ne va pas retourner à Nazareth. Sa vie va changer complètement, comme changera aussi, lors de sa prédication, la vie de ceux qui de façon radicale vont accepter la nouvelle de Dieu qui règne. Or, ce rapport entre l’acceptation du baptême de Jean et l’accueil du dessein divin – qui intègre Jean et Jésus! – a été exprimé par Matthieu dans le dialogue entre Jean et Jésus, qui précède l’immersion de ce dernier dans le Jourdain. Notons que Matthieu est le seul évangéliste qui fait parler Jésus dans le Jourdain. Ses propos sont donc très intéressants. Matthieu met sur les lèvres de Jésus une phrase, comprise habituellement par les interprètes dans le cadre de la théologie matthéenne, qui parle de la dikaiosuvnh. On a justement souligné que les paroles de Jésus (‘c’est ainsi qu’il nous convient d’accomplir toute justice’, Mt 3.15) indiquent l’obéissance à la volonté divine, l’accomplissement de ce que Dieu veut dès maintenant (a[rti).49 Cependant, notons que Jésus s’exprime au pluriel et, par conséquent, inclut Jean et lui-même dans l’acceptation d’un unique dessein divin, qui doit être ‘totalement’ réalisé (pa`san dikaiosuvnhn). Or, le dessein divin qui débute maintenant et qui inclut Jean et Jésus – dans cet ordre – ne peut être que l’arrivée du kairos du salut et de la grâce, annoncé par le premier et accompli par le second. Dans ce sens, le Jourdain, ‘les jours de Jean le Baptiste’ (Mt 11.12) (cf. Lc 16.16), représentent la plaque tournante de l’arrivée du kairos divin, que Jésus a reconnu comme tel. Il n’est pas étonnant que Jésus ait vénéré la mémoire du Baptiste et qu’il ne lui ait pas épargné des éloges.50 Matthieu (3.15) a donc voulu expliquer Mc 1.9 et il a précisé la raison qui a mené Jésus au Jourdain. 48 Même si le texte très sobre de Mc 1.9 ne contredit pas cette affirmation, il ne lui prête non plus aucun appui. Il faut donc se tourner sur le reste des témoins anciens. D. F. Strauss, La Vie de Jésus. Traduite par M. Littré (2 vols.; Paris, 1840) 1.257. Cf. V. Fusco, ‘La quête du Jésus historique. Bilan et perspectives’ Jésus de Nazareth. Nouvelles approches d’une énigme (ed. D. Marguerat, E. Norelli, et J. M. Poffet; Le Monde la Bible 38; Genève: Labor et Fides, 1998) 27–57. 49 Ainsi J. Dupont (Les Béatitudes, vol. 3 [Paris: Gabalda, 1973] 244). 50 D’après Jésus, Jean est ‘plus qu’un prophète’, ‘le plus grand parmi ceux qui sont nés d’une femme’, non à cause de sa vertu supérieure à tous, mais à cause du rôle joué par son baptême comme signe de l’arrivée du kairos, comme étincelle qui déclenche l’éclosion du Royaume.
370 armand puig i tàrrech Néanmoins, il reste encore une difficulté: en fait, Jésus a reçu un baptême de conversion administré par Jean, homme ‘bon’ et vertueux (Ant. 18.117). Ceci pourrait donc signifier que Jean est plus saint que Jésus, puisqu’il l’a immergé dans les eaux du Jourdain; en effet, on doit supposer que celui qui baptise est supérieur en vertu à celui qui est baptisé. Jésus avait-il donc péché? Il est fort possible que l’observation mise sur les lèvres de Jean dans Mt 3.14 veuille donner une réponse à cette question. Ici, le Baptiste affirme qu’il a besoin d’être baptisé par Jésus. Or, ces paroles ne peuvent signifier que Jésus, homme saint, devrait être celui qui baptise et que Jean, homme pécheur, devrait se soumettre à un baptême de conversion.51 Par conséquent, d’après Mt 3.14–15, même si Jésus a été baptisé par Jean, il n’a pas reçu ce baptême comme purification de ses péchés (v. 14), mais comme signe de l’irruption du temps de la grâce et du pardon, expression du dessein divin (v. 15). Jésus n’a donc pas péché pour ‘mériter’ un baptême!52 C’est aussi l’avis d’EvHe-Pelag. 3.2: ‘Quel péché ai-je commis pour que j’aille être baptisé par lui? À moins que (nisi forte) ce que je viens de dire soit de l’ignorance!’53 Cette réponse de Jésus à sa mère, qui l’invitait à aller au Jourdain avec sa famille (cf. n. 11), explicite par une interrogation rhétorique qu’il ne donne pas à son baptême dans le Jourdain le sens d’une purification de ses péchés. Même la deuxième clause de la citation d’EvHe équivaut à une réponse négative de Jésus à propos d’une transgression éventuelle qu’il aurait pu commettre.54 Une ligne de raisonnement semblable – aussi sur les lèvres de Jésus – se trouve dans Jn 8.45–46 (‘je dis la vérité . . . qui de vous me convaincra de [d’avoir] péché?’)55 et dans Ev. Thomas 104 (‘quel est 51 Cette interprétation montre concrètement en quoi consiste la supériorité de Jésus par rapport à Jean. Tout d’abord, il s’agit de la sainteté, c’est-à-dire, de l’absence de péché. 52 Un certain nombre d’auteurs soulignent que le concept ‘confession des péchés’ (Mc 1.5) se rapporte à la reconnaissance collective des péchés lors des liturgies pénitentielles (le jour du Yom Kippur, par exemple, ou même dans Qumran) et qu’un débat sur le péché personnel de Jésus n’a pas trop de sens (Meier, Marginal Jew, 2.113–16). Notons, quand-même, que l’appel de Jean à la conversion est tout à fait direct et personnel, dans la même ligne de ce qui va être l’appel de Jésus par rapport au Royaume: chacun doit se détourner du péché qu’il a commis. La force du baptême de Jean réside dans l’exigence incontournable d’une conversion personnelle, dans une ritualité nouvelle, celle de son baptême, unique par rapport au système de purifications de la religion juive. 53 ‘Quid peccavi, ut vadam et baptizer ab eo? Nisi forte hoc ipsum, quod dixi, ignorantia est’. 54 M.-J. Lagrange, cité par D. Vigne (Baptême, 144), écrit: ‘La clause nisi forte est virtuellement une interrogation qui comportait une réponse négative.’ En effet, la deuxième phrase a une claire tournure ironique (‘à moins que ce que je viens de dire – que je n’ai pas commis péché – soit tout simplement ignorance de ma part’, comme si Jésus disait: ‘qui, mieux que moi, peut dire que je n’ai pas péché?’). Cette phrase renforce le sens négatif de la première. EvHeAdv. Pelag. 3.2 reste donc sur la voie ouverte par Mt 3.14–15 et ne réprésente pas une ‘christologie déviante’ (Hennecke-Schneemelcher). Autrement, Jérôme n’aurait pas cité EvHe sans y apporter de restriction. 55 La réponse de Jésus veut être une réplique à l’accusation exprimée en Jn 8.41, d’après laquelle il serait ‘fils de la prostitution’, né dans le péché et, par conséquent, pécheur.
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donc le péché que j’ai commis, ou en quoi ai-je été vaincu?’).56 On a donc quatre questions de saveur rhétorique (Mt 3.14; EvHe-Pelag. 3.2; Jn 8.45–46 et Ev. Thomas 104) qui excluent pour Jésus la possibilité de péché; les deux premiers, en plus, rapportent cette impeccabilité à l’épisode du baptême de Jésus et précisent ainsi le nudum factum rapporté dans Mc 1.9. Ces textes constituent une base solide pour déterminer le sens que la toute première tradition de Jésus a donné à son baptême dans le Jourdain. Le récit du baptême de Jésus se termine sur une vision de celui qui vient d’être baptisé (Mc 1.10–11; Mt 3.16–17). Jésus ‘voit’ que les cieux se déchirent et qu’une colombe descend sur lui. En plus, une voix vient du ciel et communique un message qui se rapporte à lui-même (en deuxième personne dans Mc, en troisième chez Mt).57 Aparemment, personne, sauf Jésus, ne voit ni entend rien.58 Les éléments pour ainsi dire ‘phénoméniques’ de cet événement sont une colombe (ce que Jésus ‘voit’) et une voix (ce qui se fait ‘entendre’). Dans l’autre vision de Jésus rapportée par les synoptiques, celle de la chute de Satan (Lc 10.18), l’élément ‘visible’ est l’éclair.59 Les ressemblances entre Mc 1.10 et Lc 10.18 ne sont pas mineures. Dans les deux cas il s’agit d’une réalité metaterrestre (l’Esprit, Satan) qui, respectivement, descend doucement du ciel ou en tombe de façon violente. Cette réalité se rend visible par un élément perceptible (une colombe, un éclair), qui se manifeste dans 56 Dans ce logion Jésus répond à ceux qui l’invitent à prier et à jeûner, c’est-à-dire, à observer les deuxoeuvres pénitentielles – avec l’aumône – les plus typiques de la praxis juive du Ier. siècle (cf. Mt 6.1–18). Sa réponse négative à les pratiquer n’est pas tellement loin de la négative initiale à se faire baptiser, telle qu’on la rencontre dans EvHe-Pelag. 3.2. La raison dans les deux cas est la même: Jésus est convaincu qu’il n’a pas péché. 57 Notons, en tout cas, que Mc 1.11 se limite à dire que ‘une voix vint des cieux’ (fwnh; ejgevneto ejk tw`n oujranw`n). De façon semblable, Mt 3.17 (fwnh; ejk tw`n oujranw`n levgousa) (cf. Ap 10.4; 14.13). 58 Le texte alexandrin l’a souligné avec une leçon (‘les cieux s’ouvrirent pour lui’) qui est très ancienne. Remarquons en outre que, d’après Mc et Mt (cf. n. antériure), la voix résonne sans qu’elle s’adresse directement à Jésus. Doit-on comprendre qu’on a pu entendre quelque chose, pas nécessairement le message mais une sorte de ‘tonnerre’ (cf. Jn 12.29)? En effet, d’après le texte de Jn 12.28, ‘une voix arriva du ciel’ (h\lqen ou\n fwnh; ejk tou` oujranou`) et la foule qui entoure Jésus interprète que c’est ‘le tonnerre’ ou qu’un ange lui a parlé (v. 29). Mais lui seulement comprend le message céleste (v. 30). Peut-on supposer une chose pareille dans l’événement du Jourdain? En tout cas, il est clair que la vision comme telle n’a pas eu de témoins (cf. nn. 7 et 8). Par conséquent, si on doit accorder une véracité historique à l’événement, celle-ci dépend seulement d’une communication directe que Jésus aurait fait à ses disciples. Évidemment, l’alternative consiste à considérer la communauté primitive comme origine du récit de la vision de Jésus au Jourdain. C’est la position majoritaire (cf., à guise d’exemple, Meier, Marginal Jew, 2.107, qui suit A. Vögtle: ‘a Christian composition’, une ‘interpretative theophany’), qui tend à confondre ‘vision’ et ‘téophanie’. 59 Lc 10.18 (ejqewvroun to;n satana`n wJ~ ajstraph;n ejk tou` oujranou` pesovnta) ne spécifie pas aucune parole que Jésus aurait entendu.
372 armand puig i tàrrech le cadre d’un événement intrahistorique: respectivement, le baptême de Jésus au Jourdain et la victoire sur Satan des disciples de Jésus envoyés en mission. La seule – et grande difference – entre les deux visions est le lieu de provenance de la réalité metaterrestre: le plus haut des cieux, qui se déchirent pour permettre la descente de l’Esprit dans le cas du baptême, ou un des cieux les plus bas, qui était jusqu’alors la demeure de Satan.60 Mais le contexte conceptuel des deux visions est le même: l’arrivée de l’eschaton, l’intervention divine décisive, formulée comme déroute de Satan et comme épanouissement de la miséricorde de Dieu sur la terre. On pourrait se poser la question sur le sens de ces deux visions dans le cadre du ministère de Jésus. En tout cas, c’est bien clair qu’il s’agit de deux révélations célestes concernant le kairos de Dieu déjà présent dans l’histoire (les cieux ouverts et l’Esprit qui en descend sont des images fort évidentes) et agissant de façon définitive contre Satan (l’éclair est une image de la chute fulminant de celui-ci). Or, on se trouve dans un scénario prophético-apocalyptique où les visions sont en fait des révélations que Dieu octroie à ses envoyés et à ses fidèles. Ainsi, les deux visions que nous commentons – celle du baptême et celle de la chute de Satan – sont liées, non pas à une spéculation exprimée dans un cadre littéraire conventionnel, mais à une expérience vécue qui vise à la proclamation d’un message. Dans les textes prophétiques, la vision permet l’accès à une connaissance supérieure, qui sera communiquée au peuple par le prophète comme parole divine.61 La vision qui suit le baptême de Jésus est une sorte de réponse divine à son choix d’accepter ce baptême comme signe de l’arrivée du kairos. Jésus a interprété correctement le dessein de Dieu, c’est-à-dire, la signification eschatologique du baptême de Jean, et la vision du Jourdain sert à le confirmer. En effet, aussitôt après que Jésus remonte du fleuve, Dieu parle, il s’exprime dans un langage tout à fait compréhensible: Jésus ‘voit’ en fait que les cieux s’ouvrent et l’Esprit en descend. La perception de Jésus sur le ‘signe de Jean’, sur son baptême, est garantie maintenant par un autre signe, divin cette fois, le ‘signe des cieux qui
60 D’après les traditions juives Satan, esprit et prince du mal, habite le deuxième ciel, d’où il contrôle et soumet l’humanité. L’arrivée victorieuse du Royaume implique tout d’abord qu’il perd son pouvoir. Cf. A. Puig i Tàrrech, ‘Lc 10,18: la visió de la caiguda de Satanàs’, RCatT 3 (1978) 217–43. 61 Cf. U. B. Müller, ‘Vision und Botschaft. Erwägungen zur prophetischen Struktur der Vesrkündigung Jesu’, ZThK 74 (1977) 416–48. Müller suggère que grâce à son expérience visionnaire Jésus a été capable de substituer la menace du jugement, prêché par le Baptiste, par la certitude du salut. À mon avis, la vision apporte à Jésus une confirmation de ce qu’il avait vu et lu dans le baptême de Jean: l’arrivée, déjà en acte, du kairos. Jean était l’homme du kairos attendu, Jésus est l’homme du kairos présent, mais ce kairos a commencé – c’est la perception que Jésus en a eu!- avec le baptême administré par celui-là, le ‘signe de Jean’.
Pourquoi Jésus a-t-il reçu le baptême de Jean? 373
s’ouvrent’. Cette réalité le soutient dans le choix qu’il a fait.62 La vision du Jourdain semble donc être une révélation – une connaissance supérieure – accordée à Jésus par Dieu, qui donne ainsi une réponse claire et affirmative au grand changement que Jésus a initié dans sa vie.63 En tout cas, la réponse divine prend des contours précis: l’Esprit qui descend sur Jésus et la voix céleste qui ne peut être que la voix du Père. Il est vrai que les paroles du Jourdain, rapportées dans Mc 1.11, sont probablement une construction élaborée à partir du Ps 2.7 (Jésus en tant que Fils de Dieu), Gn 22.2 (en tant qu’il est le bien-aimé) et Es 42.1 (en tant qu’il est celui en qui Dieu se complaît).64 Cependant, le geste (l’Esprit qui descend sur Jésus) et le noyau des paroles divines (Jésus est appelé Fils) visent la même réalité: le rapport personnel de Jésus avec Dieu et sa conscience de Fils. Ce que Jésus ‘voit’ – expérimente – dans sa vision, c’est la tendresse du Père, sa miséricorde, sa bonté.65 Jésus, qui est le Fils, est confirmé dans sa relation avec Dieu, le Père. Et on sait que ce rapport filial va constituer l’axe de sa vie et de son message, de sa raison d’être et aussi de sa mort.66 La vision du Jourdain paraît déjà s’orienter dans cette direction.67 À partir de cette conscience sur la paternité active de Dieu, agissant à travers son Esprit, la conscience messianique de Jésus va se déployer comme contenu de sa mission d’envoyé: les miracles en seront l’exemple le plus saisissant.68 62 Le motif des cieux qui s’ouvrent est très courant dans la littérature apocalyptique. Cf. Ap 4.1; 19.11. 63 Une interprétation du baptême en tant que vocation de Jésus et sa prise de conscience d’être le servent de Dieu annoncé par Ésaïe repose sur des bases fragiles (ainsi Jeremias, Neutestamentliche Theologie, 56–62). Nulle part on ne dit que Jésus est appellé à être l’élu de Dieu. On parle seulement d’une vision accompagnée d’une révélation, qu’il faut comprendre d’après le choix de Jésus d’aller recevoir le baptême de Jean. 64 Notons que le thème du Messie n’apparaît pas dans les trois textes mentionnés. Le sujet dominant est la filiation de Jésus. D’autre part, il est fort probable que le texte composite de Mc 1.11 soit né, dans sa forme actuelle, dans la christologie postpascale. Cf. Theissen – Merz, Historical Jesus, 211. 65 L’auteur de l’Évangile aux Hébreux met dans la bouche de l’Esprit Saint lorsque Jésus remonte de l’eau après son baptême ces paroles pleines d’amour: ‘Mon Fils, je t’attendais dans tous les prophètes, j’attendais que tu viennes et que je me repose en toi. Car tu es mon repos, tu es mon Fils premier-né (filius meus primogenitus), qui règnes éternellement’ (In Isaiam 11.2). L’Esprit Saint comme mère de Jésus apparaît dans un passage célèbre (‘Il y a peu de temps ma mère, l’Esprit Saint, m’a pris par un de mes chéveux’), cité par Origène et Jérôme. Cf. aussi les Odes de Salomon 24.1–2 (citation suggérée par J. H. Charlesworth). 66 Cf. A. Puig i Tàrrech, Jesús. Un perfil biogràfic (Perfils 50; Barcelona: Proa, 6th ed. 2006) 329: ‘Jesús anuncia l’arribada del Regne de Déu, però el Déu que arriba rep el nom de Pare’. 67 I. H. Marshall écrit: ‘the statement (“tu es mon Fils”) is thus the declaration of an existing status, not the conferral of a new dignity . . . sonship is understood here in terms of personal relationship’ (Luke, 155). 68 Les miracles sont la conséquence – et non la motivation- du choix qui a mené Jésus au Jourdain. La conviction que l’eschaton est déjà en acte – et non seulement en prévisionporte Jésus à se concentrer sur les signes du Royaume et à abandonner progressivement l’activité baptismale. Cf. Puig i Tàrrech, Jesús, 226–8.
374 armand puig i tàrrech 3. Conclusion
Le récit du baptême de Jésus dans le Jourdain par Jean le Baptiste est la plaque tournante de sa vie. On peut même se demander si la longue attente à Nazareth, qui a duré plusieurs années, n’a pas été motivée par le manque d’un signe qui exprimerait l’arrivée du kairos de Dieu dans l’histoire humaine. Dès que Jean commence son activité baptismale dans le Jourdain, Jésus comprend que ce baptême est vraiment le ‘signe’ qu’il attendait. Le dessein de Dieu avait commencé à se manifester avec le prophète du Jourdain qui attire toute sorte de gens – même si son baptême n’était pas bien vu par les plus religieux – et annonce à tous l’urgence de la conversion en vue du pardon futur, eschatologique. Jésus a reconnu ce baptême, le ‘signe de Jean’, non comme l’attente de l’eschaton imminent mais comme l’arrivée de cet eschaton dans l’histoire: le pardon de Dieu est là. Il fallait donc se montrer obéissant à la volonté divine (Mt 3.15). C’est pourquoi il est descendu dans les eaux du Jourdain et il a reçu le baptême de Jean. Après, il s’est rallié au groupe de ses disciples mais bientôt il a agi comme quelqu’un qui avait un projet différent: Jésus n’est pas devenu un second Baptiste parce que le Royaume jaillissait, à travers lui-même, comme une réalité débordante, surtout à travers les guérisons et les exorcismes. Il faut donc exclure que Jésus ait voulu se purifier de ses péchés. Par ailleurs, il ne suffit pas d’affirmer que, en acceptant le baptême de Jean, il voulait se faire solidaire de l’Israël pécheur: il ne semble pas que la restauration d’Israël soit le but principal de l’activité des deux prophètes, celui du Jourdain et celui de Nazareth. L’horizon du Royaume – qui n’a rien à voir avec sa géographie! – va au delà des projets de restauration du peuple, prophétiques ou politiques. Le choix de Jésus pour le baptême de Jean est un choix pour la cause de Dieu: le baptême de Jean vient effectivement du ciel (Mc 11.30). Or, la cause de Dieu reste la grande question – et passion – aux yeux de Jésus. La vision qui suit immédiatement son baptême est un moment privilégié dans lequel Dieu confirme son dessein: l’eschaton est arrivé, et cet eschaton prend le nom de sa miséricorde et de sa tendresse. Le ‘signe des cieux qui s’ouvrent’ représente une communication personelle faite à Jésus qui le rassure sur l’arrivée effective de l’eschaton et sur sa mission de Messie envoyé aux pauvres et aux malades, oint par l’Esprit descendu comme une colombe. La relation de Jésus avec le Père se situe au centre de cette vision (Mc 1.10–11), qui est antihétique à celle de la chute de Satan (Lc 10.18). Cette relation singulière va continuer au cours de sa vie et au delà de cette vie.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 375–397. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000192
‘. . . dass sie meine Herrlichkeit schauen’ (Joh 17.24) Zu Hintergrund, Sinn und Funktion der johanneischen Rede von der dovxa Jesu* JÖRG F R EY Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Evangelisch-theologische Fakultät, Schellingstraße 3/V, D-80799 München, Deutschland
The idea of dovxa is a crucial theme of the Fourth Gospel and a test case for scholarly approaches. Starting from two recent monographs, the article develops the central issues to be discussed. In debate with the approaches of Bultmann, Käsemann, and Bornkamm, it is shown that the Johannine narrative is focussed on the act of ‘glorification’ in Jesus’ hour, which the author considers foretold in Isaiah and in which the universal salvation is rooted. The Johannine image of Christ as revealing his glory during his earthly ministry is, therefore, a retrojection from the post-Easter perspective. Even more is the notion of his preexistent glory a final consequence rooted in the view of the glorification of the crucified one in his ‘hour’. Keywords: Gospel of John, christology, glory, glorification, retrospective
Das Christusbild des Joh unterscheidet sich von dem der drei Synoptiker in eigentümlicher Weise. Von Anfang an ist der Weg des irdischen Jesus umglänzt von seiner Herrlichkeit. Er offenbart diese in seinen Wundertaten (Joh 2.11) und spricht in seiner Verkündigung, seinem ‘Ich bin’, seine Würde offen aus. Doch konzentriert sich die Rede von seiner ‘Herrlichkeit’ (dovxa) bzw. seiner ‘Verherrlichung’ (doxavzesqai) auffällig dort, wo auch viele andere Linien der johanneischen Darstellung kulminieren: im Kontext der ‘Stunde’ Jesu (Joh 12.23, 28; 13.31–32; 17.1, 4, 5, 22, 24) und damit im Horizont seines bevorstehenden Todes. Programmatisch beginnen die Abschiedsreden mit einem Spruch über seine ‘Verherrlichung’ (Joh 13.31–32), und am Ende des hohepriesterlichen Gebets, in dem dovxa-Aussagen besonders dicht begegnen, findet sich als ‘letzter Wille Jesu’
* Main Paper beim General Meeting der SNTS in Sibiu am 2. August 2007. Für die Durchsicht des Manuskripts danke ich Dr. Anni Hentschel, Jakob Spaeth und Ann-Sophie Wich sehr herzlich.
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376 jörg frey die Aussage, dass die späteren Jünger seine ‘Herrlichkeit schauen’ sollen (Joh 17.24). Diese Zielaussage der letzten Bitte in Joh 17 formuliert nicht nur einen spezifischen Aspekt der johanneischen Eschatologie,1 sie kann zugleich als Zielaussage der gesamten johanneischen Darstellung verstanden werden: Diejenigen, die durch das Wort der Zeugen an Jesus glauben (Joh 17.20), d.h. nicht zuletzt die Leserinnen und Leser des Evangeliums (Joh 19.35; 20.31), sollen Jesu dovxa wahrnehmen – die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten. Doch erheben sich hier zahlreiche Fragen: Ist die hier erwähnte dovxa nicht schon jene dovxa, die Jesus vor Grundlegung der Welt zu eigen war, die dovxa des Präexistenten (Joh 17.5)? Wie verhält sich also die dovxa des Erhöhten und Verherrlichten zu der des Präexistenten? Wie verhält sie sich zu der des Fleischgewordenen (Joh 1.14), des irdischen Jesus, dessen Wirken programmatisch als Offenbarung seiner dovxa bezeichnet wird (Joh 2.11)? Vor allem: wie kann der noch nicht verherrlichte Jesus (Joh 7.39) schon ‘seine’ dovxa offenbaren? Wie verhält sich also die dovxa des Wundertäters zu der erst in seiner ‘Stunde’ erfolgenden ‘Verherrlichung’ (doxavzesqai: Joh 12.23; 13.31–32; 17.1, 5, 10) Und wie ist das Geschehen der ‘Verherrlichung’ Jesu zu verstehen? Wann erfolgt diese, und worin besteht sie? Und wie hängt sie mit dem umgekehrten Akt zusammen, dass Jesus den Vater (Joh 17.1, 4; vgl. 14.13) oder der Vater selbst seinen Namen (Joh 12.28) ‘verherrlicht’? In welcher Beziehung steht also Jesu dovxa zur dovxa Gottes (Joh 11.4, 40)? Und wie verbinden sich damit die anderen Aussagen, dass Menschen Gott ‘verherrlichen’ (Joh 21.19), der Vater in den Glaubenden ‘verherrlicht’ ist (Joh 17.10; vgl. 15.8) und auch der Geist-Paraklet Jesus ‘verherrlicht’ (Joh 16.14)? Mit der Frage nach dem johanneischen Verständnis von dovxa und dem Verhältnis von savrx und dovxa (Joh 1.14) ist zugleich eine der wesentlichen Grundfragen der Johannesinterpretation thematisiert. Sie ist zu klären, wenn das vierte Evangelium sachgerecht verstanden werden soll, zumal wenn eine Kommentierung dieses Werks zu konzipieren ist.2 Es geht dabei um die Eigenart des johanneischen Christusbildes in seiner Differenz zur älteren Überlieferung, um die klassische Frage nach dem historischen Wert der johanneischen Darstellung3 und 1 Dazu J. Frey, Die johanneische Eschatologie (3 Bde.; WUNT 96/110/117; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997/1998/2000) 3.223–31; zuletzt R. Schwindt, Gesichte der Herrlichkeit (HBS 50; Freiburg: Herder 2007) 369–78. 2 Der Verfasser bereitet die Kommentierung des Johannesevangeliums im Evangelischkatholischen Kommentar vor. Vorarbeiten dazu bilden Frey, Eschatologie, sowie zahlreiche Aufsätze, s. den in Vorbereitung befindlichen Sammelband J. Frey, Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten. Studien zum Johannesevangelium (hg. v. J. Schlegel; WUNT; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009). 3 Die Tatsache, dass das Joh seit dem Durchbruch der kritischen Forschung um 1900 aus der Diskussion um den ‘historischen Jesus’ entlassen ist (s. A. Schweitzer, Geschichte der LebenJesu-Forschung [Tübingen: Mohr, 9. Aufl. 1984] 240; dazu Frey, Eschatologie, 1.37–9), wird immer wieder in Frage gestellt, zuletzt wirkungsvoll durch das ‘Jesusbuch des Papstes’: J.
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um die Frage nach dem sachlichen Grund der johanneischen ‘Sehweise’, d.h. um ihre theologische Legitimität.4 Ich möchte zunächst im Rückgriff auf zwei neue Monographien einige Grundprobleme benennen und dann im Bezug auf klassische Modelle der Johannesauslegung meinen eigenen interpretatorischen Ansatz begründen (I). Danach werde ich knapp die Fragen nach dem Ansatz, dem traditionsgeschichtlichen Hintergrund und dem Sinn der johanneischen Rede von der dovxa behandeln (II). Ausgehend von den dovxa-Aussagen im Kontext der ‘Stunde’ Jesu soll dann die Bedeutung der Verherrlichung Jesu für die Darstellung des Evangeliums und das Verständnis seiner Jesusgeschichte aufgezeigt werden (III), bevor einige abschließende Perspektiven (IV) zu formulieren sind.
I. Das Verständnis von dovxa und der Ansatz der Johannesinterpretation
1. Zwei neue Monographien zum Verständnis von dovxa Trotz der anerkannten Bedeutung ist das Thema des johanneischen Verständnisses der dovxa in der Forschung lange vernachlässigt5 und erst 2007 in zwei Monographien umfassend behandelt worden.6 Während Rainer Schwindt in
Ratzinger, Jesus von Nazareth (Freiburg: Herder, 2007). Doch dürfte dies angesichts der Differenzen zum synoptischen Jesusbild und der im Joh (z.B. in den Anamnesis-Notizen Joh 2.22; 12.16; vgl. 14.26) explizit zugestandenen interpretierenden Tendenz insgesamt zutreffend sein, selbst wenn das Joh auch einzelne valide historische Informationen bieten mag. 4 Diese Infragestellung wurde prononciert vorgetragen bei E. Käsemann, Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17 (Tübingen: Mohr, 4. Aufl. 1980). Schwindt, Gesichte, 277, formuliert das Problem zutreffend als ‘die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von narrativer Jesushistorie, die der menschlich geschichtlichen Gestalt des Mannes aus Nazareth verpflichtet ist, und den mythologisch-ontologischen Aussagen und des Prologs, die Jesus als den präexistenten und postexistenten Gottessohn vorstellen’. 5 Zutreffend formulierte Y. Ibuki, ‘Die Doxa des Gesandten’, AJBI 14 (1988) 38–81 (38), ‘daß dieser johanneisch-christologische Grundbegriff die ihm zukommende Bedeutung bisher noch nicht gefunden hat.’ 6 Schwindt, Gesichte, 277–448, und N. Chibici-Revneanu, Die Herrlichkeit des Verherrlichten (WUNT 2.231; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2007). Die letzte größere Untersuchung war die Dissertation von W. Thüsing, Die Erhöhung und Verherrlichung Jesu im Johannesevangelium (NTA 21; Münster: Aschendorff, 1960). Neben den grundlegenden älteren Arbeiten von J. Schneider, Doxa (Neutestamentliche Forschungen 3,3; Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1932), und H. Kittel, Die Herrlichkeit Gottes (BZNW 16; Gießen: Töpelmann, 1934), sind zu beachten: C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1965) 201–8; G. B. Caird, ‘The Glory of God in the Fourth Gospel: An Exercise in Biblical Semantics’, NTS 15 (1968) 265–77; W. R. G. Loader, The Christology of the Fourth Gospel (BET 23; Frankfurt a. M.: Lang, 1989) 107–23; Th. Knöppler, Die theologia crucis des Johannesevangeliums (WMANT 69; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1994) 52–65, 165–73; Ch. Dietzfelbinger, Der
378 jörg frey seiner Trierer Habilitationsschrift die johanneische Herrlichkeitschristologie im Vergleich mit der paulinischen behandelt und den Sachgehalt beider auf dem Hintergrund der alttestamentlich-frühjüdischen Traditionsgeschichte vergleichend interpretiert, verfolgt Nicole Chibici-Revneanu in ihrer Greifswalder Dissertation die semantische Entfaltung der dovxa-Aussagen im akribischen Durchgang durch das Evangelium, um deren Sinn anschließend auf dem Hintergrund der profangriechischen und der frühjüdischen Belege zu profilieren. Bei allen Differenzen sind die Gemeinsamkeiten beachtlich: Beide Interpreten sehen, dass literarkritische Ansätze bei diesem Thema kaum weiterführen, vielmehr bestätigt die Analyse der dovxa-Aussagen die theologische Kohärenz der johanneischen Darstellung.7 Beide arbeiten auch die grundlegende Bedeutung alttestamentlicher Horizonte zum Verständnis der johanneischen Verwendung heraus: Der Sinn der johanneischen dovxa-Belege geht mit wenigen Ausnahmen8 weit über das profangriechische Bedeutungsspektrum von ‘Meinung’ oder ‘Schein’, ‘Ruhm’ und ‘Ehre’ hinaus.9 Daher muss auch eine Deutung im Rahmen des anthropologischen Schemas von ‘honor and shame’, ‘broker and client’ den johanneischen Vorstellungsrahmen verkürzen, wenn nicht gar verfehlen.10 Beide Interpreten suchen schließlich nach einem Weg, die johanneische Rede von der dovxa als sachliche Einheit zu verstehen11 und die verbreitete Unterscheidung verschiedener dovxai oder verschiedener ‘Stadien’ der dovxa12 zu überwinden.
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11 12
Abschied des Kommenden (WUNT 95; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997) 283–92, und L. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) 374–81. Zur Forschungsgeschichte s. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, 4–33. Vgl. Schwindt, Gesichte, 279: ‘Es wird sich zeigen, daß gerade die Herrlichkeitsaussagen einen Text- und Sinnzusammenhang stiften, der sprachlich, literarisch und theologisch als schöpferischer Entwurf eines einzelnen Kopfes begreifbar ist.’ S. auch Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, 328–9. Vgl. Joh 5.41, 44; 7.18; 8.50, 54; 9.24 und 12.43, wo der Sinngehalt von ‘Ehre’ oder ‘Ruhm’ zu erkennen ist. Doch überschneiden sich schon in Joh 7.18 die profangriechische und die christologisch bestimmte Sinndimension (s. Schwindt, Gesichte, 424). Dazu ausführlich Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, 336–44, die jedoch ausdrücklich festhält, dass der Evangelist ‘auch mit einer profan-zwischenmenschlich gedachten Vorstellung von dovxa-Ehre umzugehen weiß’ (335). Vgl. solche Ansätze etwa bei M. S. Collins, ‘The Question of Doxa: A Socioliterary Reading of the Wedding at Cana’, BTB 25 (1995) 100–109; R. A. Piper, ‘Glory, Honor and Patronage in the Fourth Gospel: Understanding the “doxa” Given to Disciples in John 17’, Social Scientific Models for Interpreting the Bible (ed. J. J. Pilch/B. J. Malina; BIS 53; Leiden: Brill, 2001) 281–309. S. das Referat bei Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, 24–32 und deren Ausführungen im Rahmen der Diskussion jeder einzelnen dovxa-Aussage. So M. Pamment, ‘The Meaning of dovxa in the Fourth Gospel’, ZNW 74 (1983) 12–16, sowie Ibuki, ‘Doxa’ (zu beiden Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, 47f.). In diesem Sinne Thüsing, Erhöhung, 240–9, der auch grundlegend zwischen ‘zwei Stadien’ des Heilswerks, dem Wirken des irdischen Jesus und dem des erhöhten Christus, unterscheidet. Solche Unterscheidungen sind v.a. von der dogmatischen Lehre der status Christi
‘. . . das sie meine Herrlichkeit schauen’ (Joh 17.24) 379
Doch bestehen hier interessante Unterschiede: Nach Chibici-Revneanu offenbart Jesus die eine dovxa Gottes, die er in seinem irdischen Wirken ‘vom Vater’ (para; patrov~) hat, während sie ihm in der Präexistenz und in der Postexistenz ‘beim Vater’ (para; patriv) zukommt. Dieses Modell kommt der Auffassung von den zwei Stadien nahe, überwindet es aber in seiner theozentrischen und alttestamentlichen Verankerung: Jesu dovxa ist die eine dovxa Gottes, die ihm in je unterschiedlichem Modus zu eigen ist. Seine Verherrlichung ‘markiert den Übergang . . . von der dovxa para; patrov~ zur dovxa para; patriv.’13 Im Unterschied zu dieser sprachlichen (aber nicht an allen Belegen verifizierbaren) Differenzierung findet Schwindt den sachlichen Einheitsgrund der dovxa-Aussagen in der Menschensohn-Christologie,14 weil sich im johanneischen Menschensohn-Begriff in analoger Weise die vorinkarnatorische Präexistenz Jesu und seine österliche Postexistenz verbinden und beide in engster Weise mit dem geschichtlichen Weg Jesu, mit seiner ‘Stunde’, verknüpft sind.15 Geht es bei den johanneischen dovxa-Aussagen um das Verhältnis zwischen der mythologisch-ontologischen Sicht Jesu als des ewigen Gottessohns und der erzählten Geschichte Jesu von Nazareth, seinem Weg ans Kreuz, dann stellt sich die Frage, von wo aus dieses Spannungsverhältnis angemessen zu beleuchten ist. Ist Joh 1.14 der Schlüssel für das Ganze, oder erschließt sich gerade dieser Vers ‘erst vom Ganzen des Evangeliums’?16 Sollte man daher von den Aussagen über Jesu Herrlichkeitsoffenbarung in seinen ‘Zeichen’ ausgehen17 oder eher von dem Kulminationspunkt in der Todesstunde,18 in dem von Jesu ‘Verherrlichung’ die Rede ist? Damit sind Grundfragen der Johannesinterpretation berührt: die Herrlichkeitsaussagen sind in gewissem Sinn ein Testfall für die hermeneutische Gesamtperspektive auf das vierte Evangelium.
13 14 15 16 17
18
inspiriert, derzufolge dann zwischen der dovxa des Präexistenten, des Inkarnierten und des Postexistenten oder auch zwischen einer himmlischen und einer irdischen dovxa unterschieden wird. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, 326. Schwindt, Gesichte, 423. Schwindt, Gesichte, 430. Kaum zufällig ist Jesu Verherrlichung zu Beginn der Abschiedsreden in einem Menschensohn-Spruch (Joh 13.31–32) ausgesagt. So Schwindt, Gesichte, 379. So der Zugang bei Schwindt, der erst die ‘Verherrlichung im Zeichen’ behandelt (Gesichte, 283–303) und dann auf dem Hintergrund der Menschensohn-Aussagen die ‘Heilsökonomie der Verherrlichung’ in den Abschiedsreden (Gesichte, 353–79). In diesem Sinn hat F. J. Moloney in seinem mehrbändigen Kommentar erst Joh 13–21 unter den Begriff der dovxa gestellt: Glory not Dishonor: Reading John 13–21 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998).
380 jörg frey 2. Drei klassische Modelle Die klassische Alternative besteht zwischen einem protologischen und einem inkarnationstheologischen Ansatz:19 Letzterer wurde prononciert von Rudolf Bultmann entwickelt. Dieser hat im oJ lovgo~ sa;rx ejgevneto (Joh 1.14a) ‘das Thema des ganzen Johannes-Evangeliums’20 erkannt und damit die Herrlichkeitsaussage der Inkarnationsaussage untergeordnet. Demnach ist ‘die dovxa nicht neben der savrx oder durch sie, als durch ein Transparent, hindurch zu sehen . . ., sondern nirgends anders als in der savrx’, und ‘der Blick [muß] es aushalten . . ., auf die savrx gerichtet zu sein, – wenn er die dovxa sehen will.’21 Allein in diesem Paradox ist Bultmann zufolge Offenbarung gegeben: Denn der Offenbarer ist ja faktisch nur ‘ein purer Mensch’,22 und jeder Versuch, etwas über diesen puren Menschen hinaus ‘sehen’ und die Würde Jesu als eine ‘objektivierbare’ dingfest machen zu wollen, wäre ein Akt des Unglaubens. Joh 20.29 preist somit die selig, die nicht sehen (wollen), sondern der (nur im Paradox gegebenen) Offenbarung glauben. Dass sich unter diesen hermeneutischen Prämissen die im Joh erzählten Wunder Jesu nur noch in gebrochener Form rezipieren lassen, ist evident. Bultmann kann das Problem literarkritisch durch Annahme einer vom Evangelisten selbst nur kritisch verarbeiteten Semeiaquelle auffangen,23 so dass der Evangelist bereits als ein wunderkritischer, das Paradox der Offenbarung ernst nehmender Interpret der Geschichte Jesu erscheint. Ganz im Gegensatz dazu hat Ernst Käsemann – in Aufnahme der idealistischen Deutung Ferdinand Christian Baurs24 – das Gewicht auf Joh 1.14c (kai;
19 Dazu J. Frey, ‘Die “theologia crucifixi” des Johannesevangeliums’, Kreuzestheologie im Neuen Testament (ed. A. Dettwiler/J. Zumstein; WUNT 151; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002) 169–238 (bes. 186–91); vgl. weiter T. Onuki, Gemeinde und Welt im Johannesevangelium (WMANT 56; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1984) 185–213. 20 R. Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Tübingen: Mohr, 9. Aufl. 1984) 393. Zugleich liest sich die Auslegung von Joh 1.14 in Bultmanns Kommentar wie eine systematische Zusammenfassung der Offenbarungstheologie Bultmanns: R. Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes (KEK 2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 21. Aufl. 1986) 38–51. S. dazu Onuki, Gemeinde, 185–7; H. Kohler, Kreuz und Menschwerdung im Johannesevangelium (AThANT 72; Zürich: TVZ, 1987) 21–45. 21 Bultmann, Evangelium, 41. 22 Bultmann, Evangelium, 341. S. jedoch die Kritik bei Knöppler, ‘Die theologia crucis’, 28 Anm. 6, der bestreitet, dass diese Aussage das vom Evangelisten Gemeinte treffe, dies sei vielmehr die Behauptung der ΔIoudai`oi, die Jesus blasfhmiva vorwerfen. 23 S. dazu umfassend G. van Belle, The Signs Source in the Fourth Gospel (BETL 116; Leuven: Peeters, 1994) 24–40; vgl. auch die luzide Kritik bei K. Berger, ‘Hellenistische Gattungen im Neuen Testament’, ANRW 2.25.2 (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1985) 1031–432, 1831–85 (1230–1). 24 Käsemann, Wille, 26, verweist selbst auf F. Ch. Baur. In der gleichen Richtung interpretierte auch W. Heitmüller, ‘Das Johannes-Evangelium’, Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 3. Aufl. 1918) 4.1–184 (27 u.ö.).
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ejqeasavmeqa th;n dovxan aujtou`) gelegt und das Thema des Evangeliums in der ‘praesentia dei in Christus’ bestimmt.25 Jesu Inkarnation und Kreuzestod wurden damit der Präexistenz des Logos untergeordnet,26 Inkarnation und Kreuz sind nur ‘Manifestationen’ des Präexistenten,27 in denen er ‘nicht sich selbst [ändert], sondern nur seinen jeweiligen Ort.’28 Die dovxa, die Jesus offenbart, ist daher die dovxa, die ihm als Präexistentem zu eigen ist und die auf seinem Erdenweg lediglich verhüllt ist.29 Jesu Tod bzw. seine ‘Verherrlichung’ sind dann nichts anderes als die ‘Rückkehr zur Herrlichkeit des Präexistenten.’30 Es ist deutlich, dass in dieser herrlichkeitschristologischen Interpretation die erzählte Geschichte des irdischen Jesus und zumal sein Kreuzestod nur noch eine gebrochene Bedeutung besitzen können. Käsemann behilft sich mit der Auskunft, dass der Evangelist die Passionsgeschichte lediglich aus der Tradition übernommen und nolens volens mitgeschleppt habe.31 Mit der Einschätzung, dass Jesus für den vierten Evangelisten kein bloßer Mensch, sondern ein ‘über die Erde schreitende[r] Gott’32 sei, dass sein Bild mithin von einer metaphysischen ‘Spekulation’ überformt sei, steht auch der Realitätsbezug des johanneischen Denkens in Frage. Eine solche Herrlichkeitschristologie musste in den Verdacht illusionistischer Schwärmerei geraten. Herausgefordert durch Käsemann haben Günther Bornkamm und dann Ferdinand Hahn und seine Schüler33 eine andere, dem johanneischen Text angemessenere Interpretationsperspektive entwickelt, die man pneumatologisch nennen könnte. Für Bornkamm markieren die für Joh charakteristischen Abschiedsreden ‘die hermeneutische Perspektive, unter der sein Evangelium verstanden sein will’,34 und die dort integrierten Parakletsprüche bieten den ‘hermeneutischen Schlüssel für das Verständnis der johanneischen
25 E. Käsemann, ‘Aufbau und Anliegen des johanneischen Prologs’, Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967) 2.155–82 (174). 26 Käsemann, Wille, 95–6: ‘Die Offenbarung des Logos ist der Sinn und das Maß der Inkarnation, nicht umgekehrt die Inkarnation die Wahrheit und Grenze des Logos.’ 27 Käsemann, Wille, 49 Anm. 53. 28 Käsemann, Wille, 34. 29 Käsemann, Wille, 33; vgl. 97: Die Fleischwerdung muss ‘nicht Kenose . . . bedeuten’. 30 Käsemann, Wille, 49 Anm. 53. 31 Käsemann, Wille, 22–3. 32 Käsemann, Wille, 26, vgl. auch 151. 33 Grundlegend G. Bornkamm, ‘Zur Interpretation des Johannes-Evangeliums’, Geschichte und Glaube 2 (Ges. Aufs. 4; BEvTh 51; München: Kaiser, 1971) 51–64; vgl. F. Hahn, ‘Sehen und Glauben im Johannesevangelium’, Studien zum Neuen Testament 1 (ed. J. Frey/J. Schlegel; WUNT 191; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006) 521–37; weiter Onuki, Gemeinde, 190–3, und Ch. Hoegen-Rohls, Der nachösterliche Johannes (WUNT 2.84; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996). 34 Bornkamm, Interpretation, 115; vgl. 112–14.
382 jörg frey Christologie’,35 insofern auf den Prozess der nachösterlichen ‘Anamnesis’ (Joh 14.25–26; vgl. 16.13–15) hingewiesen wird, der den Jüngern – wie der Evangelist ausdrücklich betont (Joh 2.22; 12.16) – erst im Rückblick das ‘wahre’ Verständnis für Jesu Worte, Taten und Geschick sowie für das Zeugnis der Schrift eröffnet hatte. In dieser Sicht erscheint das ganze Joh als eine Anamnesis der Geschichte Jesu aus der Perspektive der nachösterlichen Gemeinde. Damit kann, anders als bei Bultmann und Käsemann, auch der geschichtliche Standort der Träger der johanneischen Theologie, der johanneischen Gemeinde oder Schule, wahrgenommen werden, deren theologische Sprache und Sichtweise das Werk von Anfang an bestimmen. Zugleich ließ sich die irdische Geschichte Jesu in ihrer historischen Einmaligkeit erfassen, auch wenn diese im Rückblick im Zeichen der im Glauben erkannten dovxa Jesu geschildert wird.36 Schließlich lässt sich von hier aus auch der sachliche Grund der johanneischen ‘Sehweise’ rekonstruieren: Es ist die johanneische Ostererfahrung, die die Zeugen dazu veranlasst hat, im Gekreuzigten den Verherrlichten zu sehen, und die dazu geführt hat, dass bei Johannes auch schon der Weg des irdischen Jesus im Licht seiner dovxa ‘erinnert’ und dargestellt wird. 3. Die Abschiedsreden als Schlüssel der Interpretation Diese Ostererfahrung bzw. die damit verbundene Geisterfahrung haben sich in der johanneischen Evangelienschreibung niedergeschlagen: Nicht nur die Abschiedsreden, in denen Jesu bevorstehender Tod programmatisch gedeutet wird, wollen den Gekreuzigten als Verherrlichten zeigen. Das ganze Evangelium zeichnet den Weg des Irdischen im Licht seiner dovxa, d.h. in einer Perspektive, die den Zeugen erst im Rückblick, in der geistgewirkten Erinnerung und Schriftlektüre, erschlossen wurde. Die Rede von der dovxa des Irdischen und insbesondere die Rede von der dovxa des Präexistenten sind deshalb ebenfalls nur im Rückblick, in der glaubenden Erkenntnis der Verherrlichung des Gekreuzigten möglich. Hier liegt – zumindest noetisch – der Grund der johanneischen Christologie.37 Als Schlüssel zum Verständnis der johanneischen dovxa-Aussagen eignen sich daher besonders die Abschiedsreden bzw. der komplexe Zusammenhang der ‘Stunde’ Jesu, in dem in besonderer Dichte von Jesu dovxa und seinem 35 G. Bornkamm, ‘Der Paraklet im Johannes-Evangelium’, Geschichte und Glaube 1 (Ges. Aufs. 3; BEvTh 48; München: Kaiser, 1968) 68–89 (88). 36 Vgl. Onuki, Gemeinde, 192. 37 Die ontologische Aussage, dass Jesus von Anfang an der ist, als der er nachösterlich erkannt wurde, wurde historisch gesehen erst auf dieser Grundlage möglich. Eine Interpretation, die unter Vernachlässigung dieser historischen Rekonstruktion nur ontologisch bei der Präexistenzdoxa bzw. der Gottheit Christi einsetzt, führt in unlösbare Aporien, wie sich am klarsten in der Interpretation Käsemanns zeigt.
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doxavzesqai die Rede ist: in der ‘Griechenrede’, in welcher der Anbruch der vom doxavzesqai bestimmten ‘Stunde’ proklamiert wird (Joh 12.23) und der johanneische Jesus in Abwandlung des markinischen Gethsemane-Gebets38 nicht um Verschonung vor dem Todesbecher, sondern um die ‘Verherrlichung’ des Gottesnamens bittet (Joh 12.28), im Auftaktspruch zu den Abschiedsreden (Joh 13.31–32), in dem die Verherrlichung des Menschensohnes eigentümlich ‘doppelzeitlich’ als eine schon erfolgte und eine noch ausstehende thematisiert wird,39 und im Abschiedsgebet, in dem Jesus seine Verherrlichung erbittet (Joh 17.1, 5). Die Verherrlichungsaussagen von Joh 13.31–32 und 17.1–5 bilden in ihrem Zusammenspiel so etwas wie eine ‘semantische Achse’40 der Abschiedsreden. Im Rahmen dieser Reden ist darüber hinaus von der Verherrlichung Jesu durch den Parakleten (Joh 16.14) und vom Verherrlichtsein des Vaters im Sohn (14.13) und in den Jüngern (15.8) die Rede, und am Ende dieser Passage – als letzte dovxa-Aussage im ursprünglichen Evangelium41 – steht abschließend die Gebetsintention, dass die künftigen Glaubenden Jesu dovxa schauen (Joh 17.24). II. Verherrlichung und Herrlichkeit als eschatologische Offenbarung: zum Hintergrund der Rede von doxavzesqai und dovxa
Was ist der traditionsgeschichtliche Hintergrund dieser Aussagen im Kontext der Todesstunde Jesu? Woran knüpfen sie an? Auf die detaillierten semantischen Untersuchungen zur Rede von der dovxa im biblischen und frühjüdischen Kontext42 brauche ich hier nicht eingehen. Die Sichtung aller möglichen Parallelen ergibt, dass ‘der entscheidende ‘Wurzelgrund’ der johanneischen Herrlichkeitsvorstellung . . . das Buch Jesaja’ ist, ‘namentlich dessen LXXFassung’,43 in der weit über die Vorgaben des hebräischen Textes hinaus Aussagen über die dovxa und ihre eschatologische Offenbarung begegnen.44 38 Dazu J. Frey, ‘Das Johannesevangelium auf dem Hintergrund der älteren Evangelientradition’, Johannesevangelium – Mitte oder Rand des Kanons (ed. Th. Söding; QD 203; Freiburg i. B.: Herder, 2003) 60–118 (86–93); K. Haldimann, Rekonstruktion und Entfaltung (BZNW 104; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1999) 6–8. 39 Dazu Frey, Eschatologie, 2.134–6; 3.123–4. 40 So Schwindt, Gesichte, 358. 41 Joh 21.19 gehört zum nachgetragenen Schlusskapitel. Hier liegt auch eine Sinnverschiebung vor. 42 Vgl. Schwindt, Gesichte, 13–105 und Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, 344–464. 43 Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, 494, die jedoch ergänzt, dass ‘man . . . davon ausgehen kann, dass der Evangelist auch den hebräischen Text sowie targumische Traditionen gekannt hat’ (494 mit Anm. 625–6) 44 S. zur Vorstellung der dwbk und ihrer eschatologischen Offenbarung im Jesajabuch Schwindt, Gesichte, 29–32; zum (ausgeweiteten) Gebrauch von dovxa in der LXX ebd., 34–43; Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, 362–5. S. zur Bedeutung des Jesajabuchs für das Joh s. bereits C. H. Williams, ‘Isaiah in John’s Gospel’, Isaiah in the New Testament (ed. S. Moyise/M. J.
384 jörg frey 1. ‘Jesaja sah seine Herrlichkeit’ (Joh 12.41) Einen wesentlichen Hinweis auf diesen Hintergrund gibt der Evangelist in seinem Kommentar zu dem Doppelzitat aus Jes 6 und 53 in Joh 12.38–40, wenn er in V.41 erläutert, dass Jesaja seine Herrlichkeit gesehen und über ihn geredet hat (ei\den th;n dovxan aujtou` kai; ejlavlhsen peri; aujtou`).45 Dieses Doppelzitat eröffnet die Reihe der explizit eingeleiteten ‘Erfüllungszitate’, die bei Joh nur im Kontext der ‘Stunde’ Jesu, zwischen 12.38 und 19.37, begegnen.46 Die miteinander verknüpften Zitate in Joh 12.38 und 40 sind die beiden einzigen johanneischen Schriftzitate, in deren Einleitung der Name des biblischen Autors genannt wird (Vv. 38, 39).47 Diese explizit auf Jesaja zurückgeführten Worte rahmen somit den Bericht des öffentlichen Wirkens Jesu (1.19–12.50). Schon deshalb kommt Jesaja im Joh eine Sonderstellung zu.48 Wessen dovxa Jesaja nach Auffassung des Evangelisten sah und wer der ist, über den er redete, geht aus dem Kontext klar hervor: Das zweimalige Pronomen aujtou` V. 41 weist auf das aujtovn V. 37 zurück und bezieht sich auf Jesus, an den seine Zeitgenossen trotz der von ihm gewirkten Zeichen nicht glaubten. Dieser Sachverhalt wird zunächst durch die Frage aus Jes 53.1 LXX erläutert: ‘Wer hat unserer Predigt geglaubt, und wem ist der Arm des Herrn offenbar geworden?’, bevor dann die negativ gedachte Antwort auf diese Frage – ‘kein einziger!’49 – mit einem weiteren Jesajazitat, dem Verstockungswort aus der Beauftragungsvision Jes 6.10, begründet wird, das zugleich den Schluss der Episode vom Blindgeborenen (Joh 9.39–41) wieder aufnimmt.50
45 46
47 48
49 50
J. Menken; London/New York: T & T Clark International, 2005) 101–16; eadem, ‘Isaiah and Johannine Christology’, ‘As Those Who Are Taught’: The Reception of Isaiah from the LXX to the SBL (eds. P. K. Tull/C. M. McGinnis; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2006) 107–24; zu Joh 12.41 speziell: C. Williams, ‘Seeing the Glory: The Reception of Isaiah’s Call-Vision in John 12:41’, Judaism, Jewish Identities and the Gospel Tradition (ed. J. G. Crossley; London: Equinox, in press). Joh 12.38–40 ist das einzige johanneische Schriftzitat, dessen Einleitung den Namen des biblischen Autors nennt. Sonst spricht Joh nur von der grafhv oder vom novmo~. Dazu M. Hengel, ‘Die Schriftauslegung des 4. Evangeliums auf dem Hintergrund der urchristlichen Exegese’, Jesus und die Evangelien (WUNT 211; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007) 601–43 (630–2). Dieser wird außerdem noch im Nachsatz zu dem Zitat in Joh 1.23 genannt. Zwar ist die Zahl der Psalmzitate im Joh noch höher, doch sind wesentliche johanneische Motive, so etwa die ‘Ich-bin’-Prädikation aus Jes (bes. 40–66) beeinflusst, s. dazu Williams, Isaiah, 101. S. dazu H. Thyen, Das Johannesevangelium (HNT 6; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005) 569. S. dazu J. Lieu, ‘Blindness in the Johannine Tradition’, NTS 34 (1988) 83–95 (85). Zur Form des Zitats s. C. A. Evans, To See and Not Perceive: Isaiah 6.9–10 in Early Jewish and Early Christian Interpretation (JSOTSup 64; Sheffield: JSOT, 1989) 129–35; M. J. J. Menken, Old Testament Quotations in the Fourth Gospel (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1986) 99–122; A. Obermann, Die christologische Erfüllung der Schrift im Johannesevangelium (WUNT 2.83; Tübingen: Mohr, 1996) 235–55.
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Die Beauftragungsvision Jes 6 und das vierte Gottesknechtslied Jes 52.13–53.12 sind schon im hebräischen Jesajatext durch eine auffällige wörtliche Anknüpfung miteinander verbunden, die in der LXX noch einmal verstärkt wird. Zunächst besteht die Verbindung im Aspekt der ‘Erhabenheit’: Nach Jes 6.1 schaut Jesaja den Gottesthron ‘hoch und erhaben’ (acnw μr (Jes 6.1), und am Beginn des Liedes Jes 52.13 heißt es, dass der Knecht – räumlich vorgestellt – zu Gott erhöht sein soll: ‘Siehe, mein Knecht wird Erfolg haben. Er wird aufsteigen und emporgetragen und sehr hoch sein’51 (hbgw acnw μwry). Die LXX trägt in beide Aussagen die dovxaTerminologie ein. In Jes 6, wo schon im Trishagion V.3 Jahwes dwbk erwähnt war, wird nun bereits in V.1 von der dovxa gesprochen: Das Heiligtum ist nicht mehr anthropomorph von Jahwes Gewandsaum, sondern von seiner dovxa erfüllt. In Jes 52.13 heißt es jetzt über den Gottesknecht: ‘Siehe, mein Knecht wird Einsicht haben, und er wird erhöht und sehr verherrlicht sein’ (ijdou; sunhvsei oJ pai`~ mou kai; uJywqhvsetai kai; doxasqhvsetai sfovdra). Dabei sind die beiden Worte acnw μwry durch uJywqhvsetai zusammengefasst, während hbgw durch doxasqhvsetai wiedergegeben wird.52 In beiden Passagen zeigt sich die in der LXX erfolgte Steigerung des Aspekts der ‘Herrlichkeit’ durch eine vermehrte Verwendung von dovxa und seinen Derivaten, das nun über das hebr. dwbk hinaus auch andere Lexeme wiedergibt oder ohne hebräische Vorlage in den Text eindringt.53 Das Wortpaar uJyou`n / doxavzein begegnet dabei nicht nur in Jes 52.13, sondern auch noch an anderen Stellen des Jesajabuchs, meist in freier Wiedergabe des hebräischen Textes und mit eschatologischer Konnotation.54 In Jes 52.13 liegt eine futurische Aussage über den Gottesknecht vor, ein passivum divinum: Der Knecht soll trotz seiner dovxa-losigkeit, seines Mangels an Ansehen und Ruhm (52.14; vgl. 53.2b)55 nach Gottes Urteil bzw. durch sein Handeln erhöht und mit eschatologischer dovxa ausgestattet werden. Das Ziel dieses Geschehens ist in 52.15 formuliert: Völker sollen in Erstaunen geraten, diejenigen, die noch nichts über den Knecht, gehört haben, sollen erkennen, und die, denen bislang nicht verkündigt wurde, sollen ihn schauen. D.h., von diesem Knecht soll eine universale und heilvolle Wirkung ausgehen.
51 Übersetzung nach Schwindt, Gesichte 76; vgl. zur räumlichen Vorstellung K. Baltzer, ‘Jes 52,13: Die ‘Erhöhung’ des Gottesknechtes’, Religious Propaganda and Missionary Competition in the New Testament World (Festschrift Dieter Georgi; ed. L. Bormann et al.; NTS 74; Leiden: Brill, 1994) 45–56. 52 O. Hofius, ‘Zur Septuaginta-Übersetzung von Jesaja 52,13b’, ZAW 104 (1992) 107–10. 53 Wenn der Evangelist beide Passagen mit einer der ‘gezera schawa’ vergleichbaren Technik zusammenzieht, dann folgt er einer Verknüpfung, die schon in der Redaktion des hebräischen Textes angelegt war und in der LXX-Version nochmals verstärkt wurde. 54 Jes 4.2; 5.16; 10.15; 33.10. s. dazu Schwindt, Gesichte, 81–2. 55 In dem ajdoxhvsei Jes 52.14 spielt bereits die LXX in aufschlussreicher Weise mit dem allgemeinsprachlichen Sinn von dovxa als ‘Ruhm’ oder ‘Ansehen’.
386 jörg frey Der Evangelist sieht somit nicht nur im Unglauben der Zeitgenossen Jesu eine Erfüllung der Schrift, vielmehr sieht er auch die dovxa Jesu schon in der Prophetie des Jesajabuchs vorausgesagt. Dass der Prophet diese dovxa sah (Joh 12.41), bezieht sich daher nicht nur auf die Tempelvision, sondern mindestens ebenso sehr auf die in Jes 52.13 LXX bezeugte dovxa des Gottesknechts. Insofern spricht Joh 12.41 auch nicht einfach von einer Schau des in alttestamentlicher Zeit präexistenten ‘Logos asarkos’, sondern von der prophetischen Vorausschau der dovxa des Gekreuzigten, dessen Verherrlichung in Jes 52.13 nicht nur angesagt, sondern geradezu visuell (ijdouv) vor Augen geführt ist. 2. Erhöhung und Verherrlichung Das in Jes 52.13 auf den Gottesknecht bezogene Wortpaar uJyou`n und doxavzein gibt die beiden Interpretamente vor, die im Joh unterschiedlich, aber doch in enger Verknüpfung zur Deutung des Todes Jesu gebracht werden. Sie begegnen besonders dicht dort, wo Jesu ‘Stunde’, die in Joh 2.4; 7.30 und 8.20 ‘noch nicht’ gekommen war, proklamiert wird: in der ‘Griechenrede’ Joh 12.23–34, die zugleich programmatisch von der universalen Heilswirkung Jesu aufgrund seiner ‘Erhöhung’ und ‘Verherrlichung’ spricht. Viermal ist darin doxavzein belegt, zweimal uJyou`n, auffällig sind daneben die intensiven Hinweise auf die gekommene ‘Stunde’ (w{ra) in 12.23, 27 (2mal) und den damit gegebenen Augenblick (nu`n) in 12.27, 31 (2mal). Mit dieser Proklamation der ‘Stunde’ liegt der narrativ lange vorbereitete Wendepunkt der johanneischen Geschichte Jesu vor: Nach seiner letzten und größten Machttat ist das Todesurteil über ihn gefällt (Joh 11.47–53), die Pharisäer stellen resigniert fest, dass ihm ‘die Welt’ nachläuft (Joh 12.19), und unmittelbar danach treten erstmals im Joh einige ‘Griechen’ auf, quasi als Vorhut der nichtjüdischen Völkerwelt,56 die Jesus sehen wollen (Joh 12.20f.). Nach Joh 7.30 und 8.20 müssen die Leser in der nun in 12.23 als präsent bezeichneten ‘Stunde’ die Stunde seines Todes erkennen. Zugleich wird mit dem Weizenkorn-Bildwort 12.24 Jesu bevorstehender Tod als ein zum Entstehen von ‘Frucht’ notwendiges Geschehen gedeutet. Welche Frucht gemeint sein soll, bleibt zunächst noch unklar, doch legt der Verlauf der Rede nahe, dass hier an die universale, den Rahmen Israels überschreitende Heilswirkung des am Kreuz Erhöhten gedacht ist: Nach 12.32 soll der ‘von der Erde Erhöhte’ alle – auch die Griechen und damit nicht zuletzt die Leser des Evangeliums – zu sich ziehen.57 Doch bestehen signifikante Unterschiede in der Verwendung der beiden Interpretamente uJyou`sqai und doxavzesqai: Die Rede von der Erhöhung wird in
56 Vgl. J. Frey, ‘Heiden – Griechen – Gotteskinder’, Die Heiden (ed. R. Feldmeier/U. Heckel; WUNT 70; Tübingen: Mohr, 1994) 228–68 (253–9). 57 S. dazu Frey, ‘Heiden’, 259–64.
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Joh 3.14–15 im typologischen Verweis auf die Episode von der Aufrichtung der ‘ehernen Schlange’ als Rettungszeichen (Num 21.4–9) eingeführt,58 wobei zunächst die Notwendigkeit (dei`) und soteriologische Bedeutung der ‘Erhöhung’ ausgesagt werden, der genaue Inhalt derselben aber noch unklar bleibt. Erst durch Joh 8.28, wo die Gegner Subjekt des uJyou`n sind, und dann durch 12.32–34 wird eindeutig klar, dass die uJyou`n hier im Unterschied zur sonstigen urchristlichen Verwendung (Apg 2.33; 5.31; vgl. auch Phil 2.9) die spezifische Todesart, die Kreuzigung, bezeichnen soll. Interessanterweise ist der Terminus bei Joh stets mit dem Menschensohn-Titel verbunden. Er wird in verfremdender Fortschreibung der markinischen Leidensweissagung59 in 3.14 eingeführt und zugleich durch den Bezug auf die biblische Schlangenepisode mit Anschaulichkeit gefüllt. Die Erhöhung des Gekreuzigten ‘von der Erde’ (Joh 12.32) wird so zum Bild für den paradoxen Sinngehalt der Kreuzigung als Einsetzung in eine universale Heilsbedeutung, wie sie am Ende des Kreuzigungsberichts, im Zitat aus Sach 12.10 (“Oyontai eij~ o}n ejxekevnthsan) in Joh 19.37 erneut anklingt. Die Rede von der Verherrlichung ist hingegen weniger präzise auf die Kreuzigung Jesu bezogen. Sie bleibt offen für die Einbeziehung der österlichen Ereignisse oder des nachösterlichen Geistwirkens. Schon bei der ersten Erwähnung in 7.39 wird die ‘noch nicht’ eingetretene Verherrlichung mit der Gabe des Geistes und dem Verständnis der Jünger verbunden, und auch in 12.16 ist Jesu Verherrlichung der Anfang des verstehenden Erinnerns der Jünger. In 12.23 wird sie verbunden mit der anbrechenden ‘Stunde’ und damit auch mit dem Geschehen des Todes Jesu. Dabei wird der Inhalt der ‘Stunde’, die seit Joh 7.30 und 8.20 mit der Tötung Jesu verknüpft ist, nun in paradoxer Weise als ‘Verherrlichung’ beschrieben. Wie in der bildhaften Rede von der Erhöhung geht es auch hier um eine überraschende Wende des Blickwinkels, eine neue ‘Sehweise’, die in der Stunde des Todes die darin offenbarte Herrlichkeit und insofern die heilvolle Wirkung dieses Todes zu erkennen vermag und den Tod ‘aus der Perspektive seiner Überwindung’60 wahrnimmt. Die Verbindung von Erhöhung, Verherrlichung und universaler Heilswirkung ist dem Evangelisten in Jes 52.13–15 LXX vorgegeben. In der ‘Griechenrede’ wird dies weiter präzisiert, doch bleiben der genaue Bezug des doxavzesqai und seine temporale Einordnung uneindeutig: In Joh 12.27–28 findet sich in einem eindeutigen, aber kritischen Anschluss an die Gethsemane-Szene (Mk 14.32–42) eine erneute Verherrlichungsaussage. Im Unterschied zur markinischen Tradition 58 Vgl. J. Frey, ‘“Wie Mose die Schlange in der Wüste erhöht hat . . .” Zur frühjüdischen Deutung der ‘ehernen Schlange und ihrer christologischen Rezeption in Joh 3,14f.’, Schriftauslegung im Frühjudentum und im Urchristentum (ed. M. Hengel/H. Löhr; WUNT 73; Tübingen: Mohr, 1994) 153–205. 59 Vgl. Schwindt, Gesichte, 338. 60 Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, 180.
388 jörg frey kann der johanneische Jesus nicht um Rettung aus ‘dieser Stunde’ (Joh 12.27) und nicht um Verschonung vor dem Becher des Todesgerichts (Joh 18.11) bitten, vielmehr wird Jesu Gebet charakteristisch umformuliert: ‘Vater, verherrliche deinen Namen.’61 Unmittelbar danach – und wie eigens erläutert wird, nur zur Information der Menschenmenge, nicht als Antwort an Jesus, der eine solche nicht benötigt – antwortet eine Himmelsstimme: kai; ejdovxasa kai; pavlin doxavsw (12.28). Dabei ist auffälligerweise doxavzein hier zunächst nicht auf Jesus (wie dann in 13.31 und 17.1, 5), sondern auf den Namen Gottes bezogen, wobei das Verherrlichungsgeschehen von Gott ausgeht und letztlich wieder zu ihm zurückführt. Rätselhaft bleibt, welche Akte konkret durch die Stimme bezeichnet sind: Worin hat Gott seinen Namen (bereits) verherrlicht, und worin wird er ihn (noch einmal) verherrlichen? Bezeichnet ejdovxasa die Offenbarung der Herrlichkeit in Jesu Erdenwirken, z.B. seinen Wundertaten,62 und doxavsw eine noch bevorstehende Verherrlichung? Dagegen spricht, dass von einer Verherrlichung des Gottesnamens während des bisherigen Erdenwirkens Jesu nicht die Rede war, und auch in Bezug auf Jesus war das doxavzesqai bis Joh 12.16 stets als noch ausstehend bezeichnet worden. Ist der Aorist ejdovxasa also atemporal gnomisch zu verstehen,63 oder soll darin bereits im ‘komplexiven’ Sinn und damit in einer gewissen Abgeschlossenheit die Verherrlichung in der Stunde Jesu, einschließlich seines Todes, zur Sprache gebracht werden?64 Was hier noch in der Schwebe bleibt, wird im Eröffnungsspruch der Abschiedsreden deutlicher. In Joh 13.31–32 ist eindeutig davon die Rede, dass Jesus ‘jetzt’ (nu`n) verherrlicht wurde und ‘alsbald’ (eujquv~) verherrlicht werden soll. Die ‘Bitemporalität’ dieses Spruches ist so markant, dass man sie nicht als einen lapsus linguae erklären kann, sondern in ihrer Programmatik anerkennen muss. Dies gilt um so mehr, da der Spruch den Auftakt der Abschiedsreden bildet. Hier sind Jesu Verherrlichung durch Gott und Gottes Selbst-Verherrlichung in ihm engstens miteinander verschränkt, insofern fasst Joh 13.31–32 die Aspekte von Joh 12.23 und 12.28 zusammen und führt sie weiter. Aber was meint ejdoxavsqh hier? Ein Bezug auf Jesu Wundertaten scheint durch das nu`n ausgeschlossen, und die Annahme, Jesus sei durch die Identifikation des Verräters oder durch den Hinausgang des Judas verherrlicht, verfehlt den sonst vorliegenden Sinn des doxavzesqai.65 Zu beachten ist, 61 Die nächste Parallele dazu ist wohl die erste Vaterunserbitte Mt 6.9b; par. Lk 11.2. 62 C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John (London: SPCK, 2. Aufl. 1978) 426. 63 So die bei Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, 187, favorisierte Lösung; ebenso Pamment, ‘Doxa’, 13. 64 Vgl. auch Joh 17.4. Zu diesem Verständnis von 12.28 s. Frey, Eschatologie, 2.136; vgl. bereits J. Blank, Krisis (Freiburg i. B.: Herder, 1964) 279. 65 Diese Lösung mit problematischen Konsequenzen schlägt A. Stimpfle, Blinde sehen (BZNW 57; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1990) 130, 228, vor.
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dass das Temporaladverb nu`n, welches schon in Joh 12.27, 31 als Signalwort für den Zusammenhang der ‘Stunde’ Jesu diente, die Verherrlichung in dieser Stunde lokalisiert. Die Schwierigkeit ist nur so zu lösen, dass in diesem Kettenspruch ein und dasselbe Geschehen der Verherrlichung Jesu in seiner ‘Stunde’ aus zwei verschiedenen Blickrichtungen angesprochen wird: aus der Prospektive, die in der Abschiedssituation auf Jesu Tod vorausblickt, und der Retrospektive, die dieses Geschehen bereits aus der nachösterlichen Sicht der Gemeinde thematisiert.66 Damit nimmt der Eröffnungsspruch die temporale Doppelperspektive auf, die die Abschiedsreden im Ganzen charakterisiert. Für den Sinn des doxavzesqai bedeutet dies jedoch, dass es ganz auf den Geschehenszusammenhang der ‘Stunde’ Jesu, d.h. seines Todes einschließlich der Auferweckung und der nachösterlichen Wirksamkeit des Geistes bezogen ist, nicht auf vorhergehende Einzelereignisse wie seine Wundertaten oder gar den Abtritt des Judas. Dieser Sachverhalt bestätigt sich auch in Anbetracht der Verherrlichungsaussagen in Joh 17. Hier findet sich mit insgesamt sechs Belegen die dichteste Konzentration der dovxa-Aussagen im ganzen Evangelium (17.1, 4, 5, 10, 22, 24): Noch einmal wird die ‘gekommene Stunde’ thematisiert, und noch einmal bittet der scheidende Jesus den Vater um seine Verherrlichung (vgl. 12.27). Diese Bitte greift zugleich das doxavsei im Eröffnungsspruch der Abschiedsreden (13.32) auf und führt zu deren Klimax, dem Abschiedsgebet, weiter. Was in 13.32 in Aussicht gestellt war, wird nun noch einmal erbeten: die Verherrlichung des Sohnes durch den Vater als Antwort auf das vollendete Offenbarungswirken Jesu (V. 4) und als Bedingung der weiteren Verherrlichung des Vaters durch den Sohn (17.1b). Damit ist die Reziprozität des Verherrlichungsgeschehens betont, das nicht in Jesu Tod aufgeht, sondern das österliche und nachösterliche Offenbarungswirken einschließt, aber doch im geschichtlichen Geschehen des Kreuzestodes Jesu seinen Grund besitzt. Irritierend ist nur der Verweis auf die dovxa, die Jesus bei Gott (para; soiv) vor Grundlegung der Welt schon hatte (Joh 17.5). Sollte die Verherrlichung Jesu in ‘seiner Stunde’ nichts ‘Neues’ bringen, nur die Wiedereinsetzung in eine vormalige dovxa? Und was für eine dovxa sollte dies sein? Zwingt 17.5 zur Unterscheidung verschiedener dovxai? Schließt man von dieser Aussage auf die Unterscheidung verschiedener dovxai, dann würde sich die Konsequenz ergeben, dass die im Erdenwirken Jesu offenbarte dovxa nur eine Folge oder Projektion der Präexistenzdoxa wäre und das auf die Todesstunde bezogene doxavzsqai ausgehöhlt wäre.67 Es liegt zwar in der Konsequenz des johanneischen
66 Dazu grundlegend Frey, Eschatologie, 2.134–6 u.ö. 67 Dies geschieht im Ansatz von Ernst Käsemann, für den die dovxa des Irdischen nur eine Projektion der Präexistenzdoxa ist und die Verherrlichung in der Todesstunde nur eine Rückkehr in dieselbe, so dass Jesu Tod nichts wirklich Neues mehr bringen kann.
390 jörg frey
Präexistenzdenkens, dass auch von der dovxa des Präexistenten zu reden ist, aber wenn man von dieser einen Aussage alle anderen Aussagen über Jesu dovxa deduzieren wollte, würden die im johanneischen Text zuvor programmatisch gesetzten Akzente verwischt. Der geschichtliche Bezug der dovxa Jesu, ihr Bezug auf das Geschehen der ‘Verherrlichung’ in seiner Stunde, auf den Zusammenhang von seinem Tod, seiner Auferstehung und der geistgewirkten Erinnerung, läßt sich von hier aus nicht in Frage stellen. In Anbetracht der Konstitution der ‘johanneischen Sehweise’ ist klar, dass erst aufgrund dieser Erinnerung von der Verherrlichung des Gekreuzigten geredet werden kann und dass erst auf dieser Grundlage Jesus als der Verherrlichte wahrnehmbar ist. Auch ist gemäß dem johanneischen Denken erst aufgrund der Erhöhung und Verherrlichung Jesu seine universale Heilswirkung möglich (12.32), so dass dann auch er selbst und der Vater in den Jüngern verherrlicht sein (Joh 14.13; 15.8; 16.14) und umgekehrt die Jünger Jesu dovxa sehen (Joh 17.24) können. Somit ist diese von den Zeugen ‘geschaute’ (Joh 1.14) dovxa nicht einfach identisch mit der ‘vorweltlichen’ Herrlichkeit des Sohnes beim Vater (17.5),68 vielmehr ist sie die Herrlichkeit des verherrlichten Gekreuzigten, der seine ‘Geschichte’ mit sich trägt und dessen Herrlichkeit ohne seine irdische Geschichte, ja ohne sein Kreuz, nicht mehr zu denken ist. 3. Herrlichkeit und Verherrlichung: Der wesentliche Geschichtsbezug Der Komplex der johanneischen Abschiedsreden verdeutlicht insofern, dass die johanneische Rede von der dovxa Jesu nur im Bezug auf das geschichtliche Geschehen seiner Verherrlichung in seiner ‘Stunde’ zu verstehen ist. Das doxavzesqai ist der Schlüssel zur johanneischen Rede von der dovxa Jesu. Natürlich lassen sich aus dem frühjüdischen und urchristlichen Verständnis von dovxa eine Fülle von Aspekten benennen, die im johanneischen Verständnis aufgenommen sind:69 dovxa ist nichts Statisches, sondern ein dynamischer, relationaler Begriff. dovxa geht zuerst von Gott aus und kommt Gott zuletzt zu, sie wird zuerkannt oder gegeben und insbesondere eschatologisch offenbart. Doch geht das ‘Proprium des johanneischen dovxa-Verständnisses’, wie die Analyse von Nicole Chibici-Revneanu zeigt, in charakteristischer Weise über alle Vergleichstexte hinaus: ‘die Anwendung des Verbums doxavzein auf die ‘Stunde’ der Passion Jesu’.70 Diese spezifisch johanneische Prägung unterscheidet sich deutlich von anderen frühchristlichen Aussagen wie Apg 3.13 oder 1 Petr 1.11, 21, in denen zwar 68 17.24 spricht nur von der Liebe des Vaters ‘vor Grundlegung der Welt’, die der letzte Grund der eschatologischen Schau der dovxa Jesu ist. Von einer vorweltlichen dovxa Jesu ist hier nicht die Rede, von einer Entsprechung zu dieser noch weniger. 69 Dazu ausführlich Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, 496–510. 70 Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, 506.
‘. . . das sie meine Herrlichkeit schauen’ (Joh 17.24) 391
mit Bezug auf Christus von dovxa die Rede ist, diese aber ganz eindeutig auf die Auferweckung bzw. Inthronisation Christi bezogen ist. Zuvor hatte allerdings schon Paulus in Aufnahme eines apokalyptischen Gottesprädikats71 von Christus als dem kuvrio~ th`~ dovxh~ (1 Kor 2.8) gesprochen und dieses Prädikat prononciert auf die Kreuzesbotschaft bezogen: Die a[rconte~ haben ‘den Herrn der Herrlichkeit gekreuzigt’.72 Auch bei Paulus wurzelt die Rede von der dovxa Christi in dessen Auferweckung und Erhöhung zur Rechten Gottes, so dass von hier aus auch seine eigene Christophanie andeutungsweise als dovxa-Offenbarung erscheinen kann (2 Kor 4.6).73 Die johanneische Darstellung geht jedoch weit darüber hinaus, weil sie die Rede von der Herrlichkeit Christi narrativ unmittelbar an die Stunde der Passion Jesu bindet und von ‘Verherrlichung’ nicht allein in Bezug auf die Überwindung des Todes, sondern schon im Blick auf den Weg des Irdischen in den Tod spricht. Dieses Proprium des johanneischen Verständnisses lässt sich m. E. nur aus den genannten Schrift-Bezügen, insbesondere als Applikation des vierten Gottesknechtliedes erklären, worauf der Evangelist in Joh 12.41 selbst hinweist. III. Die Verherrlichung Jesu in seiner Stunde und die johanneische Darstellung der Geschichte Jesu
Die hier dargestellte interpretatorische Perspektive muss sich in der Auslegung dreier Komplexe des Joh bewähren: zunächst in der Interpretation der johanneischen Passionsgeschichte, in der dovxa und auch doxavzesqai kein einziges Mal vorkommen, sodann im Blick auf den irdischen Weg Jesu, wo an zentralen Stellen von der Offenbarung seiner Herrlichkeit (Joh 2.11) oder auch der Herrlichkeit Gottes (Joh 11.40; vgl. 11.4) in Jesu Wundertaten bzw. Zeichen die Rede ist, und schließlich im Blick auf den Prolog, dessen Aussage ‘und wir sahen seine Herrlichkeit . . .’ (Joh 1.14b) als Introitus zu den dovxa-Aussagen des Evangeliums fungiert. Ich kann dies nur knapp skizzieren: 1. Die für Jesu Hoheit transparente Darstellung der Passion Nach Joh 17 begegnet die dovxa-Terminologie, abgesehen von einer Stelle im Nachtragskapitel (Joh 21.19), nicht mehr. In der Passionsgeschichte fehlt sie völlig. Doch sind die dovxa-Aussagen in Joh 17 nicht nur eine entscheidende 71 1 Henoch 22.14; 25.3, 7; 27.3, 5; 36.4; 63.2; 75.3; 83.6; s. auch ApkElias 19.11. Zum Hintergrund s. W. Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (1 Kor 1,1–6,1) (EKK 7.1; Zürich/Braunschweig: Benziger, Neukirchen-Vluyn/Neukirchener, 1991) 255; Schwindt, Gesichte, 210–1. 72 Vgl. noch Gal 6.14, wo vom gekreuzigten kuvrio~ die Rede ist. 73 Allerdings ist auch diese dovxa-Aussage an das Kreuzesgeschehen zurückgebunden, insofern die Erkenntnis der dovxa Gottes auf dem provswpon Christi (2 Kor 4.6) impliziert, dass das Angesicht des Gekreuzigten im Hintergrund steht. Insofern geht es auch hier um die Offenbarung der Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten.
392 jörg frey Lektüreanweisung für die folgende Passionsgeschichte, sie werden in dieser selbst durch andere Darstellungselemente mit entsprechender Wirkung weitergeführt. Auch in der Passionsgeschichte gibt es Darstellungsmittel, die die Leser dazu anleiten, in der Gefangennahme Jesu die Ermöglichung von Freiheit, in der Niedrigkeit die Hoheit und im Tod die Vollendung (Joh 19.28–30) zu sehen. Das augenfälligste Mittel ist wohl die Verwendung der Königsterminologie: Jesu Verurteilung und Kreuzigung wird damit zu einer zynisch-antijüdischen Königsparodie, die in ironischer Verkehrung doch die verborgene Würde des wahren Königs zur Darstellung bringt.74 Diese erschließt sich den Lesern auf dem Hintergrund der sowohl vorab als auch im Passionsbericht selbst eingefügten Interpretamente: Jesus bekennt sich vor Pilatus zu seinem Königtum (Joh 18.37), ihm wird durch die Soldaten gehuldigt (Joh 19.1–3), er wird mit einem Akanthuskranz bekränzt und mit einem Purpurmantel behängt (Joh 19.5). Er wird präsentiert als ‘Mensch’ (Joh 19.5) und ‘König’ (Joh 19.13–14), doch erfährt er die Ablehnung im ‘Kreuzige’-Ruf (Joh 19.6, 15). Seine Kreuzigung ist – wie die vorab gebotenen Deutungen zu verstehen geben – seine ‘Erhöhung’ (vgl. Joh 12.33; 18.32), so dass das Kreuz als sein Thron erscheint, von dem aus er seine universale basileiva ausübt und – als ‘von der Erde’ Erhöhter nach Joh 12.32 – ‘alle zu sich zieht’. Dementsprechend universal wird der Gekreuzigte schließlich dreisprachig als König proklamiert (Joh 19.20), und dieser titulus wird von Pilatus noch einmal ausdrücklich beglaubigt (Joh 19.21–32). Die innere Spannung zwischen den erzählten Handlungen der Verurteilung, Verspottung, Entkleidung, Misshandlung und Kreuzigung und den eingestreuten hoheitlichen und königlichen Interpretamenten verleiht dem Text eine ironische Doppelbödigkeit, in der den Lesern des Passionsberichts die unter dem Gegenteil verborgene christologische Wahrheit vermittelt wird: dass sich nämlich in Jesu Todesweg zugleich in paradoxer Weise seine wahre Hoheit, sein Königtum, zeigt. Einige der Darstellungselemente der Passionsgeschichte lassen sich zugleich im Rahmen der Kategorien eines ‘edlen’ oder ehrenvollen Todes begreifen: Jesus geht freiwillig (Joh 18.1, 4–6, 8–11 etc.) und als Unschuldiger (Joh 18.23, 28; 19.4, 6) in den Tod, er antwortet dem Hohenpriester und dem Statthalter in hoheitsvoller Souveränität (18.19–21, 23; 18.34, 36–37; 19.9, 11), er trägt – anders als bei Markus – sein Kreuz selbst (19.17) und gibt am Ende aktiv ‘den Geist dahin’ (Joh 19.30). Er bleibt somit auch in seiner Passion der Aktive, der die ejxousiva über sein Leben besitzt (vgl. Joh 10.17). Dies kann seinen Tod im Lichte antiker Kategorien als einen ehrenvollen erscheinen lassen. Zwar genügen die Kategorien des ‘noble death’ nicht, um das johanneische Verständnis des Todes Jesu zu explizieren,75 doch 74 Dazu auch Frey, Eschatologie, 3.273–6. 75 S. dazu J. Frey, ‘Edler Tod – wirksamer Tod – stellvertretender Tod – heilvoller Tod. Zur narrativen und theologischen Deutung des Todes Jesu im Johannesevangelium’, The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (ed. G. van Belle; BETL; Leuven: Peeters, 2007) 65–94.
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stützen die erwähnten Darstellungselemente das theologische Anliegen, Jesu Tod nicht als Scheitern, sondern als Sieg, nicht als das Ende, sondern als Vollendung seines Werkes und als Anbruch der Herrschaft des Gekreuzigten zu deuten. D. h. auch ohne die Verwendung der dovxa-Terminologie wird das Geschick Jesu im johanneischen Passionsbericht so erzählt, dass die Leser im Gekreuzigten den wahren König und insofern den Verherrlichten erkennen können, indem ihr Blick von der augenfällig berichteten Szene auf die christologische und soteriologische Tiefendimension hingeführt wird. In diesem Sinne entspricht auch der johanneische Passionsbericht der vorausdeutenden Interpretation des Geschehens der ‘Stunde’ Jesu als ‘Verherrlichung’. 2. Die Zeichenerzählungen und ihre ‘hintergründige’ Dimension Blicken wir von hier aus zurück auf die Darstellung des öffentlichen Wirkens Jesu, wo an markanten Stellen dovxa-Aussagen begegnen: Programmatisch wird im ersten, gleichsam prototypischen ‘Zeichen’ in Joh 2.11 gesagt, dass Jesus ‘seine dovxa offenbarte’, und in der Exposition zur LazarusErzählung heißt es, dass dessen Krankheit dazu diene, ‘dass der Sohn Gottes dadurch verherrlicht werde’ (Joh 11.4). Die von Jesus erzählten Wundertaten sollen insgesamt als Offenbarung seiner dovxa verstanden werden. Doch welche dovxa offenbart der johanneische Jesus hier? Kann eine dovxa gemeint sein, die von dem narrativ erst noch bevorstehenden doxavzesqai in Jesu Stunde, von Kreuz und Auferstehung, unberührt ist? Dagegen spricht nicht nur, dass der ganze Weg Jesu im vierten Evangelium aus der nachösterlichen Retrospektive erzählt ist,76 sondern auch die literarische Gestaltung der Zeichen-Erzählungen. Diese wollen nicht als bloße Momentaufnahmen vom Weg des irdischen Jesus gelesen oder gar ‘historisierend’ verstanden werden. Vielmehr sind sie literarisch so gestaltet, dass die erzählte Tat Jesu durch eingestreute Verweise auf eine hintergründige Dimension des Geschehens ‘angereichert’ wird. Bestimmte Textelemente verweisen auf andere Stellen im Evangelium und bringen somit die umfassende Bedeutung des Christusgeschehens in die Einzelerzählung ein, indem sie die Aufmerksamkeit des Lesers auf das durch Jesu Tod und Auferstehung gewirkte Heil lenken. Zu diesen Verweisen gehören in Joh 2.1–11 die Erwähnung der ‘Stunde Jesu’ (2.4) und die Erwähnung der Reinigungspraxis ‘der Juden’ (2.6), evtl. auch die Nennung des ‘dritten Tages’ (2.1) und die Bemerkung, dass der Bräutigam (bzw. richtiger: Jesus) nicht wie ‘jeder Mensch’ gehandelt hat (2.10) etc.77 Im zweiten Zeichen Joh 4.46–54 bilden etwa das merkwürdig betonte ‘Dein Sohn lebt!’ (V. 50; vgl. Vv. 51, 53) oder
76 Grundlegend Hoegen-Rohls, Johannes; s. auch Frey, Eschatologie, 2.221–7, 247–68. 77 S. dazu den detaillierten Aufweis bei Ch. Welck, Erzählte Zeichen (WUNT 2.69; Tübingen: Mohr 1994) 135–8.
394 jörg frey die Formulierung, dass ‘der Mensch dem Logos glaubte’ (V. 50) sowie der Verweis auf die ‘Stunde’ (V. 53), in der die Heilung erfolgte, einen Anlass, in der Lektüre über die Einzelerzählung hinaus einen Bezug auf das Ganze des Christusgeschehens herzustellen. Diese Textelemente, die sich in allen johanneischen Wundererzählungen finden, lassen eine Lektüre derselben als bloßer Berichte vergangener Ereignisse des irdischen Wirkens Jesu nicht zu. Sie helfen, den Bezug auf das ‘Bezeichnete’ herzustellen und machen das erzählte Geschehen somit selbst zum ‘Zeichen’. Wie auch immer man die Genese dieser Texte rekonstruiert, gehört dieser Deutehorizont zu ihrer Letztgestalt und in dieser fungieren die johanneischen Wundergeschichten als paradigmatische und instruktive Jesuserzählungen,78 die bei den Lesern den Glauben an Jesu wahres Wesen wecken (Joh 20.30–31) und ihn beim Lesen jeder Einzelerzählung auf das Ganze des Christusgeschehens und das darin gründende Heil hinweisen wollen. Diese Darstellungsweise lässt sich als eine Form der nach johanneischer Überzeugung durch den Geist inspirierten ‘Erinnerung’ begreifen, in der den Zeugen im nachösterlichen Rückblick die wahre Bedeutung des Wirkens und Geschickes Jesu sowie der Schriftaussagen über ihn erschlossen wurde. Nur von hier aus können Jesu Taten als Offenbarung seiner dovxa erzählt und verstanden werden. Daraus folgt aber, dass die sich in Jesu Zeichen offenbarende Herrlichkeit jene dovxa ist, die Jesus in ‘seiner Stunde’ zuteil wurde und die selbst seine Jünger erst später erkannten, die aber nun – in der rückblickenden Darstellung des Evangeliums – auch die Episoden auf seinem Erdenweg umglänzt. 3. Die Schau der Zeugen und die Anleitung zum Sehen der Herrlichkeit Abschließend ist kurz Joh 1.14b zu reflektieren: Hier wird im Rahmen der Zeugenrede, die den Schlussteil des Prologs (V. 14–18) prägt und die auf Jesu gesamten irdischen Weg zurückblickt, festgestellt: ‘Wir sahen seine Herrlichkeit . . .’. Unbestimmt bleibt dabei zunächst, wer die ‘wir’ sind, die hier sprechen, und welches ‘Sehen’ zu welchem Zeitpunkt gemeint sein soll. Doch sollte man an Jesu Zeichen denken, was sich durch die nächste dovxa-Stelle in Joh 2.11 nahelegt, dann wären es immer schon die im Lichte der nachösterlichen Erinnerung als Herrlichkeitsoffenbarung gedeuteten Zeichen. Auch Joh 1.14 erschließt sich folglich erst im Blick auf das Ganze des Evangeliums, wie auch das Verhältnis von savrx und dovxa nur in Anbetracht der gesamten Darstellung zu bestimmen ist. Wenn der Prolog als Leseanweisung für das Evangelium fungiert, dann bietet die Zeugenrede in Joh 1.14b zugleich eine Einladung an die Leser, aufgrund des vorliegenden Zeugnisses und der ‘aufgeschriebenen Zeichen’ (Joh 20.31) selbst Jesu wahre Würde zu erkennen und darin das Leben zu haben. In dieser Intention besteht auch eine Korrespondenz zwischen der ersten dovxa-Aussage im Prolog 78 S. zu diesem Begriff Welck, Zeichen, 289.
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und dem in Joh 17.24 formulierten ‘letzten Willen’ Jesu, ‘dass sie meine Herrlichkeit sehen, die du mir gegeben hast’. Gewiss geht das hier Erbetene über die glaubende Erkenntnis der wahren Würde Jesu hinaus und impliziert eine eschatologische Schau der Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten, die von den Bedingungen der savrx nicht mehr getrübt ist, doch fasst die Formulierung auch zusammen, was das Ziel der johanneischen Darstellung ist: Die Leser des Evangeliums sollen im Irdischen und insbesondere im Gekreuzigten den sehen, der von Gott selbst ‘verherrlicht’ und zu universaler Heilswirkung eingesetzt worden ist. Dabei legt Joh 17.24, anders als 17.5, nicht den Gedanken nahe, dass diese in der Stunde Jesu verliehene dovxa der des Präexistenten entspreche. Hier ist nur von der vorzeitlichen Liebe des Vaters zum Sohn die Rede. Die dovxa aber ist diejenige, die der Vater dem Sohn ‘gegeben’ hat und die – so wird man nach dem Gesagten folgern müssen – die Geschichte Jesu und damit seinen Kreuzestod einschließt, so wie auch Thomas in Joh 20 den Auferstandenen an seinen Wundmalen erkennt und den auferweckten Gekreuzigten als ‘mein Herr und mein Gott’ anspricht (Joh 20.28).
IV. Folgerungen und Perspektiven
Aus ihrer österlichen Erkenntnis und der nachösterlichen Erinnerung heraus hat die johanneische Verkündigung den Weg des irdischen Jesus als einen von Herrlichkeit umglänzten gezeichnet. Doch ist diese Darstellung tatsächlich eine Rückprojektion der nachösterlich erkannten Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten in die Geschichte des irdischen Jesus. Im Rückblick, aufgrund der österlichen Erfahrung, der erinnernden Wirkung des Geistes und insbesondere der geistgeleiteten Lektüre der Schrift konstituierte sich die johanneische ‘Sehweise’, das Christusbild, das den Gekreuzigten als Verherrlichten und den irdischen Jesus weit über die ältere Tradition hinaus als bereits mit göttlicher Vollmacht und Herrlichkeit wirkenden sieht. Dass dieses Bild nicht einfach mit der ‘historischen’ Wirklichkeit des irdischen Jesus übereinstimmt, lässt die johanneische Darstellung selbst noch erkennen: zum einen in dem Hinweis, dass die Zeitgenossen Jesu für die Botschaft der ‘Zeichen’ Jesu blind waren und nicht glaubten (Joh 12.37), was für den Glauben unerklärlich ist und eigens aus der Schrift begründet werden muss; zum anderen in dem offenen Eingeständnis, dass auch die Jünger des irdischen Jesus seine Worte, seine Taten und sein Geschick vor seiner Auferstehung bzw. vor seiner Verherrlichung nicht verstanden (Joh 2.21; 12.16 und öfter) und selbst erst nachträglich durch die ‘Erinnerung’ zu dem Verständnis kamen, das die Grundlage der johanneischen Evangeliendarstellung bildet. Im Joh wird freimütig zugestanden, dass es ein Weg war, eine ‘Entwicklung’ in noetischer und sprachlicher Hinsicht, der die Zeugen vom irdischen Jesus und seiner Geschichte zum
396 jörg frey hier vorliegenden Christusbild brachte. Zu einer Aussage, wer Jesus ‘wirklich war’, führt hinter das vorliegende Textzeugnis kein Weg zurück, historisch ist allerdings deutlich, dass die hier vorliegenden Aussagen, z.B. über den Präexistenten und seine dovxa, erst aufgrund einer sprachlichen und theologischen Entwicklung formuliert werden konnten, als Konsequenz aus der österlichen und aus der Schrift geschöpften Erkenntnis der dovxa des auferstandenen Gekreuzigten.79 Dieser Weg wird nicht hinreichend berücksichtigt, wenn man – wie Joseph Ratzinger in seinem neuen Jesusbuch – das Zeugnis des Johannes bruchlos neben die Synoptiker stellt und den so gegebenen ‘biblischen Christus’ einfach als den historischen Jesus verstehen will.80 Die Eigenart der johanneischen Darstellung wird ebenfalls nicht hinreichend beachtet, wenn neuere exegetische Versuche das vierte Evangelium mit nebulösen Kriterien wieder auf eine Ebene neben die synoptische Tradition stellen und als zusätzliche Quelle für den historischen Jesus auswerten wollen.81 Ganz gleich, wie hoch die Kenntnis und Benutzung der Synoptiker im Joh veranschlagt wird – dieses Werk zeigt gegenüber den Synoptikern ein fortgeschrittenes Stadium der christologischen Entwicklung und eine dort nicht gegebene, ausdrückliche Reflexion über die hier vorliegende Neuinterpretation der Geschichte Jesu.82 Es präsentiert sich hermeneutisch bewußt als nachösterliche Erinnerung, und die hier zugrunde liegende Veränderung der älteren Tradition der Geschichte und der Verkündigung Jesu, die Eintragung der österlichen dovxa in die gesamte Geschichte Jesu als des fleischgewordenen Logos, wird legitimiert als ein Wirken des österlichen Geistes, der die Gemeinde erinnert und lehrt und Christus ‘verherrlicht’ (Joh 16.14). Die dovxa, die in der Schrift verheißen und in der österlichen Wirklichkeit erkannt wurde, kommt in dieser Sichtweise gerade dem Gekreuzigten zu – und von hier aus auch dem Irdischen, Fleischgewordenen und zuletzt auch dem Präexistenten. Es ist Gottes dovxa, die nach der johanneischen Darstellung in Christus ‘anschaulich’ geworden ist, ‘voller Gnade und Wahrheit’ (Joh 1.14), d.h. zum Heil derer, die ihn in der Lektüre des Evangeliums und im Glauben ‘sehen’. Diese dovxa ist keine bloße Restitution einer vormaligen Präexistenzherrlichkeit, sie ist auch nicht nur im Paradox des ‘puren Menschen’ gegeben, vielmehr eignet
79 Schwindt, Gesichte, 445, formuliert: ‘Nur als Inkarnierter ist Jesus der präexistente Sohn Gottes.’ Man könnte angesichts der hier vorgeführten Argumentation noch weiter zuspitzen und sagen: Nur als Verherrlichter Gekreuzigter ist Jesus der präexistente Sohn Gottes. 80 Dazu kritisch J. Frey, ‘Historisch – kanonisch – kirchlich. Zum Jesusbild Joseph Ratzingers’, Das Jesus-Buch des Papstes. Die Antwort der Neutestamentler (ed. T. Söding; Freiburg i.B.: Herder, 2007) 43–53. 81 So zuletzt P. N. Anderson, The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus (London/New York: T. & T. Clark, 2006). 82 Dazu J. Frey, ‘Das Johannesevangelium auf dem Hintergrund der älteren Evangelientradition’.
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ihr eine aus der Ostererfahrung und dem Zeugnis der Schrift konstituierte neue Anschaulichkeit: Der Gekreuzigte soll – als Verherrlichter – ‘gesehen’ werden, wie im vierten Evangelium das Zitat aus Sach 12.10 nach dem Lanzenstich (Joh 19.37) und zuletzt die österliche Begegnung mit Thomas zeigen. Und für diejenigen, die nicht mehr unmittelbar an der Ostererfahrung teilhaben können, die nicht mehr sehen können und doch glauben (Joh 20.29), ist das johanneische Werk selbst die Buch gewordene und bleibende Visualisierung dieser den Glauben begründenden Erfahrung. Dass die Glaubenden späterer Zeiten Jesu ‘dovxa sehen’ (Joh 17.24), ist das Ziel der eigentümlichen Christusdarstellung des vierten Evangeliums.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 398–416. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000209
Paul and the Nomos in Light of Ritual Theory* ITHAMAR G RU E NWALD Programme in religious Studies, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
This article wishes to handle the subject of the Nomos in Paul from a new perspective, namely from Religious Studies, within a framework where rituals and Ritual Studies receive priority. Nomos is generally translated as ‘the Law’ (with a capital ‘L’), meaning the Torah of Moses, the Pentateuch; by implication, it also covers the rabbinic modes of Torah explication. Commonly, the term and the negation of its religious relevance mark the manner in which Christianity views itself as superseding Judaism. However, the article argues that this understanding of the term and its significance in the writings of Paul is wrongly oriented. Paul himself discusses the issue of religious rules and regulations as part of the life of the communities, which he addresses in his Letters. If Paul is taken at his own words, rituals are important components in Christianity. Thus, the ‘Protestant’ oriented criticism of the cult is tantamount to making Paul address issues that Paul has no intention to take at their face value. This article, therefore, intends to reach new conclusions with regard to the common understanding of Paul’s handling of the subject of the Law. Keywords: Law, Ritual Theory, Nomos, Paul’s Letters, belief, Torah A.
The way I have chosen to handle the subject of the Nomos in Paul requires a few preliminary notes. If Nomos is translated ‘the Law’ (with a capital ‘L’), the Torah of Moses, the Pentateuch, epitomizes its major area of signification. By implication, it also covers the rabbinic modes of Torah explication. In any event, the term and the negation of its religious relevance mark the manner in which Christianity views itself as superseding Judaism. It is important to note, though, that the debates that Jesus held with religious authorities of his time are often tailored to fit a Pauline context. However, in my view these attempts end in trying to dress Jesus’ words in an oversize coat. Jesus is quoted as saying, Think not that I have come to abolish (katalu`sai) the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill (plhrw`sai) them. For, truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called 398
* Main Paper read at SNTS General Meeting at Sibiu, 2007.
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least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5.17–19).
A more detailed discussion of this passage will follow. Still, in the days after Paul the line of progression developed in a specific direction, such as the one found in the Letter of Barnabas. It led to a rejection of Judaism because of its adherence to the Nomos. This paper seeks to examine Paul’s view with regard to the Nomos. It will do so from a new angle. I intend neither to reexamine the Church’s attitude towards Judaism, nor do I wish to engage in an ecumenical dialogue on sensitive matters. The angle I have chosen to highlight is that of Ritual Studies. It is detached from theological considerations. It also allows for a departure from common ways – whether scholarly or theological – of dealing with the subject. My approach is stimulated by the methods and insights known from the modern research in field anthropology. However, my ‘field’ is that incorporated in texts, which I explore in depth in my book Rituals and Ritual Theory in Ancient Israel.1 The major conclusions reached in this book are: 1. Rituals are processually structured forms of behaviour. 2. They emerge out of the human mind as natural reactions to a variety of situations that humans consider essential to existence. Modes of existence may change according to social, mental, psychological, physical and other needs. These needs are not always logically accountable. 3. It follows that rituals do not belong to the religious domain only. 4. Consequently, theology does not necessarily play a formative role in their doing. At best, theology shapes the general ideological framework in which a whole set of rituals link to one another and create a purposive dynamics. Initially, no theological stance can fully explain the doing aspects of rituals. 5. The structure of rituals is context dependent. They unfold in contexts that spread over a wide horizon – whether ethnic, cultural, psychological, or sociological. 1. I. Gruenwald, Rituals and Ritual Theory in Ancient Israel (Leiden: Brill, 2003). This book contains the necessary bibliographical references that readers need in order to understand the issues discussed in the present article. Special attention is given there to the place of myth in the structuring of rituals, and particularly to the anthropological context of understanding the functions of rituals. See also I. Gruenwald, ‘Ritualizing Death in James and Paul in Light of Jewish Apocalypticism’, The Missions of James, Peter, and Paul: Tensions in Early Christianity (ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig Evans; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 467–86. A more recently compiled bibliography, with a special emphasis on rituals in their theological context, can be found in Gerald A. Klingbeil, Bridging the Gap: Ritual and Ritual Texts in the Bible (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007). For a different approach, see Jonathan Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University, 2005).
400 ithamar gruenwald 6. Speaking of structure in rituals means that each ritual unfolds in a specific and extraordinary dynamic that is composed of a segmented sequence of acts that accumulatively builds a whole, a Gestalt. 7. The unfolding of this sequence is accomplished in a coherent totality that shapes, preserves, and can reverse a collapse of a certain reality. This reality has existential significance in the eyes of the people concerned. 8. Essentially, rituals develop in mythic settings. A narrative that is not necessarily historically grounded supports each myth. Furthermore, the reality in which these myths function supersedes normal and empirically explainable conditions. 9. The functional axis of rituals stretches between two points – the maintenance of existence and the events that have transformative functions. 10. Rituals are not symbolic expressions of other entities. As a rule, they are selfexplainable. They are not functional translations of ideologies or theological modes of thinking. These points summarize, essentially, my understanding of ritual activity. Any mode of existence that relates to humans – individuals and groups alike – stimulates or depends on modes of behaviour that have a ritual configuration. In an ordinary, non-mystical sense, nothing is achieved by merely thinking about a certain condition that requires the application of rituals. In connecting to their existential environment, humans are more inclined to the doing mode than to its mental conceptualization or absorption. Only few people, who have access to the necessary techniques, will attribute to mental processes the same kind of efficacy, which most people attribute to the doing mode. Thinking will rarely accomplish the needed changes in normally experienced reality, as rituals are believed to do. With these notions in mind, it should become clear that prevailing assessments of Paul’s use of the concept of Nomos require substantial revision. The common understanding according to which Paul’s views imply a sweeping negation of the practice of rituals runs counter to admitting the relevance of institutionalized forms of ritual in religion. In this respect, Christianity cannot claim to be an exception to the rule. The difficulty here lies with the fact that, for many Christians, the respective positive and negative attitudes towards rituals signal the parting of the ways between Christianity and Judaism. However, Christianity did not give up its dependence on rituals. As will be seen, even Paul mentions essential rituals that Christians have to do or to which they have to adhere. Thus, in treating Paul’s views about the Nomos from the point of view of ritual studies theological considerations hold to their ground only insofar as Paul speaks against the Torah of Moses. However, there is a moment at which Paul crosses the lines, and rituals begin to play their role. Here the pendulum swings in a drastic thrust from one end to its opposite.
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Furthermore, from a scholarly point of view, theological considerations are likely to introduce biased positions into the scholarly discourse. A fresh approach is therefore a scholarly desideratum, particularly in an area of research like rituals, which more often than not is linked to theological explanations. Rituals should be studied in their own right, that is, in their doing context. Rather than speaking a theological language, they speak a behavioral one. Admittedly, theology can explain why this is done and what is avoided or even forbidden. However, the power that theology has to explain the details of what is done and how it is done is rather limited. The approach presented in the pages to come tries to demonstrate its own relevance to the modern study of rituals, in general, and to Paul’s idea of the Nomos, in particular. Among other things, it marks a departure from the prevailing view according to which the knowledge about the practiced aspects of religions is rather limited, when it derives from written documents only. If the study of texts leaves the scholarly discussion of rituals in areas of knowledge dependent on hermeneutics, mostly of linguistic, literary, and historical issues, then, indeed, very little can be gained from the relevant texts about the doing of rituals, whether in their prescribed or described modes. However, a different combination of factors – mostly of a sociological, anthropological, and psychological nature – has to come into play in order to awaken in scholars the curiosity and interest in what people do in religion, how they do it, and with what means. In short, where they did not do so in the past, rituals have now established themselves as close as possible to the centre of the scholarly study of religion. They can suggest issues of motivation and purpose that have different configurations from the ones suggested when singularly viewed from a theological angle. Briefly expressed, once anthropological considerations are allowed to enter the scholarly scene, religious components of the kind rituals enable become enfranchised from the bonds of what used to be the fixations of scholarly hermeneutics. Understandably, all this has significant implications for a new assessment of the ritual factor vis-à-vis the theological one in the study of religion. As indicated above, rituals are configured and done as structured actions. They are expected to relate to modes of reality that are existentially valued in the eyes of the people doing them. The connection between specific rituals and the corresponding realities to which they relate enhances the factor of functional repeatability in rituals. The same rituals relate to the same realities. Mutatis mutandis, every reality depends on its supportive ritual(s). In addition to that, since rituals essentially crystallize as behavioural entities there is no substantial difference between the ones done in the framework of routine experiences in common life and the ones done in the realms of religion. Admittedly, one cannot ignore the differences between the two kinds. Matters of ceremonial context, issues of general format, and the inner structure of the specific act cannot be
402 ithamar gruenwald ignored in this respect. However, religious rituals would not have the capacity of maintaining their special character unless they could be juxtaposed, as a matter of behavioural principle, to other forms of rituals. Theological considerations supply the main platform upon which the study of religious rituals thrives. In many cases, rituals are subservient to theological issues. However, paying attention to rituals in their own right, and to their status regardless of their functional proximity to theology, strengthens their general position as objects of scholarly research. Consequently, they have gained in status in being major sources of information regarding the assessment of the phenomenological aspects of religion. Looking in the direction of Paul’s letters, one’s attention cannot be withdrawn from the bulk of the theological oeuvre and its intensity. Indeed, Paul is a master theologian. In the eyes of many, he is the dominant theological figure in the NT. Hence, his concern with issues of belief and thought dictate the scholarly agenda. However, many passages in Paul’s letters take up the subject of the cult. In order to contain these passages in a system that is theologically coherent in Christian eyes, commentators often take them as conveying moral exhortations rather than matters that require practiced performance. For reasons that need not be discussed here, the practiced aspects of rituals in Paul’s writings were transformed into theological issues that shaped ‘Protestant’ principles. As a result, for a long time the subject of ‘Paul and the Law’ in its theological configuration dominated the scholarly scene. Its performative configuration was exclusively viewed from its negative aspects. Furthermore, it was used to indicate the issue of the parting of the ways, thus contributing to the discussion of the essentials of Christian identity vis-à-vis its Judaic origins. However, in the last twenty years or so another tendency has found its way into the centre of Pauline studies. It shows that the cutting edges of Paul’s handling of the subject are not as sharp as they look when seen through a ‘Protestant’ type of prism. A more open, and positive, approach to the subject has found its way into the scholarly discussion, allowing more space for a relaxed discussion located at a distance from theological constraints. Thus, if we disregard the theological interpretations, there is no way but to agree that rituals do play a role in Paul’s religious layout. To sum up this section of the article, I would like to repeat my aim of bringing into focus a number of passages in Paul’s writings which played a significant role in giving directions to the new believers as to what they ought to do or avoid doing. Belief (pivsti~) received a focal position in the Pauline agenda, with implications that concerned not only theological issues but also practical ones. In any event, the relevant passages contain a critical mass of rules and directives the sum total of which shows Paul at a position in which he can no longer be considered as he has been by past interpreters. Clearly, Paul criticizes essential aspects of the Mosaic Nomos. However, he maintains clear views on matters that I shall here
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refer to as highlighting the indispensability of rituals in the practice of religion, in general, and of Christianity, in particular. Rituals have various configurations. They mainly postulate what people should do, but they also articulate what they should avoid doing. As indicated above, in the case of Paul theologians and then scholars interpreted passages that discussed ritual issues as pointing mainly in a paranetic direction, that is, as morally instructive and compelling. Consequently, rituals were separated from their doing aspect and placed in spiritual realms. The extent to which this is the only and correct understanding of Paul is the subject of this paper. However, before undertaking the main course of the discussion, I have outlined the major methodological issues in which rituals make sense in their own doing aspects. It must be clear by now that I consider the doing aspect as the major framework for the discussion of rituals. In my view, neither symbolic nor theological elaborations have the same functional implications for the understanding of rituals. In their public configuration, rituals unfold as ceremonial events. This is particularly true of religious rituals. In this respect, dances, songs, sacrificial acts, and prayers occupy a central position. Specific utensils and vessels are utilized to reinforce the power of the ritual act. Richly coloured dresses, the application of profusely rich decorations, unique corporeal gestures, and special music played by various instruments using special rhythms are all part of the ritual arsenal. The manner in which rituals are acted out in public characterizes the unique contextual qualities of many cultures and religions. These factors are believed to enhance the mental awareness of the divine presence in the human, social, and physical cosmos, and thus control and regulate existence in livable conditions. As social anthropologists have shown, the same holds true of public events that aim at creating and maintaining bureaucratic hierarchies and differentiations. From a religious point of view, there are no institutionalized moments involved, but structurally speaking the similarities are striking. However, since the manner in which Paul refers to rituals often lacks these ceremonial aspects, their spiritual components more readily suggest themselves as their prevailing side. In later phases of Christian development, the realm of ‘Liturgy’ gained in importance. In a significant manner it received the status of an institutionalized cover-term for whatever the Christians, in private and in public, do to realize their confessional identity as Christians. It opened ways for the inclusion of a rich palette of issues, not necessarily rituals and ritual features in the narrow sense of the term, endowing them with the status of ‘How to live as a Christian’. In an essential way, Paul initiated the notion of treating the Christian way of life in terms of Liturgy in the sense that it received in Christian history and theology. However, specific rituals, enacted in a predominantly inter-personal realm, played a major role in his mind. Even, when the major idea was the creation of a Christian type of theological solidarity and confessional identity, rituals kept their
404 ithamar gruenwald position. Thus, Paul has still to be viewed as advocating a framework in the context of which the doing and experiencing of rituals unfold in a manner that makes them part of the building stones of the early Church. By now, the reader must have realized that so far the present article wished to prepare a new direction to the scholarly treatment of Paul’s attitude to the Nomos. The methodological position, which I tried to sustain, departed from the road often taken in discussing the issue of Paul and the Nomos. Normally, that issue is discussed within the framework of textual and theological considerations. However, the present study intends to engage a different perspective and method to the study of the subject at hand. I am well aware that this requires a nonnegligible kind of patience and adjustment on the part of the reader to follow a new line before the full landscape, as I see it, becomes familiar. What is missing here will be given a full chance to present itself. However, I assume a high degree of familiarity with the source material, even before new light is cast on it. For instance, everybody familiar with the study of Pauline writings knows that Paul’s attitude to the Nomos is cast in various formulations, some of which contradict each other. The tail of Paul’s gown is often pulled, because people feel that he leaves them in a position in which they cannot follow a coherent mode of explication. In fact, with all their centrality in his writings, the utterances with regard to the Nomos do not follow the kind of linear progression, which among other things could have settled often-debated questions resulting from this situation. Still, the discrepancies in the manner in which Paul presented the issues at hand have an interesting history. Among other things, they were viewed as justifying an interreligious ecumenical stance. Their anti-Jewish cutting edge could be applied with less pressure than had been the case in the past. Scholars often explain the fluctuations in Paul’s views by the need to propose ad hoc solutions to constantly changing situations. However, a theological and, hence, scholarly consensus exists with regard to the fact that the rejection of the Mosaic Nomos endows Paul oeuvre with its unique message. Allegedly, the ‘Jesusevent’ could unfold only in a religious setting, the orientation of which concentrated on the rejection of the old covenant as embodied in the Mosaic Nomos. According to Paul, the major ideal in religion is the kind of belief that leads to righteousness. Righteousness could no longer evolve in the framework of the Mosaic Nomos, but in a different setting, namely, the context of pivsti~ (‘belief’). In that context, the redeeming efficacy of the life and death of Jesus played the central role. However, it must be clearly stated that issues of ritual behavior are solidly embedded in this matter. Here is the first example: to make it possible for non-Jews to participate in the idiosyncratic cult of the new creed, the obligation to undergo circumcision had to be removed. In paradoxical terms, a central ritual has to be removed for purposes that involved a ritual stance. The cult, i.e., rituals, was presented in a context that made it sound redundant. To give the
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point an even stronger impact, it was declared as enhancing undesired links with sin. However, the fact that pivotal rituals like Baptism and the Eucharist did receive prominence in the new religion is a good point at which to start a discussion about the indispensable status of rituals in Christianity. In fact, Paul’s writings include a non-negligible number of directives and rulings, the purpose of which was to create a manual of practices, which guided individuals and communities in maintaining their new way of life. Everything that aimed at bringing into effect the doing aspect of the new creed – whether it meant doing certain things in a special manner (not always satisfactorily outlined) or abstaining from doing others – belonged into a ritual sphere of references. Theology, too, played its pivotal role in the new religion. However, one must be alerted to the fact that theological ways of thinking require intellectual sophistication. The people addressed by Paul in his letters certainly had an admirable degree of sophistication. However, the weight of theological sophistication that his writings demanded was clearly beyond the intellectual scope of many of them. However, theology is less accessible to people than the doing aspects of religion, that is, ritual acts. Technically speaking, rituals possess a kind of handy efficacy that theological deliberations generally lack. The truth is that ritual gestures are more effective in accomplishing religious goals than the complexity of theological deliberations. However, for a long time and for various reasons, some of which will be discussed later on, the application and understanding of rituals suffered from an overload of theological considerations. Paradigmatically expressed, a Protestantlike context was energetically at work in undermining the status of the cultic features of rituals. Admittedly, the Protestant kind of criticism was anchored in Paul’s own view, though his rejection of the Nomos was not as sweeping as it was often presented in the Protestant context. According to Paul, the Mosaic Nomos was engendering sinfulness with all its consequences. However, speaking in sociological terms, rituals activities are vital to enhancing factors of social identity. We shall have to examine how effective sociological factors are in establishing the primacy of rituals over against theology. To conclude this part of the discussion, I would use Paul’s words and paraphrase them for our purposes. Paul says, ‘For a wide door for effective work has opened to me’. I hope that the second part of the same verse, ‘and there are many adversaries’ (1 Cor. 16.9), will not prevail among the readers who are called to change their minds.
B.
I shall begin this part of the discussion by referring to a few passages that may serve as the long awaited examples of what we have in mind. First, I would like to draw attention to 1 Thess 4, where Paul urges those called ajdelfoiv to do
406 ithamar gruenwald things that will positively affect the life of the community. The chapter begins with the words: ‘. . . you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, you do so more and more’. The passage contains sayings about abstaining from un-chastity, encourages marriage in holiness and honour, and demands avoiding wrongdoing against one’s friendly brother. Holiness is a key word in this passage, and one cannot ignore its ritual impact, which is closely related to the same notion in the Hebrew Bible. Furthermore, God is described as ‘an avenger’ (e[kdiko~). This notion refers back to biblical antecedents such as the ones found in Deut 32.43 and Nah 1.2. Since the notions and terms used by Paul lack any specificity, one may assume that they are embedded in what Paul imported from his Judaic background and learning. Thus, they involved more than what the bare words say. The example of ‘Holiness’ is a typical one, in this respect. According to Paul, it is achieved by doing ‘more and more’. However, what one is expected to do (belief is not specifically mentioned), is not pointedly articulated in this context. I believe that one may see in all this a positive, though far from being satisfactorily detailed, attitude to acts, that is, to ritual forms of behavior. It must be admitted, however, that, in the final resort, Paul’s way of expressing himself remains on the enigmatic side. As indicated, the solution that Paul’s ways of expressing himself in these matters make sense only in a moral setting is often offered to this problem, too. That is, the spiritual dimension overshadows the pragmatic one. Thus, differences in formulation may be viewed as minor variations, which have no significant consequences in matters of the practiced religion. However, I suggest reading his sayings in relation to the Nomos as sounding tones that entail real action. In Paul’s own words, they categorically call upon people to aspire to do more than they have been taught by God (Qeodivdaktoi). In this sense, Paul appears to me as adopting Judaic notions of pietism (hasidut). In recent scholarship, the oftendebated term, hasidut, is explained as indicating a tendency at adopting a stringent attitude in matters of religious attitude and behaviour.2 In other words, Paul does not fail, or hesitate, in urging people to take upon themselves the obligations of a doing mode. He refers to rituals, which are practiced in real life. Admittedly, ritual acts are linked to mental positions. Often, they are initiated in conscious mental processes. However, matters that concern the issues of what is done and how are not necessarily shaped by and in the context of these links. In fact, rituals are self-sufficient. As indicated above, they do not necessarily depend on any specific theological position. I see them as behavioural reactions of the human mind to changing situations and conditions of existence. Furthermore, contrary to dif-
2 Unfortunately, most of the studies that take up this particular subject are written in Hebrew. One may mention in this regard the names of Y. Baer and S. Safrai. A typology of Judaic Pietism throughout the ages was offered by the present writer, in Hebrew.
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ferent theories in the field I believe that rituals do not stand for or enact symbolic entities. In my view, the mechanism of ritual behavior is categorically detached from the contents of any mental position. In fact, the differences between the mental position and the actual act is even more emphatically marked than between the ones marking the abstract and the concrete. The second example is the Letter to the Galatians. In spite of the unrelenting criticism used in this letter against the Mosaic Nomos, and by implication against all practiced law in the domain of religion, Paul highlights the ritual of ‘Baptism into Christ’ (3.27). Unmistakably, this is a ritual act, and a central one in the life of every Christian. In 5.19–23, Paul juxtaposes a list of sins defined as ‘works of the flesh’ over against another one containing directives defined as the required ‘fruit of the spirit’. Polarizing essential positions in the Christian way of life, ‘Flesh’ indicates in Paul the negative pole while ‘Spirit’ signals the positive pole. It should be noted, though, that, when Paul concludes this short, though pointedly phrased, discourse on the good and bad ways of life, he says, ‘If we live by the Spirit, let us walk by the Spirit’. What does the notion of ‘walking’ mean in the context of the details of these contrasting lists? I venture to argue that a ritual process is the natural answer to the question. Walking is a cognate term to the Hebrew Halikhah, which is close to Halakhah, the term used for the ‘oral law’. As observed above, Paul leaves a lot to the understanding of those whom he addresses. However, a quietist interpretation is most likely the wrong option. Additional passages that show a positive attitude to the Nomos are found in the Letter to the Romans 1.27–31; 2.21–26; 14.3–23; 15.29–33. In these passages, Paul lists several kinds of deeds the doing of which is to put believers on their track to salvation through righteousness. Evils and sins, though, are likely to lead people astray and deprive them of that benefit. I can find nothing in Paul’s way of thinking that places these issues on a different platform from the one contained in a ritual realm, though obviously not necessarily the one found in the Mosaic Law. In Rom 2.3, Paul addresses his readers, referring to them in the singular, w\ a[nqrwpe, man. However, one has not to wait long before Paul makes his point clear: ‘There will be tribulation, wickedness and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek’ (v. 9). Doing good or evil is neither a passive, neutral nor a mental process. The active implications cannot be avoided. Thus, active rituals have to be counted as an inextricable part of the kind of Christianity that Paul professes. In many cases, their practical elaboration is rather tacitly assumed. However, this is not always the case. For instance, when Paul criticizes homosexuals and people indulging in other sexual offences and abominations (1 Cor 6.9), he uses the same language as the one categorically used in Lev 18.22, ‘You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination’. More instances, like the ritual injunctions concerning the covering of the head in worship (1 Cor 11.2–16), can be quoted, in this connection. However, the point
408 ithamar gruenwald this paper wishes to make must be clear by now. I think that the above mentioned and other directives in Paul – prayers, the speaking in tongues, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper – receive their prominence not as ideas but as acts that are processually done. In my view, therefore, it makes more sense to highlight, in all these cases, the hardware of ritual practice rather than the software of the moral or theological orientation. As indicated above, it is not always clear what Paul has in mind when telling his audience to do this or avoid doing that. Yet, I find it difficult to think that when Paul told people to practice rituals, he wanted them to take a passive or quietist path. One common denominator in many discussions of Paul is that each saying about the Nomos should be read in its own epistolary context. This can make sense to some, but to others it may sound like ripping apart the thrust of Paul’s theological oeuvre. Several scholars, Helmut Koester being a notable example, have tried to iron flat the whole issue by compressing it into two pages. In the German original its quintessence is clear, ‘das Gesetz war als Ritualgesetz an den Tempel Gebunden’.3 In the English translation of the author, it sounds a little different, ‘. . . the law primarily involved ritual and was thus closely associated with the temple cult’.4 Such an argument can hold water only when the negative sense of Nomos spills over and covers rituals, in general. The alleged priestly context adds acid to the scholarly presentation. Other scholars, like E. P. Sanders, gave the problem a more extensive attention, trying to characterize Judaism as a ‘covenantal nomism’.5 Whether Sanders’ characterization still keeps its helpful position or not is a matter over which different views may be expressed. To me, it sounds like yet another attempt to tighten the grip on the discussion and keep it in its theological straightjacket. It imposes an ideological qualifier, which, in my view, rituals are not made to tolerate. Instead, one should explore new paths of study in which new aspects, like ritual theory, are given a chance to prevail. I am aware of the fact that, drawing a separating line between Paul’s way of handling the issue of the Nomos and his implied attitude to rituals reverberates differently in Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant ears. However, a new tone can be heard in the discussion when, regardless of questions often raised relating the verisimilitude of the information contained in the book of Acts, Peter and James are described there as facing similar problems to the ones that Paul faced. At least in the eyes of Luke, the three of them solved similar problems by some kind of 3 Helmut Koester, Einführung in das Neue Testament (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1980), 237. 4 Helmut Koester, Introduction to the New Testament (Philadelphia; Fortress; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1982), 228 5 E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 511–15. Much of Sanders’ work is preoccupied with the question of the Law, in the teaching of Jesus and Paul, respectively. I consider his contributions to the subject as most the learned ones, though at times borderlines between the source materials are not adequately marked.
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practical agreement. The problem was how to treat non-Jews, particularly in common meals. When Peter was summoned to Cornelius, he told those present: ‘You yourselves know how un-lawful (ajqevmiton) it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit any one of another nation; but God has shown me that I should not call any man “common” (koinovn) or “unclean” (ajkajqarton)’ (Acts 10.28). Later on in the text, the point is made clear. Peter was accused by circumcised Jews of going ‘to uncircumcised men to eat with them’ (Acts 11.3). The issue was the sharing of a meal with uncircumcised people. I find it difficult to believe that the author of Acts made Peter say these things just in order to create an alignment on the ritual level with Paul, who, as we know, faced a similar problem (see 1 Cor 10 and 11; I shall come back to this point later on). Although this possibility cannot be ruled out altogether, it does not sound very likely to me. In a similar mode, James relies on Peter in his decision ‘that we should not trouble those of the nations [tw`n ejqnw`n; I categorically resist the derogatory translation “gentiles”] who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from pollution of idols and from un-chastity and from what is strangled and from blood’ (Acts 15.19–20). Once again, one of the issues is meals with uncircumcised people, though the factor of circumcision is only an implied one in this case. Furthermore, when Paul addressed the issue of those who could partake of the Lord’s Supper, he too unequivocally excluded pagans who used to sacrifice to demons (1 Cor 10.20). However, he hastened to add that as long as the meat bought in the market was not designated for idols, it could be served on the common table. Hence, Paul’s conclusion that ‘If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience’ (1 Cor 10.27). Meat that had been offered in a sacrificial gesture to idols was strictly forbidden (1 Cor 10.28). In other words, a ritual bridge is created between Peter’s response to his critics, when he went to see Cornelius, and Paul’s injunction to the Corinthians. The issues addressed here are ritual ones. There is no explicit theology involved. The separating line between those who are included and those who are excluded is marked by ritual markers. In short, the arena in which the issues at hand are discussed is solely populated by concerns over the requirements of ritual behaviour. It must be noted, though, that Jesus did not have to cross that bridge. He did not face these problems. In dealing with non-Christians and those who should be excluded from Christian rituals, Paul considers two factors. On the one hand, the attitude to circumcision is a central issue. In principle, though, Paul advocated an affirmative attitude to the circumcision of the heart and the spirit (as already stipulated in Deut 10.16!), and criticized the covenantal one done in the flesh. Thus, circumcision, per se, is not given in Paul a segregating status. On the other hand, sacrificing to idols is a real exclusionist factor. In any case, whether it is circumcision in the flesh or of the heart, it remains a ritual issue. Consequently, if we consider the
410 ithamar gruenwald Lord’s Supper as a ritual enactment of an historical event, that of the Last Supper, then the scriptural rulings relating to the Passover sacrifice are a relevant factor in the new ritual setting. According to Exod 12.43–49 (compare Num 9.14), This is the ordinance of the Passover: No foreigner shall eat of it; but every slave that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised him. No sojourner or hired servant may eat of it . . . In addition, when a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, then he may come and keep it; he shall be a native of the land. There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.
It is, therefore, conceivable that in a context in which Paul shows concern over the question of how ‘those who are genuine among you may be recognized’ (1 Cor 11.19), circumcision could retain (a) its ritual status, and (b) a selective factor. However, Paul does not refer to this issue in explicit terms. Let me explain my point. In the Jewish ritual cycle, the Passover event is done once a year, on the fourteenth of the month of Nissan. Paul significantly broadens the ritual presence of that event. From a ritual point of view, the last Passover meal of Jesus and his disciples is mimetically repeated in the sequence of rituals that configure the Lord’s Supper. It is, therefore, conceivable that in the early Church the ritual requirements from those who shared in the Passover sacrifice were stretched to include those that participated in the Lord’s Supper. However, since the rituals connected with the Lord’s Supper have the potential efficacy of turning almost any meal that follows the proper rules into a ritual event, this was not the case. Thus, bypassing the issue of circumcision resonates loudly in the context of the ritual at hand. It gives uncircumcised citizens in the Diaspora a chance to participate in what their Jewish–Christian neighbours did. Admittedly, Paul succeeds in making circumcision a theological topos, and this on top of its ritual implications. However, considering the ritual versus the theological implications of the matter, the question may be asked, which of the two comes first – theology or ritual? Whatever the answer, practiced rituals still hold their place in Paul. Paul cannot be left to enjoy the luxury of a theological solitude. Rituals have their demanding thrust in Paul’s modes of conceptualizing the active nature of the Christian communities. Interestingly, though, the question of ritual purity, which is a crucial one in the Passover account in Num 9 (but not in Exod 12), has no place in Paul’s ritual system. In all likelihood, it is shifted to the realm of Baptism, which, in Paul, has nothing to do with the Lord’s Supper.
C.
As mentioned above, a tendency prevails among Christian theologians and scholars to interpret the Pauline directives and rulings in the framework of reli-
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gious ethics. Thus, a bridge is created, in their minds, between Paul and the prophetic and wisdom literature, and indirectly also with some of the sayings of Jesus. The mind and the spirit are intensely engaged, while the body is treated as the source of evil. In such a context, behavioural stances like rituals hardly have any place. On the contrary, everything connected with the body is grounded in sin. Indeed, if this position is taken at its face value, the real problem in Paul is ritual, in general, and not the Mosaic Law, in particular. If the line of argumentation presented here is accepted, then the theological point loses some of its power. In this regard, the view expressed by Philo (The Migration of Abraham 92–93) to the effect that discovering the spiritual and symbolic dimension of the divine laws does not deprive people of their obligation to practice them is important. Significantly, the example referred to in this connection is circumcision. In some respects, the manner in which Philo treats this subject prefigures the one that Paul utilizes but it does so in an essentially different way. When clear choices had to be made in the organization of the ancient Church, Paul declared himself as the apostle sent to the uncircumcised (Gal 2.7). Addressing these people, though, Paul operates on a number of levels. He may argue that God justifies both – those circumcised and those not circumcised (Rom 3.30; 4.9–12; 1 Cor 7.18; Gal 5.6; 6.15; Col 3.11). Yet, since sin dwells in the various parts of the human body, generically called sarx, ‘Flesh’ (Rom 7.17–25), true circumcision can only be the one affecting ‘. . . the heart according to the spirit’ (Rom 2.29). The negation of the circumcision is limited to the one in the flesh (see, once again, Deut 10.16). It does not sweepingly annul the practice of that ritual in general. Thus, Paul’s injunction, discussed above, to the effect that those who sacrifice to idols should not partake in the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 10.20–21) creates a category that, according to the Pentateuchal references quoted above, links to that of circumcision in the flesh. However, it seems to require the circumcision of the heart. Non-Jews who had abandoned their affiliations to idol worshipping were not exempt from the obligation to undergo some kind of circumcision. In other words, in a certain manner of understanding, ritual stances still matter. Here, theological considerations keep their ground. I believe that sufficient arguments have been given to justify the view that the whole discussion of Nomos in Paul can now take a new turn. The emphasis on the moral side of Paul’s view does no longer enjoy the merit of being the single way of its understanding. For a long time, and for many people, Paul’s antinomian insinuations sounded a call to use their cutting edges. However, Paul is no anarchist. His utterances are directed against one aspect of the Nomos but not against the observance of rulings that keep the Church together in the framework of binding forms of behaviour. In other words, notwithstanding Paul’s view about the Mosaic Nomos, the rulings and directives mentioned in his letters are part of a sophisticated ritual agendum. The view maintained in relation to the ritual directives in
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Paul’s writings are often anchored in a peculiar understanding of Rom 10.4, ‘tevlo~ ga;r novmou cristo;~’. These words are usually translated as indicating the fact that ‘Christ is the ending of the law’. However, tevlo~ is not necessarily ‘ending’, but more correctly ‘goal’ (in German: Ziel). Furthermore, novmo~ here is not law, in a generic sense, but, more specifically, the Mosaic idea of divine worship as explicated in the Pentateuch and arguably in its early Halakhic explications. Finally, we have already noted Jesus’ own words in relation to the ongoing prevalence of the divine Law. With all the resistance that the present interpretation of Paul may meet, I believe that the case of ritual versus theology in Paul has been decided. We can now place the discussion in the area of Religious Studies proper, that is, on a platform on which theology is the object of study rather than the ideological guideline of the scholarly enterprise. A new perspective has been created, one in which rituals and ritual theory prevail. With this perception in mind, I believe that a notorious lacuna, or the one-sided orientation, in Pauline studies becomes visible, and can therefore be effectively filled.
D.
This is not the first time that the notion of rituals has been introduced in relation to Paul’s concept of Nomos. Several scholars have done so before. Although this marked a welcome change, the major tone in the relevant discussions was a sociological one.6 Accordingly, rituals, with all their paraphernalia of ceremonies, ceremonial gestures, and enactment of symbolic entities, were viewed as tools utilized in the process of building a unique social identity. Thus, when we accept the theory that Paul and Barnabas led the life of charismatic itinerants, their way of life (for instance, disregard for economic gains and possessions) required mental and social austerity that could not survive unless practiced in ritual modes. Ascetic poverty, and a lifestyle that entails an insecure marginal existence, cannot thrive on declarations, preaching, and propaganda. The inner integrity of the people involved requires practiced asceticism. Hence, rituals enter their life on a daily basis, even when they have no tag to identify their quality. In general, identity builds on symbols, symbolical gestures, and theological or ideological manifestos. Indeed, a certain scholarly trend allocates a formative role to symbols and ideas in the structuring and implementation of rituals. However, the reader should be aware by now that my approach to the study of rituals is not
6 In the section that follows, I utilize ideas first developed by Gerd Theisen. See, for instance, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982); Social Reality and Early Christianity: Theology, Ethics, and the World of the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992).
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informed by sociological considerations or factors that build on symbols. Thus, my eyes focus on issues of identity with a strong emphasis on rituals. My study of rituals is informed by anthropological considerations. In this respect, its major concern is with existence. Existence depends on rituals. I am aware of the fact, that in the minds of many, identity and existence complement one another. However, we should be aware of the fact that people change identities in order to protect or preserve the constants of their existence. In this respect, existence reaches to deeper levels of being than identities do. I have extensively referred to the ‘Lord’s Supper’. Clearly, it is one of the major constitutive rituals in Christianity. In my book mentioned above, I tried to show how rituals create their specific cosmos. More specifically, or by way of an extensive example, I examined the cosmos of the ‘Lord’s Supper’ and showed how it makes sense in terms of the ritual theory involved. In applying a magnifying glass to each of the details that comprise this ritual, I was able to show the manner in which the segmented processual stages of the ritual create its operational coherency, or efficacy. One segment builds upon the other. The manner in which the inner order is followed is one of the decisive factors that make the ritual work. In any event, I argued that theological and symbolical considerations fall short of accounting for what is done, how it is done, and for what anthropological, that is existentially relevant, purposes. To avoid any misunderstanding I would like to indicate that there is an ontological difference between ‘anthropological’ considerations and ‘anthropocentric’ motivations. The first term relates to matters that concern the existential habitus of the individuals concerned and their social formations. The second one, ‘anthropocentric’, concerns motivations that put in focus the personal interests of the doer, rather than those of an external factor, like a divine being. As noticed above, ritual processes culminate in existential transformation. They may have a theological context, but the non-theological semantic field that is engaged creates the dominant features that make rituals work. Admittedly, though, spiritual stances are involved. However, they have still a distance to cross before they reach the point of making the doing process effective. In any event, rituals show how powerful and efficacious is the human mind that creates them. Their power streams through channels in which theological deliberations create the context, whether cognitive or psychological, but not necessarily the efficacious energy that makes rituals into working entities. The connectedness of theology to a physical reality is maintained by factors of motivation and dedication. It may shape and support the psychological mind-set of people, giving their thoughts a sense of purposive direction. In certain cases, it may even endow the divine revelation or presence with the status of an experienced reality. In the final resort, though, its effective power in the physical world is limited to context and motivation. Where religious belief is concerned, theology supplies the needed terms of reference.
414 ithamar gruenwald I am aware of the fact that my approach places the ritual aspects of the cult in a supporting proximity to the Catholic or Greek-Orthodox position. Admittedly, certain features of the Protestant aversion to the Catholic indulgence in the cult can be justified by theological, historical, and social reasons. However, one should be cautious not to throw out the baby with the bath water. Those who hold fast to the view that rituals and the Mosaic Nomos are two sides of the same coin should be alerted to the fact that they confuse the general, rituals, with the particular, the Mosaic Nomos. Rituals, of whatever kind and nature, are channelled through a protocol that has to be strictly observed in order to keep the relevant reality in an operational and working condition. Rituals are like user’s guides that keep machines and instruments in a working condition. Changing anything in the instructions, or omitting any part of them, is likely to result in damage, or, worse even, cause the breakdown of the machine. One major and challenging question has not yet been answered. How do rituals affect the reality, whether physical or spiritual, towards which they relate? A more technical form of asking this question is, how do rituals bring about the expected transformation in the kind of existence to which they relate? Different answers can be, and have been, given to these questions. The one that I prefer is connected to the unique manners in which I believe the mind/spirit can work. Here the notion of pivsti~ as used by Jesus (Mark 5.34; Matt 9.22; Luke 8.48) and frequently in Paul makes much sense. As has variously been observed, pivsti~ in the NT suggests something different from hnwma, in its scriptural sense. In Hebrew, it usually indicates certainty and steadfastness. However, NT scholars suggested many definitions and characterizations to the term. I see pivsti~ as referring to a charismatic symbiosis, which evolves in a special kind of relationship between a believing person and especially the spirit of Jesus. It entails the functioning of the special energy of the kind that comes into effect when believers turn to charismatic figures, like magicians and exorcists, for help and expect them to exercise their healing powers. I think that Paul, too, appears to be aware of the charismatic energies that come into play in the ritual activity. The Eucharist is a typical example of the case at hand. The ritual activity involved creates a symbiotic community. In ritual terms, the parts of the Eucharist, the wine and the bread, which are shared by the members of the gathering community, create a unique reality in which every member of the community mimetically keeps in his body a segment of the blood and body of the Christ. Thus, the ritual participation in the meal creates a fusion between the individuals who share these mimetic parts. They become a ritual Gestalt – the Corpus Christi. Of course, one may argue that only a metaphorical, or allegorical, interpretation fits this kind of non-empirical occurrence or experience. However, in a religious and ritual context, the words ‘this is my body . . .‘,
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and ‘this cup is the new covenant in my blood’ (1 Cor 11.24–25) make no sense, unless they are understood as literally indicating a live reality.
E.
To sum up, Paul is aware of the indispensable status of rituals in the life of the Christian community. Over against the Mosaic Nomos, Paul postulates his own norms of religious behaviour. However, we can no longer find refuge in the statement that one kind of Nomos, the Mosaic Law, is making people aware of sin and another one, the Pauline series of ritual directives and regulations, is neutral and ritually insignificant, nay, sounding the opposite of the negative tones directed against the Mosaic Nomos. It is interesting to note, though, that according to Rom 7.7–25, sin is an autonomous entity that dwells in what Paul calls the ‘flesh’. Sin dwells in human beings, regardless of what they wish or do. There is a striking deterministic component in this kind of thinking. It clearly reflects Gen 6, where God is reported as expressing regret over the fact that he has created humankind. Man is flesh (Gen 6.3) and ‘the impulse of the human heart is evil from his childhood’ (6.5). This is not what ‘Moses’ thinks of sin. In the Mosaic context, sin evolves in and through disobedience to the word of God. We shall end our discussion with what this article has begun, that is, by comparing Paul’s attitude towards the Nomos to the words used by Jesus in the Sermon of the Mount with regard to the Mosaic Law. Jesus, it should be remembered, is quoted as saying, ‘Think not that I have come to abolish (katalu`sai) the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill (plhrw`sai) them’ (Matt 5.17). On the surface, these utterances postulate the opposite of what Paul says. However, as several interpreters have noted, Paul appears to have used similar words in Rom 7.12, ‘the Nomos is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good’. Still, there are many utterances in Paul, which say the opposite, and raise the question of the true context of Rom 7.12. In parallel manner, a long tradition of interpretation expresses mistrust with regard to the verisimilitude of Jesus’ words. It considers them as falsified. Thus, Jesus is quoted as saying the opposite of what the Received Text of Matthew reports. The introductory words, ‘Think not that’, are dropped, making the saying into an affirmative statement, ‘I have come to abolish . . .’ Conceivably, the changed version aims at eliminating any kind of discrepancy between Paul’s concept of the Mosaic Nomos and Jesus’ attitude to the precepts of the Mosaic Law. A number of non-canonical writings share this revised saying of Jesus. However, the fact that several Gnostic writings take the same line of tampering with the text reinforces the impression that Matthew sticks to the original. Indeed, all the information we receive from the Synoptic Gospels points to the fact that, in principle, Jesus showed respect to the Torah Law. Admittedly, he did
416 ithamar gruenwald not always agree with certain interpretations of its contents, but his dissident views never amounted to a rejection of the Mosaic Law. Thus, the allegation that his saying in the Sermon on the Mount is false follows a theological prejudice or stereotype. In any event, it shows the great impact the Pauline ‘Gospel’ had on shaping key issues in the Gospel tradition. Paul argues that his is the only Gospel. It is the Gospel of Christ (Gal 1.7). The proliferation of texts that claim to themselves the status of Gospels, even the true Gospels, shows the inner divergences in the early Church. The Gospel of Luke (1.1–4) may serve as a canonical prototype of this genre. In any event, the issue of the attitude towards the Torah-Law figures high in the writings of the early Church. I hope that the discussion in the preceding pages has added a new dimension to its scholarly assessment.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 417–435. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000210
‘Join in imitating me’ (Philippians 3.17) Towards an Interpretation of Philippians 3* ANG E LA STAN DHARTI NG E R Fachbereich Evangelische Theologie, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Lahntor 3, 135037 Marburg, Deutschland
Philippians 3 is central to the question of integrity of the letter. While those who argue for three fragments struggle with the intention of the chapter, those who argue for the letter’s integrity vote for its function as an exemplum. This article argues that there is some truth in both positions. Philippians 3 imitates the Jewish testament genre in which an ideal biography is depicted to become a model of religious advice. But while Paul deals critically with genre, he became a religious hero in the canonical letter, which was edited by the Philippians in the early second century ce. Keywords: polemical letter, testament, Philippians 3, composition theory, martyrdom, imitation
One of the main questions in research on the Philippians is whether the letter in its canonical form was a homogeneous text or whether it was a subsequent compilation of several fragments. Philippians 3 plays an important role in this discussion. While some find there a polemical fragment directed against Philippian opponents, others argue that this chapter is integral to the argumentation of the letter as a whole. In the following, I pursue the content and contextual function of Phil 3 further. First, I review the main arguments for and against the integrity of the letter, addressing the suggested purpose and function of this chapter respectively. Then, I present two ways of reading Phil 3: one reads 3.2–21 and 4.8–9 as a fragment of a farewell address, written during a life-threatening imprisonment, and another which ponders over the function of Phil 3.2–21 within the general narrative line of the canonical letter. In doing so, I propose to address the questions of date and place of composition.
* Short main paper read at SNTS General Meeting at Sibiu, Romania, 2007.
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418 angela standhartinger 1. The Composition Theory
In the early nineteenth century, Johann Heinrich Heinrichs and Eberhard Gottlob Paulus suggested for the first time a literary-critical composition theory for Philippians.1 Both researchers observed a change of tone at the beginning of ch. 3. While chs. 1 and 2 are directed to the community as a whole, chs. 3 and 4 address only its leaders. However, in the nineteenth century, further research spearheaded by Ferdinand Christian Baur questioned the Pauline origin of the entire epistle, among other reasons for a ‘Mangel an einem tiefer eingreifenden Zusammenhang und gewisse[r] Gedankenarmuth’.2 Current discussion of the composition theory was developed in the late 1950s by Walter Schmithals, Johannes Müller-Bardorf, Bruce D. Rahtjen, and others.3 It is based on three main observations:4 1. A break and a sharp change of tone occurs between 3.1 and 3.2.5 After the call to rejoice, Paul turns inexplicably to the threefold warning against foreign missionaries. This group of opponents is not comparable to those addressed in Phil 1.15–18 and 1.28.6 2. There is more than one letter ending in Phil 4.4–7, 4.8–9, and 4.20–23.
1 J. H. Heinrichs, Pauli Epistolae ad Philippenses et Colossenses Graece perpetua annotatione illustratae (Novum Testamentum Graece 7,2; ed. Johann Koppe; Göttingen: Dieterich, 1803) 32–8; 88–9. H. E. G. Paulus reviews the disputation of J. F. Krause at Königsberg, 1811, in the Heidelbergischen Jahrbüchern für Literatur 7.44 (1812) 702–4. Krause was asked to deal with Heinrich’s new edition of ‘Kopp’s New Testament’ of 1803. Paulus did not agree with Krause’s rejective criticism and instead ventured new thoughts. Based on the change of tone, he separates a part of 3.1 to 4.9 in which the apostle ‘ohne Rücksicht mit solchen spricht, von denen er missverstanden zu werden nicht befürchte’ (702). 2 F. C. Baur, Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi II (Leipzig: Fues, 1867) 59. 3 W. Schmithals, ‘Die Irrlehrer des Philipperbriefs’, ZThK 54 (1957) 297–341; J. Mülller-Bardorff, ‘Zur Frage der literarischen Einheit des Philipperbriefs’, WZ(J).GS 7 (1957/58) 591–604; B. D. Rahtjen, ‘The Three Letters of Paul to the Philippians’, NTS 6 (1959–60) 167–73. See also G. Bornkamm, ‘Der Philipperbrief als paulinische Briefsammlung’, Geschichte und Glaube II (Munich: Kaiser, 1971) 195–205; L. Bormann, Philippi. Stadt und Christengemeinde zur Zeit des Paulus (NTSup 78; Leiden: Brill, 1995) 87–136. 4 Some external indicators are also mentioned. Some canonical lists name several letters to the Philippians; see Rahtjen, ‘Three Letters’, 167–8. The pseudo-epigraphical Epistle to the Laodiceans, which is a compilation on the basis of Philippians, uses only Phil 1.1–3.1; 4.8–9, 20–23 (see P. Sellew, ‘Laodiceans and the Philippians Fragments Hypothesis’, HThR 87 [1994] 17–28). On Pol. Phil. 3.2, see below. 5 Schmithals, ‘Irrlehrer’, 298–9; Bornkamm, ‘Philipperbrief’, 195–7. 6 The missionaries mentioned in Phil 1.15–18 are not residing in Philippi and the ajntikeivmenoi of Phil 1.28 are not missionaries.
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Especially 4.1–3 or 4.4–7 could well be understood as direct continuation of 3.1.7 3. Phil 4.10–20 is better understood as a formal receipt and thank you note for the donation brought by Epaphroditus. This implies an immediate dispatch of the letter.8 However, the message gleaned from Phil 2.25–27, namely that Epaphroditus is still with Paul in prison and recuperating from mortal affliction, would appear to contradict that. Consequently some time must have elapsed between the writing of Phil 4.10–20 and chs. 1–2.9 Philippians, according to this hypothesis, consists of a collection of three letters or letter fragments: the letter of receipt or the thank you note A (Phil 4.10–20), the letter from prison B (Phil 1.1–3.1 and 4.4–7 [4.1–3, 20–23]) and the polemical letter C (Phil 3.2–21; 4.8–9 [4.1–3]).10 Chronologically, the writing of the letters or fragments is unanimously seen to run along the lines of A–C.11 While the temporal distance between the thank you note A (4.10–20) and the letter from prison B (1.1–3.1; 4.1–7, 20–23) can be gauged by Epaphroditus’ sickness and recuperation, there is no consensus as to where and when the so-called polemical letter C (3.2–21; 4.8–9) was written.12 In these inter-
7 Further epistolographical observations are that travelling plans (2.19–30) and news concerning co-workers are normally positioned at the end of a letter (e.g. 1 Cor 16), to; loipovn and caivrete often mark the close of a letter (Gal 6.17; 2 Cor 13.11). 8 Bormann, Philippi, 112–14, points out that a homogeneous reading of 1.1–3.1 and 4.10–20 must appeal to secondary auxiliary argumentation like previous verbal thanks, prevention by conditions of imprisonment or the unwillingness of Paul to offer thanks, an argument which does not conform to the legal character of the receipt (4.10–20, shown by A. Deissmann, Licht vom Osten [Tübingen: Mohr, 4th ed. 1923] 88–90). 9 Bornkamm, ‘Philipperbrief’, 198–9. 10 Since Phil 4.8 seems to refer to 3.15–17, it is usually assigned to letter C. The placing of 4.1–9 and 20–23 is debated in various theories. A detailed list is provided by Bormann, Philippi, 115. The greetings from the house of Caesar in 4.20–23 fit well with Phil 1.13. But especially problematical is the placing of 4.1–3: the conjunction w{ste is neither made necessary by 3.1 nor by 3.21. Phil 4.1–3 is the only evidence of an actual conflict within the community, which, however, is not introduced anywhere. Stylistically, the verses fit well into 1.1–3.1. See also U. Poplutz, Athlet des Evangeliums, Eine motivgeschichtliche Studie zur Wettkampfmetaphorik bei Paulus (HBS 43; Freiburg: Herder, 2004) 295–6. 11 Besides this three-letter hypothesis, some scholars prefer a two-letter hypothesis. Up to the 1990s, the so-called polemical letter (3.2–21/4.3 and 4.8–9) was seen as the second letter (e.g. J. Gnilka, Der Philipperbrief [HThKNT X/3; Freiburg: Herder, 1968]). Since then, some scholars find in 4.10–20, the thank you note or receipt (4.10–20) a second piece of writing (e.g. J. T. Reed, A Discourse Analysis of Philippians: Method and Rhetoric in the Debate over Literary Integrity [JSNTSup 136; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997] 409–12). 12 Some interpreters suspect a composition after the intermediate visit mentioned in 2 Cor 7.5 (Müller-Bardorff, ‘Frage’, 599–601; Gnilka, ‘Philipperbrief’, 25), or at least in temporal vicinity to 2 Cor 10–13 (Bornkamm, ‘Philipperbrief’, 201). Others support a composition in the con-
420 angela standhartinger pretations the attack on the opponents (in Philippi?) is perceived as the main reason for writing. It appears to me that here lies the weak link of the ‘compostion theories’. The particular fragment Phil 3.2–21 and 4.8–9 consists mainly of an explicit biographical part (3.4–14/15a) that branches off into pareneses (3.15b–17; 4.8–9) and an eschatological perspective (3.20–21). The term ‘polemical letter’ (‘Kampfbrief’) unilaterally emphasizes the opposition front (in Philippi?) which is mentioned only in 3.2–3 and 3.18–19. This, in my opinion, does not sufficiently determine the purpose of writing letter C.
2. Theories that Assert Integrity of the Philippians
The thesis for the integrity of Philippians gained increasing support after the 1980s, but this was not due to the difficulty in determining the purpose of letter C. Rather, composition theories were generally questioned, because they seemed too complex and hypothetical.13 Three levels of arguments are used to respond to the three-letter hypothesis. First, the literary criticism can be countered by the following arguments: 1. The abrupt transition from 3.1 to 3.2 only came about by incorrect translation,14 as a common change of tone15 in a letter of friendship or a deliberately used text of the appearance of the opponents in Galatia (J. Becker, Paulus. Der Apostel der Völker [Tübingen: Mohr, 3rd ed. 1998] 340–50), or shortly before the final collection journey to Jerusalem (Poplutz, Athlet, 350). 13 The popular appeal to the manuscript-tradition beginning at the end of the second century is no strong argument. The hypothesis of a compilation of letters does not require that the fragments had ever been read outside of Philippi. H.-J. Klauck, ‘Compilation of Letters in Cicero’s Correspondence’, Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe (ed. J. T. Fitzgerald, T. H. Obricht, and L. M. White; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 131–55, has shown within the collection of Cicero’s letters that the combination of letters did happen, but in a far less complex manner than the hypotheses regarding Philippians or 2 Corinthians would require. However, Cicero’s letters are the only known later literary collection of letters originally intended for ‘practical’ use in antiquity. The history of the manuscript and edition complicates matters considerably. While the editors of Cicero’s letters apparently preserved the whole and made additions only at the end of letters, the papyrus letters portray a different praxis. The collection provided by J. L. White, Light from Ancient Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), shows that inserted letters were regularly shortened at least as to the addressing and closing formulations and occasionally even elsewhere (see 217–18). 14 To; loipovn (3.1a) is understood as a transitional particle meaning ‘furthermore’ and therefore hardly marks the end of the letter (see: 1 Thess 4.1; 1 Cor 7.39). ΔAsfalev~ (3.1b) means ‘steadfast’, not ‘safe’. See J. Reed, ‘Philippians 3:1 and the Epistolary Hesitation Formulas: The Literary Integrity of Philippians, again’, JBL 115 (1996) 63–90 (76–78). 15 L. Alexander, ‘Hellenistic Letter-Forms and the Structure of Philippians’, JSNT 37 (1989) 87–101 (99).
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rhetorical method. Philippians 3.1 could be interpreted as a transitional sentence,16 as reassurance about the relationship between author and addressees (hesitation formula)17 or as an indicator of the turning point in the argument.18 The imperative blevpete in 3.2 does not imply a warning.19 2. The difficulty encountered in placing 4.1–9 and 20–23 shows that they are definitely not different endings of letters.20 3. The thank you note for the donation, Phil 4.10–20, is placed late for reasons of argumentation.21 This part of the letter does not require a different situation, because Epaphroditus could as well have fallen ill during the voyage and recovered after his arrival.22 However, repetition of key words and the recurrence of certain motifs are brought into play as the main evidence for the integrity of Philippians.23 In his survey of earlier observations, Jeffrey Reed picks out 27 words that are to be found in chs. 1–2 and ch. 3 or chs. 1–2 and 4.1–10.24 The repetition of key words, however, is of little informative value. By the same method one could even try to prove the fragment 2 Cor 7.5–16 belongs to Philippians, 31 words being common to both 2 Cor 7.5–16 and Philippians.25 By excluding the words that appear only in Phil 3.2–21 and 16 M. Bockmuehl, The Epistle to the Philippians (BNTC 11; London: Hendrickson, 1998) 175–82: ‘interim conclusion’. 17 Reed, ‘Philippians 3:1’, 65–72, discovered a formulation in the phrase mh; o[nei/mh; ojknhvsh/ gravfein (‘do not hesitate [to write]’) or ouj mh; ojknhvsw (‘I shall not hesitate’), respectively, that closes a narrative in the middle of a letter (2.25–30). The formulation marks an interruption of the imperatives in 2.29 and 3.2 by 2.30. But see also A. du Toit’s criticism in ‘Rezension’, Biblica 79 (1998) 293–7 (295): ‘It would certainly strengthen his argument if we could also find examples of oujk ojknhrovn used in this way’. 18 P. Wick, Der Philipperbrief. Der formale Aufbau des Briefes als Schlüssel zum Verständnis seines Inhalts (BWANT 135; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1994) 54–8. 19 D. Garland, ‘The Composition and Unity of Philippians’, NT 27 (1985) 141–73 (165–6). 20 Reed, Discourse, 146–9. 21 Garland, ‘Composition’, 152–3 and above n. 8. 22 Garland, ‘Composition’, 150–2; Paul A. Holloway, Consolation in Philippians: Philosophical Sources and Rhetorical Strategy (SNTSMS 112; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2001) 24–6. 23 T. E. Pollard, ‘The Integrity of Philippians’, NTS 13 (1966–67) 57–66, 62–5; Garland, ‘Composition’, 157–61; Holloway, Consolation, 29–31. 24 ajpwvleia (1.28; 3.19); dovxa (2.11; 3.19–20); ejn Cristw`/ ΔIhsou` (2.5; 3.13–14); ejpivgeion (2.10; 3.19); ejpipoq- (1.8; 2.26; 4.1); ejpouravnioi (2.8; 3.20); euJrivskw (2.7; 3.9); hJgevomai (2.6; 3.7); qavnato~ (2.8; 3.10); qusiva (2.17; 4.18); karpov~ (1.22; 4.17); kevrdo~ (1.21; 3.7); koinwniva (1.5; 2.1; 3.10; 4.14–15); kuvrio~ ΔIhsou`~ Cristov~ (2.11; 3.8, 20); morfhv (2.6–7; 3.10, 20); perisseuvw (1.26; 4.12, 18); politeu- (1.27; 3.20); skopevw (2.4; 3.17); staurov~ (2.8; 3.10); sthvkw (1.27; 4.1); sunaqlevw (1.27; 4.3); sch`ma (2.7; 3.21); swthriva (1.28; 3.20); tapeinovw (2.3; 3.21; 4.21); uJpavrcw (2.6; 3.20); fronevw (2.2, 5; 3.15, 19; 4.10); caivrw (1.18; 2.2, 17–18; 3.1; 4.1, 10). Reed, Discourse, 140–1. 25 aJgnov~ (Phil 4.8; 2 Cor 7.11); (kat)aiscuvnein (Phil 1.20; 2 Cor 7.14); ajlhvqeia (Phil 1.18; 2 Cor 7.14); ajpologiva (Phil 1.7, 16; 2 Cor 7.11); aujto; tou`to (Phil 1.6; 2 Cor 7.11); blevpein (Phil 3.2; 2 Cor 7.8) gravfein (Phil 3.1; 2 Cor 7.12); (ajpek)devcesqai (Phil 3.20; 4.18; 2 Cor 7.15); ejpipoqei`n
422 angela standhartinger 4.8–9, 2 Cor 7.5–16 would have the same number of 27 shared words, while being 114 words shorter than Phil 3.2–21 and 4.8–9. The repeated use of certain words could possibly indicate the same author, but in no way an integral composition.26 More decisive than formal parallels in wording would be to prove a specific use or meaning of terms throughout the letter. Therefore appeal is often made to the repetition of rarely used words in the Corpus Paulinum; the foremost example is politeuevsqe, polivteuma in Phil 1.27 and 3.20, both hapax legomena. However, the discussion of politeuvesqai and polivteuma is overshadowed by the controversy concerning whether to understand politeuvesqai in 1.27 as a call to social responsibility in the world27 or as reference to Christian identity from the heavenly polivteuma.28 In the context of Phil 1.27, politeuvesqe does not exclusively refer to the gospel, but mainly to the ‘suffering for Christ’ (1.29).29 Through this term, the Philippian community is shown the way of Christ as described in the christological hymn, emptying himself at the point of death (2.6–8). An exaltation in the sense of per aspera ad astra is neither in the hymn nor elsewhere in the context of Phil 2. It is God who is exalted and shares divine honour with the human Jesus (2.9–10). In 3.20, on the other hand, polivteuma is a heavenly (ejn oujranoi`~ uJpavrcei) entity.30 Out of (ejk) it Christ is expected as kuvrio~ and swthvr. The movement of
26 27 28 29
30
(Phil 1.8; 2.26; 2 Cor 7.7); e[cein (Phil 1.7, 23, 30; 2.2, 27, 29; 3.9, 17; 2 Cor 7.5); zh`lo~ (Phil 3.6; 2 Cor 7.7, 11); zhmiou`n (Phil 3.8; 2 Cor 7.9); qavnato~ (Phil 1.20; 2.8, 27, 30; 3.10; 2 Cor 7.10); qli`y i~ (Phil 1.17; 4.14; 2 Cor 7.14); katergavzesqai (Phil 2.12; 2 Cor 7.10–11); kauc- (Phil 1.28; 2.16; 3.3; 2 Cor 7.14); kovsmo~ (Phil 2.15; 2 Cor 7.10); luvph (Phil 2.27; 2 Cor 7.10 c.f. 7.8–9, 11); Makedoniva (Phil 4.15; 2 Cor 7.5); parakalei`n (Phil 4.2; 2 Cor 7.6–7, 13); paravklhsi~ (Phil 2.1; 2 Cor 7.7, 13); parousiva (Phil 1.26; 2.12; 2 Cor 7.6–7); parissotevrw~ (Phil 1.14; 2 Cor 7.13, 15); pneu`ma (Phil 1.19, 27; 2.1; 3.3; 4.23; 2 Cor 7.13); savrx (Phil 1.12, 24; 3.3–4; 2 Cor 7.5); splavgcnon (Phil 1.8; 2.1; 2 Cor 7.15); swthriva (Phil 1.19, 28; 2.12; 2 Cor 7.10); tapeinov~ ktl. (Phil 2.3, 8; 3.21; 4.12; 2 Cor 7.6); trovmo~ (Phil 2.12; 2 Cor 7.15); uvpakou- (Phil 2.8, 12; 2 Cor 7.15); fovbo~ (Phil 2.12; 2 Cor 7.5, 11, 15); caivrw ktl. (Phil 1.18; 2.28; 3.1; 4.4, 10; 2 Cor 7.7, 9, 13, 16). See also S. E. Porter and J. T. Reed, ‘Philippians as a Macro-Chiasm and its Exegetical Significance’, NTS 55 (1998) 213–31 (229–30). First: R. Brewer, ‘The Meaning of Politeuesthe in Philippians 1.27’, JBL 73 (1954) 76–83. E.g. P. Pilhofer, Philippi I. Die erste christliche Gemeinde Europas (WUNT 87; Tübingen: Mohr, 1995) 122–39. The formulation to; uJpe;r aujtou` pavscein (1.29) is unique. The gospel in Philippians does not show the way to heaven, but relates to imprisonment and (legal) defence (1.7, 12, 16), struggle (1.27; 4.3), and (slave) labour (2.22). This hard-to-translate term qualifies this place as community or city endowed with political civil rights. G. Lüderitz, ‘What is Politeuma?’, Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy (ed. J. W. van Henten and P. W. van der Horst; AGJU 21; Leiden: Brill, 1994) 183–225 (187–8), defines ‘Politeuma as a technical term for an institution within a polis stands for the ruling class of a sovereign body with specific rights, voting procedures, etc. Whether all or only some of the citizens belong to the politeuma is regulated by the constitution . . .’ 2 Macc 12.7, however, quite clearly refers to polivt euma as a city. The idea implied in Phil 3.20, on the other hand, recalls Philo, who speaks of the return of the wise men’s souls to the pavtria as to;n oujravnion cw`ron ejn w|/ politeuvontai (Conf. 78; cf. Gig. 61).
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the believers which Paul points out through his biography is directed toward this as yet unrealized future reality. As in 1 Thess 4.15–17, the believers move towards their home revealed from heaven. In other words, their gaze is directed upwards (see also 3.14). politeuvesqai and polivteuma have different connotations in Philippians and are consequently no argument in favour of a coherence of thought. The same holds good also for the derivatives of morfhv, sch`ma, and tapeinou`n in Phil 2.7 and Phil 3.20–21.31 The descriptions of Christ in 2.6–8 and 3.20–21 are almost contradictory. While Christ takes the form of a slave (morfh; douvlou) or humbles himself in the form of a human being (schvmati euJreqei;~ wJ~ a[nqrwpo~ ejtapeivnwsen eJauto;n) in Phil 2.7–8, he is characterized in Phil 3.20 with a sw`ma th`~ dovxh~, and Paul expects at this point that the reader’s sw`ma th`~ tapeinwvsew~ will be transformed and conformed to the glory of Christ. The eschatological ideas expressed in Phil 3.20–21 bring to mind those of 2 Cor 3.18–4.6 and remotely also of Rom 8.29, 1 Cor 15.51, and 1 Thess 4.15–18, but not of Phil 2.32 The integrity of the letter to the Philippians cannot be proven by such formal arguments. Consequently, many interpreters seek a third way to prove the coherence of the letter by using a rhetorical, a structural, or an epistolographical approach. According to Duane Watson, a rhetorical analysis shows ‘that Philippians is carefully constructed and written according to the principles of Greco-Roman rhetoric’.33 Watson classifies Philippians as deliberative speech, because the letter intends to advise and dissuade its audience regarding the question: ‘what is a manner of life worthy of the gospel?’ (1.27–30). Exordium (1.3–26) and narratio (1.27–30) are followed by the probatio in three parts (2.1–11; 2.12–18; and 3.1–21), interrupted by a digressio (2.19–30). The third part of the probatio in Phil 3.1–21 ‘contrasts the life of Paul and the Philippians and their fates with the lives and fate of the opposition’, to show ‘that a life worthy of the gospel is evidence of destruction for the opposition, but “salvation” for the Philippians’ (see 1.28).34 Bloomquist and Black also identify the rhetorical genre as deliberative speech, but they each offer a different analysis of its rhetorical structure.35 All rhetorical analyses refer
31 Garland, ‘Composition’, 158–9. 32 For further examples, see Porter and Reed, ‘Philippians’, 228–9. 33 D. F. Watson, ‘A Rhetorical Analysis of Philippians and its Implications for the Unity Question’, NT 30 (1988) 57–88, 57. 34 D. F. Watson, ‘The Integration of Epistolary and Rhetorical Analysis of Philippians’, The Rhetorical Analysis of Scripture: Essays from the 1995 London Conference (ed. S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht; JSNTSup 146; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) 388–426, 421. See Watson, ‘Rhetorical Analysis’, 72–6. 35 L. G. Bloomquist, The Function of Suffering in Philippians (JSNTSup 78; Sheffield: JSOT, 1993) 119–90, finds the exordium in 1.3–11; the narratio in 1.12–14, the partitio in 1.15–18a, the confir-
424 angela standhartinger methodologically to George A. Kennedy. Kennedy, however, has characterized the rhetorical genre form of speech present in Philippians as ‘to a great extent epideictical’.36 Epideictic speech does not offer much by way of explaining a coherent structure of argumentation as it is much less formally structured.37 Even if the question must remain open whether the analyses of ideal speeches presented in ancient or modern rhetoric textbooks are actually helpful in interpreting the writings of Paul, one interesting common aspect of the outlines stands out. Section 3.2–21 is variously termed digressio (digression), repetition, probatio (specification of the facts), reprehensio (refutation), or refutatio (negative proof). Its function in the construction of the speech, however, is unanimously seen as the argumentational introduction of a positive example opposed to contrasting examples.38 This also applies to the structural analyses published in the mid-1990s which tried to prove an overall chiastic structure for the letter. Peter Wick discovered two formal centres in the chiastic construction of the letter, the christological hymn (Phil 2.5–11) as well as the call to rejoice in the Lord (3.1a), whereas Body Luter and Michelle Lee localized the centre of the chiasm in the two models of partnership in the Gospel, Timothy and Epaphroditus (2.17–3.1).39 Accordingly, the corresponding chiastic equivalent of 3.1–21 is found either in 1.12–30 or 2.5–16.40 These differences and the lack of ancient proof for macro-chiastic principles of composition or analysis cast doubt on the hypothesis of an elaborate or chiastic structure of the epistle as a whole.41 Moreover the method centres on subjective reading strate-
36 37 38 39
40
41
matio in 1.18b–26, the exhortatio in 1.27–2.18, exempla in 2.19–30 and determines 3.1–16 as reprehensio and 3.17–4.7 as exhortatio. D. A. Black, ‘The Discourse Structure of Philippians: A Study in Textlinguistics’, NT 37 (1995) 16–49, sees in 1.3–11 the exordium, in 1.12–26 the narratio, in 1.27–3.21 the argumentatio, whereas 1.27–30 is the propositio, 2.1–30, the probatio, and he defines 3.1–21 as refutatio. At the same time he determines 3.1–4.9 as ‘body subpart’ or ‘secondary development of the argument’ (43). G. A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina, 1984) 77. See also Wick, Philipperbrief, 166–9. Cf. Kennedy, New Testament, 24: ‘In the epideictic the body of the speech between proem and epilogue is usually devoted to an orderly sequence of amplified topics . . .’ Garland, ‘Composition’, 164–5; Bloomquist, Function, 196. According to Wick, Philipperbrief, 39–69, the chiastic sections are arranged in A (1.12–26; 3.1b–16), B (1.27–30; 3.17–21), C (2.1–11; 4.1–3), D (2.12–18; 4.4–9), E (2.19–30; 4.10–20). B. Luter und M. V. Lee, ‘Philippians as Chiasmus: Key to the Structure, Unity and Theme Questions’, NTS 41 (1995) 89–101, understand the centre (2.17–3.1a) to be framed by sections A (1.2–11; 4.10–20), B (1.12–26; 4.6–9), C (1.27–2.4; 4.1–5) and D (2.5–16; 3.1b–21). Wick, Philipperbrief, 85–106, discovers two sections in 3.1b–21. The subject of section A (1.12–26/3.1b–16) would be ‘Paulus ein Nachahmer Christi’ (85). By that he would be an example for all the things he demands in sections B (1.27–30/3.17–21) and D (2.12–18; 4.4–9) (106). See also Porter and Reed, ‘Philippians’, 213–31. For Wick, Philipperbrief, 173–80, the chiastic structure of the letter is inspired by the Hebrew parallelismus membrorum in Old Testament poetry and psalms. However, as there is no quotation from the Psalms in Philippians, Wick
‘Join in imitating me’ (Philippians 3.17) 425
gies, namely paraphrasing the content of each individual section to get a summary of the subject matter or the specific step in the argument. Nevertheless, structural analytical contributions clearly characterize the function of section 3.2–21 similar to rhetorical ones: to Wick, the ‘Hauptfunktion von A (Phil 1.12–26 / Phil 3.1b–16) im Argumentationszusammenhang . . . dass sich Paulus den Philippern als Vorbild gibt für das, was er von ihnen in der Paränese verlangt’.42 Luter and Lee highlight ‘Reflecting the example of Christ, Paul in D (3.1b–21) is presented as one who humbles himself . . . (and) urges them (the Philippians) to have the same attitude which was present in Christ and now is seen in himself’.43 Finally, the structure of Philippians has been analysed along the conventions of ancient letter-writing. By comparing it to ancient letters on papyrus, Loveday Alexander classifies Phillipians as a ‘family-letter’, the main purpose of which is to ‘strengthen the “family” links between the apostle and the Christian community’.44 In ch. 3, however, ‘a predictable “family” letter’ develops ‘into a sermon-ata-distance’.45 This chapter has a subordinate function of ‘exhortation and warnings’ in the entirety of the epistle.46 Other interpreters take up Paul Schubert’s thesis ‘that each thanksgiving . . . announces clearly the subject matter of the letter’ and discover the recurrence of words or themes from Phil 1.3–11 in the entire letter, including ch. 3.47 To them, as well, ch. 3 is meant primarily to admonish ‘steadfastness’, in the face of potential oppositional danger. The chapter ‘serves to illustrate the incipient dangers of certain tendencies . . . among the Philippians’.48 Schubert himself, however, has noted: ‘The fact that there is no allusion at all to the vehement contents of ch. 3 may perhaps be taken as an argument for excluding this chapter from the original letter’.49 A third group interprets Philippians within the context of Stoic philosophical letters as an ‘hortatory or
42 43 44 45 46 47
48 49
points to a complete structural coherence to Old Testament Psalms in Philippians. Wick gives no evidence that Philippians is especially marked by doxological language, since doxological sections appear repeatedly in all of Paul’s letters (e.g. Rom 9.5; 11.33–36; 15.7–13; 2 Cor 1.20; 4.15; 1 Thess 2.12). Wick, ‘Philipperbrief’, 105. Luter and Lee, ‘Philippians’, 94. Alexander, ‘Letter-Forms’, 94. Alexander, ‘Letter-Forms’, 99. Alexander, ‘Letter-Forms’, 99. P. Schubert, Form and Function of the Pauline Thanksgivings (BZNW 20; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1939) 77. See Jewett, ‘The Epistolary Thanksgiving and the Integrity of Philippians’, NT 12 (1970) 40–53. D. Peterlin, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians in the Light of Disunity in the Church (NTSup 79; Leiden: Brill, 1995) 98. Schubert, Form and Function, 77 n. 1. If one understands the expression of thanks as proemium in which the succeeding line of thought is developed, one could see in Phil 1.7–8 a preview of the ‘report from imprisonment’ in 1.12–26, in 1.9 the anticipation of 1.27–2.4 and mirrored in 1.10–11 the formulation of 2.14–16.
426 angela standhartinger psychagogic letter of friendship’:50 the letter uses the typical strategy of philosophical exhortations in ch. 3, namely the confrontation of conflicting patterns of behaviour.51 ‘A series of positive and negative models of how friends behave versus how enemies behave constitutes the core of the letter’.52 While it is questionable whether Philippians increasingly employs philosophical topics and language,53 the basic assessment of Phil 3 appears to me to be correct. This survey shows that the various methodological approaches have not yet succeeded in reaching a consensus regarding structure, rhetorical arrangement or epistolographical form of the letter. With regard to ch. 3, however, they come to astonishingly coherent assessments. Almost all agree that the detailed presentation of Paul’s biography serves as an example, model, or ideal. Therefore, the paraenetic character of the section is emphasised. Further, it is stressed that the polemics against the opponents characterize only verses 3.2 and 3.18–19. The presentation of the opponents and the dissociation from them serve mainly as a contrast to Paul’s self-portrayal or the behaviour demanded of the community. There is disagreement regarding the function of the chapter in the outline of the entire letter. While some see a digression or repetition of reduced importance in ch. 3,54 others place it in the centre of the argument.55 Similarly, various points of reference between Phil 3.2–21 and the remainder of the epistle are seen. Some interpretations find the christological hymn mirrored in 2.5–11, others a reference to the biographical section 1.12–26, and still others the parenesis of the community in 1.27–30 and/or 2.12–16/18. These observations appear to be useful for the interpretation of Phil 3. Here, I will first try to employ them for the interpretation of Phil 3 as a fragment.
50 S. Stowers, ‘Friends and Enemies in the Politics of Heaven’, Pauline Theology I (ed. J. Bassler; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994) 105–22 (108). 51 Stowers, ‘Friends and Enemies’, 114–17. 52 Stowers, ‘Friends and Enemies’, 117. 53 In its specific focus on friendship between Paul and his community, Philippians does not differ from other letters of Paul. K. Thraede, Grundzüge griechisch-römischer Brieftopik (Zermata 48; Munich: Beck, 1970), classifies all of Paul’s epistles as letters of friendship. K. Berger, ‘Hellenistische Gattungen im Neuen Testament’, ANRW II 25/2 (1984) 1031–579 (1389), disputes exactly that for all. For the further history of this research, see J. Reumann, ‘Philippians, Especially Chapter 4 as a Letter of Friendship’, Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of Speech: Studies on Friendship in the New Testament World (ed. J. Fitzgerald; NTSup 82; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 83–106. 54 Garland, ‘Composition’, 164–5. 55 Watson, ‘Rhetorical Analysis’; Stowers, ‘Friends’, 117. See also Markus Müller, Vom Schluss zum Ganzen. Zur Bedeutung des paulinischen Briefkorpusabschlusses (FRLANT 172; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997) 202–4: ‘zweiter Gipfel des Briefes’.
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3. Philippians 3 in the Context of Early Jewish Testament Literature
In composition theories the so-called polemical letter C (3.1–21+4.8–9) is mostly interpreted as a reaction to a rival mission. Depending on whether one assumes an actual or just a possible appearance of the opponents in Philippi, the fragment will be placed in temporal distance to the writing of the letter from prison B.56 However, the fact that an imprisonment is not explicitly mentioned does not mean that it should be excluded.57 The belligerent or desperate tone of 3.2–4 and 3.18–19 would at least indicate great distress. The theological classification of the group of opponents oscillates between Galatian or Corinthian missionaries, depending on whether one focuses on Phil 3.2–3 or on 3.18–19.58 Whether their influence is discerned at all in Philippi is related to whether the key word tevleioi in Phil 3.15 is interpreted as belonging to the oppositional group or to those in the community following it and whether a radically realized eschatology is detected behind it.59 It is possible that Phil 3.15 is a quotation from the opponents or of some in the community itself, but the connection of this message with Phil 3.2–3 and 3.18–19 remains problematic. Contrary to Galatians or 2 Corinthians, Paul does not argue with the opponents and their followers. He rather confronts the shared convictions of the community in Phil 3.4 and 3.17 as well as 3.20–21 with the ones he attacks. The main part of the section is taken up by the review of his own conversion or calling, or more precisely the process of recognizing the radical break experience60 – and by reflection on existence in the present. Central to this section is the biography presented as typos in retrospect, and for the present (3.4–14, 17). The paraenesis that includes the community in 3.15–17 and 4.8–9 refers specifically to this part. Additionally, there follows an eschatological prospect in 3.20–21. Bruce Rahtjen’s observation that letter C was written in a situation of imminent mortal threat and that formal elements of Jewish testament literature are present seems to be persuasive.61 The basic formal elements of the testament 56 See n. 12. 57 The fragmentary character of the part does not allow for definitive conclusions anyway; at least a praescript is missing. 58 Schmithals, ‘Irrlehrer’, and Müller-Bardorf, ‘Frage’, point to the adversaries of 2 Corinthians as well as 1 Cor 1.18–3.4. Becker, Paulus, 340–50, and most later interpretations discover a relation to the Jewish missionaries in Galatians. 59 H. Koester, ‘The Purpose of the Polemic of a Pauline Fragment (Philippians III)’, NTS 8 (1961–62) 317–32. 60 The emphasis on knowing (ginwvskein) and the idea of transformation in v. 11 suggests a comparison with sapiential conversion stories; see A. Standhartinger, ‘Weisheit in Joseph und Aseneth und den paulinischen Briefen’, NTS 47 (2001) 482–501 (498–500). 61 Rahtjen, ‘Three Letters’, 171–2; see also Dieter Georgi, Remembering the Poor: The History of Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem (Nashville: Abingdon, 1992) 193 n. 64 and Müller, Schluss, 187–8.
428 angela standhartinger genre named by Rahtjen as autobiographical information, urging the descendants to avoid any faults or to imitate the behaviour distilled from the dying person’s experience, and a short prediction of the future have been confirmed by current research into the genre, nowadays also called the farewell speech (Abschiedsrede) or bequeathing speech (Vermächtnisrede).62 Its origin is found in the last rites and deathbed blessings of the ancient orient, including, for example, in Gen 27.1–40; 49.29–50.14, etc. The narrative framing, the address to the descendants, and the concluding note of death and funeral common to testament literature are already present there. Decisive for the history of the genre, however, is the book of Deuteronomy, which has been conceived in its entirety as a farewell speech. Here, for the first time, the fundamental elements characterizing the genre, historical review, paraenesis and prediction of the future, become apparent. The testament genre enjoyed great popularity in the literature of the Second Temple Period. In apocalypticism the forecast, originally focused on exile and return, was expanded through heavenly insights into an apocalyptic prediction of the future (see, e.g., 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, Ass. Mos.).63 The genre was highly esteemed and often used especially in Jewish wisdom literature,64 where the biographical retrospection sections at once honour the exemplary lives of selected forbears and sages, and also portray warnings that can be learnt from their lives, and conclude with ethical exhortations that need to be followed. In sapential testaments predictions of falling away from God and receiving God’s mercy upon repentance do appear.65 In the NT testaments (Acts 21.17–34; 2 Timothy; 2 Peter), these are transformed into predictions of the future appearance of opponents and heretics.66 In Jewish testaments belonging to wisdom literature, the exhortations are furthermore characterized by a dualistic two-way ethic not to follow the works of Beliar but to 62 The latest and most comprehensive survey has been done by M. Winter, Das Vermächtnis Jesu und die Abschiedsworte der Väter. Gattungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung der Vermächtnisrede im Blick auf Joh. 13–17 (FRLANT 161; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994) 9–213. 63 Winter, Vermächtnis, 207, with referral to 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, Jub. 20.1–13, etc. and Lib. Ant. 19.1–6; 23.1–14. 64 See T. 12 Patr., T. Job, T. Eva. On T. Eva (⫽ Apoc. Mos 15–30); see Standhartinger, ‘Das Testament der Eva’, Kunst der Deutung – Deutung der Kunst. Beiträge zur Bibel, Antike und Gegenwartsliteratur (ed. A. Standhartinger, H. Schwebel and F. Oertelt; Berlin: Lit, 2007) 73–85. 65 See, e.g., T. Iss. 6.1–4: ‘Understand, my children, that in the last times your sons will abandon sincerity and align themselves with insatiable desire. Forsaking guiltlessness, they will ally themselves with villainy. Abandoning the commands of the Lord, they ally themselves with Beliar . . . Tell these things to your children, therefore, so that even though they might sin, they may speedily return to the Lord, because he is merciful . . .’ (translation H. Kee in Charlesworth, OTP). See T. Sim. 5.4–6.7; T. Lev. 10.14–18; T. Naph. 4.1–5; 8.1; T. Dan. 5.4–13; T. Gad. 8.1–2; T. Jos 19.1–20.2; T. Ben. 9.1–2, etc. 66 See e.g. Acts 20.29–30; 2 Tim 3.1–9; 4.3–4; 2 Pet 2.1–22; 3.3.
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choose God’s commandments.67 This choice is relevant to the actions and consequences for one’s future.68 The three main parts of the Jewish sapiential testament can also be observed in Phil 3: a biographical part in 3.4–14, paraenesis in 3.15–17 and 4.8–9, and a statement on the future in 3.20–21. The classification of the polemics against the opponents in Phil 3.2–3 and 3.18–19 is more difficult. Given the analogies in the NT, one could link them to the prediction of the future as well as a warning of oppositional groups. Those analogies would also explain the peculiar lack of concreteness regarding the opponents and their actual influence within the community. However, the opponents in Phil 3 are not a problem of the future. Philippians 3.2 as well as 3.18–19 represent the negation of the standpoint brought into play against it in 3.3–7 and 3.17, 20–21. The reconstruction is problematic because 3.18–19 uses general and unspecific invectives recurring in Greek-Hellenistic common-places.69 It is possible that Phil 3 is influenced by the two-way ethics that determined the form of the sapiential testaments. It is also quite unusual to see the triple blevpete introducing the fragment. Even though in the Jewish and NT testaments the individual configuring blocks of biography, ethical exhortation, and prediction of the future are not linearly but alternatively arranged,70 this abrupt beginning with a warning is unique. A reason for this could be the possible shortening of the introductory verses during the integration into the final text, but the opening is also reminiscent of the introductory speeches of the Jewish testaments, formulated in second person plural
67 See e.g. T. Lev. 19.1: ‘And now, my children, you have heard everything. Choose for yourselves light or darkness, the Law of the Lord or the works of Biliar’. See also T. Rub. 4.1; T. Dan. 4.7; 5.1; T. Naph. 2.6; T. Ass. 1.8; T. Benj. 3.1–4; 6.1. 68 T. Sim. 5.3–4: ‘Guard yourselves (fulavssasqe) from sexual promiscuity because fornication is the mother of all wicked deeds; it separates from God and leads men (proseggivzousa) to Beliar. For I have seen in a copy of the book of Enoch that your sons will be ruined by promiscuity . . .’ See also: T. Iss. 6.1–4; 7.7; T. Dan 2.1; 5.1; T. Ben 5.2; see also Apoc. Mos. 29. 69 Especially the formulations oJ qeo;~ hJ koiliva and kai; hJ dovza ejn th`/ aijscuvnh/ aujtw`n can be detected as stereotyped attack on opponents in antiquity. For oJ qeo;~ hJ koiliva, see, e.g., the common invective koiliodaivmwn used by a cynic in Athenaeus 97c; 100b. In Epicurean tradition the accusation against those who measure happiness and well-being by the enjoyments of the belly is traditional. Cf. Lucian Patriae encomium 10: mevtron eujdaimoniva~ ta;~ th`~ gastro;~ hJdonav~ tiqevmenoi(cf. Cic. Nat. Deorum 1.113). Philo Ebr. 95 calls a physically drunken person someone ‘who made the body god’ (qeoplastei`n . . . tw; sw`ma). See further Euripides Cyclops 334–5; Xenophon Memorabilia 1.6.8; Seneca Vita Beata 9.4. The formulation kai; hJ dovza ejn th`/ aijscuvnhÛ belongs, as many have already shown, to the ancient discourse on honour and shame (see, e.g., Aristoteles Rhetoric 1384a) which is also reflected gnomically. See, e.g., Diogenes Laertertius Lives 7.112: aijscuvnh de; fovbo~ ajdoxiva~ (‘Shame is a fear of discredit’, Zenon). Cf. Theophrastus, Characters 9.1; Epictetus Gnomolium (Stob. 3.1.130 ⫽ Schenkl 6). 70 T. Rub.; T. Sim.; T. Jud.; T. Ben.
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imperative.71 At the same time, the triple blevpete in Phil 3.2 expresses urgency and danger. Nevertheless, section Phil 3 contains a string of other peculiarities in comparison to the Jewish testament genre: 1. The biographical review including the experience of conversion is standardized as in other testaments.72 Despite the detailed description of a noble birth and proof of an impeccable conduct in life, Paul reduces the actual biographical experience to a single turning point (3.7–8). 2. The biography is closed (3.7–8), and yet entirely unresolved. Paul can count himself among the tevleioi and speak of ‘holding fast to what we have (already) attained’ (3.16), but at the same time his whole existence is completely unfinished: ‘Not that I have already obtained this or have already been made perfect . . .’ (3.12). Even though Paul tries to see the duvnami~ of Christ’s resurrection, his own resurrection is to him anything but a certainty (3.11). This has hitherto puzzled exegetes as it apparently contradicts Phil 3.20–21.73 3. The call to ‘join in imitating me’ (3.17) fits in well with the testament genre intended as an edification of the following generation.74 But the question of succession is addressed in a far less unequivocal way than in Acts 20.28 or 2 Timothy: ‘observe those who live according to the typos you have in us’.75 Many interpreters are inclined to think of Timothy (cf. 2.19–20) or other Pauline co-workers. However, the sentence from 3.17 seems to be grammatically clumsy. The rare compound summimhtaiv is lacking the object expected in the dative and instead of e[cete tuvpon me one reads tuvpon hJma`~. This ‘us’ focuses on the same group already addressed in vv. 15–16. It is ultimately the same as the one embracing the community in v. 3. That is to say, Paul calls the whole community to be imitators (see also 4.8–9).
71 T. Rub. 1.5: ΔAkouvsate, ajdelfoiv mou, ejnwtivsasqe ÔRoubh;m tou` patro;~ uJmw`n o{sa ejntevllomai uJmi`n T. Iss. 1.1; T. Jos. 1.2; T. Sim. 2.1; T. Dan 1.2; T. Job 1.6; 6.1; Apoc. Mos 15.1. 72 The conversion of the patriarch is a typical subject of T. 12 Patr. see: T. Rub. 2.1; T. Sim. 2.13; T. Jud. 15.4; 19.2–4; T. Gad 5.1–8. 73 Ei[ pw~ in Phil 3.11 either introduces an indirect question (Blass/Debrunner/Funk § 375) or a conditional clause (indefinitus of the future, eventualis); cf. Randall E. Otto, ‘“If possible I may attain the Resurrection from the Death” (Philippians 3:11)’, CBQ 57 (1995) 324–40. The latter emphasizes doubt and uncertainty. 74 In T. Benj. 3.1 it is explicitly stated: mimouvmenoi to;n ajgaqo;n kai; o{s ion a[ndraΔ Iwshvf (cf. T. Benj. 4.1; T. Ass. 4.3; T. Abr. A 20.15. The ethically exemplary life of the patriarch is always thought of as an example for the following generations, see: T. Jud 13.1; T. Seb. 5.1; T. Naph. 2.9; T. Job 27.7 etc. 75 C.f. 2 Tim 1.6; 2.1–8. Successor and succession is one of the main themes of the testament genre, see e.g. Deut 30–31; Josh. 23; Lib. Ant. 24.4; 33.4; Ass. Mos. 1.7–9, etc.
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4. The mivmhsi~ (imitation) certainly neither means ‘obedience’ nor is it a call to live a life modelled after an abstract idea of Christ.76 As Lukas Borman has shown, in antiquity mivmhsi~ rather means ‘kreative Aneignung’ in the sense of ‘einer imaginativ-emphatischen Neuinszenierung, die selbst Wirkung hat’.77 In Philippians, the instigation to creative adaptation goes so far that Paul can say, ‘and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you’ (3.15b).78 Only in one respect does Paul set a limit – that is, to stay on the side of (stoicei`n) the (already) attained.79 5. That is exactly what the rare compound summimhtaiv is aiming at.80 It refers back to summorfizovmeno~ of v. 10 and points forward to suvmmorfo~ in v. 21.81 Paul dedicates his biography or rather – in the sense of achievements in life – ‘anti-biography’ completely to the experience of Christ. Recognizing the power of the resurrection leads to communion with God through suffering, through ‘becoming like him in his death’. Therefore Paul has to dismiss everything that could count as proof of ones own life’s achievements. His biographical report is modelled in coherence with the duvnami~ that declared itself in solidarity with suffering and death. In my view the fragment Phil 3.2–21 and 4.8–9 is to be understood best as a sapiential testament written and smuggled out of prison by Paul in a situation of
76 W. Michaelis’ (Art. mimevomai ktl., ThWNT 4 [1942] 661–78, 670) hypothesis that ‘imitation’ is an ‘expression of obedience’ has been rightly criticized many times. But also the alternative hypothesis that Paul set himself or Christ as paradigm overlooks in a similar way the discussion on mivmhsi~ in ancient art and drama theory. J. A. Brant, ‘The Place of mime¯ sis in Paul’s Thought’, SR 22 (1993) 285–300 (287) has pointed out on the contrary: ‘A survey of Greek literature indicates that the idea that mime¯ sis produce a copy appears infrequently’ (287). Instead, ‘the imitator is involved in the conscious effort to bring an idea to expression’ (288). 77 Bormann, ‘Reflexionen über Sterben und Tod bei Paulus’, Das Ende des Paulus. Historische, theologische und literaturgeschichtliche Aspekte (ed. F.-W. Horn; BZNW 106; Berlin/New York: W. de Gruyter, 2001) 307–30 (313, 315). 78 Some scholars try to defuse this sentence as an ironic allusion to the opponents or their adherents in the community praising themselves for their revelations. Others identify tou`to from v. 15b with tou`to from v. 15a and bind the revelation to a ‘directive of the apostle’ (Gnilka). Such an interpretation appears grammatically difficult to me: the reference of tou`to to ti is much easier. There is no indication in the text that tou`to oJ qeo;~ uJmi`n ajpokaluvyei aims at a correction of the Philippian theology. At this point it seems that the apostle does not meet the expectation of modern interpreters. 79 Blass/Debrunner/Funk §449.2: plhvn ‘means . . . “only, in any case” in Paul, used to conclude a discussion and emphasize what is essential’. 80 There is some evidence for the compound summimeivsqai in Platon Politicos 274d, ‘the whole universe, which we imitate (summimouvmenoi) and follow through all time’, and in Mauricios Strategikon 8.2.81, a late antique collection of military rules and sayings, which warns of co-imitating the strategy of the enemies. 81 W. Schenk, Die Philipperbriefe des Paulus (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1984) 319–20.
432 angela standhartinger gravest mortal danger – possibly the situation of 2 Cor 1.8–9. It is his – then still early – letter of farewell to the community close to him where he presents them with his christologically reflected biography.82 The introductory warnings indicate more than just the fear for his beloved community; they express primarily the urgency and danger of the present situation. Hope for heavenly Politeuma including a Saviour (swthvr) and hope for the change of the ‘vile body’ in 3.20–21 could also be understood against a backdrop of torture and mortal fear. The whole fragment is suffused with the polarity of what has already been attained (3.7–8, 15–17) and straining forward to what lies ahead (3.12–14), of earthly existence (3.10–11) and heavenly hope (3.20–21). Earthly existence is emphasized, however, and hope nowhere a certainty yet attained. In the fragment Paul presents himself as model, yet dismisses any kind of religious achievement. This presents a major break through the bounds of the genre of which it is part. Paul rejects the image of a religious hero whose religious achievement should be the pride of, and example to his followers. He, on the contrary, despises achievement and fame as ‘rubbish’ (3.8). Therefore Paul refuses to introduce successors. The community has already joined Paul on this way (3.15–17). Like him they together try to recognize the duvnami~ that appears in justification, God’s solidarity with suffering and death. Letter C, according to my hypothesis, originally was Paul’s ‘anti-testament’ based on the genre of Jewish sapential testament and sent to Philippi during a life-threatening situation. The community has followed the call to creative adaptation, as the existence of the Philippians proves. By integrating it into the present final text, they have preserved as well as furthered its meaning.
4. Philippians 3 in the Canonical Letter
A string of evidence indicates an editing of the letter in Philippi at the latest in the mid-second century.83 As Polycarp shows in his own letter to the Philippians (Pol. Phil. 13.1), the community actively pursued the dissemination of Paul’s letter. In doing so and also by inserting the thank you note for the monetary donation at the end of the letter, the community also created ‘a nice memorial’ to themselves.84
82 The desperate warning in vv. 2–3 and 18–19 could well have been formulated under the influence of the conflict in Corinth (see 2 Cor 2.14–6.13; 7.2.–4; 10–13) and at the same time in retrospect to the conflict in Galatia. Assuming an imprisonment in Ephesus, the conflict in Corinth would then be in the toughest phase for Paul. 83 Rahtjen, ‘Three Letters’, 173; Bornkamm, ‘Philipperbrief’, 202–5; Gnilka, Philipperbrief, 11–18; Bormann, Philippi, 128–36. 84 Bornkamm, ‘Philipperbrief’, 203.
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Polycarp of Smyrna is also the first known reader of Paul’s letter to the Philippians.85 His use of Philippians is of help in finding out the principles of editorship employed. At the very beginning he already praises the community, alluding to Phil 1.3–11, for giving shelter to martyrs. In Pol. Phil. 9.1–2, Polycarp mentions the patience they had personally witnessed in ‘Paul and all apostles’. To Polycarp, Philippians marks the final words of a martyr written to his beloved community.86 The arrangement of fragments A and B of Philippians can be explained by Polycarp’s reading. Letter B, written in prison, sets in the frame of a complete letter a farewell address to the beloved community.87 What is already expressed in letter B – the fellowship in struggle and suffering and the exemplary life of the community – is clearly pointed out in the thank you note or receipt at the end of the letter (Phil 4.10–20).88 Only the ‘favourite community’ stands by the persecuted apostle. Their exceptional commendation is mentioned several times by Polycarp.89 But why is it taken up by letter C? Polycarp, presumably, and not incorrectly, reads Philippians as a farewell speech or testament. The final text of Philippians is also reminiscent of the testament genre.90 Biographical reviews (1.12–26; 3.4–14; 4.10–17), paraenesis or ethical exhortations (1.27–2.30; 3.15–19; 4.2–9), and statements on the future (1.5–6, 10–11; 2.15; 3.14, 20–21; 4.1, 3, 5, 18–19) alternate. Hard times are predicted for the community (1.28–30; 2.3–4, 18–19), but at the same time so is their salvation on the day of Judgment (1.5–6, 10–11; 2.12, 15; 4.18–19) and the reward to be expected then (1.11; 3.20–21; 4.3–4, 18–19).91 In the light of Paul’s imminent death many allusions to martyrdom can be found. Such noteworthy suffering is alluded to not only in chs. 85 It is obvious that Polycarp has read Phil 1–2 (see Pol. Phil. 1.1–3; 9.2; 11.3). There could be some allusion to Phil 3.15 and 3.18 in Pol. Phil. 12.3, but without proof of literary influence. Judging by the diverse information presupposed in Pol. Phil. 9 and 13 regarding Ignatius, the assumption of a letter compilation seems also plausible in Polycarp’s work. The first letter (Pol. Phil. 13–14) seems to be written prior to 117, the second several decades later. The formulation ta; parΔ uJmw`n . . . gravmmata (Pol. Phil. 13.1) sadly does not give any hint whether Polycarp is referring to one or more texts. See the discussion in W. Bauer and H. Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochia und der Polykarpbrief (HNT 18; Tübingen: Mohr, 1985) 116. 86 Polycarp calls Paul makavrio~ (3.1–2); cf. beatus 11.3. See Martyrdom of Polycarp 1.1; 19.1; 21.22 and Bauer and Paulsen, Briefe, 116. 87 Gnilka, Philipperbrief, 16. 88 Bormann, Philippi, 133–6. 89 Pol. Phil 3.2; 11.3. 90 Rahtjen, ‘Three Letters’, 173. 91 It is not clear whether cavra belongs as a terminus technicus in the language of martyrdom already in the second century. However, Phil 1.18–19 and 2.17 can be read like this. If one discovers the suture between letters C and B in 4.4 a parenthesis is created by the word ‘rejoice’, which is then reinforced by the eschatological exclamation ‘the Lord is near’. If one places the suture in 4.1, ‘the crown’ as a further terminus technicus of martyriological language is mentioned (see 4 Macc 17.15; Wis 4.2; 2 Bar 15.8; Rev 2.10; 2 Tim 4.8).
434 angela standhartinger 1 and 2 (1.12–23, 30; 2.17–18) but also in phrases like ‘becoming like him in his death’ (3.10), ‘prize of the heavenly call of God’ (3.14), or ‘it was kind of you to share my distress’ (4.14).92 But why is the fragment integrated into the concluding paraenesis of letter B? At this point recognition of the rhetorical, structural, and epistolographical analyses of the final text is of paramount importance. Here, Phil 3.2–21 is seen as an example with a paraenetic function. The example of Paul appears as the summit in the line of Timothy and Epaphroditus, where the achievements of both coworkers are surpassed. While Timothy is proven in service to the gospel (2.21–22), Paul dedicates his life to the knowledge of Christ. While the community’s apostle Epaphroditus ‘came close to death, for the work of Christ’ (2.30), Paul wants to know the fellowship of Christ’s suffering ‘by becoming like him in his death’ (3.11). Paul outdoes Timothy and Epaphroditus by combining the works of both in himself and above all by having – in the meanwhile – attained salvation (1.29), been poured out as a libation over the sacrifice (2.17), pressed on towards the goal for the prize of God’s heavenly call, and counted among those who have been made perfect (3.12, 15). In the final text Phil 3 picks up the biographical section 1.12–26 (4.10–15) and strengthens its paraenetic function (1.27–2.16). The community is called to follow the example of Paul whose struggle and suffering they had seen (1.29–30; 3.17). His already attained heavenly prize (3.14) is now also promised to them (1.6, 10; 3.20–21; 4.3, 19–20). This can be achieved by defending themselves against the opposition on all sides (1.28; 3.2–3, 18–19) and steadfastly fighting and remaining on the gospel’s side along with the apostle (1.7, 19–20, 27–8; 3.2–3, 17–21; 4.1, 3, 9). The integration of Paul’s farewell address or ‘anti-testament’ C between letters B and A highlights the testamentary character of the final text. However, it also transforms the latter significantly. Paul’s initial critical adaptation of the genre is hardly recognizable. In the final text the biographical review is returned to its initial function and purpose within the sapiential testament genre.
5. Join in Imitating Me!
By editing the letters to its present canonical form, the Philippian community actually became imitators of Paul. Like him, they wrote a testament that seeks to summarize the theological biography of Paul and make it accessible to those who came later. By this creative adaptation in a changed situation the heritage 92 It is the lasting contribution of E. Lohmeyer, Die Briefe an die Philipper, an die Kolosser und an Philemon (KEK 9; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 13 ed. 1964 [1928]), to have perceived the possibility of a martyrological interpretation of the entire epistle to the Philippians. The perspective in the original fragment, however, appears to me to be a (still) different one.
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had also been transformed. But important aspects of the legacy could be saved. The Philippians did not ordain single individuals as successors of Paul. The whole community is called to join in imitation. It still is the community in which the gospel and Paul’s work become apparent. The critical adaptation of the testament genre as it could be seen in Phil 3.2–21 and 4.8–9 has, however, disappeared. In the context of the canonical letter, Phil 3 presents nothing more than an exemplary biography, as one may observe in the testament genre. In the canonical letter, Paul, in fact, became an example and model. The apostle yet again presents the highly condensed quintessence of his life’s theology as exhortation to the community succeeding him, and formulates encouragements and warnings for life, both in retrospect and prospect, on transcendence accessible (only) to him. Paul’s biography, his self-understanding in the sense of the imitatio Christi, as dismissal of any kind of religious achievement, changes in the final text to the depiction of a religious hero whose exceptional personality and exhortations could lead onto the path to salvation. This is the important difference resulting from the interpretation of Phil 3 within and without the context of the entire canonical epistle.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 436–449. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000222
Measuring the Temple of God: Revelation 11.1–2 and the Destruction of Jerusalem MATTH IJ S DE N DU LK Vrije Universiteit, Finsenstraat 18–I, 1098 RG Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Rev 11.1–2 refers to the destruction of the temple in 70 CE . The measuring of the temple area does not signify that it will be protected, as is commonly thought, but symbolises that it falls under God’s judgment. The underlying idea is that the destruction of the temple at the hands of the Gentiles has been possible only because it was preceded by God’s judgment, a notion also found in contemporary apocalyptic literature. John argues that God has given the Gentiles the authority to ‘trample the holy city’, including the temple, for a limited period of time. Keywords: Apocalypse, Temple, Gentiles, Judgment, Roman Empire, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch
Recent years have seen an increase in studies of the role and function of the temple in the book of Revelation.1 One of the central texts in this regard is Rev 11.1–2: (1) Kai; ejdovqh moi kavlamo~ o{moio~ rJavbdw/ levgwn: e[geire kai; mevtrhson to;n nao;n tou` qeou` kai; to; qusiasthvrion kai; tou;~ proskunou`nta~ ejn aujtw`/ (2)
kai; th;n aujlh;n th;n e[xwqen tou` naou` e[kbale e[xwqen kai; mh; aujth;n metrhvshÛ~ o{ti ejdovqh toi`~ e[qnesin kai; th;n povlin th;n aJgivan pathvsousin mh`na~ tesseravkonta kai; duvo. On these two verses in particular, a number of helpful and enlightening scholarly contributions have recently appeared.2 Some important aspects of this text seem
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1 Cf. J. and G. Ben-Daniel, The Apocalypse in the Light of the Temple (Jerusalem: Beit Yohanan, 2003); R. A. Briggs, Jewish Temple Imagery in the Book of Revelation (Studies in Biblical Literature 10; New York: Peter Lang, 1999); A. Spatafora, From the Temple of God to God as a Temple: A Biblical and Theological Study of the Temple in the Book of Revelation (Tesi Gregoriana Serie Teologia 27; Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1997); G. Stevenson, Power and Place: Temple and Identity in the Book of Revelation (BZNW 107; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2001); J. Paulien, ‘The Role of the Hebrew Cultus, Sanctuary and Temple in the Plot and Structure of the Book of Revelation’, AUSS 33 (1995) 245–64; S. J. Kistemaker, ‘The Temple in the Apocalypse’, JETS 43 (2000) 433–41. 2 E.g. M. Bachmann, ‘Ausmessung von Tempel und Stadt: Apk 11,1f und 21,15ff auf dem Hintergrund des Buches Ezechiel’, Das Ezechielbuch in der Johannesoffenbarung (ed. D.
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nonetheless not to have been taken fully into account. The present article seeks to shed some light on these. It will argue that Rev 11.1–2 refers to the destruction of the temple in 70 ce and that the author tries to explain to his audience that the Gentiles have not overcome, but that God is still in control. A first point that needs to be discussed has to do with the nature of the temple that is mentioned. Is it located in heaven or is it the earthly temple of Jerusalem? Or should it perhaps be understood as a symbol for the people of God? This last possibility is sometimes adopted by interpreters, but is unable to explain the precise function of the altar, the worshipers and the holy city. Regularly, all of these are taken as metaphors of the people of God, but this does not adequately explain the abundance of images.3 In addition, one wonders whether a symbolic interpretation does justice to the very concrete and historical language of our text.4 A heavenly location is also problematic, because the evident threat that the nations pose for (part of) the temple is difficult to envisage if the temple is in heaven. Furthermore, the passages that precede and follow Rev 11.1–2 take place on earth and there is no indication of a change of scenery.5 It therefore seems probable that the temple of Revelation 11 is located on earth. The present paper will demonstrate that our textual unit can indeed be cogently interpreted from this vantage point. It should be noted at this point that the argument that Rev 11.1–2 cannot refer to the destruction of the earthly temple and city in 70 ce because these did not exist anymore by then (assuming that John wrote around 95 ce)6 is short-sighted. The
3 4
5
6
Sänger; Biblisch-theologische Studien 76; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2006) 61–83; R. Darymple, ‘The Use of kaiv in Revelation 11,1 and the Implication for the Identification of the Temple, the Altar, and the Worshippers’, Bib 87 (2006) 243–50; M. Jauhiainen, ‘The Measuring of the Sanctuary Reconsidered (Rev 11,1–2)’, Bib 83 (2002) 507–26. Cf. D. E. Aune, Revelation 6–16 (WBC 52b; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998) 598: ‘can the temple, the altar, and the worshipers all stand for the people of God?’ (author’s italics). A. Y. Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984) 66 argues that Rev 11.2 ‘has much too concrete and historical a surface meaning to have been composed with any other sort of primary reference’. See also § 1.3 below. For additional criticism of this interpretation, see T. Siew, The War Between the Two Beasts and the Two Witnesses: A Chiastic Reading of Revelation 11:1–14:5 (LNTS 238; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2005) 93 n. 24, 93–94 n. 27. This is probably still the majority view. For the present argument to work Rev 11.1–2 must have been written either after the destruction of the temple or at some time before it, at which point the author was convinced that the temple would be destroyed. Regardless of debates surrounding its authenticity and provenance, this paper will treat Rev 11:1–2 in its current position in the Apocalypse. For the suggestion that Rev 11:1–2 was originally part of a Flugblatt, see J. Wellhausen, Analyse der Offenbarung Johannis (Berlin: Weidmann, 1907) 15; idem, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten (6 vols.; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1884–99) 6.221–3. For criticism of Wellhausen’s proposal, see, e.g., G.B. Caird, A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine (Harper’s New Testament Commentary; New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1966) 131.
438 matthijs den dulk author of Revelation nowhere simply reports events; he consistently seeks to interpret them. There is no reason why John could not have written a theological interpretation in 95 ce of what happened in 70 ce.7
I. The Meaning of Measuring
Measuring (metrevw), the central verb in Rev 11.1–2, is one of the elements in our text that has not had the attention it deserves. It is a virtually uncontentious point that the act of measuring functions as a symbol, but of what? Interpreters regularly argue that since the unmeasured part seems to fare badly, measuring signifies something positive (usually: protection) for the measured part. To buttress this claim, texts are cited where the effect of measuring is positive.8 It should be noted, however, that there are also several pertinent texts in which measuring has an evidently negative outcome. In Lam 2.7–8a, for instance, we find: ‘The Lord has scorned his altar, disowned his sanctuary; he has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces . . . the Lord determined to lay in ruins the wall of daughter Zion; he stretched the line [LXX: mevtron, MT: wq]; he did not withhold his hand from destroying’. 2 Kgs 21.13 is of similar character: ‘I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line [LXX: mevtron, MT: wq] for Samaria, and the plummet [LXX: stavqmion, MT: tlqçm] for the house of Ahab; I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down’. In 2 Sam 8.2 measuring has a positive outcome for some, but a negative one for others: ‘[David] measured them [LXX: diemevtrhsen aujtou;~, MT: μddmyw] with a cord; he measured two lengths of cord for those who were to be put to death, and one length for those who were to be spared’. A verb can of course have several different meanings, only one of which is intended in the context, but in the case of ‘measuring’, the alleged meanings (‘protection’ and ‘destruction’) are not just different, they are virtually opposite. It is therefore ill-advised to argue that measuring sometimes means ‘protection’ and at other times ‘destruction’. Measuring in itself is not negative or positive, but more likely refers to the reality that precedes the positive or negative result.9 Measuring resembles a judicial process, which in itself is not positive or negative, yet always has a positive (acquittal and/or vindication) or a negative outcome (condemnation). The similarity between measurement and judgment is confirmed by the parallel use of both concepts in Matt 7.2: ejn w|/ ga;r krivmati krivnete kriqhvsesqe, kai; ejn w|/ mevtrw/ metrei`te metrhqhvsetai uJmi`n (‘for with the judg7 John M. Court, Myth and History in the Book of Revelation (Atlanta: John Knox, 1979) 86, speaks of a ‘flash-back’ in this connection. 8 A virtually complete overview of relevant texts is given in Aune, Revelation 6–16, 604. 9 Cf. Jauhiainen, ‘Measuring of the Sanctuary’, 518: ‘measuring in itself symbolizes neither destruction nor protection’.
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ment that you judge you will be judged, and with the measure that you measure you will be measured’).10 This expression is also found in early Rabbinic literature11 and there are many more passages within that literary corpus that use ‘measuring’ in a judicial sense.12 If we take the evidence of the Hebrew Bible, NT and Rabbinic literature together we find that ‘measuring’ fairly often has a judicial connotation.13 In keeping with this, I suggest that under certain circumstances ‘measuring’ signifies that what is measured falls under one’s judgment, that is, that it belongs to one’s jurisdiction. When applied to Rev 11.1–2 it becomes apparent that it cannot be concluded on basis of the use of the verb ‘measuring’ that the measured part of the temple area will be protected while the unmeasured part will be destroyed. Rather, the command to measure the temple seems to signify that God wants it to be marked as belonging to his jurisdiction. The part that is not measured does not belong to his jurisdiction, but ‘has been given to the Gentiles’ (ejdovqh toi`~ e[qnesin). The difference between the measured and the unmeasured part is therefore not that the former is protected whereas the latter is not, but that the former belongs to God’s jurisdiction and the latter (for now) to the Gentiles. The opposition in Rev 11.1–2 is not between preservation and destruction, but between the jurisdiction of God and the jurisdiction of the Gentiles.14 If this is correct, it follows that we must look elsewhere to learn what the result of the measurement will be. It will not do to say: it is measured, therefore it will be saved. The context will have to elucidate what the outcome of the measurement
10 Cf. 2 Cor 10.12–13: ‘aujtoi; ejn eJautoi`~ eJautou;~ metrou`nte~ kai; sugkrivnonte~ eJautou;~ eJautoi`~’. 11 E.g. m.Sot 1.7; t.Sot 3.1. Cf. G. Bissoli, ‘ “Metron”-misura in Mt 7,2, Lc 6,38 e Mc 4,24 alla luce della letteratura rabbinica’, Studii Biblici Franciscani Liber Anuus 53 (2003) 113–22. 12 E.g. b.Ned 32a; b.Meg 28a. M. Jastrow, Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature (London: Luzac; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1903) 732, gives as the second definition of hdm (‘measure’): ‘dealing; reward or punishment; dispensation . . . retaliation, adequate punishment or reward’. 13 This may also be the case in 1 En 61.1–5, a rather enigmatic passage sometimes quoted in commentaries on Rev 11.1–2. The passage immediately preceding 61.1 speaks of the punishments of the Lord of Spirits (60.24–25a) but shifts in tone to introduce ‘the judgment according to his mercy and his longsuffering’ (60.25b), which seems exemplified by the giving of ‘ropes’ and ‘measures’ to the righteous (61.3). As a result, the chosen ‘begin to dwell with the chosen’ and ‘all the secrets of the depths of the earth’ are revealed (trans. G. W. E. Nickelsburg and J. C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch: A New Translation [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004] 77). 14 Cf. Christopher Rowland’s definition of the act of measuring as symbolising ‘the present, limited extent of the divine possession in a world where the rebellious nations are in apparent control’ (C. Rowland, Revelation [Epworth Commentaries; London: Epworth, 1993] 99). Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 66, mentions ‘judgment’ as one of the possible meanings of ‘measuring’.
440 matthijs den dulk will be. The present author contends that there are a number of indications in the context that together suggest that the fate of the measured part (the temple) will be destruction. These indications will be explored in the following sections. 1.1. The Preceding Verses (Rev 10.10–11) The verses immediately preceding Rev 11.1–2 relate how John takes a scroll out of the hand of an angel and eats it (10.10–11). The scroll is ‘sweet as honey’ in his mouth but ‘made bitter’ in his stomach. This echoes the commission of Ezekiel (Ezek 2.8–3.8),15 who received a similar scroll which, when put in the mouth, was ‘sweet as honey’. The content of Ezekiel’s scroll, however, was anything but sweet: ‘written on it were words of lamentation and mourning and woe’ (Ezek 2.10). These words most likely account for John’s wording ‘made bitter’.16 So the eating is sweet, but the content of the prophecies that both men have to bring is bitter.17 Following their commissions, both Ezekiel and John start their (renewed) prophetic service by performing a symbolic action; Ezekiel has to portray the siege of Jerusalem (Ezek 4.1–3) and John has to measure the temple. The parallelism between the commissions of both men suggests that the actions with which they commence their services are also of similar significance.18 Taken together, the content and background of the verses that precede Rev 11.1–2 give little cause to expect that what follows will be a happy tiding of protection for the temple. The reverse is more likely. 1.2. The Measuring Instrument The measuring instrument that the Seer receives is described as a kavlamo~ o{moio~ rJavbdw/. The qualification o{moio~ rJavbdw (‘like a staff’) has been somewhat overlooked. Heinrich Kraft is among the few to notice that a rJavbdo~ is normally not used to measure, but to exercise authority.19 In the other three verses in the book of Revelation that feature the word rJavbdo~ (Rev 2.27; 12.5; 19.15) it functions much like a weapon. In these verses, however, the rJavbdo~ is an iron one, which is not the case in Rev 11.1–2. It would therefore be unwise to associate our text completely with the violent texts that speak explicitly of an iron rJavbdo~. Nonetheless,
15 So G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1999) 550; P. S. Minear, ‘Ontology and Ecclesiology in the Apocalypse’, NTS 12 (1966) 89–105, esp. 97. 16 Note also that Ezekiel ‘went away bitter’ (Ezek 3.14). 17 So also e.g. J. L. Trafton, Reading Revelation (Reading the New Testament; Macon, Ga.: Smyth & Helwys, rev. ed. 2005) 104. 18 Cf. H. R. van de Kamp, Openbaring: Profetie vanaf Patmos (Commentaar op het Nieuwe Testament; Kampen: Kok, 2000) 253. 19 H. Kraft, Die Offenbarung des Johannes (Handbuch zum Neuen Testament 16a; Tübingen: Mohr, 1974) 152.
Measuring the Temple of God 441
John describes the instrument with which the temple is to be measured in terms that are associated with the exercise of authority and violence, things that in any scenario have little to do with a normal way of measuring.20 1.3. The Concluding Sentence (Rev 11.2b) The concluding sentence of the textual unit is th;n povlin th;n aJgivan pathvsousin mh`na~ tesseravkonta kai; duvo (‘they [the Gentiles] will trample the holy city for forty-two months’). This sentence is unintelligible if the first part of the text is construed to mean that the temple will be preserved. If the holy city is trampled, that includes the temple. The text does not state that the rest of the city will be trampled, but simply that the city (without exception) will be trampled. Moreover, the city at issue is the ‘holy city’. What makes the ‘holy city’ holy is precisely the presence of the temple.21 It is hard to see how this sentence could be otherwise construed than with the implication that the whole city, with as its central element the temple, will be trampled. The impression that Rev 11.1–2 has to do with a military threat to the entire city of Jerusalem is confirmed by a number of texts that strongly resemble the sentence with which we are presently concerned. The most pertinent of these is Luke 21.24: kai; ΔIerousalh;m e[stai patoumevnh uJpo; ejqnw`n, a[cri ou| plhrwqw`s in kairoi; ejqnw`n.22 Here, as elsewhere, there is no indication that an exception will be made for the temple; the temple is part of the holy city that will be trampled. A differentiation between the fate of the temple and the fate of the city (and, a forteriori, an opposition between both) would be unique in our literature.23 This point should
20 Cf. E. Lupieri, A Commentary on the Apocalypse of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) 174: ‘This should perhaps alert the reader that the scene of measuring that follows . . . will include an element of condemnation involving the nations as well’. 21 The ‘holy city’ is Jerusalem. For evidence, see S. S. Smalley, The Revelation to John: A Commentary on the Greek Text of the Apocalypse (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005) 273–4. 22 Expressions roughly similar to ‘Jerusalem is trampled by Gentiles’ are found in many texts, in the great majority of which a military threat to the entire city seems in view. Cf. Pss. Sol. 2.19; 17.22; Zech 12.3 (LXX); 1 Macc 3.45, 51; 4.60; 2 Macc 8:2; Dan 8.10–14; 2 Bar. 67.2; 4Q169 (4QpNah) 3–4, I.3. 23 Josephus, J.W. VI.285–6 is sometimes cited in support of the claim that John’s contemporaries expected the city to be destroyed, but the temple to remain unharmed. The passage claims that when the city had already fallen there was a ‘false prophet’ (yeudoprofhvth~), associated with the Zealots, who commanded the people to go to the temple to receive ‘the tokens of [their] deliverance’ (ta; shmei`a th`~ swthriva~). This, of course, was nothing like a deep-wrought theological expectation, but rather an intuitive and ad hoc belief. It is, moreover, doubtful that ta; shmei`a th`~ swthriva~ were thought to imply only the preservation of the temple; it seems more likely that the believers hoped for an intervention of God that would result in the total defeat of the Romans and the liberation of the entire city. But even if J.W. VI.285–6 can be interpreted to mean that some Zealots expected the temple to be pre-
442 matthijs den dulk be stressed, because an opposition between the fate of the temple and the fate of the city is exactly what is implied by virtually all recent interpretations of Rev 11.1–2. The tendency in much Jewish literature of the Second Temple period was to treat ‘temple’ and ‘city’ as interchangeable (and hence to a certain degree equivalent) notions.24 It is therefore difficult to understand the statement ‘the holy city will be destroyed’ in a way that excludes the temple. As a whole, the preceding verses about the ‘bitter message’ (1.1), the weaponlike measuring instrument of John (1.2) and the concluding sentence about the whole city being trampled (1.3) suggest that we should expect not a message of hope and protection for the temple in Rev 11.1–2, but one of destruction and condemnation.
II. Leave It Out!
This section will explore the meaning and function of the somewhat unusual phrase e[kbale e[xwqen in Rev 11.2. This is an issue of some importance in the present connection, because it is sometimes argued that e[kbale e[xwqen in fact means ‘reject’, with the implication that John uses it to convey that the unmeasured part will be ‘rejected’ whereas the measured part will be saved. The great majority of translations and commentators, however, renders e[kbale e[xwqen by ‘leave it out’ (or the like), in the sense of ‘leave it out of measurement’, and hence treats it as a parallel expression to mh; aujth;n metrhvshÛ~.25 It will be argued in this section that this interpretation is correct and, more specifically, that John had good reason to adopt this awkward sentence. First, two alternative explanations of e[kbale e[xwqen will be reviewed. André Feuillet contended that e[kbale e[xwqen was adopted to indicate that the passage was not to be understood literally,26 because in similar phrases in the
served in contrast to the city, it must be borne in mind that the one text we have to support this belief comes from a writer who is notoriously unreliable in his reports on the Zealots and on the question of who is to blame for the destruction of the temple (let alone the combination of both). 24 Cf. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC; 3 vols.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988–97) 3.322: ‘Jewish texts – such as Ezra and 2 Baruch – do not always distinguish between the temple and the capital. Quite often the one implies the other and there are indiscriminate transitions from temple to city or vice versa, so that one may often speak of their identification’. 25 Cf. e.g. Smalley, The Revelation to John, 273. This interpretation can claim lexical support. In a number of contemporary passages, ejkbavllw means ‘pay no attention to, disregard’ (references in BDAG, 299). 26 A. Feuillet, ‘Essai d’interprétation du chapitre XI de l’Apocalypse’, NTS 4 (1958) 183–200, esp. 186–7.
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NT not lifeless objects, but people are ‘thrown out’ (e.g. in Luke 4.29).27 It must be noted, however, that none of the passages Feuillet quotes in support of his claim exhibit the idiom e[kbale e[xwqen. With one exception, the expression found in these verses is ejkbavllein e[xw,28 and while this does not differ much from ejkbavllein e[xwqen, it is a matter of fact that none of the cited verses contains an exact parallel to Rev 11.2. Therefore, even though the phrase e[kbale e[xwqen is indeed a bit awkward, there is no basis for the claim that its use rules out a literal interpretation.29 An alternative, not necessarily simpler, but at any rate very original explanation has been proposed by Richard Bauckham. He claims that the phrase kai; th;n aujlh;n th;n e[xwqen tou` naou` e[kbale e[xwqen is John’s translation of the last three words of Dan 8.11: wvdqm ˜wkm ˚lvhw. Both passages have some points in common; Dan 8.11–14 speaks of the giving over of ‘the sanctuary and host’ to be trampled for a specific period of time. Bauckham claims that John has taken the ‘unique phrase’ wvdqm ˜wkm to refer to the court ‘belonging to (i.e. outside) the temple building’.30 The preceding ˚lvh would normally mean ‘to overthrow’, but since John understood the object to be a court, such a meaning would make little sense (a court can hardly be overthrown) and he chose to render the word with the much-debated verb ejkbavllw. Bauckham’s proposal, however ingenious, is ultimately not convincing. It is, first, rather doubtful that John would have taken the phrase wvdqm ˜wkm to refers to the court of the temple. Even though this exact phrase is unique, examples abound of closely related phrases such as wtbv ˜wkm (‘the place of his dwelling’, e.g. Ps 33.14) and wask ˜wkm (‘the place of his throne’, e.g. Ps 97.2).31 None of these expressions refer to the court, but always to the temple (building). Moreover, all the available manuscripts of the ancient Greek versions translate wvdqm ˜wkm in Dan 8.11 with to; a{gion, and so apparently it was widely recognised that the words refer to the temple, since to; a{gion is often used to refer to the temple, but never to the court (that is, never exclusively to the court). Other objections have been brought to the fore by David Aune. The most important of these is his observation that e[kbale is a second-person singular aorist imperative and thus a problematic rendering of ˚lvh.32 One final objection is that even if ˚lvh lies behind e[kbale, it remains obscure why John wrote e[kbale e[xwqen. The presence of e[xwqen has not been accounted for.
27 The LXX, however, features two verses where objects are thrown out (Lev 14.40; 2 Chron 29.16). 28 The one exception is Matt 8.12, which has ejkblhqhvsontai eij~ to; skovto~ to; ejxwvt eron. 29 So correctly Aune, Revelation 6–16, 607. 30 R. Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993) 270. 31 Jauhiainen, ‘Measuring the Sanctuary’, 512 n. 19 makes the same observation. 32 Aune, Revelation 6–16, 607.
444 matthijs den dulk It is a contention of this article that the reason why John did not use an expression that would leave no room for ambiguity or, alternatively, simply omitted the two words, lies in the structure of the text. Andrea Spatafora detected such a structure, a revised version of which is presented here:33
ejdovqh moi kavlamo~ o{moio~ rJavbdw/, levgwn: e[geire kai; mevtrhson to;n nao;n (. . .) kai; th;n aujlh;n th;n e[xwqen tou` naou` e[kbale e[xwqen kai; mh; aujth;n metrhvshÛ~, o{ti ejdovqh toi`~ e[qnesin kai; th;n povlin (. . .) pathvsousin. It is clear from this structure that John repeats certain words in a deliberate sequence and that one of these words is e[xwqen. It seems probable that John chose e[kbale e[xwqen instead of a less awkward expression in order to preserve and strengthen the structure of the text. Since he wished to use e[xwqen again, he chose ejkbavllw over other less ambiguous verbs (e.g. ajforivzw) that would not go well with e[xwqen. In this way John retained the structure of the text while conveying to his audience that the court had to be excluded from measurement. This is the least complicated explanation of the presence of e[kbale e[xwqen. To account for John’s use of e[kbale e[xwqen we need not introduce a new element (excluded people) into the text, nor suppose that John made an obscure translation of a passage from Daniel. John used e[kbale e[xwqen so he could express exclusion from measuring while retaining the structure of the text. The traditional translation (‘leave it out’ or the like) is therefore to be preferred.
III. The Temple, the Altar and the Worshipers
Thus far, we have seen that the temple, the altar and the worshipers are marked as belonging to God’s jurisdiction and that the outer court must not be measured, because it has been given to the Gentiles.34 It is now in order to ask 33 Spatafora, From the Temple of God, 161, sees ejn as the counterpart of e[xwqen. Regarding e[xwqen1 as counterpart of e[xwqen2 is to be preferred for two reasons: (1) ejn is not the antonym of e[xwqen (that would have been e[swqen), (2) the structure is not based on antonyms, but on synonyms. 34 The traditional reading of the text (‘measure the temple of God and [kaiv1] the altar and [kaiv2] those who worship there, but [kaiv3] do not measure the court outside the temple’) is followed here. In two recent articles alternative readings have been suggested. Rob Dalrymple (‘Use of kaiv’) argues that kaiv1 must be understood as a kaiv epexegeticus, which results in the translation ‘measure the temple of God, that is the altar and those who worship there’. Dalrymple assumes, incorrectly I think, that the temple must be understood symbolically. The arguments for his thesis are largely dependent on this assumption, but that is not to say that his theory is incompatible with a more literal understanding. On the other hand, if we read the text as I propose to do in this article there is no need to interpret kaiv1 in the way
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what exactly the author had in mind when he used the words naov~ (‘temple’) and qusiasthvrion (‘altar’). The word naov~ is close to, but not identical with, iJerovn. The latter refers in general to the temple and the ‘surrounding consecrated area’,35 whereas the former usually refers to the sanctuary proper. However, the Apocalypse does not use the word iJerovn and one therefore wonders whether naov~ has been chosen in conscious opposition to iJerovn. A further complicating issue is two passages in Josephus where naov~ is used for the entire temple precinct.36 It can at the very least be concluded that John does not follow Josephus’s usage, for ‘the court outside the naov~’ makes sense only if not all courts are included in naov~ already. But which courts are included and which are not? One possibility is that naov~ includes all courts but the remotest one. Only in that case would it be instantly intelligible what ‘the court outside the temple’ (th;n aujlh;n th;n e[xwqen tou` naou`) refers to: the outermost part of the temple precincts, the area Gentiles were allowed to enter.37 The fact that the Gentiles play such a major role in the context seems to confirm this identification. Indeed, the very reason for the exclusion of the court from measurement is that it belongs to the Gentiles. It is more difficult to ascertain the precise significance of to; qusiasthvrion. Some have argued that to; qusiasthvrion without further qualification always refers to the altar of burnt offering,38 but others insist that the altar of incense
35 36 37
38
Dalrymple suggests. Accordingly, it seems more natural to read kaiv1 as a normal copulative, but there are few arguments for either position. Marko Jauhiainen proposes the following translation: ‘Come and measure the temple of God, but (kaiv1) the altar and (kaiv2) those who worship there [ejn aujtw`/], that is (kaiv3), the court outside the temple, do not measure, leave that out’ (‘Measuring the Sanctuary’, 520). Here also, there are few conclusive arguments, but Jauhiainen’s understanding of ejn aujtw`/ in particular seems not very likely. Jauhiainen takes ejn aujtw`/ to refer to the altar and not to the temple. That this is correct is by no means clear; while M. Hall (‘The Hook Interlocking Structure of Revelation’, NovT 44 [2002] 278–96, esp. 291–2) argues that ejn aujtw`/ is an instrumental dative referring to the measuring stick, Bauckham (The Climax of Prophecy, 269) is probably correct when he says that ejn aujtw`/ ‘most naturally means “in the sanctuary” ’. His earlier decision forces Jauhiainen to translate ejn aujtw`/ with ‘there’ instead of the expected ‘in it’. For additional criticism of Jauhiainen’s proposal, see Siew, War, 101–2 n. 58. J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek–English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains (3 vols.; New York: UBS, 1989) 1.82. Cf. BDAG, 665–6. J.W. VI.293; C. Ap. II.119; Cf. BDAG, 666. Ancient evidence for the existence of an area within the temple precincts that Gentiles were allowed to enter includes Josephus, Ant. XV.417; J.W. V.193–4; VI.124–5; m.Mid 2.3; CIJ 2.1400; OGIS II.598. E.g. R. H. Charles, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John (ICC; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1920) 1.277.
446 matthijs den dulk must have been in mind.39 In reality, the text provides precious little that could help identify which altar John refers to. It would therefore seem that the quest for precise identification of the elements in our text is misguided. If John had considered it of great importance that the altar of burnt offering and not the altar of incense (or vice versa) was measured, he would have probably expressed himself more clearly. He was certainly capable of doing so.40 It seems more likely that John mentions the temple, the altar and the worshipers to refer to the different parts of the temple service that they represent. The author wants to convey to his audience that the measurement pertains to the temple service in every facet. It is in keeping with his architecturally vague descriptions that John intends the triad of temple, altar and worshipers to refer to the building, the cult and the participants. Alternatively, Jauhiainen may be correct that the temple, altar, worshipers and court are mentioned to create an allusion to LXX Ezek 8.16:41 ‘And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord [th;n aujlh;n oi[kou kurivou th;n ejswtevran] and at the entrance of the temple [naou`] of the Lord, between the porch and the altar [tou` qusiasthrivou], were about twenty men, with their back parts toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces turned the opposite way; and these were worshipping [proskunou`s in] the sun’. The book of Revelation is heavily indebted to Ezekiel and the scene that follows in Ezekiel (9.1ff.) is alluded to several times by John.42 It is therefore very well possible that Ezek 8.16 has been a source of inspiration for John. It should, however, be noted that Ezekiel speaks explicitly of th;n aujlh;n oi[kou kurivou th;n ejswtevran (‘the inner court’), whereas John has th;n aujlh;n th;n e[xwqen tou` naou` (‘the outer court’).43 If Jauhiainen’s thesis that Rev 11.1–2 alludes to Ezek 8.16 is nevertheless correct, this is yet another indication that Rev 11.1–2 is concerned with the destruction of the temple, for in the context of Ezekiel the scene of 8.16 is the immediate cause of God’s judgment on his people and temple (8.18), it is the reason for the departure of the ‘glory of
39 E.g. Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy, 269, but contrast part of his argumentation here with R. Bauckham, ‘Prayer in the Book of Revelation’, Into God’s Presence: Prayer in the New Testament (ed. R. N. Longenecker; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001) 252–71, esp. 261. 40 In Rev 8.3, for instance, John leaves no doubt as to which altar is in mind: ‘Another angel with a golden censer came and stood at the altar; he was given a great quantity of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar [cf. Ex 30.3; in contrast, the altar of burnt offerings was, according to Ex 27.2, overlaid with bronze] that is before the throne [i.e. in the sanctuary proper]’. 41 Jauhiainen, ‘Measuring the Sanctuary’, 522. 42 Rev 7.3; 9.4; 13.6; 14.13; 17.5; 22.4/Ezek 9.4; Rev 15.6/Ezek 9.2, 3, 11. Moreover, Ezek 8.11 may be alluded to in Rev 8.4 (so B. Kowalski, Die Rezeption des Propheten Ezechiel in der Offenbarung des Johannes [Stuttgarter Biblische Beiträge 52; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2004] 139) and Ezek 8.16 may be behind Rev. 4.4 (cf. Lupieri, Apocalypse, 134). 43 On this point, see Bachmann, ‘Ausmessung’, 71.
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God’ (9.3) and the command ‘defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain’ (9.7) is actuated by it.
IV. The Destruction of Jerusalem
If we pull the threads of this study together, we find that John has to mark the entire temple service (the temple, the altar and the worshipers) as belonging to God’s jurisdiction, while the outer court must not be measured because it belongs to the Gentiles, to those who will trample the whole city, the temple included, for a symbolic period of forty-two months. If this is correct, what then does it mean? What is John trying to communicate? I suggest that in Rev 11.1–2, John tries to formulate an answer to what could be termed a ‘first-century Jewish theodicy’; the question as to how God can be both good and almighty in light of the destruction of the temple. How can it be that the Gentiles (Romans) have destroyed the dwelling of the Almighty One? Are the Roman gods more powerful after all? This question was of evident importance in the period in which John wrote as can be seen from two writings that resemble the Apocalypse not only in age, but also in genre: 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch.44 The first writing to be discussed will be 2 Baruch, since it is most directly concerned with the actual destruction of the temple. The composition commonly known as 2 Baruch opens with a complaint about the people’s sin (1.2–3). God responds by bringing ‘evil upon the city and its inhabitants’ (1.4) and by delivering the city and the sanctuary to Israel’s adversaries (5.1). Interestingly, this situation will last only ‘for a time’ (1.5; 4.1; 6.9; cf. the symbolic forty-two months of Rev 11.2b). Baruch objects against God’s decision and asks God what will happen to his name if he lets his city and people be destroyed by enemies (5.1). The answer is noteworthy: ‘You shall see with your eyes that the enemy shall not destroy Zion and burn Jerusalem, but that they shall serve the Judge for a time’ (5.3). The context makes abundantly clear that Jerusalem will be destroyed. The point here is therefore not that Jerusalem will not be destroyed, but that the enemy will not destroy it. God is the judge, who uses the enemy as a tool in his hand.45 It is not they, but God who will destroy the temple through his angels, lest the enemies say: ‘we have burnt down the place of the mighty God’ (7.1). The answer of the pseudepigrapher of 2 Baruch to the question of how a
44 Cf. P.-M. Bogaert, ‘Jérusalem dans les apocalypses contemporaines de Baruch, d’Esdras et de Jean’, Jérusalem dans les traditions juives et chrétiennes (ed. A. Abecassis; Leuven: Peeters, 1982) 15–23. 45 This, of course, is a familiar notion in the prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible; see, e.g., Jer 34.2; Isa 10.5–6 (where Assyria is described as ‘the rod [rJavbdo~] of my anger’) and Ezek 21.19.
448 matthijs den dulk pagan, idolatrous nation could destroy God’s house is as easy as it is fascinating; they did not! God himself destroyed it. No one is more powerful than God is, and therefore the only one able to destroy his house is he himself. God decided to abandon his temple and this allowed the enemies to take possession of it: ‘A voice was heard from the midst of the temple after the wall had fallen, saying: Enter, enemies, and come, adversaries, because he who guarded the house has left it’ (8.1b–2). A slightly different line is advocated by the author of 4 Ezra. The issue of the temple’s destruction is less directly commented upon in 4 Ezra. It is nevertheless clear that 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch are in agreement on some major issues. In 2.10, for instance, God says to Ezra that he ‘will give . . . the kingdom of Jerusalem’ to whomever he wants. He has now chosen to deliver the city into the hands of Israel’s enemies, because of the transgressions of the city’s inhabitants (3.25–27). While the destruction of the temple is not explicitly ascribed to God, it is clear that God is seen as the one who took the initiative.46 The theodicy articulated in 2 Baruch is pertinent to the writer of 4 Ezra as well, as (s)he seeks to learn ‘why Israel has been given over to the Gentiles as a reproach; why the people . . . has been given to godless tribes’ (4.22). It is a contention of this article that Rev 11.1–2 formulates an answer to the ‘first century theodicy’ similar to what we find in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch. To the question as to how it has been possible that the Gentiles have destroyed God’s sanctuary, John replies that they could only do this because God’s own judgment on the temple preceded it. This judgment is symbolised by the divinely ordered measurement of which our textual unit speaks. The reason that the outer court is not to be measured is that it belongs to those who are in power now, that is, it belongs to the Gentiles. The Gentiles have the power to trample the holy city, but only for a limited period of time (forty-two months) and only because this power has been given them precisely by God himself (ejdovqh, a passivum divinum).
V. Conclusion
This article has argued that the measurement that is commanded in Rev 11.1–2 serves to indicate that the temple(service) belongs to God’s jurisdiction, not to that of the Gentiles. That the verdict that is passed on the measured part is negative is the inevitable conclusion if one considers the verses that precede Rev 11.1–2 about the ‘bitter message’, the weapon-like measuring instrument of John, the concluding sentence about the whole city being trampled and the possible allusion to Ezek 8.16 (LXX), which describes what was, according to Ezekiel, the immediate cause of the temple’s earlier destruction. The command to measure is 46 Cf. J. M. Myers, I and II Esdras (AB 42; New York: Doubleday, 1974) 125.
Measuring the Temple of God 449
intended to convey to John’s audience that the initiative for the temple’s destruction was God’s and that therefore, there can be no talk of a victory of the Gentiles over the God of Israel. Even though the Gentiles trample the holy city they can do so only for a limited period of time and only because they were given the warrant to do so by God himself.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 450–464. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000234
Augustine’s Adoption of the Vulgate Gospels* H . A . G . HOUG HTON Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing, Department of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, England
This paper examines Augustine’s text of the Gospel according to John to trace the process by which he adopted Jerome’s revision of the Gospels. An important feature is the distinction between ‘primary citations’ taken from a codex and ‘secondary citations’ likely to have been made from memory, which change affiliation at different rates. Augustine’s progress from Old Latin to Vulgate text-types is illustrated by the comparison of selected passages with surviving manuscripts. Textual variants in these citations suggest that Augustine’s biblical text has been transmitted accurately. Keywords: Augustine, Vulgate, Jerome, Latin, Bible, Gospel, John
Patristic citations are not only of value for the text of the NT, but may also shed light on a Church Father’s use of the Bible. Augustine’s adoption of Jerome’s revision of the Gospels, later known as the Vg, is one instance of this. In addition to readings from the OL Gospels preserved in his citations, Augustine also provides important evidence for the oldest form of the Vg. This shift cannot, however, be illustrated without reference to Augustine’s citation technique, encompassing his use of gospel manuscripts and his reliance on memory. It is insufficient to suppose that once Augustine encountered Jerome’s new version, he automatically quoted this on every subsequent occasion.1 Different codices would have been available at different times and places, and not all works were written or copied under the same circumstances. After outlining a way of taking these discrepancies into account, this study will consider citations of John in selected writings from three periods: early works, works composed between 403 and 420, and writings
450
* A version of this paper was delivered in the Textual Criticism seminar at the Annual Meeting of SNTS in Sibiu, Romania, in 2007. I should like to thank Professors J. K. Elliott and H.-G. Bethge for their invitation to speak in the seminar. The original research on which this study was based was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. 1 This is one of several errors which beset C. H. Milne, A Reconstruction of the Old-Latin Text or Texts of the Gospels used by Saint Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1926). Milne does not consider the biblical text of any works composed after 401.
Augustine’s Adoption of the Vulgate Gospels 451
from the last decade of Augustine’s life. By comparing these citations with Latin gospel manuscripts, the pattern of Augustine’s affiliation with different types of text becomes clear.2
Primary and Secondary Citations
In order to differentiate between citations that were drawn from a biblical exemplar and those that were probably produced from memory, I would like to introduce the two categories of ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ citations. Primary citations are those which are most likely to have been made with reference to a manuscript. These are sometimes indicated by Augustine’s explicit comments on his use of a gospel codex and may also be identified by their length, their context or the type of work in which they appear. Commentaries, expository works and collections of testimonia are more likely to contain primary citations, although not every citation in such writings is a primary citation, as will become clear below. The relationship of the scriptural text to surviving gospel manuscripts is also important, although this should not be relied on in isolation: for a start, the preservation of OL forms of text is quite haphazard, and patristic material may well provide a reading which has not survived elsewhere in the tradition. What is meant is that a primary citation does not normally show signs of paraphrase or other alteration when compared with the biblical tradition. Secondary citations, in contrast, may feature variants and abbreviation characteristic of citations from memory. They are normally shorter. While it is possible that they were made with reference to a codex, there is no explicit or implicit indication of this. The fact that the majority of secondary citations were probably quoted from memory, in accordance with ancient custom, does not mean that they are textually insignificant. Memory must be memory of something, even if the accuracy of someone’s recall may vary. Nonetheless, they do not demonstrate the same direct connection with biblical manuscript tradition that characterises primary citations. In some places where Augustine appears to be citing from memory, he produces a consistent form of text for a particular verse, which may be termed his ‘mental text’. This form often occurs in the majority of his citations, and it is deviations from this which are most significant for analysing his biblical text.3 2 Considerations of space mean that only a representative selection of works can be included here. For a fuller analysis of writings which contain a significant number of citations from John, see H. A. G. Houghton, Augustine’s Text of John: Patristic Citations and Latin Gospel Manuscripts (Oxford: Oxford University, 2008). 3 For a description of the types of variant which are characteristic of memory, and the process of ‘flattening’, see Houghton, Augustine’s Text of John, 67–76, or H. A. G. Houghton, ‘Flattening in Latin Biblical Citations’, forthcoming in Studia Patristica.
452 h. a. g. houghton Vulgatisation
One of the most common objections to the use of patristic evidence in biblical textual criticism is the question of ‘vulgatisation’. How can we be sure that the text of Augustine’s citations has not been altered by copyists and made to conform with versions known to them? A review of the manuscript tradition of his works as provided by the critical apparatus of modern editions shows that there is minimal variation in the form of citations from the Gospel according to John. A few later manuscripts of Augustine, most dated after the twelfth century, do substitute Vg readings in a piecemeal and sporadic way. The consistency of the rest of the tradition does not rule out very early editorial activity, although for some works the earliest surviving manuscript may have been copied during Augustine’s lifetime.4 However, the most convincing indication that the authorial text has been transmitted accurately will be the analysis which constitutes the rest of this study.
Early Works
De diuersis quaestionibus Augustine’s earliest primary citation of John occurs in Quaestio 64 of De diuersis quaestionibus, written between 391 and 395.5 This discussion of the Samaritan woman includes much of the pericope cited sequentially, an indication that a manuscript has been used for the citation. The section covering John 4.9–14 runs as follows: Sed carnaliter intellegens respondit: Tu cum sis Iudaeus, quomodo a me bibere petis, cum sim mulier Samaritana? Non enim coutuntur Iudaei Samaritanis. Cui dominus noster dixit: Si scires donum dei, et quis est qui dicit tibi: Da mihi bibere, tu magis petisses ab eo, et dedisset tibi aquam uiuam . . . Sed adhuc illa mulier carnaliter sapit; sic enim respondit: Domine, neque hauritorium habes et puteus altus est; unde mihi habes dare aquam uiuam? Numquid tu maior es patre nostro Iacob, qui dedit nobis hunc puteum, et ipse ex eo bibit et filii eius et pecora eius? Nunc uero iam dominus exponit quid dixerit. Omnis, inquit, qui biberit de aqua ista sitiet
4 For examples of vulgatisation in later manuscripts of De diuersis quaestionibus and De consensu euangelistarum, see Houghton, Augustine’s Text of John, 140–1 and 159. The oldest manuscripts of Augustine are listed in E. A. Lowe, ‘A List of the Oldest Extant Manuscripts of Saint Augustine with a Note on the Codex Bambergensis’, Miscellanea Agostiniana (ed. A. Casamassa; Rome: Vaticana, 1931) 235–51. Of particular note is the St Petersburg manuscript containing works from 395–6, which has been dated to the beginning of the fifth century: the most recent discussion (with references) is Kenneth B. Steinhauser, ‘Codex Leningradensis Q.v.I.3.: Some Unresolved Problems’, De doctrina christiana. A Classic of Western Culture (ed. Duane W. H. Arnold and Pamela Bright; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1995) 33–43. 5 The dates cited for Augustine’s works in this paper have been taken from José Anoz, ‘Cronología de la producción agustiniana’, Augustinus 47 (2002) 229–322.
Augustine’s Adoption of the Vulgate Gospels 453
iterum; qui autem biberit de aqua quam ego dedero, non sitiet in sempiternum; sed aqua illa quam dedero fiet in eo fons aquae salientis in uitam aeternam (De diuersis quaestionibus 64.4–5).6
This text clearly does not correspond to the Vg:7 4.9 dicit ergo ei mulier illa samaritana: quomodo tu Iudaeus cum sis bibere a me poscis quae sum mulier samaritana? non enim coutuntur Iudaei Samaritanis. 4.10 respondit Iesus et dixit ei: si scires donum Dei et quis est qui dicit tibi da mihi bibere, tu forsitan petisses ab eo et dedisset tibi aquam uiuam. 4.11 dicit ei mulier: Domine neque in quo haurias habes et puteus altus est. unde ergo habes aquam uiuam? 4.12 numquid tu maior es patre nostro Iacob, qui dedit nobis puteum, et ipse ex eo bibit et filii eius et pecora eius? 4.13 respondit Iesus et dixit ei: omnis qui bibit ex aqua hac sitiet iterum. qui autem biberit ex aqua quam ego dabo ei, non sitiet in aeternum, 4.14 sed aqua quam dabo ei fiet in eo fons aquae salientis in uitam aeternam.
Indeed, when Augustine’s text of John 4.9 is compared with Jerome’s version, the change in word order and the repetition cum sis . . . cum sim suggest that it might even be a paraphrase. However, an identical form of this verse is found in the OL Codex Rehdigeranus, which supplies an exact parallel for the direct speech in the next verse too, in which five OL codices read magis rather than forsitan. Similarly, hauritorium in 4.11 is the text of the majority of OL Gospels. The inclusion of dare mihi at the end of this verse in Codices Rehdigeranus and Sarzanensis appears to be another OL feature, although Augustine has a slightly different word order. Codex Rehdigeranus is also one of a handful of OL witnesses with the future perfects omnis qui biberit and quam ego dedero in 4.13. Unfortunately, an omission at the end of the verse means that the rendering of eij~ to;n aijw`na in this manuscript is unknown. Augustine’s in sempiternum is only preserved in Codices Veronensis and Usserianus. Variants in this passage which are not paralleled in Codex Rehdigeranus are found in other OL manuscripts, such as de aqua ista in John 4.13, which is also present in Codex Monacensis. In short, the nature of this passage indicates that it is a primary citation, drawn from a codex with an OL text type. It is not identical to any surviving witness: as Roger Gryson has remarked, it would be extraordinary if any extended citation in a Church Father coincided exactly with one of the few surviving OL manuscripts.8 6 A. Mutzenbecher, ed., Aurelii Augustini Opera. Pars 12.2, Sancti Aurelii Augustini De Diuersis Quaestionibus octoginta tribus (CC 44A; Turnhout: Brepols, 1975) 140–1. 7 The Stuttgart Vulgate is used for the text of the Vg (R. Weber, R. Gryson et al., Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 5th ed., 2007]); punctuation has been added at the end of sense lines. OL manuscripts are cited from W. Matzkow, A. Jülicher and K. Aland, Itala. Das Neue Testament in altlateinischer Überlieferung. IV. Johannes-Evangelium (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1963). 8 Roger Gryson, ‘Les citations scripturaires des œuvres attribuées à l’évêque arien Maximinus’, Revue Bénédictine 88 (1978) 45–80; this observation is made on p. 70.
454 h. a. g. houghton Nonetheless, not only does it have a broadly similar character to Codex Rehdigeranus, but also almost all Augustine’s non-Vg readings in this passage are preserved within the OL tradition, which suggests that the surviving manuscripts constitute a cross-section of different versions in circulation at the end of the fifth century. De mendacio There are three citations of John in De mendacio, composed in 395. The form of John 3.21 at De mendacio 17.35 does not reveal much about Augustine’s biblical text, as it corresponds both to the Vg and to the majority of OL manuscripts. His citation of John 15.12–13, however, has five non-Vg readings: hoc est mandatum meum, ut diligatis inuicem, sicut et ego dilexi uos. maiorem dilectionem nemo habet, quam ut animam suam ponat pro amicis suis. (De mendacio 6.9).9
Five OL witnesses have mandatum rather than praeceptum, and Augustine’s text of John 15.12 is identical to one of these, Codex Vercellensis, the only surviving manuscript to include et ego in this verse. Although there are parallels in the OL tradition for the omission of hac and quis, Augustine’s text of the next verse appears to have a slightly different affiliation, as four of the five manuscripts with mandatum also read caritatem rather than dilectionem. The exception is Codex Bezae, but this reads huius rather than hac, and the addition of quam is not present in OL Gospels. John 18.23 is the most interesting citation in this work. Six of the eight OL manuscripts with this verse read si male locutus sum, testimonium perhibe de malo. The two exceptions supply an alternative second verb: Codex Vercellensis has testimonium dic and Codex Usserianus has testificare. Augustine’s version, however, has a completely different verb: si male dixi, exprobra de malo (De mendacio 15.27). This rendering appears in two of Augustine’s other citations of this verse, De sermone domini in monte 1.19.58, which is slightly earlier than De mendacio, and Epistula 138.2.13. His consistency, along with the suitability of this verb in context, suggests that exprobra is an OL form which has not been preserved in a gospel manuscript. This thesis is supported by three of Cyprian’s letters which also read exprobra de malo (Epistulae 3.2; 59.4; 66.3), so it may therefore derive from an African version.10 As there is no indication that Augustine relied on a codex when composing De mendacio, these shorter citations can only be classed
9 Joseph Zycha, ed., Sancti Aureli Augustini opera. Sect. V. Pars 3 (CSEL 41; Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1900) 426. 10 Codex Palatinus, the manuscript believed to preserve the greatest proportion of ‘African’ readings in John, is not extant for this verse.
Augustine’s Adoption of the Vulgate Gospels 455
as secondary citations. Even so, they confirm the OL character of Augustine’s gospel text at this time. De trinitate Five years later, in 400, Augustine began De trinitate, a work he was not to complete for over twenty years. Its chronology is further complicated by additional material inserted in the earlier books.11 Despite this, certain parts of book one have a distinctive OL affiliation which is not found in later books. These all occur in the oldest stratum of the work, which contains detailed discussions of four groups of verses from John including the following extract from John 16: Hoc significans ait: Haec uobis locutus sum in similitudinibus; ueniet hora quando iam non in similitudinibus loquar uobis, sed manifeste de patre nuntiabo uobis; id est iam non erunt similitudines cum uisio fuerit facie ad faciem. Hoc est enim quod ait, sed manifeste de patre nuntiabo uobis, ac si diceret, ‘manifeste patrem ostendam uobis’. Nuntiabo quippe ait quia uerbum eius est. Sequitur enim et dicit: Illa die in nomine meo petetis, et non dico uobis quia ego rogabo patrem; ipse enim pater amat uos quia uos me amatis et credidistis quia ego a deo exiui. Exiui a patre et ueni in hunc mundum: iterum relinquo mundum et uado ad patrem. (De trinitate 1.10.21).12
It is highly likely that these neighbouring verses were cited from a codex, particularly as Augustine often uses the verb sequitur when following the text of a biblical manuscript (e.g. Sermo 374). Its text type, however, is not that of the Vg: 16.25 Haec in prouerbiis locutus sum uobis. uenit hora cum iam non in prouerbiis loquar uobis, sed palam de Patre adnuntiabo uobis. 16.26 illo die in nomine meo petetis, et non dico uobis quia ego rogabo Patrem de uobis. 16.27 ipse enim Pater amat uos quia uos me amastis, et credidistis quia ego a Deo exiui. 16.28 exiui a Patre et ueni in mundum: iterum relinquo mundum et uado ad Patrem.
The OL Codex Vercellensis is the only surviving gospel manuscript which has similitudinibus rather than prouerbiis in John 16.25. It provides other parallels for the first two verses of Augustine’s citation, including the future ueniet hora, the uncompounded nuntiabo uobis and the feminine illa die, but has further non-Vg readings in the later verses. Despite the similarity of John 16.27–8 in De trinitate and the Vg, it should be noted that Augustine’s text is identical to the OL Codex Monacensis, which also has the addition of hunc before mundum characteristic of the earlier versions. Other variants are also found in the OL tradition: for exam-
11 See further A.-M. La Bonnardière, Recherches de chronologie augustinienne (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1965) 69–77 and 165–77. 12 W. J. Mountain and F. Glorie, eds., Aurelii Augustini opera. Pars 16. Sancti Aurelii Augustini De Trinitate (CC 50; Brepols: Turnhout, 1968) 58.
456 h. a. g. houghton ple, Codex Palatinus reads ueniet hora quando in v. 25 and omits de uobis after ego rogabo patrem at the end of v. 26. There is no extant gospel manuscript with manifeste as a rendering of parrhsiva/ in John 16.25, but it is found in the majority of witnesses at John 11.14 as well as two codices in John 10.24. It seems likely that manifeste appeared in this verse in a version which has not been preserved. The same types of readings and affiliations are found in the other groups of verses from John in the first book of De trinitate.13
The Arrival of the Vulgate
De consensu euangelistarum Augustine’s first reference to Jerome’s revision of the Gospels occurs in a famous passage in his letter to Jerome, Epistula 71.6, dated to 403. Given that Augustine does not mention this version in their earlier correspondence but offers enthusiastic praise here, it is likely that he had only recently become aware of its existence. He also states that he has compared Jerome’s revision with a Greek text, finding it ‘almost without fault’ (et paene in omnibus nulla offensio est, cum scripturam Graecam contulerimus).14 This would have been an ideal preparation for Augustine’s close verbal analysis of each evangelist in the work De consensu euangelistarum, which is contemporary with this letter to Jerome. The current scriptural text of De consensu euangelistarum is demonstrably Vg. There are twenty-nine places in verses of John cited in De consensu euangelistarum where the Stuttgart Vg differs from all the OL witnesses reported in Matzkow–Jülicher–Aland, and Augustine has the Vg reading in twenty-five of these (86%). If the selection is extended to include readings peculiar to the Vg and one OL manuscript, the Vg reading appears in De consensu on thirty-seven of fifty occasions (74%).15 Nonetheless, this does not by itself prove authorial use of the Vg: this sort of commentary would be particularly susceptible to alteration in order to conform with a version of the Gospels in later circulation. In addition to his correspondence with Jerome, however, certain considerations suggest that Augustine did take his gospel citations from the Vg.
13 For the differences between citations of John in book one and later books of De trinitate, see Houghton, Augustine’s Text of John, 153–6. Changes in rendering, as in the case of paraklhvto~ for which book one has aduocatus but book two has paracletus, suggest that Augustine used a different codex for the first book. 14 K. D. Daur, ed., Aurelii Augustini Opera. Pars 3.2. Epistulae LVI–C (CC 31A; Turnhout: Brepols, 2005) 38. 15 Further explanation along with a list of these characteristic readings is presented in H. A. G. Houghton, ‘Augustine’s Citations and Text of the Gospel according to John’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Birmingham, 2006).
Augustine’s Adoption of the Vulgate Gospels 457
First, the biblical text is inconsistent: some citations of the same verse correspond to the Vg, but others are OL or even unique to Augustine. The Vg readings generally occur when the Gospel is being cited in sequence, that is to say the primary citations for which Augustine is most likely to have used a codex, while the non-Vg alternatives appear later in the discussion, or in out-of-sequence illustrative citations. Of course, this could still have been the work of a reviser, although most of the distinctive Vg readings go back as far as the manuscript tradition of this work can be traced. A group of later witnesses does feature Vg readings in some of the other citations, but these are sporadic and may be errors of memory; a high number of interpolations means that these manuscripts are not considered an important branch of the textual tradition. The best proof of authorial use of the Vg is the occurrence of distinctive Vg readings outside scriptural citations, which are embedded into the commentary and therefore likely to have escaped the notice of a reviser. A number of these were identified in each Gospel by Burkitt, including the following:16 hanc ostensionem domini post resurrectionem intellegitur et Iohannes commemorasse sic loquens: cum esset ergo sero die illo una sabbatorum et fores essent clausae, ubi erant discipuli congregati propter metum Iudaeorum, uenit Iesus et stetit in medio et dixit eis: pax uobis. et hoc cum dixisset, ostendit eis manus et latus. ac per hoc his uerbis Iohannis possunt coniungi ea quae Lucas dicit, idem autem Iohannes praetermittit. (De consensu euangelistarum 3.25.74).17
This is a primary citation in keeping with the pattern described earlier: the text of John 20.19–20 is identical to the Stuttgart Vg (with the exception of dixit rather than dicit, as found in other Vg sources). Most OL witnesses have an ablative absolute, ostiis clusis, and the word fores is unique to the Vg. At the end of the next paragraph, Augustine summarises his discussion: et adhuc inde, sicut Lucas dicit, loquentibus stetit in medio eorum dominus et ait illis: pax uobiscum, sicut Lucas et Iohannes. fores autem clausae erant, cum ad eos intrauit, quod solus Iohannes commemorat. (De consensu euangelistarum 3.25.75).18
There is already one inaccuracy: the citations of both Luke and John in the previous paragraph have pax uobis rather than pax uobiscum. But, more significantly, the term fores is kept in the context of John. It is highly unlikely that a reviser would have noticed this or changed Augustine’s own words. Given its absence from the surviving OL tradition, however, Augustine’s use of fores must have
16 See F. C. Burkitt, ‘Saint Augustine’s Bible and the Itala’, JTS 11 (1910) 447–58, especially 451–5. 17 F. Weihrich, ed., Sancti Aureli Augustini Opera. Sect. III Pars 4. De Consensu Euangelistarum (CSEL 43; Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1903) 374. 18 Weihrich, ed., De Consensu Euangelistarum, 379.
458 h. a. g. houghton derived from the Vg. This, along with Burkitt’s other examples, confirms the indication in Epistula 71 that Augustine possessed and used a copy of Jerome’s revision of the Gospels at this time.19 Tractatus in Iohannis euangelium Around three years later, Augustine began to preach his sermon-commentary on John, the Tractatus in Iohannis euangelium, to his congregation in Hippo. Although these tractates were preached and dictated over the course of several years, and there is no guarantee that Augustine always used the same gospel codex, the overall affiliation of Augustine’s text is with the Vg. This is shown by a comparison of the initial citation in each sermon with the distinctive Vg readings mentioned above: this work features fifty-six of the eighty-two readings for which the Vg differs from all surviving OL Gospels (68%), and it also agrees with the Vg on 148 of the 202 occasions when a reading is present only in this and one OL manuscript (73%). Again, this correspondence could be the work of an editor ensuring that Augustine’s commentary matched a later version of the Gospel, but as with De consensu euangelistarum the Vg readings are not just present in verbatim citations but found throughout the discussion. A good example of this is found in Tractatus 12, delivered in 407: Et sequitur: Si terrena dixi uobis, et non creditis, quomodo, si dixero uobis caelestia, credetis? Quae terrena dixit, fratres? Nisi quis natus fuerit denuo, terrenum est? Spiritus ubi uult spirat, et uocem eius audis, et nescis unde ueniat, et quo eat, terrenum est? Si enim de isto uento diceret, sicut nonnulli intellexerunt, cum quaereretur ab eis quid terrenum dixerit Dominus, dum ait: Si terrena dixi uobis, et non creditis, quomodo, si caelestia dixero, credetis? Cum ergo quaereretur a quibusdam, quid terrenum dixerit Dominus, angustias passi dixerunt, quod ait: Spiritus ubi uult spirat, et uocem eius audis, et nescis unde ueniat, et quo eat, de isto uento dixit. Quid enim nominauit terrenum? Loquebatur de generatione spiritali; secutus ait: Sic est omnis qui natus est ex Spiritu. Deinde, fratres, quis nostrum non uideat, uerbi gratia, austrum euntem de meridie ad aquilonem, aut alium uentum uenientem ab oriente ad occidentem? quomodo ergo nescimus unde ueniat et quo eat? Quid ergo dixit terrenum, quod non credebant homines? an illud quod de templo resuscitando dixerat? Corpus enim suum de terra acceperat, et ipsam terram de terreno corpore susceptam parabat suscitare. Non ei creditum est terram suscitaturo. Si terrestria, inquit, dixi uobis et non creditis, quomodo, si caelestia dixero, credetis? Hoc est, si non creditis quia templum possum resuscitare deiectum a uobis, quomodo credetis quia per Spiritum possint homines regenerari? (Tractatus in Iohannis euangelium 12.7).20 19 Incidentally, Burkitt did not notice that a few paragraphs later, at De consensu 3.25.85, Augustine refers to this verse with the OL form clausis ostiis. This can be explained as an OL reading quoted from memory in this out-of-sequence reference. 20 R. Willems, ed., Aurelii Augustini Opera. Pars 8. Sancti Aurelii Augustini In Iohannis Euangelium Tractatus CXXIV (CC 36; Turnhout: Brepols, 1954) 124–5.
Augustine’s Adoption of the Vulgate Gospels 459
In his initial citation of John 3.12, Augustine reads terrena, which appears throughout his discussion in both this form and the singular, terrenum. This rendering is not unique to the Vg, but is found in five OL manuscripts. The other six extant codices in this verse have terrestria, which occurs in the final citation in the extract above. It is beyond the bounds of probability that Augustine’s text originally had the OL form terrestria throughout, which was assiduously changed in both singular and plural forms by an editor in both commentary and citations with the sole exception of the last verbatim citation. Instead, the Vg form was that used by the author. The change in Augustine’s biblical text can be explained by the difference between primary and secondary citations. It is clear that, when preaching, Augustine drew his initial citations from a manuscript, as shown by several comments on the codex he was holding.21 On the other hand, during the course of his exposition, he seems not to have referred back to the exact text of this exemplar but reverted to OL forms in his ‘mental text’ of the Gospel. This can also be seen in his treatment of John 7.10: Haec cum dixisset, ipse mansit in Galilaea. Vt autem adscenderunt fratres eius, tunc et ipse adscendit ad diem festum; non manifeste, sed quasi in occulto. Ideo non ad diem festum hunc, quia non gloriari temporaliter, sed aliquid docere salubriter, corrigere homines, de die festo aeterno admonere, amorem ab hoc saeculo auertere, et in Deum conuertere cupiebat. Quid est autem: quasi latenter adscendit ad diem festum? non uacat et hoc Domini. Videtur mihi, fratres, etiam hinc, quod quasi latenter adscendit, aliquid significare uoluisse; nam consequentia docebunt sic eum adscendisse mediato die festo, id est mediatis illis diebus, ut etiam palam doceret. Sed quasi latenter dixit, ne se ostenderet hominibus. Non uacat quod latenter adscendit Christus ad diem festum, quia ipse latebat in illo die festo. (Tractatus 28.8).22
The initial citation of the verse follows the Vg, ending quasi in occulto. When paraphrasing the text in the next sentence, however, Augustine uses quasi latenter; this phrase occurs twice in the next few lines and even inspires the use of the verb latebat. The appearance of the adverb latenter in two of the four other works in which Augustine cites this phrase shows that this was an OL reading known to him, and it is preserved at this point in Codex Palatinus.23 At the end of the next paragraph, not quoted above, Augustine gives the whole of the second half of the verse with in occulto, with the implication that, oblivious to his inconsistency, he was once more reading the text from his codex. This shows that, depending on a Father’s citation technique, not all biblical references within the commentary can be identified as primary citations. The variant readings may be interesting, in that 21 E.g. Tractatus 15.1 and 40.1. 22 Willems, ed., In Iohannis Euangelium Tractatus, 281–2. 23 Latenter also appears in Epistula 82.2 and Contra Faustum 22.36.
460 h. a. g. houghton they enable us to identify the OL text-types with which Augustine was familiar before he encountered the Vg, but they remain secondary citations drawn from memory. Sermones ad populum In the two commentaries just discussed, Augustine seems to have made a conscious choice to use Jerome’s revision of the Gospels. This also supplies the text for the primary citation of John 3.1–21 in De peccatorum meritis et remissione 1.30.59, composed in 411. However, it does not follow that he automatically used the Vg in every work after 403. In many of his sermons, Augustine expounds an OL text of John. For example, in Sermo 329, delivered between 410 and 412, he considers John 12.24 in the form nisi granum tritici cadens in terram mortuum fuerit, ipsum solum manet. The Vg, along with Codices Rehdigeranus and Aureus, has granum frumenti, but the other OL manuscripts all preserve tritici.24 Similarly, in Sermo 126 from 416–7, he cites John 5.19 in two parts: et dicebat quod audistis: Non potest Filius a se facere quidquam, nisi quod uiderit Patrem facientem . . . Attende et quod sequitur: Quaecumque enim facit Pater, eadem et Filius facit. (Sermo 126.5.7–6.8).25
The latter half differs markedly from the Vg, which reads quaecumque enim ille fecerit haec et filius similiter facit. It is far closer to the OL Codex Palatinus, with quae enim pater facit, eadem et filius facit. Furthermore, later in this sermon, Augustine reverts to his mental text of the verse which does not correspond to any surviving manuscript, quaecumque pater facit, haec eadem et filius facit. This confirms that these initial citations are likely to be primary citations. OL lections are particularly common in sermons known to have been preached in Carthage. Sermo 134, delivered in 413/4, has three differences from the Vg in its text of John 8.31, including uerbo where the Vg uniquely reads sermone. Sermo 138, dated to 411, features several readings only found in OL manuscripts, such as pastor bonus animam suam ponit pro ouibus in John 10.11, the addition of autem in the following verse, the phrase non est ei cura de ouibus in John 10.13 and the characteristic rendering grex rather than ouile in John 10.16. Finally, Sermo 294, preached in Carthage in 413, followed an OL lection of John 3, including: Audi similitudinem quae sequitur: Et sicut Moyses exaltauit serpentem in eremo, sic oportet exaltari Filium hominis, ut omnis qui credit in eum, non pereat, sed habeat uitam aeternam. (Sermo 294.10.11).26
This text of John 3.14 contains a rendering not preserved in any OL manuscripts, 24 No date is given for Sermo 329 in Anoz, ‘Cronología’. The suggestion of 410/2 is recorded in H. J. Frede, Kirchenschriftsteller. Verzeichnis und Sigel (Vetus Latina 1/1; 4th edn.; Freiburg: Herder, 1995). 25 Ed. J.-P. Migne, PL 38 (1845) 701. 26 Ed. J.-P. Migne, PL 38 (1845) 1342.
Augustine’s Adoption of the Vulgate Gospels 461
which have deserto or solitudine rather than eremo. Nonetheless, this term is found in the majority of Augustine’s other citations of this verse, including Tractatus in Iohannis euangelium 12, and Codex Usserianus has eremo for the same underlying Greek word at John 6.49, which suggests that this text derives from an OL version no longer extant. In conclusion, despite Augustine’s use of the Vg in certain works composed during this period, other primary citations continue to bear witness to OL versions, as do the majority of his secondary citations.
The Triumph of the Vulgate?
De ciuitate dei The principal sources for primary and, more usually, secondary citations in the last decade of Augustine’s life are his theological writings. De ciuitate dei has a sequence of primary citations in books 18 to 20, when he goes through the whole of the Bible to show how the coming of Christ was prophesied and then fulfilled. The eight verses from John 5 cited at De ciuitate dei 20.5–6 are almost identical to the Stuttgart Vg, with all four variants widely attested in Vg manuscripts.27 Subsequent references to these verses, however, do not correspond exactly to this form of text. At De ciuitate dei 20.9.4, Augustine cites John 5.25 with cum rather than quando, while at De ciuitate dei 20.23.2 and 21.1, he gives John 5.29 with autem in place of the Vg uero: Qui bona fecerunt, in resurrectionem uitae; qui autem mala egerunt, in resurrectionem iudicii.28
Both these alterations are paralleled in OL manuscripts, and it is likely that these shorter citations have been produced from memory. Nonetheless, the latter provides some evidence of a shift in the form of Augustine’s mental text. In the majority of his earlier works, he cites John 5.29 with two adverbs, bene and male; here, he has bona and mala, in keeping with most gospel manuscripts. There is even a discrepancy between different books: in book thirteen, composed in 418, Augustine cites John 3.5 as: Si quis non renatus fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu, non intrabit in regnum caelorum. (De ciuitate dei 13.7).29
Seven years later, the penultimate book has the same verse in a form much closer to the Vg:
27 These are transiit in John 5.24, the word order habere uitam in John 5.26, the omission of et after ei in John 5.27, and ueniet for uenit in John 5.28. 28 B. Dombart and A. Kalb, ed., Aurelii Augustini Opera. Pars 14. Sancti Aurelii Augustini De Ciuitate Dei (CC 48; Turnhout: Brepols, 1955) 743 (line 115), 758 (line 77) and 759 (line 15). 29 Dombart and Kalb, ed., De Ciuitate Dei, 390 (line 4).
462 h. a. g. houghton Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu, non intrabit in regnum Dei. (De ciuitate dei 21.27.3).30
This variation in secondary citations appears to be evidence of a move towards a form closer to the Vg. Corrections to Opponents
Augustine’s heightened sensitivity to the exact wording of the biblical text is also indicative of his preference for the Vg. In two works written around 420, he criticises minor details in the gospel citations of his opponents. For example, at De natura et origine animae 3.11.17, he corrects the very form of John 3.5 which he cited at De ciuitate dei 13.7, replacing regnum caelorum with regnum dei. Two paragraphs before this, he substitutes the regular text of John 14.2 in biblical codices, multae mansiones sunt in domo patris mei, instead of an alternative which appears in his own earlier citations, multae mansiones sunt apud patrem meum. Neither version supplied as a replacement is unique to the Vg. However, in Contra aduersarium legis et prophetae, he corrects his opponent as follows: Sed lex, inquit, per Moysen data est; ueritas autem ab Iesu Christo est. Non ita scriptum est, sed ita: Lex per Moysen data est, gratia et ueritas per Iesum Christum facta est. (Contra aduersarium 2.3.10).31
All OL witnesses read gratia autem et ueritas in John 1.17 apart from Codex Aureus which, like the Vg, omits autem. On this occasion, therefore, Augustine gives a text characteristic of the Vg as the authoritative form. Despite this apparent concern for accuracy, his other citations in this work continue to have OL readings. For example, John 1.9 is quoted at Contra aduersarium 1.11.14 in a typical OL form, erat lumen uerum quod illuminat omnem hominem uenientem in hunc mundum. Renderings such as nostis rather than scitis in John 8.19, and facta for opera in John 8.39 occur at Contra aduersarium 2.5.19 and 2.9.32 respectively. There are even examples of forms unique to Augustine in his mental text: non opus habebat in John 2.25 (Contra aduersarium 1.20.41) and the version of John 6.54 with first person pronominal adjectives, nisi manducaueritis carnem meam et biberitis sanguinem meum (Contra aduersarium 1.24.52), are typical of memory and are not paralleled by any surviving OL witness. Other Later Works
Numerous other secondary citations in works from this period are identical to the Vg. A particularly striking example is the form of John 14.26 in the 30 Dombart and Kalb, ed., De Ciuitate Dei, 801 (line 79). 31 K. D. Daur, ed., Aurelii Augustini Opera. Pars 15.3. Sancti Aurelii Augustini Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum (CC 49; Turnhout: Brepols, 1985) 98.
Augustine’s Adoption of the Vulgate Gospels 463
Tractatus in Iohannis euangelium. Augustine’s commentary in Tractatus 77 is based on the text ille uos docebit omnia et commemorabit uobis, an OL reading found in Codex Vercellensis and Usserianus. When he cites these verses at Tractatus 104.1 to illustrate John 17, however, he gives the Vg text with suggeret uobis.32 In Contra Maximinum, from 428, there are three instances of secondary citations which correspond to the Vg against Augustine’s standard form which occurs in his earlier works. Contra Maximinum 2.22.3 provides one of only three citations with dixit rather than dicebat in John 7.39; the latter is found in seventeen citations, many of which also have credituri rather than credentes. In John 8.25, five other references follow the OL principium quod, but Contra Maximinum 2.17.4 reads principium quia, a reading only found in the Vg and Codex Veronensis. Finally, although Augustine cites John 17.3 over forty times, only five of these are identical to the Vg, including Contra Maximinum 2.15.4. There are also plenty of non-Vg readings in this work which rebut any suggestion of later alteration. Nonetheless, in these frequently cited verses, Augustine’s citations from memory no longer correspond to his mental text as in earlier writings, but betray the influence of the Vg. OL readings persist, however, even in Augustine’s latest works. Although the overall text-type of De praedestinatione sanctorum and De dono perseuerantiae corresponds to the Vg, both contain OL features, such as the text of John 6.28–9 at De praedestinatione 7.12. A continuous citation of John 12.37–40 at De dono perseuerantiae 14.35 includes a number of readings not preserved in any OL manuscript featured in Matzkow–Jülicher–Aland, including et ideo in John 12.39 and cor illorum in John 12.40. Its length suggests that this might be a primary citation, drawn from a codex. If so, it is remarkable that, in the last year of his life, Augustine was still using an OL exemplar.
Conclusion
These examples, representative of a much larger body of evidence, have illustrated a progression in the textual affiliation of Augustine’s gospel citations. In his early works, his biblical text corresponds to OL witnesses. It is noteworthy that there are comparatively few readings in Augustine’s text which are not present in surviving manuscripts. This suggests that the range of OL Gospels which have been preserved is comparable to the versions known to him. Augustine’s praise in Epistula 71 of Jerome’s revision of the Gospels proves that he had
32 M.-F. Berrouard Œuvres de saint Augustin 75. Homélies sur l’Évangile de saint Jean CIV–CXXIV (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 2003) 45, suggests that the form in Tractatus 104 is a correction by a later editor. If this were the case, however, we would expect Tractatus 77 to have been corrected as well, rather than the inconsistency.
464 h. a. g. houghton encountered this text by 403, and he used it for De consensu euangelistarum and the Tractatus in Iohannis euangelium. Within these commentaries, however, there is a hierarchy of citations: the Vg is principally used for the sequential treatment of the Gospel, while illustrative citations are given from memory in a different form. These secondary citations continue to feature OL readings long after Augustine’s initial adoption of the Vg. Although Augustine’s longer gospel citations in theological works also correspond to the Vg, he continues to use OL codices in his sermons on John. This is particularly marked in sermons known to have been preached at Carthage. In the last ten years of his life, Augustine’s secondary citations reveal the increasing influence of the Vg on his ‘mental text’ of the Gospels, replacing his customary text even in frequently quoted verses. Nonetheless, Augustine never quite reaches the point where all his citations accord with Jerome’s version, and in the last year of his life he still provides evidence for the OL tradition. Three other features of this study are worthy of note. First, the distinction between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ citations has provided an insight into Augustine’s citation technique. It is not always possible to be certain whether a verse was quoted directly from a codex, but separating biblical manuscripts and citations from memory enables us to trace the different rates at which the Vg influences each category of citation. It also permits the reconstruction of Augustine’s ‘mental text’ for certain verses. Secondly, this research has shown the importance of assembling all the available evidence before assessing a Church Father’s scriptural text. Consistent use of the same version cannot be assumed, given the variety of circumstances in which treatises were composed and sermons delivered. Moreover, each work has its own history of transmission during which the text of the biblical citations may have undergone alteration. In the case of Augustine, however, the variations in his biblical text suggest that his scriptural citations have by and large been transmitted intact.33 This third and final observation indicates that, despite the later hegemony of the Vg, the continued copying of OL forms and readings unique to Augustine has preserved his authentic authorial text of the Gospels. This means that they are not just of importance for NT textual criticism, but can also enable scholars to trace the circulation of different versions and provide a window into how Church Fathers used the Bible.
33 The principal exception to this, not discussed in this study, is the Speculum quis ignorat, a selection of biblical testimonia. The format of this work lends itself to updating in a way that Augustine’s other works do not. The citations in the prefaces correspond to his mental text but the testimonia have been brought into line with the Vg in both OT and NT, although some traces remain of the original version. See further Almut Mutzenbecher, ‘Die Nachtrag zu den Retraktationen mit Augustins letzten Werken’, Revue des études augustiniennes 30 (1984) 60–83, especially 63–71.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 465–478. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000246
Hanukkah in the Narrative Chronology of the Fourth Gospel JOH N C . P OI R I E R Kingswell Theological Seminary, 1124 Central Ave, Middletown, OH 45044, USA
It is almost universally supposed that the narrative chronology of the Fourth Gospel does not turn to Hanukkah until 10.22, but the first explicit reference to ‘the feast of Dedication’ need not represent the point at which the narrative first turns to that feast. This article argues, in turn, for a Hanukkah setting throughout John 10, then throughout chap. 9, and finally throughout chap. 8 (minus vv. 1–11). Thus Jesus’ claim to be ‘the light of the world’ (8.12) invokes the symbolism of Hanukkah rather than of Sukkoth. Keywords: Gospel of John, Hanukkah, Sukkoth, narrative chronology
Readers of the Fourth Gospel, even if they are only marginally familiar with the Jewish calendar and its associated symbols, usually have no trouble recognizing that Jesus’ claim to be ‘the bread of life’ (6.35, 48) draws upon the ritual symbolism of the feast on which Jesus made that claim (Passover). With perhaps a little more coaching, the average reader will also see that the image of ‘streams of living water’ flowing from either Jesus’ belly or the bellies of his followers (depending on how one punctuates John 7.37–38) draws upon a symbol associated with the feast during which that claim was made (Sukkoth). The allusions are immediate and obvious. But when the reader encounters the name of the next festival that Jesus attends (‘Dedication’ [⫽ Hanukkah; see John 10.22]),1 he or she finds no immediate allusion to its ritual symbolism. More than one commentator, sensing a break in a pattern, has pondered the apparent lack of Hanukkah symbolism.2 It is natural to ask: Why has the pattern from chaps. 6–7 ceased? But one might also ask: Has the pattern really ceased? 1 Hanukkah is an eight-day festival that begins every year on the 25th of Kislev, celebrating the rededication of the Temple by Judas Maccabeus in 165 or 164 bce (1 Macc 4.36–59; 2 Macc 1.8; 10.1–5). See Étienne Nodet, ‘La Dédicace, les Maccabées et le Messie’, RevB 93 (1986) 321–75; James C. VanderKam, ‘Hanukkah: Its Timing and Significance according to 1 and 2 Maccabees’, JSP 1 (1987) 23–40; idem, ‘Dedication, Feast of’, ABD 2.123–5. 2 E.g., Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971) 361 n. 3; C. K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St John (Philadelphia: Westminster, 2d ed. 1978)
465
466 john c. poirier It is usually assumed that there is no temporal transition between John chaps. 7 and 10, and that the events of John 8.12–10.21 occurred at Sukkoth, the setting described in chap. 7. Indeed, the supposed connection between Sukkoth and what precedes John 10.22 is often not given a second thought.3 As will be shown, however, things are not always as they appear when dealing with the Fourth Gospel’s narrative chronology. As Charles W. Hedrick points out, ‘John frequently leaves it to the reader to solve certain disconnects in the narrative’:4 ‘John is not always careful to make smooth narrative connections. For example, were Simon and Andrew (John 1.40–42) present with Jesus at the calling of Philip and Nathanael (1.43–51)? And exactly when does Jesus move from a location beside the sea (6.22–25) to the synagogue in Capernaum (6.59)?’5 The matter of lost ‘disconnects’ is one respect in which the Fourth Gospel’s narrative sophistication is not as total as it is sometimes made out to be. As such, it plays havoc with attempts to write out a verse-by-verse narrative chronology of that gospel. In terms more specific for the present case, we must ask: Where does the transition from Sukkoth to Hanukkah actually occur within the Fourth Gospel? The last definite time marker before the reference to the ‘feast of Dedication’ in John 10.22 is in 7.37. Does that mean that there are no temporal transitions between 7.37 and 10.22? It will be argued in the following pages that a lack of temporal markers in a given part of the Fourth Gospel’s narrative cannot be treated as the narrative’s way of marking time. An opposing observation adds to the frustration: the Fourth Gospel’s sudden announcement of when or where a given event transpires does not necessarily mark the beginning of the Fourth Gospel’s reporting of that day’s events. This use of a scenic marker appears in 8.20, where the author provides a context for the preceding nine verses: ‘These words he spoke in the treasury, as he
379. See C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1963) 210; Kåre Sigvald Fuglseth, Johannine Sectarianism in Perspective: A Sociological, Historical, and Comparative Analysis of Temple and Social Relationships in the Gospel of John, Philo and Qumran (NovTSup 119; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 278–81. J. van Goudoever takes a remarkably low view of the significance of Hanukkah for the Fourth Gospel: ‘The “gap” which was left between the Feast of Tabernacles and the Entry in the Passover season, was filled up by John with a story for the Hanukkah festival in Chapter x. 22–29’ (Biblical Calendars [Leiden: Brill, 1959] 264). 3 E.g., see John Marsh’s comment on John 10.22: ‘Everything that has taken place since 7[.]1 may be presumed to have happened at or about the feast of Tabernacles’ (St. John [Westminster Pelican Commentaries; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978] 403). Similarly: Andrew T. Lincoln, The Gospel According to Saint John (BNTC; London: Continuum, 2005) 303. 4 Charles W. Hedrick, ‘Vestigial Scenes in John: Settings without Dramatization’, NovT 47 (2005) 354–66, esp. 356. 5 Hedrick, ‘Vestigial Scenes in John’, 356 n. 4.
Hanukkah in the Narrative Chronology of the Fourth Gospel 467
taught in the temple’.6 A similar delay in the giving of a temporal marker can perhaps be found in 7.37, although, once again, the chronology is not really clear: it depends on whether the agents sent forth to arrest Jesus (in v. 32) report their failure to do so (in v. 46) on the same day. (The alternative scheme is that they were sent out on the day mentioned in 7.14 [‘about the middle of the festival’], and that they reported back a few days later.) If they were dispatched the same day that they reported back, then the announcement that it was ‘the last day of the feast’ (at v. 37) bisects the narrative of their sending and returning. In other words, as with 8.20, our being told what day it was in 7.37 may not function narrativally to mark the passage of time after 7.36. As frustrating as the lack of temporal markers may be, it does not appear to be due to any unconscious lapse on the evangelist’s part, but rather to his style of presentation. These examples yield an important observation about how and why John points to the calendar when he does, and we should bear it in mind as we try to interpret 10.22. When the Fourth Gospel for the first time tells us that Jesus is doing something at Hanukkah, it does not necessarily tell us that Jesus is for the first time doing something at Hanukkah. As the following pages will show, tending to the matter of when Hanukkah actually begins within Johannine storytime lends support to George Johnston’s suggestion that the Fourth Gospel ‘needs to be read backward (so to speak) as well as forward’.7 The case for locating chap. 9 at Hanukkah necessarily presupposes that a reasonable case can be made for locating the entirety of chap. 10 at that time, and an argument for locating chap. 8 at Hanukkah similarly depends on the case for locating chap. 9 at that time. For this reason, the arguments on the following pages unfold in reverse narrative order, attempting to win agreement for a broadened role for Hanukkah in the Fourth Gospel, moving progressively from an argument for placing all of chap. 10 at Hanukkah, to a corresponding argument for chap. 9, and finally to a corresponding argument for chap. 8.
The Temporal Unity of Chapter 10
A number of arguments may be made against the assumption that there is a temporal transition in John 10.22. The continuity of Jesus’ discourse before and after that verse should cause us to have serious reservations about reading a change of scene into it.8 It is not clear why commentators have made so little of 6 Richard Bauckham notes (as have others) that, throughout the Fourth Gospel, ‘we always know where Jesus is, usually very precisely’ (The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007] 99). 7 George Johnston, The Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John (SNTSMS 12; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1970) 155. 8 As Bruce D. Chilton notes, the reference to the feast of Dedication ‘appears in the midst of an extended controversy (ranging over Jn 10) over Jesus’ self-designation as “the gate of the
468 john c. poirier this problem. It would certainly be remarkable (or at least unprecedented) for Jesus to resume a discourse two months after he started it, especially with no intervening narrative or commentary other than the announcement that it was ‘the feast of the Dedication’ and that Jesus was walking in Solomon’s porch. Perhaps this is truer if we were discussing the historical Jesus, but it certainly holds for the Johannine Jesus as well. Jesus speaks of his followers as ‘sheep’ throughout chap. 10, which makes it rather unlikely that Jesus’ speaking after v. 22 is separated by more than two months from what he says prior to v. 22. The discourse on Jesus being the ‘door of the sheep’ lasts from 10.1 to 10.18, after which there is reference to ‘a division’ among the Jews regarding whether the things Jesus said could have come from a man possessing a devil. It is at this point that the evangelist reveals the liturgical and local setting of Jesus’ teaching: ‘And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the Dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch’ (10.22–23). The ‘Jews’ gather around Jesus and ask him plainly whether he is the Messiah. Jesus responds by resuming the discourse on the door of the sheep: ‘. . . you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me’ (10.26b–27). (The equation of ‘door of the sheep’ with ‘shepherd’ stems from the shepherd’s practice of sleeping in the doorway of a makeshift sheep pen.)9 Even if the perceived unity of the discourse is the product of the bringing together of disparate material through catchword association (which is doubtful), it is still unlikely that what follows v. 22 is meant to be separated in storytime from what precedes. Given the general continuity in subject matter, it would make more sense if vv. 22–23 are not intended to notify the reader of a change of scene. The reference to Hanukkah in 10.22 more likely fulfills some other literary function. This possibility touches on the text-critical question of the original wording of 10.22, in particular, whether ejgevneto dev or ejgevneto tovte (the two main choices in the manuscript tradition) represents the original reading. The principal witnesses are as follows:
ΔEgevneto dev . . . P66* a A D K X D Q P f13 it vg et al10 ΔEgeveto tovte . . . P66c P75 B L W Y 33 579 1071 et al sheep” (Jn 10:7) and God’s son (Jn 10:15)’ (‘Festivals and Holy Days: Jewish’, Dictionary of New Testament Background [ed. Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000] 371–78, esp. 376). 9 See Eric F. F. Bishop, ‘“The Door of the Sheep” (Egwv eijmi hJ quvra tw`n probavtwn) – John x. 7–9’, ExpT 71 (1960) 307–9. 10 A. F. J. Klijn’s listing of P45 as a witness to ejgevneto dev appears to be in error (A Survey of the Researches into the Western Text of the Gospels and Acts, part 2: 1949–1969 [NovTSup 21; Leiden: Brill, 1969] 46). See Reuben J. Swanson, ed., New Testament Greek Manuscripts: John (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995) 144.
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Reading tovte suggests more strongly a temporal transition, and therefore represents more unequivocally the view that the verse does mark a new occasion, while the dev reading does not evoke a temporal transition.11 Virtually all existing textcritical studies of the dev/tovte choice assume that the verse marks a transition. For example, B. F. Westcott considers dev to be the more difficult choice, as ‘it is hard to suppose that St. John would have indicated in such a way a fresh journey to Jerusalem’.12 Bruce Metzger’s explanation for the UBS3 choice of tovte is no better. In fact, it is markedly weaker, not least for requiring two consecutive slips: ‘the origin of either [dev or tovte] is susceptible of explanation on transcriptional grounds (dittography or haplography), followed by confusion (not infrequent in some Greek manuscripts) of de and te’.13 The UBS3 Committee does not appear to have considered that 10.22 might be continuous with the preceding discourse, as is shown by the way in which it ruled the narrative appropriateness of dev out of court: ‘After considerable debate a majority of the Committee preferred tovte as “too appropriate not to have been included originally.”’14 ‘Appropriateness’ here clearly depends on the assumption that 10.22 marks a temporal transition. Textual critics have sought to explain the variation between dev and tovte strictly on transcriptional grounds, but one can easily account for the presence of tovte in the manuscript tradition as the result of a scribe mistaking 10.22 for a change of scenery (just as modern readers typically have done). As Metzger’s strained explanation shows, it is more difficult to account for the rise of dev from an original reading of tovte. I suggest that the reference to Jesus walking in Solomon’s porch in the Temple is intended to relate an item of some importance pertaining to the theme of Hanukkah rather than to introduce a temporal marker. As Solomon’s porch was supposedly a part of the original Temple remaining from Solomon’s day (see Jos. Ant. xv.396–401; XX.220; Bell. V.185), that area presumably held special significance for a feast celebrating the Temple’s purification and rededication in the days of
11 As Randall Buth and Brian Kvasnica note, ‘Dev . . . adds a notion of a change in topic, a change in paragraph, a change in backgrounding or a change in story development’ (‘Appendix: Critical Notes on the VTS’, Jesus’ Last Week: Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels – Volume 1 [ed. R. Steven Notley, Marc Turnage, and Brian Becker; JCP 11; Leiden: Brill, 2006] 259–317, esp. 311–12). 12 Brooke Foss Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John: The Greek Text with Introduction and Notes (2 vols.; London: John Murray, 1908) 2.76. On Westcott’s readings, see Adrianis J. Simonis, Die Hirtenrede im Johannes-Evangelium: Versuch einer Analyse von Johannes 10,1–18 nach Entstehung, Hintergrund und Inhalt (AnBib 29; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1967) 324–6. 13 See Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1971) 231. 14 Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 231.
470 john c. poirier the Maccabees. 2 Maccabees 2.12 explains, in fact, that the eight-day dedication ceremony was intended to recall Solomon’s consecration of the Temple.15 It is not for purposes of setting a new scene, therefore, that 10.22 tells us that Jesus was walking in Solomon’s porch during Hanukkah, but rather to bring the setting into relation with what Jesus was saying, which had to do with identifying the legitimate leadership of God’s people.16 The above-argued understanding of 10.22 pushes the Hanukkah setting back at least as early as 10.1: unless we are to believe that there is a jump of two months in the middle of Jesus’ discourse on the good shepherd, it would appear that everything in 10.1–39 happened on the same occasion, that is, during the feast named in 10.22.
15 1 Kings 8.65–66 states that Solomon’s celebration lasted for seven days (with Solomon dismissing the assembly on the eighth day), but 2 Chron 7.8–10 relates that there were eight days of dedicatory celebrations. Jonathan A. Goldstein notes that Moses and Zerubbabel had also held eight-day ceremonies for dedicating altars, and that Hezekiah held one purifying the Temple (‘The Hasmonean Revolt and the Hasmonean Dynasty’, The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 2: The Hellenistic Age [ed. W. D. Davies and Louis Finkelstein; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1989] 292–351, esp. 303). On Temple purification ceremonies in general, see Baruch Halpern, David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001) 334–5. 16 Although the more immediate OT echoes within Jesus’ discourse on the gate of the sheep come from Zechariah 10–11, the assigned lectionary readings for the first Sabbath of Hanukkah bear mentioning: in b. Meg. 31a, the haftorah reading is Zech 2.14–4.7 (in which God vindicates his chosen high priest), and, in m. Meg. 3.6, the assigned Torah passage was the ‘The Princes’ (viz. Num 7.1–89). Raymond E. Brown points out that Jesus’ reference to being the one the Father ‘consecrated’ uses the same verb (aJgiavzw) as Num 7.1 (The Gospel According to John I–XII [AB 29; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966] 404, 411). Jesus’ discourse on true and false shepherds may not stem directly from these lectionary texts, but they are definitive for the themes that had always motivated that festival, even if their status as the regular readings was established too late for the writer of the Fourth Gospel to be aware of them (which is doubtful). See Nodet, ‘La Dédicace, les Maccabées et le Messie’, 362. Many scholars have an understandable fear of arguments based on readings listed in the Jewish lectionary cycle, stemming from the fact that we do not know the age of that cycle. But the grounds for speaking of a festival lectionary are more secure: most likely haftorah readings for other yearly festivals were established long before the NT was written. On the possible links between the lectionary and the themes of John 10, see Aileen Guilding, The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship: A Study of the Relation of St. John’s Gospel to the Ancient Jewish Lectionary System (Oxford: Clarendon, 1960) 127–32. More generally on the state of the lectionary in the first century, see Mark S. Goodacre, Goulder and the Gospels: An Examination of a New Paradigm (JSNTSup 133; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996) 330–39.
Hanukkah in the Narrative Chronology of the Fourth Gospel 471
When does John 9 Take Place?
A few details of the episode in chap. 9, it will be argued, favor a Hanukkah setting. Most importantly, we must consider the narrative continuity of chapters 9 and 10. The shepherd discourse of chap. 10 ensues upon the incident in chap. 9, with Jesus’ accusers in chap. 9 figuring as the thieves (wolves) in 10.10. The fact that the most significant lectionary readings for Hanukkah were those assigned for the Sabbath forms a good fit with the Sabbath setting of chap. 9. But we certainly can get to the main point of Jesus’ suit without recourse to a lectionary theory: the exploitative practices of the Temple administration in Jesus’ day were too well known not to be recognized as a theme, and we should bear in mind that the Maccabees freed the Temple not only from the hands of the Syrian overlord, but (more directly) from a cadre of Jewish priests serving God’s enemy.17 This way of reading John 10 more readily explains why the Jews’ question in v. 24 and Jesus’ response in v. 25 fit so perfectly with the debate that ensued upon the healing of the blind man in 9.1–7. Perhaps one reason this has not been widely recognized is that the reference to the Pool of Siloam in 9.7 is usually read as an allusion to the water-drawing ceremony associated with Sukkoth. Does the reference to the Pool of Siloam in 9.7 suggest that we are still within the Sukkoth cycle, as most commentators seem to think? If so, then chap. 9 should be read as taking place on either the same day as chap. 7 (in which explicit reference is made to Sukkoth) or on the succeeding day. But combining that with other details in John 9 produces a chronological quandary of sorts. The simple fact is that Jesus’ actions in chap. 9 would have been less meaningful if they happened on the eighth day of Sukkoth. That is because the lack of a water-drawing ceremony on the eighth day of Sukkoth stemmed, not from the sabbatizing of that day, but rather from the lack of a corresponding water libation on that day (see m. Suk. 4.9–10).18 This runs counter to the implied logic in Jesus’ unusual means of healing the blind man, wherein Jesus appears to be publicly flouting the Sabbath laws by ordering the blind man to perform such a visible Sabbath violation. Jesus’ logic in 9.4 (‘We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day; night comes, when no one can work’) appears to be an inversion of the Sabbath-keepers’ logic, 17 See esp. the discussion of Alcimus’ priesthood in James C. VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005) 226–39. See Craig A. Evans, ‘Opposition to the Temple: Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls’, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. James H. Charlesworth; ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1992) 235–53; Randall Buth and Brian Kvasnica, ‘Temple Authorities and Tithe Evasion: The Linguistic Background and Impact of the Parable of The Vineyard, the Tenants and the Son’, Jesus’ Last Week, eds. Notley, Turnage, and Becker, 53–80. 18 The water drawing appears to be designed for seven days, in spite of R. Judah’s remark (in m. Suk. 4.9) about a log of water supplying eight days’ worth of libations. The eighth day was essentially added (Lev 23:33–36) to an original seven-day scheme (Lev. 23.42).
472 john c. poirier according to which one who is confronted with work to be done may not do it on the Sabbath but rather must wait until nightfall (when the Sabbath ended).19 In other words, if the reference to Siloam in v. 7 is made relevant by a festival setting, then the morrow that Jesus hastens to avoid (for the point of saying something qualificatory about the Sabbath) was most likely a day on which water was ceremonially drawn from the Pool of Siloam. Jesus’ insistence on not waiting until nightfall makes more sense if nightfall represents the beginning of another day on which the symbol of the Pool of Siloam was meaningful – in other words, if nightfall marked the beginning of another of the first seven days within the festival cycle (there being no water libation on the eighth day). For that reason, Jesus’ healing of the blind man forms a poor fit with the Sukkoth setting of chap. 7. The action of chap. 7 occurs on ‘the great day’ of Sukkoth, and, whether we interpret that as the seventh or the eighth day,20 there simply are no days remaining in the Sukkoth cycle on which the Pool of Siloam is significant. The reason scholars never explore these considerations is probably that they virtually always assume that Sukkoth is the only time of the year for which drawing water at the Pool of Siloam was significant. Most interpreters seem to allow the connection between ‘living water’ and Sukkoth, found in 7.37–38, to function as a datum line for the deeper significance of the reference to Siloam in 9.7. In this connection, they regularly note that the ritual of drawing water from Siloam and carrying it to the Temple in a procession was a feature of Sukkoth.21 If it can be
19 On an alternative punctuation, John 9.4 continues a sentence begun in 9.3 – to wit: ‘But that the works of him who sent me might be made manifest, we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night comes, when no one can work’. See John C. Poirier, ‘“Day and Night” and the Punctuation of John 9.3’, NTS 42 (1996) 288–94; idem, ‘“Day and Night” and the Sabbath Controversy of John 9’, FN 19(2006) 113–19. 20 Barrett and John A. T. Robinson argue that ‘the great day’ of 7.37 is the eighth day of Sukkoth. Barrett (The Gospel according to St John, 326) points to the continuation of festal activity on the eighth day (in m. Suk. 5.6), as well as the fact that Josephus refers to Sukkoth as an eightday celebration (Ant. 3.245–47), while Robinson (The Priority of John [London: SCM, 1985] 216) notes that ‘the Mishnah (Sukk. 4.8) specifically calls the eighth day “the last festival-day of the feast” and speaks of “the honour due to it”’. Bultmann and Brown, on the other hand, think that the seventh day is more likely intended. Bultmann (The Gospel of John, 302 n. 5) notes the cessation of several elements of Sukkoth on the eighth day (see m. Suk. 4.1; 5.1), as well as the ‘mark[ing] out’ of the seventh day as special in comparison with the preceding six (lending propriety to the term ‘the great day’). (Cf. b. Suk. 22a: ‘May one make use of the booth decorations [anytime] during the whole of the seven days? . . . [O]ne may not use them until the conclusion of the last day of the Feast’.) Brown (The Gospel According to John I–XII, 320, 326–7) notes in particular that the water-libation ceremony enacted by Jesus was only performed for seven days (see m. Suk. 4.1). 21 John Grigsby exemplifies this line of reasoning: ‘Jesus’ original audience and the earliest readership would have regarded Siloam’s waters as not only cultic, but living as well. Their status as “living water” . . . a product of Rabbinic speculation, was especially prominent
Hanukkah in the Narrative Chronology of the Fourth Gospel 473
assumed that the ritual in question occurred only at Sukkoth (and not at Hanukkah as well), then the viability of a Hanukkah setting would suffer considerably. That assumption, however, is open to doubt. Contrary to popular belief, there are grounds for believing that the waterdrawing ritual might also have been celebrated at Hanukkah. As is well known, the celebration of Hanukkah was fashioned from a number of rituals and symbols borrowed from Sukkoth (see 2 Macc 1.9, 18; 10.6). The borrowing was conscious and intended to evoke a connection between the two festivals. Judas Maccabeus presented the original eight-day celebration as a delayed celebration of Sukkoth (which had not been celebrated at its proper time that year). In fact, the first name on record for Hanukkah is ‘the feast of Tabernacles in the month of Kislev’ (2 Macc 1.9). The shared features of Sukkoth and Hanukkah are usually presented as four in number: the singing of the hallel, the taking up of the lulav, the theme of light (although there is little parity in how this theme is borne out in celebration), and the eight days duration.22 But Moshe D. Herr has suggested adding another feature of Sukkoth to this list: ‘[t]he custom of Simh·at Bet ha-Sho’evah (“the waterdrawing festival”), with its kindling of torches and lamps in the courts of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, seems likely to have been transferred as well 23 from Sukkot to H · anukkah’. Herr unfortunately does not explain why he regards this as so ‘likely’ (if indeed that is what he means to say).24 The context of his remark suggests that he bases his view strictly on the preponderance of parallels between Sukkoth and Hanukkah. The reader might object that Herr’s is an argument from silence. Some arguments from silence, however, are stronger than others. The parallels between during the feast of Tabernacles, the backdrop for the John 9 episode’ (‘Washing in the Pool of Siloam: A Thematic Anticipation of the Johannine Cross’, NovT 27 [1985] 227–35, esp. 228). For the connection between Siloam and Sukkoth, see m. Sukk. 4.9–10; b. Sukk. 4.9. See also W. D. Davies, The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish Territorial Doctrine (Berkeley: University of California, 1974) 315. Karlheinz Müller’s discussion of the significance of the Pool of Siloam in the Johannine narrative fastens so much on the philological notice in John 9.7 (viz. ‘which means Sent’) that it virtually ignores the pool’s festival significance (‘Joh 9, 7 und das jüdische Verständnis des H · iloh-Spruches’, BZ 13 [1969] 251–6). 22 These four items of agreement are recognized as such in O. S. Rankin, The Origins of the Festival of Hanukkah (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1930) 91; F.-M. Abel, ‘La fête de la H · anoucca’, RevB 53 (1946) 538–46, esp. 540–46; VanderKam, ‘Dedication, Feast of’, 124. Erwin R. Goodenough also points to a parity in the two festivals’ use of crown symbolism (Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period [Bollingen 37; 13 vols.; New York: Pantheon, 1953–68] 7.165, 168). 23 Moshe David Herr, ‘H · anukkah’, EJ vol. 7, cols. 1280–88, esp. 1284. 24 Herr’s wording is ambiguous, as he might take the existence of a water-drawing ceremony at Hanukkah for granted on other grounds (see below), in which case he has used the word ‘likely’ to describe a theory of its derivation. Either way, it is clear that Herr judges it likely that the ceremony was celebrated at Hanukkah.
474 john c. poirier Sukkoth and Hanukkah are better explained as a design than as a case of ‘contamination’ of the latter by the former (as del Medico would have it),25 and the notion that elements of Sukkoth not explicitly associated with Hanukkah can be assumed for both feasts is not as speculative as one might think. That Hanukkah celebration was a deliberate echo or copying of the Sukkoth celebration is hardly open to debate. It is true that major elements of Sukkoth, such as the dwelling in booths and the offering of animal sacrifices each day of the feast, are not repeated at Hanukkah, but wherever we are met with discontinuity between Sukkoth and Hanukkah, a reason for the discontinuity is usually ready to hand.26 This suggests that Herr’s argument from silence deserves serious consideration: if Hanukkah dispensed with the water-drawing ceremony, then there should be a reason for that development. In this connection, it is worth noting that the Babylonian Talmud may preserve traces of a water-drawing ceremony connected with Hanukkah.27 This all means that the reference to the Pool of Siloam in John 9.7 could invoke a Hanukkah context as readily as it invokes a Sukkoth context. 25 H. E. del Medico, ‘Le cadre historique des fêtes de Hanukkah et de Purîm’, VT 15 (1965) 238–70, esp. 253. 26 Since dwelling in booths at Sukkoth represents the days when Israel’s cult served at a tabernacle rather than a permanent temple, it stands to reason that an adaptation of Sukkoth celebrations for a feast commemorating the dedication of a temple would make a point of dispensing with that feature. It should also be noted that the sacrificing of animals is not so much to be dispensed with as substituted by a less costly and more democratic ritual: the kindling of lights. That the latter is a surrogate for the animals offered at Sukkoth is suggested by b. Shab. 21b, in which the house of Shammai claims that the eight lamps are lit on the first day of Hanukkah and that the number is reduced by one on each succeeding day, in explicit correspondence to the sacrifice of bulls at Sukkoth (viz. thirteen the first day, twelve the second, etc. – see Num 29.12–39). S. Stein finds in this halakha an echo of 2 Maccabees, as that text makes the links between the two feasts explicit (‘The Liturgy of Hanukkah and the First Two Books of Maccabees’, JJS 5 [1954] 100–106, 148–55, esp. 105). But we do not need to resort to textual echoes to explain this sort of thing: the correspondences between the two feasts was more likely so determinative of the shape of the Hanukkah liturgy that textual links like this are unnecessary. 27 In b. Suk. 21a, there is a debate over which sort of wicks may be used on the Sabbath, tangentially asking about the use of wicks for Hanukkah. Rab Huna proscribes the use of Sabbath-forbidden wicks on any day during Hanukkah. This ruling is presented in counterpoint to what had been decreed about the use of wicks in the preceding discussion, where explicit reference is made to ‘the rejoicing of the House of Drawing’ (an occasion differentiated from some other kindling of lamps). The logic of the sugya seems to suggest that the ceremony associated with ‘the House of Drawing’ takes place during Hanukkah. It is true that the continuation of this sugya onto the next folio presents a reference to ‘the Festival’ on which bullocks are offered in varying numbers according to the day (an obvious reference to Sukkoth), but this reference functions as a rationale for the structure of the Hanukkah celebration and does not provide a purchase for the claim that the water-drawing festival under discussion is specifically held at Sukkoth. (Of course, the fact that this material is found in a tractate on Sukkoth might be thought to favor a Sukkoth setting for the ceremony in ques-
Hanukkah in the Narrative Chronology of the Fourth Gospel 475
Temporal Transitions in John 8
I have argued that the whole of chaps. 9 and 10 should be placed at Hanukkah. Can a similar argument be made for chap. 8? The interweaving of the symbolism of chap. 8 (‘I am the light of the world’ [v. 12]) and the enactment of what it represents in chap. 9 (in the healing of a blind man) is of a piece with the pattern established in Jesus’ claim to be the ‘bread of life’ (6.35, 48) and the demonstration of that claim in the feeding of the 5000 (6.5–13). This interweaving even includes a resumption, in 9.5, of the term ‘light of the world’. Such an interweaving makes somewhat better literary sense if both chapters belong to the same larger unit of material. VanderKam refers to the fact that chap. 9 ‘is not entirely divorced from the symbolism of the chapters that precede it’ as a warrant for drawing chap. 9 into the presumed Sukkoth setting of chap. 8, but that lack of a ‘divorce’ from ‘symbolism’ can easily work in the other direction: it can show that chap. 8 should be drawn into our determined setting for chap. 9.28 Is there then any difficulty in supposing that everything from John 8.12 to 10.39 occurs at Hanukkah, and that the symbolism of light associated with that feast is the proper context for understanding Jesus’ claim to be ‘the light of the world’ (8.12)?29 As I pointed out at the beginning of this article, the literary attractiveness of the resulting threefold scheme of christological appropriations of rites or symbols centrally associated with the festivals is sufficient for us to wonder why scholars have not associated the ‘light of the world’ saying with Hanukkah. It is true, of course, that some have already found a ritual detail on which to hang John 8.12: the lighting of the court of women at Sukkoth. But an allusion to the role of lights at Hanukkah fits the pattern better, both because the referent of the allusion is a more central element of Hanukkah (the ‘festival of lights’) than of Sukkoth, and because it does not represent a recycling of the source of the previous symbol (that is, it introduces a new festival into the narrative, thereby giving added mileage to the christological appropriation of the Jewish festivals and their symbols). The possibility of such a reading is certainly more open than scholars have
tion, but there is no guarantee that this material was catalogued in a way consistent with its original meaning.) Strictly speaking, ‘the rejoicing of the House of Drawing’ in b. Sukkoth could be a reference to the well-known Sukkoth ceremony, but it would then look rather like a stray tidbit of information. 28 James C. VanderKam, ‘John 10 and the Feast of the Dedication’, Of Scribes and Scrolls: Studies on the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental Judaism, and Christian Origins (ed. Harold W. Attridge, John J. Collins, and Thomas H. Tobin; College Theology Society Resources in Religion 5; Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990) 203–14, esp. 205. 29 The symbols of light and darkness are widespread throughout Jewish and biblical texts (see esp. Evald Lövestam, Spiritual Wakefulness in the New Testament [Lund Universitets Årsskrift 55/3; Lund: Gleerup, 1963] 8–24).
476 john c. poirier allowed. Literarily, the case for a Hanukkah setting for chap. 8 rests on more than minutiae. Although Sukkoth featured a festive lighting of the women’s court of the Temple (m. Sukk. 5.2–4), Hanukkah multiplied the use and significance of this light symbolism, and became known as the ‘feast of lights’ (Jos. Ant. 12.325). Hanukkah’s use of light went beyond the more limited use found in Sukkoth, centering much of its significance on the lighting of the Temple menorah (1 Macc 4.49–50; 2 Macc 1.8; 10.3). For this reason, Jesus’ claim to be ‘the light of the world’ (8.12; see 9.5) fits well with a Hanukkah setting. Jesus would then be laying claim not only to the bread imagery of Passover and the living water imagery of Sukkoth, but also to the light imagery of Hanukkah. The central argument of John 8 is not about light, however, but rather about freedom. This is a theme not present in Sukkoth, but one deeply connected with Hanukkah, especially in some of its early interpretations. The importance of liberation as a Hanukkah theme in Jesus’ day can be seen in Josephus’ presentation of the Maccabean revolt and dedication of the Temple.30 Josephus’ account contains the word ‘liberty’ (ejleuqeriva) in several places where it does not appear in the account from 1 Maccabees (which Josephus follows). For example, the account of Judah’s speech in Ant. 12.302 contains the word ‘liberty’ three times, while the original account in 1 Macc 3.58 does not contain it even once.31 The liberationist theme of Hanukkah shows through at a number of other points, although certain details (like the inclusion of Zech 4.6 [‘not by might, nor by power’] in the haftorah reading for the first Hanukkah Sabbath) might represent efforts to temper the militia-mindedness that such a theme can spur. The hope of liberation that was in the air at Hanukkah may lend propriety to what Jesus says in John 8.36: ‘Whomever the Son makes free is free indeed’. Although this saying can be interpreted in other ways, a context of liberationist sentiment (such as that associated with Hanukkah) might help us understand why Jesus said these words on this occasion and not some other. It is as if Jesus were saying, ‘Everyone talks a great deal about freedom this time of year, but only I can 30 See William Reuben Farmer, Maccabees, Zealots, and Josephus: An Inquiry into Jewish Nationalism in the Greco-Roman Period (New York: Columbia University, 1956) 132–45. Farmer’s suggestion that the Mishnah omits to give Hanukkah its own tractate simply because it is not a biblically instituted feast (p. 142 n. 20) does not account for the fact that the Mishnah also does not give Pentecost its own tractate. 31 See Isaiah M. Gafni, ‘Josephus and 1 Maccabees’, Josephus, the Bible, and History (ed. Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata; Detroit: Wayne State University, 1989) 116–31. I see no reason for Gafni’s unsupported suggestion that, ‘by introducing terms such as freedom (ejleuqeriva) beloved by all people (A XII, 302), Josephus probably had his Greek audience in mind’ (p. 127). The use of ejleuqeriva as a theme makes all the sense it needs to make on native Jewish grounds. E. Z. Melamed, for some reason, skips over the parallel between Ant. xii.302 and 1 Macc 3.58 (‘Josephus in Comparison with 1 Maccabees’, ErIsr 1 [1951] 122–30 [Hebrew]).
Hanukkah in the Narrative Chronology of the Fourth Gospel 477
give you true freedom’.32 It might also be significant that the theme of liberation connects with messianic expectations in a way that evokes the shepherd theme of John 10. Are these broad themic considerations supportable by the narrative devices that imbed chap. 8 between chaps. 7 and 9? In fact, there are several possible indications that the scene beginning in 8.12 does not take place, according to Johannine narrative time, on the same day as what happens in chap. 7. For one thing, we see that the ‘menacing surveillance of the Pharisees’33 is now carried out in person (8.13), while 7.45 represented the Pharisees as being gathered with the chief priests somewhere apart from Jesus. This, of course, is a small matter, although it is suggestive of a separate occasion. More unsettling for the assumption that 8.12 follows closely on 7.52 is the way in which 7.30 and 8.20 both refer to the failure of anyone to arrest Jesus, ‘because his hour had not yet come’. If 7.30 and 8.20 represent the same occasion, then these words are redundant. The inappropriateness of such a scenario increases all the more when we focus on what is actually being said, for why raise the question of whether it was ‘his hour’ in 8.20 if it is still the same day as the last time the question had been raised (7.30)? In a narrative of this type, we would expect a phrase like ‘no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come’ to be repeated at chronologically separate junctures in the narrative, so as to allow the motif of failing to arrest Jesus to represent a more durative state of affairs. To have it repeated a little while later the same day is literarily rather ineffective, especially when the hour when Jesus will be successfully arrested is still some six months away. Initially there does not seem to be a transition from chap. 7, since 8.12 begins ‘Again Jesus spoke to them, saying . . . ’ (Pavlin ou[n aujtoi`~ ejlavlhsen oJ Ihsou`~ levgwn). Yet when one considers that 7.45–52 narrates what took place at some distance from Jesus, in the presence of the chief priests and Pharisees, it appears that there has been some sort of break in the action. This judgment is reinforced by the fact that we find ‘the Pharisees’ speaking directly to Jesus in 8.13, a considerable development from the situation in 7.45–52, where ‘the chief priests and Pharisees’, 32 On liberation in the Fourth Gospel, see Cornelis Bennema, ‘The Sword of the Messiah and the Concept of Liberation in the Fourth Gospel’, Bib 86 (2005) 35–58, and the works listed there. 33 This phrase is taken from Allen Dwight Callahan, ‘The Gospel of John as People’s History’, Christian Origins (ed. Richard A. Horsley; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005) 162–76, esp. 167. The Pharisees’ role in the Fourth Gospel appears to reflect their station in the post–70 ce situation rather than what they enjoyed in the historical Jesus’ day (see Joan E. Taylor, The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism [Studying the Historical Jesus; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997] 186–91). On the indistinguishibility of the Pharisees from other Jewish leaders in the Fourth Gospel, see John Painter, The Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature and Theology of the Johannine Community (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1991) 100–101.
478 john c. poirier operating at a safe distance, send agents to spy on Jesus with a hope of arresting him. Despite appearances, therefore, 8.12 might be a good place to locate a (lost or hidden) temporal transition. I am not the first to posit a break in the action at this point. John A. T. Robinson expressed the same view in The Priority of John (where he notes that he was not the first): ‘L. Morris, The New Testament and the Jewish Lectionaries, London 1964, 64f., makes a case for this not being a continuous dialogue (though of course the intrusive 7.53–8.11 which breaks it up is nonJohannine anyhow). The reference to the last day of the feast in 7.37 looks as if this may be intended to mark the end of this particular occasion’.34 In this connection, it is worth noting that pavlin (as begins 8.12) sometimes marks a chronological disjunction in the Fourth Gospel (e.g., in 1.35; 4.3, 46; 20.26). So if John 8.12 does not narrate the same day as John chap. 7, does it perhaps narrate what happens the next day – that is, on the eighth day of Sukkoth? The fact that the healing of the blind man in chap. 9 happens on the Sabbath could be seen to fit this scheme, as the eighth day of Sukkoth was also considered a Sabbath. But, again, the literary refrain ‘it was not his hour’ speaks against this scenario, as a narrative tracing Jesus’ ministry through the year-long course of the Jewish calendar is not likely to mark the succession of a single day in such a grandiloquent way. It is more likely, I believe, that time has marched on. It is less taxing on the details of chaps. 7 and 8 if the latter is read in chronological unity with chap. 9, thereby placing Jesus’ self-description as the ‘light of the world’ within the context of Hanukkah.
Conclusion
Many of the details and themes found in John 8–10 can be readily explained as elements of Hanukkah, and some fit a Hanukkah context better than the Sukkoth context that has usually been assumed. Nothing in these chapters appears to stand in the way of a Hanukkah context. There is little reason for maintaining that everything from 7.1 to 10.21 belongs within the context of Sukkoth. Combining these considerations with the fact that there must be a passage of time between chaps. 7 and 9 suggests that we should almost certainly place all of chaps. 9–10 in a narrative context of Hanukkah. Combining them with the thematic coloring of the ‘light of the world’ saying in 8.12 and the motif of liberation in 8.36 suggests that chap. 8 may belong in a Hanukkah context as well.
34 Robinson, The Priority of John, 216 n. 9.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 479–495. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000258
The Portrayal of Aquila and Priscilla in Acts: The Question of Sources WI LLIAM O . WALKE R , J R . Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78209–3822, USA
This study argues in three stages that virtually everything the Book of Acts says about Aquila and Priscilla can be derived or inferred from materials in the Pauline letters or can plausibly be attributed to the author’s own literary, theological, and/or apologetic agenda. The argument supports the following propositions: (a) that the author of Acts knew and used at least some of the Pauline letters, (b) that Acts reflects a distinctly anti-feminist bias, (c) that the author’s agenda included an anti-Marcionite component, and (d) that Acts is to be dated in the second century and perhaps as late as the middle of the century. Keywords: Acts, anti-feminism, Apollos, Aquila, Marcionites, Pauline letters, Priscilla (Prisca)
The author of Acts – hereafter, with no implications regarding actual identity, to be called simply ‘Luke’ – mentions Aquila and Priscilla three times: (1) In 18.1–3, Paul arrives in Corinth from Athens, takes up residence with the couple, and works with them in their trade as skhnopoioiv.1 Aquila is identified as a Jewish native of Pontus who, with his wife Priscilla, has recently moved from Italy to Corinth because the Emperor Claudius had banished all Jews from Rome. (2) In 18.18–19, Priscilla and Aquila leave Corinth with Paul, accompanying him as far as Ephesus, where they remain. (3) In 18.24–26, they correct what they regard as a defective version of the gospel being preached by Apollos in Ephesus.2 The same couple – known, however, as Aquila and Prisca3 – appears three times in the Pauline letters:4 (1) In 1 Cor 16.19b, Paul conveys greetings from Aquila
1 Usually translated as ‘tentmakers’ or ‘leather workers’, but see below under B.7 (p. 488) for a different possibility. 2 Other references to Aquila (but not Priscilla) in various versions of the ‘Western’ text (Acts 18.2, 7, 18, 21) are almost certainly later additions. 3 ‘Priscilla’ is the diminutive form of ‘Prisca’ and clearly refers to the same person. 4 ‘Pauline letters’ here and elsewhere includes the Pastorals, Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, all of which I regard as pseudonymous.
479
480 william o. walker, jr. and Prisca5 and ‘the church in their house’. (2) In Rom 16.3–5a, Paul asks his readers to greet Prisca6 and Aquila and ‘the church in their house’, identifying the couple as ‘fellow workers in Christ Jesus who risked their necks for [his] life’ and noting that ‘not only [he] but also the churches of the Gentiles give thanks for [or “to”] them’. (3) In 2 Tim 4.19a, the pseudonymous ‘Paul’ asks ‘Timothy’ to greet Prisca and Aquila. The consistent linking of the two names and the references to ‘the church in their house’ indicate that Aquila and Prisca are a married couple.7 It is obvious that Paul’s references to Aquila and Prisca are based on his own acquaintance with them. There is no evidence, however, that Luke knew Aquila and Priscilla, and his references to them are presumably based on source material of some type. Until recently, many if not most scholars assumed that Acts was written in the first century,8 and almost all have been persuaded that its author did not know – or at least did not use as sources – any of the Pauline letters.9 Luke must, therefore, have had access to other source material that included information about Aquila and his wife. Thus, Gerd Lüdemann maintains that here, as elsewhere, Luke drew on ‘traditions’ – written and/or oral and, in some cases, reflecting details of the letters – that were accessible in the Pauline mission fields.10 Lüdemann distinguishes such traditional material from Lukan redaction on the basis of ‘concrete details, which in themselves show no special Lucan tendency’.11 With this as his criterion, he concludes that most of what Luke says about Aquila and Priscilla ‘seems to reflect tradition’ (i.e., source material other than the Pauline letters).12 5 Many witnesses (including C and D) have ‘Priscilla’, but the preferred reading is ‘Prisca’; see, e.g., Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft/United Bible Societies, 2d ed. 1994) 503. A omits the entire clause, ajspavzetai uJma`~ ejn kurivw/ polla; ΔAkuvla~ kai; Privska. 6 Some witnesses have ‘Priscilla’, but the preferred reading is ‘Prisca’; see, e.g., Metzger, A Textual Commentary, 475. 7 Acts 18.2 and 1 Cor 16.19b name Aquila first, but Priscilla or Prisca appears first in Acts 18.18, 26; Rom 16.3, and 2 Tim 4.19a. Except when referring specifically to one of the latter four passages, however, I shall name Aquila first because (a) he appears first both in the earliest reference in Acts and in what is almost certainly the earliest reference in the letters and (b) alphabetical order places him first. 8 For discussion, see, e.g., Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 31; New York: Doubleday, 1998) 51–5. 9 More than a generation ago, Werner Georg Kümmel (Introduction to the New Testament [Nashville/New York: Abingdon, rev. ed. 1975] 186) spoke of this as the ‘nearly universal judgment’ of contemporary NT scholarship. 10 Gerd Lüdemann assisted by Tom Hall, The Acts of the Apostles: What Really Happened in the Earliest Days of the Church (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005) 18; see also, e.g., C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1994–98) 2.xxx. 11 Lüdemann, The Acts of the Apostles, 392; cf. Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles, 2.858. 12 Lüdemann, The Acts of the Apostles, 392, cf. 235, 248; cf. Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles 2.858.
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Clearly, Luke might have used sources such as Lüdemann describes, but, if so, these sources no longer exist and anything that might be said regarding their nature, content, provenance, or accessibility is purely hypothetical and speculative. Increasingly, however, scholars are moving to a second-century date for Acts13 – a time when some if not all of the Pauline letters would already have been written. Moreover, we still have these letters in something at least approximating their original form and can therefore compare their content with that of Acts. Finally, there is now a growing consensus that Luke knew at least some of the letters and used them as sources in composing his narrative of Christian origins.14 Thus, it is now reasonable to assume, simply on a priori grounds, that the letters likely served as sources for at least some of the details in Luke’s portrayal of Aquila and Priscilla. If, however, virtually everything Luke says about the couple either could be derived or inferred from the letters or could plausibly be attributed to Luke’s own agenda, there would be no need for an appeal to otherwise unknown and purely hypothetical sources as the basis for his references to Aquila and Priscilla. Moreover, this would render suspect any attempt to use these references as an argument for the existence of such sources. The thesis of the present study is that virtually everything Luke says about Aquila and Priscilla can in fact be either (a) derived or inferred from materials in the Pauline letters or (b) plausibly attributed to Luke’s own literary, theological, and/or apologetic agenda. The argument supporting this thesis will proceed in three stages: First, I shall note a series of precise agreements between Luke’s references to Aquila and Priscilla and the Pauline references to Aquila and Prisca – agreements that, viewed cumulatively, would appear to constitute strong prime facie evidence that Luke not only knew the references in the letters but also used them as a (or perhaps even the) primary source for his own portrayal of Aquila and
13 For arguments and bibliography, see Richard I. Pervo, Redating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2006); cf. also, e.g., Joseph B. Tyson, Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, 2006) 1–23. Both Pervo and Tyson date Acts c. 100–150 CE, but Pervo (p. 343) regards c. 110–120 or even c. 115 as most likely, while Tyson (p. 78) prefers c. 120–125. In my judgment, however, a date as late as c. 140–150 ce can by no means be ruled out; see, e.g., John T. Townsend, ‘The Date of Luke-Acts’, Luke-Acts: New Perspectives from the Society of Biblical Literature (ed. Charles H. Talbert; New York: Crossroad, 1984) 47–62, esp. 58: ‘whatever evidence exists [regarding the date of Luke-Acts] is compatible with a date that approaches the middle of the second century’. On the reception of Acts in the period before Irenaeus, see Andrew Gregory, The Reception of Luke and Acts in the Period before Irenaeus: Looking for Luke in the Second Century (WUNT 2/169; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003) 299–351. Gregory states (p. 353), ‘I have found no external evidence to demonstrate that Luke was used before the middle of the second century, and no evidence to prove the use of Acts until somewhat later.’ 14 For a detailed presentation of the evidence, with bibliographical references, see Pervo, Redating Acts, 51–147.
482 william o. walker, jr. Priscilla. Second, I shall identify a number of additional details in Luke’s portrayal of Aquila and Priscilla that could reasonably be inferred from materials in the letters. Third, and finally, I shall discuss details in Luke’s portrayal of the couple that appear to derive from his own literary, theological, and/or apologetic agenda.
A. Precise Agreements between the Lukan and Pauline Portrayals
Five points of precise agreement between Luke’s portrayal of Aquila and Priscilla and the Pauline portrayal of Aquila and Prisca are immediately evident, and a sixth may well have been intended by Luke. 1. Both in the best witnesses to Acts and in the letters, neither Aquila nor Priscilla/Prisca is ever mentioned apart from the other. This might mean, of course, that the two were so closely associated in the minds of early Christians that reference to one and not the other would have been unthinkable. It might mean, however, that Luke – either consciously or unconsciously – simply followed the example of the letters in always naming the two together. In either case, this point must be noted because it may be part of a larger pattern of agreement that becomes evident only when other such points are brought into the picture. 2. Both in the best witnesses to Acts and in the letters, Aquila and Priscilla/Prisca are mentioned by name exactly three times.15 There is no apparent reason why Luke would follow the letters at this point, and this agreement may therefore be purely coincidental. Again, however, it may be part of a larger pattern. 3. Both in Acts and in the letters, Aquila and Priscilla/Prisca are located earlier in Corinth and later in Ephesus. Acts locates them in Corinth,16 reports their move to Ephesus,17 and narrates something of their activity there.18 The letters are less explicit, but they clearly imply the same geographical schema. In 1 Cor 16.19b, Paul conveys greetings to the Corinthians from the couple, thereby indicating that they are known in Corinth and strongly implying their previous residence there. In the same verse, Paul sends greetings from ‘the churches of Asia’, and, in v. 8, he indicates that he himself is now in Ephesus, which was the major city in the Roman province of Asia. This almost certainly means that Aquila and Prisca were in Ephesus when Paul wrote the final verses of 1 Corinthians – in other words, that they had moved from Corinth to Ephesus. Finally, in 2 Tim 4.19a, ‘Paul’ asks ‘Timothy’ to greet Prisca and Aquila, and ‘Timothy’ is clearly to be located, fictively, in Ephesus.19 This agreement between the letters and Acts might reflect 15 16 17 18 19
Acts 18.2, 18, 26b; 1 Cor 16.19b; Rom 16.3; 2 Tim 4.19a. Acts 18.1–3 (having moved there from Rome). Acts 18.18–19. Acts 18.24–26. 2 Tim 1.15–18; 4.12; cf. also 1 Tim 1.3.
The Portrayal of Aquila and Priscilla in Acts 483
common knowledge regarding the couple’s successive places of residence. Luke might, however, simply have followed the geographical schema implied in the letters. 4. Both in the best witnesses to Acts and in the letters, Aquila is named first in one reference20 and Priscilla/Prisca in two.21 As Jerome Murphy-O’Connor notes, the latter sequence ‘is most unusual’ and indicates that the wife ‘was more important than her husband’ – in terms either of ‘social status or independent wealth’ or of prominence in the life of the Church.22 It is unclear why either Acts or the letters would independently vary the order of precedence, but the fact that both do so and by precisely the same ratio suggests that Luke, knowing the relevant passages in the letters, simply followed the same numerical pattern of varying precedence. 5. Both in Acts and in the letters, Aquila is named first when the locale in mind is Corinth and Priscilla/Prisca first when the locale is elsewhere. Acts names Aquila first when the couple is in Corinth, 23 and Paul mentions Aquila first when he sends greetings to Corinth.24 Acts names Priscilla first, however, when the couple is in transit from Corinth to Ephesus25 and when they are in Ephesus;26 similarly, Paul mentions Prisca first when the couple is in Rome,27 and ‘Paul’ names Prisca first when they are fictively in Ephesus.28 It is possible (a) that Aquila played the leading role in Corinth but Priscilla/Prisca assumed this role later, (b) that the couple was therefore actually known as ‘Aquila and Priscilla/Prisca’ in Corinth and as ‘Priscilla/Prisca and Aquila’ elsewhere, and (c) that Luke was independently aware of the geographical transposition of primacy and chose to reflect it by the order in which he listed the names. In light of other points of agreement between Acts and the letters, however, it appears more likely that Luke simply knew the relevant passages in the letters and followed not only their numerical but also their geographical pattern of varying primacy.
20 Acts 18.2; 1 Cor 16.19b. 21 Acts 18.18, 26b; Rom 16.3; 2 Tim 4.19a. The ‘Western’ text has Aquila first in Acts 18.26, but, as Metzger (Textual Commentary, 413–14) notes, ‘[t]he unusual order, the wife before the husband, must be accepted as original, for there was always a tendency among scribes to change the unusual to the usual’. 22 Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, ‘Prisca and Aquila’, Bible Review 8 (1992) 40–51, 62, here 40 and 42. 23 Acts 18.1–3. 24 1 Cor 16.19b. 25 Acts 18.18. 26 Acts 18.26b. 27 Rom 16.3. See below p. 484 for the possibility that the location might be Ephesus rather than Rome. 28 2 Tim 4.19a.
484 william o. walker, jr. 6. Acts 18.2 states that Aquila and Priscilla resided in Rome before moving to Corinth. Romans 16.3–5a appears also to indicate the presence of Prisca and Aquila in Rome. Thus, a sixth point of agreement between Acts and the letters could be the residence of the couple in Rome. Two potential problems, however, make this questionable. The first is that Romans 16 may originally have been intended for some destination other than Rome – probably Ephesus.29 If so, then vv. 3–5a would confirm the presence of Prisca and Aquila in Ephesus rather than in Rome. It is clear, however, that chap. 16 was a part of Romans at least as early as c. 200 ce and perhaps considerably earlier.30 Thus, whatever its original destination, chap. 16 may well have been known by Luke as a part of Romans and therefore viewed by him as indicating the presence of Prisca and Aquila in Rome when the letter was written.31 The second potential problem is that Romans was almost certainly written later than 1 Corinthians and thus places Prisca and Aquila in Rome after they had been in Corinth and Ephesus, not before as indicated in Acts. Luke may well have assumed, however, that Romans was written earlier than 1 Corinthians. Most of the early witnesses, including all of the best ones,32 place Romans first – that is, before the Corinthian correspondence – among the Pauline letters. Moreover, David Trobisch and Murphy-O’Connor have independently argued that the very earliest collection of Pauline letters – consisting of Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, and Galatians – placed Romans first.33 With Romans as the first letter in the collection, it is precisely the first Pauline reference to Prisca and Aquila (Rom 16.3–5a) that locates them in Rome. If Luke was working with such a collection, he might easily have assumed that the couple resided in Rome before moving to Corinth and constructed his narrative accordingly. If so, then Luke clearly intended his narrative to agree with the letters at this point.
29 For discussion and the conclusion that the chapter was an original part of Romans, see, e.g., Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (ed. Eldon Jay Epp; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) 8–9. 30 It is included in P46 (typically dated c. 200 CE, but cf. Philip W. Comfort and David P. Barrett, eds., The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2001) 204–7, where it is placed near the middle of the second century. 31 On the date of Acts, see n. 13 above. 32 Not only the earliest extant MS, P46, but also B (4th cent.), a (4th cent.), A (5th cent.), C (5th cent.), and D (6th cent.); on the date of P46, see n. 30 above. For discussion of the sequence of the letters in early collections, see, e.g., Eugene Harrison Lovering, Jr., ‘The Collection, Redaction, and Early Circulation of the Corpus Paulinum’ (Ph.D. diss., Southern Methodist University, 1988) 259–74; David Trobisch, Paul’s Letter Collection: Tracing the Origins (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994) 18–22; and David Trobisch, The First Edition of the New Testament (New York: Oxford University, 2000) 21–38. 33 Trobisch, Paul’s Letter Collection, 54; Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Paul the Letter-Writer: His World, His Options, His Skills (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1995) 120–30.
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Conclusion. Considered separately, each of the above points might appear coincidental or inconsequential or both. Viewed cumulatively, however, they form a remarkable pattern of precise agreements between the Lukan and Pauline portrayals of the couple in question – even in matters not involving historicity. In my judgment, such a pattern can hardly be coincidental and would appear, therefore, to indicate that Luke knew and was influenced by the Pauline references to Aquila and Prisca. Indeed, in the absence of evidence for other source material used by Luke, this would appear to constitute rather strong prime facie evidence that the Pauline references served as a (or perhaps even the) primary source for his own portrayal of the couple.
B. Features in the Lukan Portrayal that could Reasonably be Inferred from Materials in the Letters
In addition to the precise points of agreement just noted, there are six – or perhaps seven – other features of Luke’s portrayal of Aquila and Priscilla that could reasonably be inferred from materials in the Pauline letters. 1. The location of Paul in Corinth at the same time Aquila and Priscilla were there (Acts 18.1–3) could reasonably be inferred from materials in 1 Corinthians and Romans. 1 Corinthians 16.19b strongly implies that Aquila and Prisca resided in Corinth before moving to Ephesus,34 the Corinthian correspondence as a whole indicates that Paul himself was in Corinth more than once,35 and 1 Cor 16.19b and Rom 16.3–4 demonstrate that Paul was well acquainted with Aquila and Prisca. Although the letters nowhere explicitly state that the three were in Corinth at the same time, they do suggest that this was likely. Thus, Luke may simply have assumed it to have been the case and constructed his narrative accordingly. 2. The portrayal of Paul as having ‘resided’ (e[menen) with Aquila and Priscilla in Corinth (Acts 18.3a) could reasonably be inferred from 1 Cor 16.19b and/or Rom 16.3–5a, both of which refer to the ‘church’ in the couple’s home. To be sure, Acts does not mention a church in their home in Corinth. Given the fact that a church met in their home both in Ephesus and in Rome,36 however, it would be natural to assume that this was the case also in Corinth – particularly if Luke thought the couple’s residence in Corinth came between that in Rome and in Ephesus.37 Further, it would be reasonable to suppose that Paul’s Corinthian converts would
34 See above under A.3 (p. 482). 35 E.g., 1 Cor 1.14–16; 2.15; 3.1–10; 4.14–15; 9.1–2; 15.1–3; 16.3–7; 2 Cor 1.15–2.1; 11.7–9; 12.14, 20–21; 13.1–2, 10. 36 1 Cor 16.19b; Rom 16.5a (assuming Romans 16 to be an original part of Paul’s Roman letter). 37 See above under A.6 (p. 484).
486 william o. walker, jr. meet in the home where he himself was residing.38 Thus, on the basis of Paul’s references to ‘the church in their house’, Luke may simply have assumed that Paul resided (e[menen) in the home of Aquila and Priscilla while he was in Corinth and made this assumption explicit in his narrative.39 3. The portrayal of Paul as ‘working’ (hjrgavzeto) with Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18.3) could reasonably be inferred from 1 Cor 4.12a and Rom 16.3. In 1 Cor 4.12a, using the same verb that appears in Acts 18.3, Paul speaks of ‘laboring, working with our own hands’ (kopiw`men ejrgazovmenoi tai`~ ijdivai~ cersivn),40 and the plural forms suggest that he engaged in such labor in collaboration with one or more other people. The identification of Aquila and Priscilla as those with whom he worked in Corinth41 may have been suggested by Rom 16.3, where Paul refers to Prisca and Aquila as his ‘fellow workers’ (sunergoiv). To be sure, Paul adds ‘in Christ Jesus’ (ejn Cristw`/ ΔIhsou`), thereby apparently indicating that he has in mind religious activity, not manual labor as in Acts.42 Nevertheless, Paul’s reference – in the plural – to working with his hands (1 Cor 4.12a) and to Prisca and Aquila as his ‘fellow workers’ (Rom 16.3) may have prompted Luke to assume that Paul ‘was working’ (hjrgavzeto) with the couple in Corinth.43 4. The portrayal of Priscilla and Aquila as leaving Corinth with Paul and accompanying him to Ephesus, where they remain while he goes on to Caesarea (Acts 18.18–21), could reasonably be inferred from 1 Cor 16.19b. Here, as noted above, Paul suggests the couple’s residence earlier in Corinth and later in Ephesus. Acts 18.18–21 may well be simply Luke’s narrative device to get them from Corinth to Ephesus, where they will encounter Apollos. 5. Aquila and Priscilla disappear completely from Luke’s narrative following their correction of Apollos’s defective version of the gospel (Acts 18.24–26), which, therefore, appears to be the real point of their inclusion at all.44 Thus, Luke’s por38 Several ‘Western’ witnesses add ‘with whom also I am lodging’ after ‘Aquila and Prisca’ in 1 Cor 16.19b, thus explicitly identifying their home (in Ephesus) both as the meeting place for the church and as Paul’s place of abode. If Paul could be presumed to reside in the house where the church met in Ephesus, this could reasonably be supposed to have been the case earlier in Corinth. 39 Acts 18.7 could indicate either (a) that Paul subsequently moved from the home of Aquila and Priscilla to that of Titius Justus or (b) that he moved his preaching activity from the synagogue (v. 4) to the latter’s home (which was adjacent to the synagogue) but maintained his residence in the home of Aquila and Priscilla. The latter is perhaps implied by the report that they accompanied him when he left Corinth (v. 18). 40 See also 1 Cor 9.6 and 1 Thess 2.9. 41 Assuming that parΔ aujtoi`~ goes with both e[menen and hjrgavzeto. 42 Note 1 Thess 3.2; 2 Cor 8.23; Phil 2.25; 4.3; Phlm 1, 24; Rom 16.9, 21, where Paul refers to others as his ‘fellow workers’ (sunergoiv). 43 Note the same root (ejrg-) in all three passages. Some witnesses, including a* (4th cent.), read hjrgavzonto (‘they were working’) rather than hjrgavzeto (‘he was working’) in Acts 18.3. 44 On this, see C 3 and 4 below (pp. 492–3).
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trayal of Apollos (Acts 18.24–19.1a) is relevant for the present study. A number of the details in this portrayal could reasonably be inferred from materials in the Pauline letters: (1) In 1 Corinthians, Paul portrays Apollos as an important figure in the church, associating him with both Ephesus and Corinth.45 Acts 18.24–19.1a has essentially the same picture of Apollos. (2) In 1 Cor 1.17b; 2.1–5, Paul notes his own deficiencies as an orator, implicitly contrasting himself with other preachers who presumably are more gifted.46 Acts 18.24–25, 28, in turn, characterizes Apollos as precisely the kind of eloquent speaker implied in Paul’s own disavowal. (3) In 1 Corinthians, Paul suggests some degree of rivalry and even tension between himself and Apollos,47 noting that he has no control over the latter’s activity48 and intimating that the two are to some extent competitors for leadership in the church.49 Indeed, a good case can be made that ‘the conflict in Corinth was at its core a debate between Paul and the Apollos party’.50 All of this may be reflected in Acts 18.24–26, which states that Apollos’s initially defective version of the gospel was corrected, and that it was corrected precisely by associates of Paul.51 (4) In Titus 3.13, however, Apollos is pictured quite positively as a trusted associate of Paul. Such intimations of initial tension followed by close association between Apollos and Paul may well have set the stage for Luke’s creation of a narrative in which Apollos preached a defective version of the gospel, was corrected by Paul’s associates, and became a respected leader in the Christian movement.52 6. The identification of Priscilla and Aquila as those who corrected Apollos’s defective version of the gospel and thus brought him into the circle of Pauline Christianity could reasonably be inferred from various materials in the Pauline letters. Apollos, Aquila, and Prisca are the only people Paul mentions by name as residing with him in Ephesus when he wrote 1 Corinthians.53 Thus, being in Ephesus with Apollos, the couple would have been well situated to correct his defective version of the gospel. Furthermore, Paul suggests that they would have
45 46 47 48 49 50
1 Cor 1.12; 3.4–8, 22; 4.6; 16.12 (cf. v. 8). See the entire passage, 1 Cor 1.17–2.5; see also 2 Cor 10.10. 1 Cor 1.12; 3.4–6, 22; 4.6; 16.12. 1 Cor 16.12. E.g., 1 Cor 3.6, 10; 4.15. Michael Wolter, ‘Apollos und die ephesinischen Johannesjünger (Act 18 24–19 7)’, ZNW 78 (1987) 49–73, here 66 (translation mine); see references in n. 79. Wolter acknowledges (p. 72) ‘that Luke was informed about the conflict in Corinth’ but denies (p. 72 n. 101) that this information came from 1 Corinthians. 51 Luke’s awkward contrasting of ‘accurately’ (ajkribw`~) in 18.25 and ‘more accurately’ (ajkribevsteron) in 18.26 may reflect Paul’s own ambivalence regarding Apollos. 52 Wolter (‘Apollos und die ephesinischen Johannesjünger’) argues that Luke’s goal in Acts 18.24–9.7 is ‘to express Pauline dominance over Apollos’ (p. 71). 53 1 Cor 16.8, 12, 19b. ‘Chloe’s people’ (1.11) and Stephanus, Fortunatus, and Achaicus (16.16–17) were probably residents of Corinth who merely visited Paul in Ephesus.
488 william o. walker, jr. been well qualified for such a task. The Ephesian and Roman churches meet for worship in their home,54 and the very high – indeed, apparently unique – esteem in which Paul holds the couple is clear in Rom 16.3–4, where he praises them as ‘my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to [or “for”] whom not only I but also all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks’.55 Thus, the question would almost inevitably pose itself to Luke: ‘Who better than this couple to correct the erroneous views of Apollos?’ 7. Acts 18.3 indicates that Paul was, by trade, a skhnopoiov~ – usually translated as ‘tentmaker’ or ‘leather worker’. The word, however, is ‘a hapax legomenon in the New Testament’ and ‘is also hardly ever used in older or contemporary writings’. Thus, ‘its meaning is obscure’.56 According to Pollux, though, it was used in Old Comedy to signify ‘a maker of stage properties’ or even ‘a stagehand’ (who moved stage properties).57 Acts portrays Paul as working in urban, not rural, areas, and ‘one is left with the strong probability that Luke’s publics in [such] areas, where theatrical productions were in abundance, would [probably] think of skhnopoiov~ in ref[erence] to matters theatrical’.58 Thus, the intended meaning of skhnopoiov~ in Acts 18.3 may well be ‘maker of stage properties’ or ‘stagehand’, and, if so, then Luke is linking Paul professionally to the theater. It is at least possible, moreover, that this was suggested by Paul’s own statement in 1 Cor 4.9: dokw` gavr, oJ qeo;~ hJma`~ tou;~ ajpostovlou~ ejscavtou~ ajpevdeixen
wJ~ ejpiqanativou~, o{ti qevatron ejgenhvqhmen tw`/ kovsmw/ kai; ajggevloi~ kai; ajnqrwvpoi~. Clearly, Paul’s imagery here is ‘theatrical’ in nature: he states that he has become a qevatron with ‘the world and angels and humans’ as his audience. Qevatron can refer either to a place for public entertainment – e.g., dramatic performances, gladiatorial contests, or public execution of condemned criminals – or to the ‘spectacle’ that one sees in such a place.59 Paul, of course, here uses the word in the latter sense. Moreover, he most likely has in mind neither dramatic performances nor gladiatorial contests but rather the public execution of convicted criminals.60 All three, however, were closely associated in the popular mind as forms of public entertainment and, for this reason, each could be labeled as qevatron.61 In addition, the distinction between qevatron as ‘what is seen’ and qevatron 54 1 Cor 16.19; Rom 16.5a. 55 In the extant letters, he praises no one else so highly. 56 H. Szesnat, ‘What Did the skhnopoio~ Paul Produce?’, Neot 27 (1993) 391–402, here 394. 57. Pollux, Onom. 7.189; see, e.g., Szesnat, ‘What Did the skhnopoio~ Paul Produce?’, 394 n. 2; W. Michaelis, ‘skhnopoiov~’,TDNT 7.393–4, 393; and BAGD 928–29 and the bibliography cited there. 58 BAGD 929. 59 BAGD 446. 60 V. Henry T. Nguyen, ‘The Identification of Paul’s Spectacle of Death Metaphor in 1 Corinthians 4.9’, NTS 53 (2007) 489–501. 61 Qevatron is related to qeavomai, which means ‘to look at’, ‘to see’, ‘to behold’.
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as ‘where it is seen’ would be somewhat fluid, given the fact that the same word was used for both. In any case, 1 Cor 4.9 indicates that Paul was familiar with the qevatron. Moreover, his reference to himself as a qevatron might suggest that he was somehow professionally associated with the qevatron. Hence perhaps the theatrical term skhnopoiov~ to designate his trade in Acts 18.3. In conclusion, whether considered individually or cumulatively, these seven additional features of Luke’s portrayal of Aquila and Priscilla by no means prove that the Pauline letters served as a source for this portrayal. They do, however, indicate that a great deal of what Luke says about the couple could reasonably be inferred from materials in the letters. Thus, coupled with the points of precise agreement discussed earlier, they appear to buttress the case for viewing the letters as a (or even the) primary source for Luke’s portrayal of Aquila and Priscilla.
C. Details in the Lukan Portrayal that Appear to Derive from Luke’s Own Agenda
Certain details in Luke’s portrayal of Aquila and Priscilla cannot easily be traced, either directly or indirectly, to materials in the Pauline letters. In my judgment, however, these details are best accounted for in terms of Luke’s own literary, theological, and/or apologetic agenda. 1. Although the best manuscripts of the Pauline letters always refer to Aquila’s wife as ‘Prisca’, Luke consistently employs the diminutive form ‘Priscilla’, which is often viewed as ‘a term of endearment or familiarity’.62 It is clear that Paul was well acquainted with the woman, however, while Luke presumably was not. It is difficult to understand, therefore, why Luke would change Paul’s ‘Prisca’ to ‘Priscilla’ if the latter is in fact ‘a term of endearment or familiarity’.63 Thus, the difference in nomenclature might appear to argue against Luke’s use of the letters at this point. In my judgment, however, there is a plausible reason why Luke would change ‘Prisca’ to ‘Priscilla’. While the diminutive ‘may express affection, familiarity, [or] daintiness,’ it can also signify ‘pity or contempt’.64 Thus, Murphy-O’Connor suggests that Luke’s use
62 F. Scott Spencer, ‘Women of “the Cloth” in Acts: Sewing the Word’, A Feminist Companion to the Acts of the Apostles (ed. Amy-Jill Levine with Marianne Blickenstaff; Cleveland: Pilgrim, 2004) 134–54, here 150 n. 77. 63 Although a number of MSS change ‘Prisca’ to ‘Priscilla’ in the letters (see nn. 5 and 6 above), the reverse never occurs, at least to my knowledge, in Acts. 64 Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar (rev. Gordon M. Messing; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1956) 235. Donald C. Swanson (‘Diminutives in the Greek New Testament’, JBL 77 [1958] 134–51, here 146) lists ‘deteriorative’ as one category of diminutives and cites gunaikavrion (‘silly woman’) as an example. The last Roman emperor to rule from Rome, Romulus Augustus, was often mockingly referred to as ‘Romulus Augustulus’.
490 william o. walker, jr. of ‘Priscilla’ ‘might be interpreted as a put-down’.65 It is my suggestion, therefore, that Luke changed ‘Prisca’ to ‘Priscilla’ precisely as a way of belittling or disparaging the woman in question and thus downplaying her role as a leader in the church. This suggestion is supported by two striking indications in Acts 18.2 that Luke intends to subordinate Priscilla to Aquila: (1) the verse says that Paul ‘found’ Aquila, not both Aquila and Priscilla; and (2) it provides certain biographical details regarding Aquila – he is a Jew, a native of Pontus, and has recently moved from Rome to Corinth – but says of Priscilla only that she is ‘his wife’. Clearly, Aquila is the more important of the two in Acts 18.2. The letters, however, make no distinction in their treatment of Aquila and Prisca, always speaking of the couple as a pair. Thus, the name change from ‘Prisca’ to ‘Priscilla’, together with the imbalance in the treatment of Aquila and Priscilla in Acts 18.2, constitutes a significant downplaying of the role of Priscilla in the Book of Acts.66 This is consistent with the treatment of women elsewhere in Acts.67 Apart from Priscilla and Aquila, the only Christian married couple mentioned in Acts is Ananias and Sapphira (5.1–10), and they are portrayed in a highly negative light.68 Moreover, while other individual women are mentioned in Acts, none except Priscilla is portrayed as a leader in the church.69 Finally, although Acts refers to 65 Murphy-O’Connor, ‘Prisca and Aquila’, 40. 66 This appears to be an early stage in a trajectory that finds fuller expression in the ‘Western’ text of the chapter; see, e.g., James Hardy Ropes, The Text of Acts: The Beginnings of Christianity, Part I: The Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 3 (ed. F. J. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake; London: Macmillan, 1926) 161–79; and Metzger, A Textual Commentary, 408–9, 410, 412, 465, 413–14. Moreover, the treatment of Priscilla appears to be but one among other indications of ‘the anti-feminist tendencies of the “Western” text in Acts’ (Ben Witherington, ‘The AntiFeminist Tendencies of the “Western” Text in Acts’, JBL 103 [1984] 82–4; cf. Richard I. Pervo, ‘Social and Religious Aspects of the Western Text’, The Living Text: Essays in Honor of Ernest W. Saunders (ed. Dennis E. Groh and Robert Jewett; Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985) 229–41, here 235–40; and Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (New York and Oxford: Oxford University, 3d ed. 1992) 295–6. 67 On the treatment of women in Acts, see Amy-Jill Levine with Marianne Blickenstaff, ed., A Feminist Companion to the Acts of the Apostles (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim, 2004). On Luke’s tendency to diminish the role of women, see, e.g., Mary Rose D’Angelo, ‘Women in Luke-Acts: A Redactional View’, JBL 109 (1990) 441–61; Turid Karlsen Seim, The Double Message: Patterns of Gender in Luke-Acts (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1994); and Ivoni Richter Reimer, Women in the Acts of the Apostles: A Feminist Liberation Perspective (trans. Linda M. Maloney; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995). 68 This was pointed out to me by my colleague Rúben R. Dupertuis. 69 Mary the mother of Jesus (1.14), Tabitha or Dorcas (9.36–41), Mary the mother of John Mark (12.12), a maid named Rhoda (12.13–15), the unnamed mother of Timothy (16.1), Lydia (16.14–15, 40), a slave girl in Philippi (16.16–18), and a woman in Athens named Damaris (17.34). Some of these women – Mary the mother of John Mark, Rhoda, Tabitha, and Lydia – play a significant
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unnamed women who are Christians,70 the overwhelming emphasis is on men. Not only are the leading characters all men71 but it is ‘men’ (a[ndre~), not ‘people’ (a[nqrwpoi), who are repeatedly addressed in the speeches.72 In short, Luke portrays the early Christian movement as almost completely dominated by men. The only possible exception is Priscilla. As F. Scott Spencer notes, her encounter with Apollos ‘is as close as we get in Acts to a woman proclaiming the word to a man’. Even here, however, ‘the scene is normalized somewhat by the presence of her husband’.73 Indeed, one can only wonder why Priscilla finds her way into the narrative at all. My suggestion is that, at least in part, she is included because the Pauline letters consistently speak jointly of Aquila and Prisca but that she is, at the same time, belittled by having her name changed to the diminutive form and being subordinated to Aquila.74 Thus, the name change from ‘Prisca’ to ‘Priscilla’ appears to reflect an item in Luke’s own theological/apologetic agenda. 2. A second detail in Luke’s portrayal of Aquila and Priscilla that appears to derive from his own agenda is the couple’s move from Italy to Corinth because of the Emperor Claudius’s edict expelling all Jews from Rome (Acts 18.2). Luke probably read Rom 16.3–5a as indicating that the pair lived in Rome prior to their residence in Corinth.75 What he needs for the sake of his narrative, therefore, is simply a literary device to get them from Rome to Corinth, where they can be associated with Paul. He has earlier dealt with a somewhat analogous situation by using the Emperor Augustus’s census decree to get Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus (Luke 2.1–4). Now, his identification of Aquila as a ‘Jew’ enables him to use the edict of Claudius to get Aquila and Priscilla from Rome to Corinth (Acts 18.2). This detail of the narrative, therefore, reflects Luke’s own literary agenda, which, in turn, is in the service of his theological/apologetic agenda.76
70 71
72 73 74 75 76
role in the narrative, but none is portrayed as a leader in the church. Indeed, J. Albert Harrill (‘The Dramatic Function of the Running Slave Rhoda [Acts 12.13–16]: A Piece of Greco-Roman Comedy’, NTS 46 [2000] 150–57), following an earlier suggestion by Richard I. Pervo (Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987] 62–3), views the Rhoda story as ‘a highly conventionalized sequence of action elaborated not to uplift slaves [or women] but to entertain with humour that dishonours them’ (p. 151). Acts 2.17–18; 5.14; 6.1; 8.1, 12; 9.1; 17.4, 12; 21.5, 9; 22.4. E.g., all of the ‘Apostles’ and, specifically, Peter, John, and James; all of the ‘Seven’ and, specifically, Stephen and Philip; and others, including Ananias, Barnabas, James, and especially Paul. E.g., Acts 1.16; 2.14, 22, 29; 3.12; 7.1; 13.16, 26; 15.13; 17.22; 22.1. Spencer, ‘Women of “the Cloth” in Acts’, 152. Another possible reason for her inclusion is discussed below under numbers 3 and 4. See above A6 (p. 484). As indicated below pp. 492–4 (C3 and 4), it apparently was important to Luke to have Aquila (and Priscilla) reside at one time in Rome.
492 william o. walker, jr. 3 and 4. Two remaining details in Luke’s portrayal of Aquila and Priscilla must be considered together because, in my judgment, they stem from Luke’s own theological/apologetic agenda and are interrelated. The first is the apparently irrelevant identification of Aquila in Acts 18.2 as a Jew77 and a native of Pontus. The second is the encounter of Priscilla and Aquila with Apollos, in which they correct his defective understanding of the gospel (Acts 18.24–26).78 Joseph B. Tyson – following the lead of John Knox – has recently argued that Acts was intended in part as a response to the challenge posed by Marcionite Christianity.79 I find this argument persuasive and now propose to extend it by suggesting that Luke’s portrayal of Aquila and Priscilla is a part of his antiMarcionite agenda.80 With the exception of Barnabas,81 Aquila and Priscilla are the only associates of Paul who play any independent role in the Book of Acts. They are mentioned only in chap. 18, but they appear three times in this chapter, and each of the three appearances establishes one or more quite specific details in the portrayal of the couple. The first (18.2–3) identifies Aquila as a Jew from Pontus, introduces Priscilla as his wife, gets the couple from Rome to Corinth, and associates them
77 Paul’s statement that ‘all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks to’ (or ‘for’) Prisca and Aquila’ (Rom 16.4) might suggest that they were Gentiles. 78 A few witnesses, including the original of a, read ‘Apelles’ rather than ‘Apollos’ at Acts 18.24 and 19.1, and G. D. Kilpatrick (‘Apollos – Apelles’, JBL 89 [1970] 77) suggests that this may be the original reading. If so, the reference might be to the ‘Apelles’ mentioned by Paul in Rom 16.10 as ‘approved (dovkimo~) in Christ’. The adjective suggests approval as a result of testing, which might imply some initial question regarding the status of Apelles. This, in turn, might give rise to a narrative in which a change in status (i.e., from ‘heretical’ to ‘orthodox’) is reported (Acts 18.24–26). Perhaps more intriguing, however, is the fact that ‘Apelles’ was the name of a second-century follower of Marcion, who disagreed with the latter on some points of theology and went to Alexandria, the reported birthplace of Apollos (or Apelles) in Acts 18.24 (see Eusebius Hist. Eccl. V.xiii.2, 5–9 and especially Tertullian, Praescr. 30). For purposes of the present discussion, however, I shall assume that the correct reading in Acts 18.24; 9.1 is ‘Apollos’ and not ‘Apelles’. 79 Tyson, Marcion and Luke-Acts; see John Knox, Marcion and the New Testament: An Essay in the Early History of the Canon (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1942). The date of Marcion’s activity is debated. As John J. Clabeaux notes (‘Marcion’, ABD 4.514; cf. the entire entry, 514–16), ‘Biographical information on Marcion and his early work is scant and . . . often of dubious reliability’. He appears to have been in Rome around the middle of the second century, but previous activity in Asia Minor and particularly Ephesus suggests that he became prominent some time earlier. Tyson argues, convincingly in my judgment, that ‘Marcion’s views were [likely] known, at least in part and in some locations, as early as 115–120 CE’ (Marcion and Luke–Acts, 31). Tyson then proposes that ‘the Acts of the Apostles was probably written about 120–125 CE, just when Marcion was beginning to attract adherents into what became the most significant heterodox movement of the second century’ (p. 78). 80 To my knowledge, this has not previously been suggested. 81 See Acts 9.27; 11.22–26; 15.36–39.
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closely with Paul; the second (18.18–19) gets them from Corinth to Ephesus; and the third (18.24–26) presents these associates of Paul as correctors of ‘heresy’ in Ephesus (by implication, of course, also portraying Paul as an opponent of ‘heresy’).82 Very little is said about the nature of the ‘heresy’ involved,83 and Acts makes no explicit reference either to Marcion or to Marcionite Christianity. There are, however, four quite striking parallels between Luke’s portrayal of Aquila and what is known about Marcion: (1) both are natives of Pontus,84 (2) both resided at one time in Rome, (3) both also resided at one time in Asia Minor (Ephesus),85 and (4) both were, in some sense, Pauline Christians. In my judgment, these parallels cannot be merely coincidental. Indeed, if Tyson is correct regarding the date and occasion of the writing of Acts, any reference, however indirect, to a Christian teacher from Pontus who resided both in Rome and in Asia Minor and was somehow associated with Paul would almost inevitably have brought Marcion to the mind of an attentive reader.86 There are, however, also four crucial differences between Luke’s portrayal of Aquila and what is known about Marcion: (1) Marcion sought to divorce Christianity from Judaism, but Luke identifies Aquila explicitly as a ‘Jew’; (2) Marcion presented himself as a ‘Paulinist’ and, indeed, regarded Paul as the only true apostle of Christ, but Luke portrays Aquila as one who was closely associated with Paul and therefore in a better position to understand Pauline Christianity; (3) Marcion required sexual abstinence, but Luke explicitly portrays Aquila as having a wife (indeed, this may explain in part why he included Priscilla in the narrative); and (4) Marcion proclaimed a ‘heretical’ version of Christianity, but Acts reports that Aquila corrected the defective version of Christianity proclaimed by Apollos. In short, Luke pictures Aquila as the married Jew from Pontus, one-time resident
82 It is anachronistic to speak of ‘heresy’ (or ‘orthodoxy’) at this point, but Luke clearly regards Apollos’s initial preaching as defective and thus erroneous. 83 Acts 18.25 reports that Apollos ‘knew only the baptism of John’; cf. the reference in Acts 19.1–7 to ‘disciples’ who had been baptized ‘into John’s baptism’ but had not received or even heard of the Holy Spirit. Wolter (‘Apollos und die ephesinischen Johannesjünger’) argues that Acts 18.24–28 and 19.1–7 are to be linked, with the relation between Apollos and Paul as the common theme. For discussion, see, e.g., Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles, 2.886–8. 84 Aquila is Pontiko;~ tw`/ gevnei (Acts 18.2). Pontikov~ occurs only here in the NT (Povnto~ appears only in Acts 2.9 and 1 Pet 1.1). 85 Luke, however, has Aquila in Rome before going to Corinth and then Ephesus, while Marcion was in Rome after his time in Asia Minor. 86 Tyson (Marcion and Luke-Acts, 77) suggests that the report of Paul’s frustrated attempt to go into Bithynia (Acts 16.6–8) ‘may . . . contain an allusion to Marcion’s homeland’. According to Tyson, Bithynia and Pontus were generally associated, Pontus was known as Marcion’s place of origin, and Luke wanted to disassociate Paul from Marcion by showing that there had been no Pauline mission in the latter’s homeland.
494 william o. walker, jr. of both Rome and Ephesus, and Pauline Christian who corrects an erroneous version of Christianity. Surely, in the minds of second-century Christians, such a portrayal would cast Aquila as the very antithesis of the celibate Marcion who rejected any connection between Christianity and Judaism – who, however, was also from Pontus, also a onetime resident of both Ephesus and Rome, and also in some sense a Pauline Christian. At the same time, by implication, this clearly would portray Paul as an anti-Marcionite. In portraying Aquila as the parallel/antithesis to Marcion, Luke appears to be suggesting at least two important points: (1) that not only ‘heretical’ and specifically non-Jewish Christianity but also ‘orthodox’ Christianity with links to Judaism has ties both with Rome and with Asia Minor and, indeed, is to be found even in Pontus – i.e., that Marcionite Christianity is an aberration, not only in Rome and Asia Minor but also in Pontus;87 and (2) that Paul and his associates represent ‘orthodox’ Christianity that is linked to Judaism and thus are the opponents of ‘heretical’ non-Jewish (i.e., Marcionite) Christianity. In addition, it may be significant that Luke explicitly identifies both Aquila and Apollos as ‘a certain Jew’88 and that they are the only people so identified in the entire Book of Acts. The use of identical terminology suggests a parallel and/or contrast between the two. The parallel would be the fact that both are Jewish Christians, and the contrast the fact that they initially represent different versions of Jewish Christianity, one of which is acceptable and the other is not. This may suggest that Luke was concerned not only about Marcionite (i.e., non-Jewish) Christianity but also about some form(s) of Jewish Christianity.89 Further, it is almost certainly significant that different places of origin are specified for Aquila and Apollos – using, however, the same syntactical construction.90 Just as identifying Aquila with Pontus appears to suggest a parallel/contrast between him and Marcion, it is possible that identifying Apollos with Alexandria may imply a similar parallel and/or contrast between him and some unknown (to us) person(s) or movement identified with that city.91 87 Acts never indicates when or where Aquila became a Christian – whether in Pontus, in Rome, or in Corinth. The absence of any reference to his conversion and the statement that Paul ‘found’ him in Corinth, however, suggests that he was already a Christian when he arrived in Corinth. 88 Aquila (Acts 18.2): tina ΔIoudai`on; Apollos (Acts 18.24):ΔIoudai`o~ . . . ti~. 89 Perhaps even some type of Ebionite-like Christianity. 90 Aquila (Acts 18.2): ‘a native of Pontus’ (Pontiko;n tw`/ gevnei); Apollos (Acts 18.24): ‘a native of Alexandria’ (Alexandreu;~ tw`/ gevnei). 91 John Mark, who, according to Eusebius (Hist. eccl. II.xvi.1), traveled to Egypt after Peter’s death in Rome and who, in early tradition, was closely associated with Alexandria, receives rather negative treatment in Acts (12.12, 25; 13.13; and especially 15.37, 39; note, however, the positive portrayal of Mark in Phlm 24; Col 4.10; 2 Tim 4.11; and 1 Pet 5.13). The Secret Gospel of Mark, if authentic, indicates the presence of ‘heretical’ Christianity in Alexandria in the
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Finally, the ‘more accurate’ (ajkribevsteron) instruction of Apollos by Priscilla and Aquila could be seen as Luke’s way of suggesting that ‘heretics’ can in fact, if properly informed, be brought into the fold of ‘orthodox’ Christianity. This might represent a kind of ‘olive branch’ held out to Marcionite Christians (and perhaps to other ‘heretics’ as well).
Conclusion and Implications
In three stages, I have argued that virtually everything Luke says about Aquila and Priscilla either (a) can be derived or inferred from materials in the Pauline letters or (b) can plausibly be attributed to Luke’s own literary, theological, and/or apologetic agenda. To the extent that this argument is persuasive, it provides support for at least four important but still somewhat controversial propositions regarding the Book of Acts: 1. Luke knew at least some of the Pauline letters – including the pseudonymous 2 Timothy and perhaps Titus – and used them as sources in composing his narrative of Christian origins. 2. The Book of Acts reflects a distinctly anti-feminist bias. 3. Luke’s agenda in the composition of Acts included an anti-Marcionite component. 4. The composition of Acts is to be dated relatively late – certainly sometime in the second century and perhaps as late as the middle of the century. This is supported by (a) evidence that Luke’s portrayal of Aquila and Priscilla is based on materials not only in 1 Corinthians and Romans but also in the pseudonymous 2 Timothy and perhaps Titus92 and (b) the apparent anti-Marcionite thrust of Acts seen in this portrayal (and elsewhere).
second century and appears to associate it in some way with Mark; for conflicting views on the authenticity of this document, see Scott G. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith’s Controversial Discovery (Studies in Christianity and Judaism 15; Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University, 2005); and Stephen Carlson, The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark (Waco, TX: Baylor University, 2005). Note also, however, the possibility that the original reading in Acts 18.24; 19.1 is ‘Apelles’, not ‘Apollos’, and the fact that a former follower of Marcion named ‘Apelles’ spent some time in Alexandria (n. 78 above). 92 Various dates have been proposed for the Pastoral Letters, ranging from the 50s to near the middle of the second century. For a summary of various views, see, e.g., Jerome D. Quinn, ‘Timothy and Titus, Epistles to’, ABD 6.568–9. The relation between the Pastoral Letters and the Book of Acts has also been a matter of considerable discussion; see, e.g., Quinn, ‘Timothy and Titus’, 568–9. As has already been noted (n. 13), there are good reasons for dating Acts in the second century – perhaps even as late as the middle of the second century. The later Acts is dated, of course, and the earlier the Pastorals are dated, the more likely it is that Luke would have known 2 Timothy and Titus.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 496–524. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S002868850800026X
Rhetorical Criticism and the Unity of 2 Corinthians: One ‘Epilogue’, or More? IVOR H . JON E S 1 Greestone Terrace, Lincoln, LN2 1PR, England
The endings of Pauline letters have been studied as providing clues to the letters’ contents. The text of 2 Corinthians is no exception. But what constitutes the ending of that text, and is there more than one letter-ending in it? Rhetorical criticism provides some criteria for attempts to answer those questions, and has sometimes been claimed as providing evidence for the unity of 2 Corinthians. This article reviews that evidence and questions its reliability. The possibility that there may be more than one letter-ending points to a different solution and exposes important features of the text’s composition. Keywords: rhetoric, genre, the Collection, thanksgiving, doxology, compositional unity.
The purpose of this article is to establish a reference point against which rhetorical criticism of the text of 2 Corinthians can be assessed. The article proposes a method which begins with the ‘epilogue’, relates the ‘epilogue’ to patterns of repetition, and seeks, in that relationship and in the patterns of persuasion and style, signals of the writer’s self- and audience-presentation. The areas of rhetorical criticism and the study of 2 Corinthians are both highly complex. Recent work on rhetorical criticism through monographs and articles has expanded, matching the interests of classical scholars as well as those of biblical scholars.1 Something similar can be said of the study of 2 Corinthians. HansDieter Betz’s summary of the attempts from Semler onwards to do justice to the
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1 An earlier version of this article was presented to the SNTS ‘Paul and Rhetoric’ Seminar, to whose members I am greatly indebted. Frederick J. Long, Ancient Rhetoric and Paul’s Apology: the compositional unity of 2 Corinthians (SNTS Monograph Series 131; Cambridge: Cambridge University , 2004) takes up the massive range of classical scholarship regarding ancient rhetoric and considers how Classical examples of letters have reflected the standards and advice of the most famous teachers of rhetoric. By this means he seeks to advance classical study of the ancient letter, as well as to provide for biblical scholars a basis for a similar exploration of 2 Corinthians.
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manifold features of the text of 2 Corinthians sets out an impressive agenda,2 and that agenda too has developed with the years. The proposal in this article attempts to do justice to this wide range of issues, assessing how rhetorical criticism has been used to identify whether or not the text of 2 Corinthians is a single letter written at a single moment in time; it also selects a limited but well-known area of the text of 2 Corinthians, namely how repetitions and recapitulations occur in the text, and how they are related to any closures within it. In a nutshell, the question addressed is: is there in 2 Corinthians a single ‘epilogue’ (if that is the correct term to use), or are there several? That is an interesting study in itself, but it is used here as a way of opening up for fresh debate larger questions within rhetorical criticism, as well as illuminating questions about the composition of 2 Corinthians.3 It has to be admitted at the beginning that the subject of ‘epilogues’ in the case of ancient letters has disadvantages, which some might consider fatal to the project. The endings of ancient documents are often vulnerable, especially letters on a separate piece of papyrus, or on worn wood or stone. Precisely relevant to the point is Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 528, where the end of the letter may be supposed to have concluded with e[rrwso, but that part of the papyrus is torn away. Some ancient letters have, of course, been preserved in edited collections, or embedded in larger forms of literature. But in those cases much depends on the quality of the editing or copying. In compilations of Cicero’s letters, a high evaluation of their contents resulted in scrupulously accurate editing (for the most part, at least, since only a few excisions have been noted, although the correct chronological order was not observed in the compilation of some of the letters).4 In other collections of letters we may not be so fortunate. Certainly in the case of Paul’s letters we cannot assume initially either a high or a low evaluation in ancient times of 2 See the summary of attempts to understand the literary composition of the letter in H. D. Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: A Commentary on Two Administrative Letters of the Apostle Paul (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) especially 3–35. Significantly, the summary leads to a key question of method: ‘What sort of evidence can be adduced to demonstrate the extent and the kind of redaction in this letter?’ (35). That question of method still stands as a benchmark after the further twenty years of commentary work on 2 Corinthians, and remains so for this paper. 3 A number of attempts have been made to look at the matter of Pauline ‘endings’: Markus Müller, Vom Schluß zum Ganzen. Zur Bedeutung des paulinischen Briefkorpusabschlusses (FRLANT 92; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997); also Jeffrey K. Weima, Neglected Endings: The Significance of the Pauline Letter Closings (JSOTSup 101; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), who makes some promising observations, not least by comparing the Pauline endings with endings of hellenistic and Semitic letters; but in the case of 2 Corinthians (after considering the work of Bahr and Bates) he limits the study of letter closure to 13.11–13. 4 On this in relation to the study of 2 Corinthians, see Thomas Schmeller, ‘Die Cicerobriefe und die Frage nach der Einheitlichkeit des 2. Korintherbriefs’, ZNW 93 (2004) 181–208.
498 ivor h. jones their content, or a high or a low quality of editing or copying; the evidence on that point is inconclusive. Particularly in the case of the Pauline ‘epilogue’ we have to bear in mind that there may well have been damage to or editing of the original text. For that reason we shall hold over until Section 4 a discussion of 2 Cor 13.11–13.5 One great advantage of concentrating on the Pauline ‘epilogue’, apart from the fact that it reduces our subject to a manageable area, is that the ending is usually, in whole or part, recapitulatory, often relating back to opening material and to intermediate summaries. The ‘epilogue’ is a part of the programme of repetitions. An example from classical forensic use is Cicero’s early speech Pro Sexto Roscio Amerino. That concludes with an address to the judges to restrain Sulla’s powerful friend Chrysogonus ‘. . . ut, cum ademerit nobis omnia, quae nostra erant propria, ne lucem quoque hanc, quae communis est, eripere cupiat’ (§150), and thus ‘hanc (crudelitatem) pati nolite diutius in hac republica versari’ (§154). This corresponds with Cicero’s initial requests: ‘Primum a Chrysogono peto, ut pecunia fortunisque nostris contentus sit, sanguinem et vitam ne petat; deinde, a vobis, iudices, ut . . . in causa Sex.Rosci periculum, quod in omnes intenditur, propulsetis’ (§7). At various other points Cicero recalls these issues to mind, adding a self- and audience-presentation: e.g. ‘Verum haec omnis oratio, ut iam ante dixi, mea est, qua me uti res publica et dolor meus et istorum iniuria coegit’ (§143). Thus a great advantage in studying literary endings is that they can sometimes enable us to tap into a rich source of repetition and recapitulation, of selfand audience-presentation, which act as a guide to the whole composition. That is certainly true with respect to 2 Corinthians. Signals of self- and audience-presentation are particularly important in the writing and reading of letters. They are communicated through ways in which rhetorical genre is used (with accompanying indications of reliability, and the standard aspects of persuasion: competency, good judgment, and moral integrity). They are communicated by style and tone, and by unusual hints in the structure. An illustration of the importance of this aspect of epistolary rhetorical criticism is a letter from the classical tradition: Cicero Ad familiares 13.1. This is a letter of Cicero recommending to Caesar the young Precilus, a letter which Cicero himself calls ‘unconventional’. It is by genre a ‘letter of commendation’, but it is repeatedly interleaved with Homeric and Tragic references which amount to a coded message, that Cicero is not to be regarded by Caesar as likely to engage further in political matters inimical to Caesar’s interests. To read the letter according to its genre is to miss a main purpose of Cicero’s communication. It needs to be read by genre and as self- and audience-presentation. The letter has to be read as 5 For some of the issues on 13.11–13, see Margaret E. Thrall, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000) 2.900–25.
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a kind of performance, with the text used as it might be by a player on the stage. Michael Trapp uses this analogy of ‘performance’ in his Greek and Roman Letters: ‘Both when recommending another and when representing himself, a letterwriter is always putting on an act for the correspondent of the moment, and the contact of that act can bear all kinds of different relationships to the ways in which the correspondent (or his subject) is perceived by himself and others at other times’.6 Another advantage of using an ‘epilogue’ as a reference point is that it can sometimes give useful, if limited, indications of the letter’s context. Aristotle comments on the detailed format which the epilogue of a forensic speech may (although may not necessarily) employ; on the other hand deliberative speech will only require an epilogue if a division of opinion regarding future action requires it; epideictic speech should not need one at all.7 This is a rule of thumb for forensic speech, and the exceptions are many. The rule may relate also to classical examples of the letter. There are Greco-Roman letters, as distinct from orations, which correspond with Aristotle’s description of forensic practice, and some are letters which stand in lieu of or as protection against actual legal action.8 The
6 Michael Trapp, Greek and Roman Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2003) 40. To this extent Eve-Marie Beker’s conclusion may be somewhat misleading when she writes in Letter Hermeneutics in 2 Corinthians: Studies in Literarkritik and Communications Theory (trans. Helen Heron; London; T. & T. Clark, 2004) 17–18: ‘While rhetorical analysis understands a letter as a speech formed onesidedly by the speaker or writer, the theory of communication points out that the letter arises within the framework of a reciprocal communication’. Nevertheless it has to be said that her conclusion follows a critique of various rhetorical approaches to 2 Corinthians in the studies of Betz, Wüsch, DiCiceo, Sundermann, McCant and Witherington. Her conclusion is certainly relevant insofar as 2 Corinthians is a text which was altered and edited by a later hand or hands. 7 Aristotle Ars Rhetorica III.xiii.3. However for the possibility of peroratio within deliberative rhetoric in 2 Cor 2.14–7.4, see Franz Zeitlinger, Krieg und Friede in Korinth. Kommentar zum 2.Korintherbrief des Apostel Paulus (2 vols.; CIP; Wien: Bühlau, 1997) 2.29–39, where the letter is described as spoken deliberative rhetoric in written form. 8 E.g. Demosthenes’ Letters of Defence and Plato’s Letters Three and Seven. Long, Ancient Rhetoric and Paul’s Apology, Chapter 6, examines the issues which have been raised regarding Greco-Roman letters, notably when a rigid dichotomy has been claimed between epistles and oratory. Long’s discussion is framed by a concern to confirm via genre research the authenticity or otherwise of letters, such as those of Demosthenes, a concern paralleled in recent work on 2 Corinthians. Long establishes the existence of apologetic demegoric letters (witnessed by an assembly) and apologetic forensic letters (addressed to judges), and confirms that some, e.g. Plato’s Seventh and Third Letters, mix deliberative and apologetic concerns. He concludes that letters of Demosthenes and Isocrates offered precedents for apologetic propaganda which were available for Paul. For the purpose of this article it is important to note that the general term ‘self-reflective summary’ used in the discussion of the peroratio in such letters fails to do justice to the variety to be found in those letters. The text of the peroratio in Plato’s Third Letter, when read carefully, is actually a complex, inter-
500 ivor h. jones more the details of classical practice are researched, the more fascinating the relationships between oratory and epistles become. The Greco-Roman tradition is, however, not the only relevant one in the study of 2 Corinthians. Significant, in the case of closure patterns in 2 Corinthians, are resemblances to the end of letters written in the hellenistic period of Second Temple Judaism. The considerable body of letters from that period offers features parallel to those of Paul’s.9 Elements of rhetorical style, comparable with those of the classical corpus, are to be found in Jewish literature of that period, and closures can use stylistic figures of speech, such as asyndeton, and formal features such as selective recapitulation. They can, however, be distinguished from the classical closures by their theological tone and the character of the concluding prayers, Tob maxims or exhortation.10 The Alexandrian Jewish ‘hortatory’ style and its literary patterns offer similarities to the Pauline closures. To that extent Pauline closures could be significant evidence for their literary context. With those explanations and reservations we move to a study of ‘epilogue’ or ‘closure’ in 2 Corinthians, considering its range, relations and character, and how far it represents a reference point against which rhetorical criticism of the letter can be assessed. I. A Letter-ending in Chapters 10–13?
The most detailed examination hitherto of rhetoric in 2 Corinthians sees Paul deliberately fashioning 2 Corinthians in conformity with forensic practice in the Greco-Roman tradition.11 Specifically, Paul was responding to damaging charges about his apostolic methods and to growing suspicions about his motivation. This approach to 2 Corinthians is, it is argued, in line with the earlier work on 2 Corinthians by Young and Ford.12 It is argued that the purport of the text is
9
10 11 12
relational exploration of the material of the letter, encouraging a response to the whole. Some letters, such as Demosthenes’ Second, seem to expect a vote by way of response to its conclusion. This ‘variety’ limits somewhat the value of the peroratio or ‘epilogue’ for defining a letter’s context, and that is the case with Paul’s letters; nevertheless Plato’s Third Letter illustrates the potential of a peroratio or ‘epilogue’ to be inter-relational. See Hans-Josef Klauck, Die antike Briefliteratur und das Neue Testament (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1998), and the enlarged English edition Ancient Letters and the New Testament: A Guide to Content and Exegesis (Waco: Baylor University, 2006); also Folker Siegert, ‘Homily and Panegyrical Sermon’, Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period 330 BC–AD 400 (ed. Stanley Porter; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 419–37. See my article ‘The Finale of the Wisdom of Solomon: Its Character, Translation and Significance’ (forthcoming). Long, Ancient Rhetoric and Paul’s Apology. Frances M. Young and David F. Ford, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians (BFT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987). For a similar cross-reference to Young and Ford, see Ben Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 337–8.
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enshrined in its genre; generically it is a forensic Apology. On the basis of a survey of several centuries of forensic rhetoric (both theoretical and practical) the three major processes are described: exigence (i.e. once the judicial setting was established litigants could consider how to construct the case), invention (i.e. the dynamic principle which brings the whole process – case, question, opposing arguments – to a stasis with its associated topoi), and disposition (i.e. the speechwriter can now construct the speech using narratio, partitio, probatio, refutatio, self-adulation etc.). Seen against that background 2 Corinthians could be identified by its length, argumentation and style as an official apologetic letter, hypothetically parallel to Plato’s Third Letter and Demosthenes’ Second. As the conclusion of this official apologetic letter the ending of 2 Corinthians could be identified as a peroratio (12.11–13.10). Six considerations lead to that definition and description, each consideration being rooted in observation of actual forensic speeches (defensive and prosecutory):13 1. 12.11–13.10 is self-reflective (and retrospective); Paul is forced to respond to external scrutiny (dokimasiva) with a self-adulatory defence (by now, in the final chapters, it has become an extensive defence): his task is to build up the Corinthian community (12.19), a task which is to be seen as recapitulating all of 2 Corinthians. 2. The Corinthians are being expected to make a decision regarding Paul, an expectation marked by the future gnwvsesqe (13.6): you are to know ‘that we are not unapproved . . . but we may seem to be unapproved’ (a Pauline comment treated later in Long’s text at p. 195 as ‘rather feeble’); this expectation of the decision they are to make (gnwvsesqe) picks up 2 Cor 1.13, and the narratio there will assist the Corinthians in their final decision. 3. 2 Cor 12.11–13.10 is a peroratio because in it Paul introduces God as the One before whom he (Paul) speaks (12.19), and who watches that the Corinthians make the right decision – ‘do the right thing’ (13.7; a topic found in Cicero under the heading of indignatio). 4. The Corinthians are given various admonitions regarding the decision to be rendered, perhaps drawing on and also inverting a tradition concerning the defendant’s action (was it good – kalovn?); the Corinthians are urged, themselves, to do the right thing and to absolve Paul; Paul, characteristically of a litigant, exaggerates the consequences of the decision to be made. 5. In 13.4 and 9 Paul employs amplificatio (here arousing sympathy, i.e. a conquestio; in other contexts amplification may involve arousing ill-will towards the opponent by means of indignatio). Such heightening of emotion Paul achieves with the use of weighty items of vocabulary. Themes of immorality 13 The following references are from Long, Ancient Rhetoric and Paul’s Apology, 190–7.
502 ivor h. jones and of Paul’s impending visit are repeated, and, characteristically of a peroratio, asyndeton is used at some critical transitions. 6. The recapitulation of the arguments includes material from the refutatio (10.1–12.10), and also the partitio (1.17–24); recapitulation also recalls the main arguments of the whole epistle, in reverse order (as in Gal 6.11–17, although less exactly performed there). Of these six arguments for regarding 2 Cor 12.11–13.10 as a forensic peroratio we shall find Nos. 1, 2, and 6 unconvincing, and Nos. 3–5 as requiring re-assessment. Regarding (1): the only way in which 12.11–13.10 could be described as a defence recapitulating the whole of 2 Corinthians would be if Paul was using as a defence admission of his actions but justifying them on fresh grounds, while still holding open the possibility of a grievous visit. The dangers attending that way are of weakening and reducing Paul’s case against the Corinthians to that of unrepentant immorality, and taking the sting out of the opening verses of ch. 10. In Long’s work, there is a danger that 12.19, ta; de; pavnta, ajgaphtoiv, uJpe;r th`~ uJmw`n oijkodomh`~, becomes isolated from 13.9–10, especially from v. 10d, eij~ oijkodomh;n kai; oujk eij~ kaqaivresin. Long also plays down the significance of the fact that 13.9–10 is a unique recapitulation of the opening of ch. 10: 10.4, 8 (kaqaivresi~ is only to be found in 10.4, 8; 13.10 within the NT; see also kaqairevw in 10.5, which is only used there in the Pauline corpus); and he consistently omits, in references to 13.10, the negative phrase, ‘and not to destroy’ – consistently, but with two or three exceptions, once where confirmation is sought from 2.1–7 (i.e. Paul wishes to avoid causing distress,14 and the threat to treat the Corinthians severely can be dealt with under the heading of conquestio), and once when the possibility that Paul might ‘appear unapproved’ is designated as ‘a feeble admission’.15 Furthermore, according to Long, the possibility of Paul’s destructive mode of arrival will mainly address examples of immorality; but in the immediate text are included matters 14 Long, Ancient Rhetoric and Paul’s Apology, 236. 15 Long, Ancient Rhetoric and Paul’s Apology, 186–95. The reference to Demosthenes’ De Corona 4 (from a proemium) is supported by five comparisons between that passage and 2 Cor 11.16ff. Long admits, however, that there is no forensic parallel to a parody of self-adulation. This lack of an adequate parallel is damaging to Long’s case, if (as seems likely – see below) Paul was twisting the references to heavenly visions into a satanic injury and quoting the actual flight from Damascus as an all too accurate reflection of his flight from Corinth (i.e. the parody is pointing to real weaknesses). Indeed the word parody may be misleading in chs. 10–13, if parody means ridiculing, twisting or exaggerating an existing form. We have no Hardship catalogue as used in Corinth; we have no Ascent form as used in Corinth. We do have precedents for 12.1–10 (Isa 14.12–15; Ezek 2.6; and the Pardes story) and they alert us to subversion at work, stressing failure and weakness as against strength and success: see Paula Gooder, Only the Third Heaven? 2 Corinthians 12.1–10: A Heavenly Ascent (London: T. & T. Clark Continuum, 2006) 194.
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of social dispute, faction, anger and conceit (12.20), as well as impenitent sinners (12.21a). Nor are those the only associations which Paul sees might lead to another grievous visit; there are critical attitudes to Paul in Corinth (see 10.2c) which probably regarded him as unreliable. It is true that Paul opens ch. 10 with a reference to Christ’s leniency and clemency and ch. 11 with a reference to his own role as bringing them as a bride to Christ (see 1 Thess 3.13; 4.17), thereby giving emphasis to the ‘up-building’ of the Corinthians; but he immediately follows 10.1 with military language, phrases of which in 10.4–5 are recognisably belligerent (ejn eJtoivmw/ e[conte~ ejkdikh`sai pa`san parakohvn 10.6 – a picture more brutal than modern court-martial),16 and closely associated with Paul’s attack on the Corinthians for failures of judgment (logismou;~ kaqairou`nte~ 10.4).17 Long has enfeebled the text of chs. 10–13. An important shift has also taken place when dokimasiva is defined as a public scrutiny process of Paul before all Achaia.18 Long considers the lexical evidence regarding dokimasiva, finding in 1 Corinthians little that relates to the the specific evaluation of Paul’s leadership, except in relation to the Collection. With respect to 2 Corinthians Long again reads that lexical evidence against the background of the Collection. In fact dokimavzw is used there of testing the integrity of the Corinthians (8.8) and of a colleague’s reliability (8.20); the Corinthians are also expected to ‘test themselves’ (13.5). The noun dokimhv is used of Paul testing the Corinthians (2.9), of the testing through hardship of the Macedonians (8.2), and once of a testing by the Corinthians if Christ speaks through Paul (13.3). 2 Corinthians 9.13 has a distinctive function which will be considered later; it seeks confirmation of the Collection from the Corinthians, but there is no mention of Paul being on trial. The adjective dovkimo~ appears in 10.18; according to Long it is a generalization of issues surrounding the Collection, despite its relevance to the subject of ‘task assignment’ in 10.12–16, and despite its context of testing before the Lord (10.17–18), with the Corinthians as much under scrutiny as Paul. dovkimo~ fea16 Laurie Brink, ‘A General’s Exhortation to his Troops: Paul’s Military Rhetoric in 2 Cor 10.1–11’, BZ NF 49 (2005) 192–9; 50 (2006) 74–89; also Victor P. Furnish, II Corinthians (Anchor Bible Commentary; New York: Doubleday, 1984) 461–44. For the relation of 10.1 to the military metaphor in 10.4–6 as evidence that 10.1–6 is an exordium, see Donald D. Walker, Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2 Cor 10:1): Popular Ideology and Rhetoric in a Pauline Letter Fragment (Tübingen: Mohr, 2000) 325–9. 17 logivzomai is reiterated through chs. 10–12 with reference to Paul’s reckoning of himself and the super apostles (11.5), as distinct from Corinthian reckoning of his behaviour (10.2; 12.6), his belonging to Christ (10.7) and his personal presence (10.10). Alongside this lexical stem novhma appears in 10.5 as a captive of Paul’s war and in 11.3 of a corruption such as Eve experienced. 18 Long, Ancient Rhetoric and Paul’s Apology, 141. On the important context of ‘task assignment’ for dovkimo~ in 2 Cor 10.18, see Frank J. Matera, II Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003) 232–3.
504 ivor h. jones tures also in 13.5–7 (in positive or negative forms), a passage which Long regards as forensic; but, as we shall see, his evidence for that classification is faulty. If that is indeed the case, there is little evidence from the lexical area of dokimasiva to support Long’s view that it designates forensic, public scrutiny of Paul. Regarding (2), we need to turn to 13.7 and its context, since this is central to Long’s argument. Conceding that 12.19 is textually uncertain and capable of interpretation for or against an apologetic motive in the text, we may nevertheless point to 13.5 as undoubtedly the immediate context of 13.6–10. The Corinthians are to scrutinize themselves, and their commendation is in doubt (13.5c). However, Long takes gnwvsesqe in 13.6 as evidence that the Corinthians are to register their final verdict and that the verdict concerns Paul. The evidence for this is as feeble as the interpretation which results. gnwvsesqe would certainly be labelled advisory or deliberative rather than forensic, if its setting were indeed the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition. In discussing the forensic parallels Long fails to point out that in 2 Cor 13.6, gnwvsesqe is used absolutely whereas in Isocrates Against Lochites 18.2 it is qualified by ojrqw`~; when Isocrates wishes to refer to a verdict he uses not the simple verb but the compound diagnwvsesqe and when he refers to a verdict in correspondence, as in his letter To the Mytilenaean Rulers 426, he uses the clearest possible term, which is kavllista bouleuvsasqai. A still more serious objection to Long’s suggestion that gnwvsesqe requires the Corinthians as a jury to make the right verdict is the feebleness of the forensic result Paul seeks: no more than that he was not ‘uncommended’. In all probability Long’s search for a background to gnwvsesqe in Greco-Roman forensic apologetic is a mistake in itself. It is well attested as registering key conclusions in Second Temple literature: in the so-called Letter of Jeremiah each section of the letter is concluded with gnwvsesqe or its equivalent, gnwstevon, ejkdektevon, gnwvrimo~, and nomistevon. Against that background it can make sense that Paul should wish to be known as ‘not uncommended’, although only when the role of dovkimo~ in the total argument of 13.5–10 is recognized.19 We have already noted Long’s interpretation of kalo;n in 13.7c; he relates it to forensic evaluation of the defendant’s actions, or, inversely, of the jury’s duty to do the ‘right thing’. His case for forensic evaluation is weakened by our correction of his reading of gnwsevsqe, and also by the order of the wording of 13.7: kakovn comes first, a word for which Long offers no forensic parallel and which without a forensic gnwsevsqe would hardly initially suggest a forensic context; and in 13.7 the accusative pronoun uJma`~ appears after the infinitive rather than before it. Had Paul intended a change of subject from ‘We pray’ to ‘you do’
19 Paul’s position is stated with powerful directness by Zeitlinger, Krieg und Friede, 1.139–43; see especially 142: ‘Von Standpunkt seiner Aufbauarbeit aus gesehen wäre es besonders schlimm, wenn er Gemeindemitglieder als “Tote” beklagen müßte, da sie unbelehrbar und unbekehrbar geworden sind (vgl. 12.20f.)’.
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he could have placed the accusative before the infinitive, with the clarity he uses in marking the changes of subject in the rest of the passage. Long does not consider what the implications of this might be: ‘But we pray that we may (have to) do in your case no harmful thing’ is a possible reading of 13.7a. A further problem with Long’s reading of 13.7 is his neglect of the subjunctive w\men; in this he follows the NASB. The subjunctive could express either the purpose or the content of Paul’s prayer, but in either case the clause expresses a resultant lack of commendation or authorisation (‘whilst we appear, as it were uncommended’), not a concurrent lack (‘even though we may appear uncommended’). Paul’s prayer is that ‘we may (have to) do in your case no harmful thing, not in order that we might appear commended, but in order that you may do what is right, whilst we appear, as it were, uncommended’. This would provide anything but Long’s feeble reading for 13.6: Paul hopes that the Corinthians will come to know that he is not uncommended, but if ‘being uncommended’ means that he has not had to discipline them, and that they have responded with christian good faith, then that would be the prayer he would make. The last thing he would pray for is to be commended for having to discipline them. The following verses, 13.8–10, underline this: Paul can only act as the gospel requires, and if the Corinthians respond well, whilst he appears weak, he rejoices, since what he seeks is their restitution. (6) The hypothesis that 2 Corinthians offers a recapitulation of all the main arguments of the whole text, could, if proven, provide a base for arguing that 2 Cor 12.11–13.10 is a peroratio for the whole of the text.20 The hypothesis needs to be considered under two headings: first, some general observations, and second, treating each group of verses from 12.11 to 13.10 separately. First, some general observations. The hypothesis in (6) is stated with two component parts: the suggestion that 12.11–13.10 repeats material from the whole of the 2 Corinthians text, and the suggestion that the repetitions occur in 12.11–13.10 in the reverse order from that in the rest of the letter’s text. The idea of a repetition in reverse order is particularly difficult to prove, since 13.9–10, the final verses of the peroratio, have already been noted as a recapitulation of 2 Cor 10.4, 5, 8, with neither 13.9–10 nor 2 Cor 10.4, 5, 8 having parallels in earlier parts of the letter. It is also difficult to prove because the material common to 12.11–13.10 and the rest of the text of the letter is designated as such on a basis which is open to the charge of extreme selectivity. Preference is consistently given to supposed correlations which are distant, when closer parallels are much more exact (and certain) and much closer to hand. Lastly, among the general considerations, the main hypothesis remains unproven until consideration has been given to whether or not the alleged common material cited between 12.11–13.10 and the rest of the letter’s text might be read not only in an order defined by the order of the text of 2 Corinthians as it stands, but 20 Long, Ancient Rhetoric and Paul’s Apology, Appendix 1.
506 ivor h. jones equally well (or even better) in an order implied by a chronological priority of chs. 10–13 before chs. 1–9. Moving from general considerations to an analysis of separate groups of verses, we turn to the examples of material which, it is claimed, are common to 12.11–13.10 and to the rest of 2 Corinthians. 12.11–13: it is generally agreed that the strong parallels here are with 2 Cor 11.5ff., although there are a few other parallels between 12.11–13 and 12.5–6; of six main elements in 12.11–13 oujde;n uJstevrhsa tw`n uJperlivan ajpostovlwn, shmei`a, o} hJsswvqhte uJpe;r ta;~ loipa;~ ejkklhsiva~, ouj katenavrkhsa, ajdikivan, 11.5–9 has three exact parallels and two close similarities (see especially 11.9d). Their contexts also have resemblances (see, e.g., sunivstasqai). They develop their common elements in different directions: 11.5–9 clarifying contrasts between Paul and the super apostles; 12.11–12 suggesting that Paul’s work included shmei`a. 12.14–15: the material common to 12.14–15 and 2 Cor 8–9 is defined by Long as follows: there is Paul’s coming, the allegation against him of financial greed, the question of the Corinthians’ love for him, and the Collection for the Saints as a test of loyalty. It has to be said that some of these descriptions are incomplete, inexact, and misleading: for example, in 12.14 Paul takes up ouj katenavrkhsa from 12.13 and as in 11.9e switches to the future tense, repeating the verb in 11.9 in a context reminiscent more of 1 Cor 9 than 2 Cor 8, whereas the verb does not appear in chs. 8–9 at all; in 12.14–15 Paul speaks in the singular; whereas in 9.4 Paul intends not to come alone but with the Macedonians; in 12.14 Paul takes up again from 10.13–14 his self-presentation as sacrificial father-founder of the Corinthian church, a motif absent from 2 Cor 7–9. A much more relevant parallel to 12.14–15, because of its emphasis on Paul’s third arrival, is 13.1–4. 12.15 (like 12.13, which is similar to 12.15 in several respects) suggests that what is at issue is Paul’s lifestyle, an advantage he will not surrender to the false apostles (11.12), and one which is established on the death and life of Christ (see 12.15 and 13.4). Another issue behind 12.15c is probably that he took money from other churches for missionary work (11.8), but did not accept financial support from the Corinthians. Those issues are more likely to be behind 12.13 and 12.15 than issues deriving directly from the Collection for the Saints; yet the parallels which Long cites are all from the Collection chapters. The distinctive key to 12.14–15 is:21 ‘I shall not be a burden to you; for I am not looking for what you possess but for who you are’. The parallel cited from the Collection chapters, 9.13–14, has a different focus; it is primarily concerned with free-will giving for the glory of God, and with the potential of the Collection for creating a new relationship between Jerusalem and Gentile christianity. The other parallel to 12.15c cited from the Collection chapters is 8.7–8: in both, it is argued, ‘the Corinthians’ love is to be proven’.22 But both passages are as 21 Horrell, Solidarity and Difference, 212–20. 22 Note that the text of the relevant part of 8.7 is much disputed.
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much about Paul’s love towards the Corinthians as about the Corinthians’ love towards Paul (on 8.24 see below). Moreover a much closer parallel to 12.15c than 8.7–8, in content and context, is in 11.11. In both 12.15c and 11.11 the testing of the Corinthians’ love is of a very different kind from that in 8.24; in the latter the test of love is the one specific test of the Corinthians’ benevolent share in the Collection, whereas in 12.15c it is a matter of Paul’s lifestyle in the completeness and selflessness of his love which acts as an overall challenge to the Corinthians’ attitude to him.23 Again Long’s descriptions of parallel material between 12.11–15 and earlier chapters are incomplete, inexact, and misleading. 12.16–18: common material is claimed here with 7.1–16; 8.6, 18–19, 20. All these verses from chs. 7–8 and ch. 12 deal with a visit of Titus or Titus and his colleagues to Corinth, and in both chs. 7–8 and ch. 12 Paul answers a charge of exploitation.24 In chs. 7–8 Paul denies the charge of exploitation and expresses delight that the boast which he had made to Titus concerning the Corinthians and the Collection can be made good. In ch. 12 Paul denies that Titus and colleague have been a means of exploitation; an exploitation could not have been planned by such a device because their behaviour is governed by the same Spirit as his own; Paul’s claim not to have been a financial burden on the Corinthians still stands. The two sets of passages seem to assume different contexts and raise different questions. Chapters 7–8 leave no room for doubt concerning Titus’ integrity; ch. 12 allows that the Corinthians could indeed raise such a doubt. To point to ‘common material’ between chs. 7–8 and ch. 12 is to become aware of a raft of problems in their relationships. 12.19–21: common material is alleged here with 6.17–7.1 and 5.1, 10;25 but so much closer to hand is Paul’s task of upbuilding in chs. 10–13. As for the vice list in 12.20 it coincides with Gal 5.19, not with 2 Cor 6.17. As distinct from 12.20 with its 23 This is a classic case for considering which order is best: chs. 1–9 before chs. 10–13 or chs. 10–13 before chs. 1–9. The terminology in 9.13–14 (dia; th`~ dokimh`~ th`~ diakoniva~ tauvth~) has a specific reference – the Collection is a test of the Corinthians’ love and ejpi; th`/ uJpotavgh/ underlines the test (N.B. not uJpakoh`/ – the Corinthians are to act under authority; see also Gal 2.5). If chs. 10–13 are to be read as a general requirement of obedience (see e.g. 13.5) then may not the more precise focus for the word follow rather than precede (just as 9.13 follows 2.9!) – are not 13.5 and 9.13–14 better read in that order? 24 In Ivor H. Jones, The Contemporary Cross – A study for Passiontide: A Theme and Four Biblical Variations (London: Epworth, 1973) 136–9 n. 30, I suggested that it would hardly have been sensible, when questions of financial irregularities had been raised, for a visit of Titus, accompanied by two companions with special representational responsibilities, to have been followed by Titus and only a single colleague. David Horrell takes up the point in The Social Ethos of the Corinthian Correspondence: Interests and Ideology from 1 Corinthians to 1 Clement (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1990) 300 n. 40. 25 On the quite distinctive use of oijkodomhv in 5.1, see Manuel Vogel, Commentatio Mortis; 2 Kor 5,1–10 auf dem Hintergrund antiker ars moriendi (FRLAuNT 214; Tübingen:Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2006) 372–8.
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general reference, a closer parallel for tw`n prohmarthkovtwn in 12.21 is 13.2, as h|/ e[praxan in 12.21 may relate, as prohmarthkovs in in 13.2 may do, to specific, unrepentant sinners. 13.1–4: common material is alleged with 1.23; 2.16–17; 3.3; 4.7, 8, 17; 5.11–17; 6.4, 10–12, but a key feature of 13.3 and 4, the use of ajsqenei`, ajsqenou`men, does not appear in any of those passages; it does, however, appear in 11.21, 29, 30; 12.10; 13.9. This negative argument (what is not common in cited parallels) points to a flaw in the selective policy of quoting parallels across the whole of the 2 Corinthians text. The phrase ejk dunavmew~ qeou`, contrasting with the ajsqenei`, ajsqenou`men group, has partial parallels in 12.9 as well as in 2 Cor 1, 4, 6, 8 and in 1 Cor 1; 2; 4; 5; 6; 12; 15. But its role in 13.4 is distinctive; for there is in 13.4c a unique prepositional qualification, the phrase eij~ uJma`~, which gives ejk dunavmew~ qeou` a distinctive role in chs. 10–13. Perhaps the most important link between 13.4 and ch. 4 is the verb zhvsomen, but zhvsomen, by virtue of its tense and immediate context, resembles elements of the pattern of thought in 1 Thess 5.10 rather than that of 2 Cor 4–5 (see n. 25). Finally, 13.5–10, as previously noted, relates closely with 10.1–6, excluding any possible precise theory of recapitulation in reverse order. An interesting parallel to 13.1–10 is 2 Cor 1.23; 2 Cor 1.23, however, has no clear time reference. The adverb oujkevti in 1.23, apparently qualifying h\lqen, could mean either ‘not again’, or ‘not after all’, but seems in view of 2.1 to indicate that a further visit had been projected, but had not taken place. The possibility that this projected but not implemented visit is the visit threatened in chs. 10–13 cannot without further discussion be ruled out. From this verse-by-verse discussion of (6) it can be concluded: (i) that the theory that 2 Cor 12.11–13.10 is a peroratio recapitulating the text of 2 Corinthians and reversing the order of the material of the whole text is unproven; (ii) that the parallels to chs. 10–13 from chs. 1–9 quoted by Long are not so close as those within chs. 10–13, where some parallels are exact enough to warrant the name of ‘repetitions’; (iii) that some of the repetitions within chs. 10–13 appear by virtue of their repetition and development to have a structural significance (notably 10.4, 5, 8 and 13.10; and 11.5–11 and 12.11–18); (iv) that the theory of a reversed recapitulation of the letter’s material has displaced careful exegetical work (notably on 12.14–15) and encouraged inattention to distinctive features of chs. 10–13 (e.g. in 12.19–21); (v) that not one of the vocabulary parallels with forensic classical rhetoric in this section is reliable. The vocabulary and grammar cited by Long do not define chs. 10–13 as forensic; they belong equally well within a structured warning to the Corinthians. Regarding (3) it is not clear from the above survey why the peroratio should begin at 12.11; the evidence so far considered might suggest that it begins at 12.19 (which is, after all, where the divine invocation occurs to which Long refers). As we have seen, the subjects present in 12.11–18 – the contest with the rival missionaries,
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Paul’s refusal of financial support, the question of Paul’s love for the Corinthians – recall 11.5–11, and have been regarded as concluding a Fool’s Speech,26 even as an ‘epilogue’ to a Fool’s Speech (12.11–12); but it may be doubted that there is such a structured speech in chs. 10–13 and, as we have also seen, 12.11–18, rather than being simply a repetition, adds to the claim of 11.9, before moving on to a reference to Titus.27 Moreover, as we have also seen, the ajsqenei`, ajsqevneia group appears in 11.21, 29, 30; 12.10; 13.9, but it does not appear in 12.11–18. These interweaving motifs seem too complex for a single speech structure: 12.12 is a reminder of 12.1, 7a; and 12.10 picks up the ‘weakness’ theme implied in 11.32–33 and 12.1–9.28 These factors make it unlikely also that a peroratio began at 12.11. Regarding (4) the tone and purpose of 2 Cor 12.13 needs to be re-assessed. It has a reference back to 11.7–8, but gives that reference a sarcastic twist through the use of carivsasqev moi th;n ajdikivan tauvthn. Its tone is not that of an admonition to a jury to make the right judicial decision (in any case, kalovn in Demosthenes Against Stephanus I 85.10 refers not to the verdict but to an estimate of the verdict’s ensuing effects); rather it is an emotional outburst against the hearers’ prior false judgments and therefore their mistaken view of apostolic privileges.29 Nor is the purpose of the longer section, 12.13–15, an admonition to a jury. 12.14–15 picks up ouj katenavrkhsa in 12.13, applying it, as 11.9 does, to Paul’s behaviour while in Corinth, and extending that pattern into the future visit (ouj katanarkhvsw, 12.14), for which he now holds himself ready. 12.13–15 is part of Paul’s warning to his hearers. It holds a promise too: the parent–children proverb confirms Paul’s promise of commitment to the Corinthians, and like 11.11 it expresses this commitment to self-giving in terms of the verb ajgapw` (12.15). Similarly, in 12.16, the 3rd person singular imperative and particle e[stw dev cannot be regarded as an admonition to the jury; it is Paul’s own admission that his denial of being a burden to them still left
26 Thrall, Second Epistle, 2.832–58, responding to Sundermann’s analysis. 27 Zeitlinger, Krieg und Friede, 1.117–27, who summarises the section: ‘Unter Beachtung popularphilosopher Verhaltensregeln zieht Paulus zunächst in seinem kleinen Epilog (vv. 11–12) die Konsequenzen aus seiner Narrenrede’(1.124–7). But perhaps it is better to regard the ‘fool’, ‘folly’ elements as part of Paul’s reiterated response to the treatment of the super apostles. o[felon ajneivcesqe in 11.1 suggests that Paul regarded his ‘boast’ to be founder of the Corinthian church as a folly at least as tolerable as the church’s foolish attitude to the false apostles (11.4–5; 12.11). His reiteration of ‘folly’ and ‘fool’ then resembles the infamous paradox of Prov 26.4–5 (LXX) that to boast is foolish but appropriate as a response to the foolish. 28 See Gooder, Only the Third Heaven. Her analysis of 12.1–10 fits better with the neatly constructed piece of tradition in 11.31–32 than any of the more complex historical or philosophical treatments (e.g. Gudrum Guttenberger, ‘Klugheit, Besonnenheit, Gerechtigkeit und Tapferkeit’, ZNW 96 [2005] 74–98). If there was indeed a disastrous intermediate visit of Paul to Corinth, 11.31–32 would have been read as a dramatic confirmation that Paul’s weakness was evidenced in his need to escape from adversaries in Corinth. 29 Horrell, Solidarity and Difference, 214–22.
510 ivor h. jones him open to the charge of robbery by stealth. So 12.13–16 is neither by tone nor purpose an admonition to the jury, nor is it an exaggeration of the consequences of the jury’s decision. It is both exhortation and promise. Regarding (5): 2 Cor 12.17–18 provide a twofold continuation of 12.16, answering the charge of robbery. All the other cited details of 12.16–21 – amplification, weighty language, stress on immorality, recapitulation concerning the impending visit – could be evidence for a final ‘epilogue’, but it would be for an ‘epilogue’ beginning at 12.19 rather than at 12.11. So it can be concluded that it is unlikely that 12.11–13.10 is a forensic peroratio recapitulating in reverse order the material of the entire letter. Rather, chs. 10–13 have a structure: an inclusio between 10.4, 5, 8 and 13.10, with a central section in which various repeated motifs interrelate, material from one motif flowing into material from the next. The concluding section is 12.19–13.10; and that section does not appear to belong to a forensic genre; chs. 10–13 do not represent the Corinthians as sitting as a jury with a decision to make about Paul,30 but rather as those who should attend carefully to a warning of the consequences if their response to Paul does not recognize, by means of their new patterns of behaviour, the distinctive nature of Paul’s apostleship and the kind of life Paul’s gospel requires. 12.19–13.10 would hardly function as an identifiable forensic conclusion – not all the key points of chs. 10–13 appear in that concluding section; 12.10–18 is barely hinted at in 13.2c; there is no reference in the conclusion to the false apostles, and 10.2c is not treated systematically and specifically. That the ‘epilogue’ summarises a warning does not, of course, in itself exclude a forensic interpretation of 12.19–13.10. Cicero’s De Sexto Roscio Amerino concludes with advice to the jury which constituted a strong warning regarding the consequences of their judgment for the future of Sulla’s Republic. The difference in the case of 2 Cor 10–13 is that the warning is given there within a very different self-presentation of Paul and his relationships with the Corinthians: he has an authority which may express itself either as a disciplinary commander or as a father-figure safeguarding a bride. If this is not a forensic ‘epilogue’, could it be an unusual deliberative closure? Deliberative rhetoric does not of necessity require a recapitulatory epilogue, but it would not be inappropriate here since the Corinthians’ value judgments are being discussed and challenged. They are, however, challenged in a hortatory rather than a deliberative or advisory manner, as 10.1–18 illustrates. 10.1–18 has three parts: the military imagery of 10.1–6 is powerful, finally to be qualified in 13.10 by the exhortation to follow his warning; in the second part (10.7–11),which is
30 Long’s argument that self-adulation in 11.16–12.10 reflects apologetic speech leans towards exaggeration (Ancient Rhetoric and Paul’s Apology, 187): how can uJpevr ejgwv be a technical term of apologetic speech when it is virtually unparalleled outside Paul?
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picked up strongly in 12.19–13.10, the military imagery is qualified by the comment: ‘I do not want you to think that I am as it were scaring you by my letters’; and the third part (10.12–18), recalling a battle to retain a bastion, concludes with the exhortation that anyone who boasts should ‘boast in the Lord’. What follows in ch. 11, introducing the issue of meeting folly with folly (11.1–4), is a powerful self- and audience-presentation;31 Paul carries the weighty and worrying responsibility for making secure a future presentation of the holy Bride to Christ, the successful accomplishment of which (Paul is fully aware) will need divine power; the attack on the false apostles in 11.5–15 follows, its uncompromising ferocity resembling that of Gal 1.6–9.32 Without any doubt Paul is setting out Christ’s values as his own, and exhorting the Corinthians to accept them and practise them. The tone is not deliberative and advisory; it is uncompromisingly hortatory throughout. The question is therefore whether Greco-Roman rhetoric offers an appropriate range of descriptions for chs. 10–13. 13.11–13 confirms the importance of that question. The addition at the end of 13.11–13 contains concluding imperatives such as Jewish-hellenistic and Pauline letters include;33 there are also greetings, perhaps associated with the community in Thessalonica; and the Grace has a doxological character (see Section 4). So it is a fair assumption that 12.19–13.10 could be described within the same Judaeo-Christian tradition.34 Summarising this section: the letter-closure is probably from 12.19 to 13.10. It can hardly conclude a forensic address, since its self- and audience-presentation does not approximate to that of a jury sitting in judgment on Paul; rather it states the context in which the Corinthians are expected to respond; the nature of that response is to recognize in Christ the nature of Paul’s apostleship and the life his gospel requires. The closure 12.19–13.10 involves a stern warning, as of a commander of an army or as of a father (or best man). Although a warning does not in itself exclude a forensic interpretation, 13.2 amounts virtually to a threat. The cited parallels in forensic vocabulary are insufficient evidence for 2 Cor 12.11–13.10 to be regarded as set in a forensic context; some evidence even suggests it could not be. Nor is 2 Cor 2.19–3.10 simply advice. It is an exhortation to accept in practice the truth of Paul’s authority and his right to command the Corinthians to follow his way (see 10.1–11). A characteristic of this closure is that Paul does not rehearse
31 See Christine Gerber, ‘Krieg und Hochzeit in Korinth. Die metaphorische Werben des Paulus um die Gemeinde in Kor 10, 1–6 und 11,1–4’, ZNW 96 (2005) 99–125, where the time factor between parental care and the wedding integrates with the decisiveness of military command: ‘Beide Metaphern zusammen verdeutlichen die von Gott gegebene Vollmacht des Paulus zum Aufbau und zur Zerstörung (10,8; 13,10)’ (124). 32 Markus DiCiceo, Paul’s Use of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in 2 Corinthians 10–13 (MBPS 31; Lewiston, NY: Mellen Biblical Press, 1995) 170–1. 33 See Klauck, Die antike Briefliteratur. 34 See 1 Thess 4.14–22, and n. 51.
512 ivor h. jones earlier arguments, such as his attacks on the false apostles (11.12–15), nor does he deal directly with the criticism that he has behaved kata; savrka (10.3). Instead, in this closure, he concentrates on the subject of weakness as the only way in which his apostleship can be effective. It reflects the Jewish hortatory tradition rather than the rhetoric of classical oration. To answer the question with which Section 1 began, if there is an ‘epilogue’ in chs. 10–13: chs. 10–13 appear to be a unit, with a flowing structure, with its own concluding section (12.19–13.10), with a stern hortatory warning probably belonging to the genre known from Jewish rhetoric and from Paul’s early letters.
2. A Letter-ending in Chapter 9?
9.15 has been called a peroratio of ch. 9.35 It has also been called an inclusio with 8.1.36 It certainly stands as a climax, gathering up a wealth of repetitions and cross-references.37 It gathers up also in its rich and unusual language the references to thanksgiving, prayer and glorification of God in 9.10–14 (to limit the cross-references for the moment).38 9.15 also picks up, in all probability, the central christological motivation for generosity in its ever-widening and all-encompassing appeal (2 Cor 8.9; 5.21).39 Taking, first, the main features of 9.15 which are anticipated in 9.13–14, we find in 9.13–14 that the Jerusalem ‘foundation’ community offers praise to God and
35 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8–9, 126. See also Kieran J. O’Mahony, Pauline Persuasion: A Sounding in 2 Corinthians 8–9 (JSNTSup 199; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000); and Rhetoric and the New Testament: Essays from the 1992 Heidelberg Conference (JSNTSup 90; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993). 36 Stephan Joubert, Paul as Benefactor: Reciprocity, Strategy and Theological Reflection in Paul’s Collection (WUNT 2.124; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000) 200. 37 Byung-Mo Kim, Die paulinische Kollekte (TANZ 38; Halle: Francke Verlag, 2002) 96. 38 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8–9, 120–8. This gathering up of worship elements in 9.15 is significant, even if the function of 9.13–14 is that of a ‘proof’. The service to God and the service to one another are linked elsewhere in Paul with doxological language, as in Rom 11.33–36 and its sequel in 12.1ff. The pattern of Pauline doxological language may be evident from that passage: ‘from him, in him and for him are all things – his is the glory forever’. Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) 718–23 considers 11.33–36 in relation to 9.5 and 10.5 and reviews its Pauline origin; but he overlooks how each element, as in a worship text, points beyond its immediate context. Better on methodological questions, see Hermut Löhr, ‘Formen und Traditionen des Gebets bei Paulus’, a paper presented to the East–West New Testament Conference 2007. For the distinction between doxology as a Form (Weima, Neglected Endings, 135–44) and doxological language, see Edmund Schlink, ‘Die Struktur der dogmatischen Aussage als ökumenisches Problem’, Der kommende Christus und die kirchlichen Traditionen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961) 27–37. 39 This point carries particular weight, if, as we shall argue later, chs. 8 and 9 belong to the same letter and are consecutive parts of that letter.
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joins in intercession for the Corinthians. What occasions this? It is the proof offered by the Corinthian diakoniva. A clearer exposition of what is meant by diakoniva here (and therefore what occasions the praise) is not easily provided because of the dense and complex language of 9.13. The phrase ejpi; th`/ uJpotagh`/ th`~ oJmologiva~ suggests commitment to a requirement (not simply ‘obedience’, but adherence to a binding agreement: see Gal 2.10, and perhaps 2 Cor 10.1–6);40 furthermore the adherence is specifically designated as that of the Corinthians and its purpose is in promotion of the gospel of Christ. The Jerusalem Christians will, as Paul sees it, praise God that the Corinthian diakoniva expresses the commitment of the Pauline Gentile communities in terms compatible with their own. The following phrase is equally dense: aJplovthti th`~ koinwniva~ eij~ aujtou;~ kai; eij~ pavnta~. This further expounds the nature of the occasion for praise. Paul could be anticipating, at least at this stage of his work, a benevolent response from the Corinthians. He can hardly have anticipated an additional financial response from them, designated eij~ pavnta~.41 Since koinwniva had, in Paul’s day, a rich and shifting reference, not only to the abiding quality of being together but also to the means by which such belonging can, by creative activity, be instantiated, realised and enriched, we may consider as a possibility the following sense for the whole phrase: the Corinthians are praising God with respect to ‘a genuineness in seeking a deeper community with Jerusalem as with Christians everywhere’.42 The Jerusalem Christians would also (if we take the genitive absolute in 9.14 as qualifying further the praise of God in 9.13) find in the exceptional grace shown by God to the Corinthians cause for a warmer relationship with the latter; this they would express in their intercession for them. So 9.13–14, translated as we suggest, anticipates features of 9.15 in a rich and extensive exposition of praise and diakoniva. Turning, second, to 9.1–12 and the anticipation of 9.15 there, we find ourselves faced with a feast of rhetorical forms. Traductio, the play upon various meanings 40 The agreement mentioned in Gal 2.10 could be in Paul’s mind as a mutually (and widely) recognised responsibility to the poor; if 10.1–6 is prior in time to 9.13 the requirement could be adherence to the style of community required by Paul’s kind of apostleship. 41 Thrall, Second Epistle, 2.591 and 523–4. 42 The full details regarding the development of koinwniva through the classical writers, notably in Plato and Aristotle, and in the biblical and Second Temple material, were presented by N. Sagovsky in his Cambridge Hulsean Lectures, and summarised in his Ecumenism, Christian Origins and the Practice of Communion (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2000), 134: ‘We need to remember those who travelled between the churches like Paul and his companions, carrying gifts and letters along the Roman roads and over the sea from one church to another. These are the people who, in practical terms, made the koinonia between the churches a living reality’. See Horrell, Solidarity and Difference, 234–6; contrast Dieter Georgi, Die Geschichte der Kollekte des Paulus für Jerusalem (Hamburg-Nergstedt: Herbert Reich, 1965).
514 ivor h. jones
of cavri~ (e.g. contrast 9.15, ‘thanks’, with ‘grace’ as the object in 9.8 of perisseu`sai, to mention only two of the various uses of cavri~; the Symploche, the intertwining of key words, in 9.6 is developed in 9.7–10. One effect of these forms, by means of Polyptoton, the use of a keyword with different endings, is to emphasise God’s abounding grace (9.8), interpreted through an agrarian Figure: divine encouragement by blessing the cheerful giver with wealth (9.10a) results in manifold fruits expressive of God’s generosity and righteousness (9.10b).43 In 9.11–12 Paul brings together a combination of ideas unique to 2 Corinthians: perisseuvw (transitive or intransitive), cavri~ diakoniva, dia; pollw`n, eujcaristiva, eujcaristw`, tw`/ qew`/ – i.e. in summary, that which is abounding, grace/diakonia, increases thanksgiving to God, through many. This assembly of ideas, unique for Paul, appears at three points in 2 Corinthians: 1.11; 4.15 and 9.11–12, that is, in sections which Bornkamm classified as ‘reconciliation’, ‘early apologetic’ or ‘about the Collection’.44 The full set of associated ideas is unique to those three areas of 2 Cor 1–9, and it is a set not found in 2 Cor 10–13. The three passages in chs. 1–9 use these associated ideas with different emphases: in 9.11–12 they are used to ensure that the sacrificial diakonia (for which God in his grace makes abundant provision: see 9.10–11) is understood both as a contribution to the human needs of the ‘Saints’ and as abounding (intransitive) through many thanksgivings to God, or causing thanksgiving to God to abound (transitive) through many people (i.e. both in Jerusalem and in the Gentile world); in 4.15 the syntax is unclear, but the emphasis there may also be that God’s grace increases (see 4.7, as God’s power works through the apostolic earthern vessels, and their committed proclamation: 4.13), and 4.15 adds that grace (in manifold forms) increases through an increasing number of people (whom God, 4.14, who raised Jesus from the dead, will ‘raise up’, presenting us with you: compare and contrast 1 Thess 4.24 and 5.10) – thus grace makes thanksgiving to abound for the purpose of God’s glory;45 third, in 1.11 the context again stresses dependence on God, and again in this case God (as in the Psalms) delivers and will deliver from death; as in 9:14 there is the accompaniment of intercession, but in this case (1.11) 43 On the textual variants here, see Thrall, Seccond Corinthians, 484. 44 Günther Bornkamm, Paul (trans. D. Stalker; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1969) 244–5. 45 This is a fractionally better sense in the context of 4.7–15, where the theme concerns apostolic dependence on God. It is certainly a better sense than implying that grace should abound to the glory of God as it increases thanksgiving through more people. For the connection of doxa with the transformation of the people of God into the divine image, see 3.18, with the restitution of the divine image in Christ, see C. K. Barrett, From First Adam to Last: A Study in Pauline Theology (London: A. & C. Black, 1962) 102; Morna Hooker-Stacey, ‘PISTIS CRISTOU’, NTS 35 (1993) 321–35, and ‘Philippians 2.6–11’, Jesus und Paulus (ed. E. Ellis and E. Gräßer; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht) 115–64. For doxa and the (final) redemptive work of God, see Karl Prümm,Diakonia Pneumatos. Theologische Auslegung des zweiten Korintherbriefes (3 vols.; Wien: Herder, 1967) 1.251–2.
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it is the Corinthians who pray for Paul and for his colleagues;46 the purpose of their prayer is (or the content of the prayer is) that it will be from many faces uplifted to God that this saving act of grace by God toward the apostle will be, through many circumstances(?), cause for thanksgiving on Paul’s behalf. So all the three passages, 9.11–12, 4.15, 1.11, using these associated ideas in different ways, reach their climax ultimately in 9.15. It is difficult to understand, if Bornkamm’s division of 2 Corinthians is correct, why this unique (for Paul) association of ideas should have appeared in all three such different circumstances and nowhere else. A simpler hypothesis would be that the occasion described by Paul in 2 Cor 1.8–10 may have given rise to that association, as so many opportunities for apostolic work, in so many cities, opened up from that one moment of deliverance. It is difficult to understand too, when there are three passages related by a common association of ideas, why some scholars committed to rhetorical criticism should have passed over verses such as 1.11 without a discussion of their content.47 A similar omission characterises some studies of 1 Thessalonians, where the multiple repetitions of ei[sodo~ are noted, without reference to their context in the triple thanksgivings.48 The first of the ei[sodo~ references is part of the chapter-long thankful recollection of the dynamic, interrelated factors which brought part of that Thessalonian community into being.49 Among the parallels between 2 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians50 is this aspect of thanksgiving to God. The difference between them, however, should be noted: in 1 Thessalonians there is no explicit connection between the rehearsal 46 See Erich Grässer, Der zweite Brief an die Korinther, Kapitel 1,1–7,16 (ÖTK 8/1; Würzburg: Gütersloh, 2002) 65–66. 47 See Long, Ancient Rhetoric and Paul’s Apology, 143, 226; also Ben Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth: a Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 362. Long quotes with approval Young and Ford, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians. The latter have much to say about thanksgiving for abundance, about the coinherence of financial and divine economies, and the Jewish content of thanksgiving with a hellenistic structure of language; nevertheless, although the authors give hints of the difference between the opening mood and the later sections of 2 Corinthians, their approximation of 1.14, 4.15 and 9.13–15 to 12.9 (and 13.9–10) is surely misleading, given the vocabulary factor alone (97–8; 172–4). 48 Seyoon Kim, ‘Paul’s Entry (ei[sodo~) and the Thessalonians’ Faith (1 Thessalonians 1–3)’, NTS 51 (2005) 519–42. 49 See the discussion in my The Epistles to the Thessalonians (Peterborough: Epworth, 2005) 10–21, 87–102, and the important presentation of the relevant text-critical issues in G. R. Fee, ‘On Text and Commentary on 1 and 2 Thessalonians’, Society of Biblical Literature: 1992 Seminar Papers (ed. E. Lovering; SBL Seminar Papers 31; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991). 50 In both there are elements of apologetic, but there is always the danger of giving the genre term ‘apology’ too narrow a focus. If we use the description ‘apologetic’ of Paul’s letters, it should have reference not only to a personal defence, but must focus on the ‘gospel event’ in its totality.
516 ivor h. jones by other Pauline communities of the Thessalonian event and the abounding increase of thanksgiving to God (although the event itself was widely known and celebrated: see 1 Thess 1.7–8); in 2 Corinthians, on the other hand, the full association of the ideas is three times made quite explicit, forming a unique emphasis within the Pauline corpus. In summary: (i) 9.15 is a climactic, doxological conclusion to a discussion of the Collection for the Saints. (ii) 9.15 is a climax to a thanksgiving section unique in the Pauline corpus, to which only 2 Cor 1.11 and 4.15 provide close parallels. (iii) The term ‘peroration’ carries too classical an association for the very strong element of thanksgiving in 2 Cor 9.12–15. (iv) The Collection letter has resemblances to Alexandrian writings.51 (v) The Thanksgiving passage emphasises by means of repetition the importance of cavri~ in this text. (vi) The absence of these thanksgiving elements from 2 Cor 10.1–13.10 adds a further factor to our description of chs. 10–13 as a unit. Already identified as a separate unit, the absence of so important a correlation suggests that chs. 10–13 may belong to a context and time different from that of ch. 9.
3. A Letter-ending in Chapter 7?
7.16 forms an inclusio with 7.4d (see also 7.7, 9, 14).52 Indeed, the whole of 7.4 is picked up within 7.5–16, so that Paul’s personal ‘joy’ is explained and qualified in the process. 7.4d begins that process: uJperperisseuvomai th`/ carh`/ ejpi; pavsh/ th`/ qlivyei hJmw`n, ‘I am overflowing with joy with respect to all our distress’. Paul is reviewing all that has happened and finds, throughout, a cause for overwhelming joy. First, there is (taking up the story from 2.12) the disturbing experience of arriving in Macedonia. Into this situation God mercifully introduced fresh comfort (note the parallel language and syntax with 1.4). For Titus arrived with the news of the Corinthians’ ejpipovqhsin, ojdurmovn, zh`lon uJpe;r ejmou`. This increases Paul’s joy (7.7). Second, Paul qualifies what he means by ‘joy’; it is a joy which remains respectfully aware of the regrettable pain he caused (see 2.2–6), a pain which did not, thankfully, result in permanent damage (7.2). Rather, it resulted in a positive turning to God’s ways (7.8–11), including ejpipovqhsi~, zh`lo~ and (v.12) spoudhv. Third, there is joy at the comfort which Titus himself shared (7.13), not least because Titus recalled the Corinthian obedience (2.9) and their welcome (‘in fear and trembling’). There was also joy that the kauvchsi~ which Paul had made to Titus concerning the Corinthians could now prove to be true (7.4, 14; 8.24). All this
51 See, e.g., Wisdom of Solomon 19.9–12 and its finale (19.14–21). 52 7.4 suggests a more complex interrelation of 7.4 with 7.5–16. Lietzmann noted three vocabulary connections between 7.4 and 7.5ff. Martin adds a fourth; see 2 Corinthians (Waco: Words, 1986) 216.
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is summed up (7.16) in Paul’s personal joy that he has now a new confidence in the Corinthians (see also the overwhelming joy of the Macedonians: 8.2). Within that framework of comfort and joy three earlier passages from 2 Corinthians are recalled in vocabulary, syntax and context (illustrated briefly in the chapter and verse references above). The three passages are: the opening Benediction (1.3–7), the sequence of events beginning with 1.8 and continued in 2.12–13, and the painful visit and letter (2.2–11). Additionally, as has been noted, the subject broached in 7.14 reappears in 8.24 as a boast known not only to Titus but one of which other Christian communities were fully aware. This last point raises the question of continuity between chs, 7, 8 and 9. Undoubtedly there are special rhetorical features in chs. 8 and 9,53 and these have been used as part of the argument for and against chs. 8 and 9 as separate letters.54 This to-and-fro of rhetorical arguments has been well illustrated by Kim in respect of the host of details for and against the independence of chs. 8 and 9 (independence from each other and from the main body of 2 Cor 1–7). Kim concludes that, quite apart from the mass of detailed arguments, 8.24 cannot represent the end of a section, as the chapter divisions might suggest. There is a continuous theme and argument from 8.16–9.5.55 Whether all Kim’s arguments are reliable is open to question, especially those for an intentional and detailed parallelism between ch. 8 and ch. 9; but, despite that query, Kim’s case that 8.24–9.5 function in relation to Paul’s boast is strong, and suggests a significant connection between chs. 8 and 9, and between 7.14 and chs. 8 and 9. The connection is also a reminder that 8.24 is not an ‘epilogue’ in the sense that 9.15 most certainly is. If Kim is right on this last point, then the discussion of the particles in 9.1 has to take a new direction. To trace that new direction we need to review chs. 8 and 9 as a whole. There is no doubt that 8.1–6 begins with the Macedonians’ gracious, divinely inspired initiative and that this initiative encouraged Paul to appoint Titus to complete the Corinthian work of collecting. Unfortunately the translation of 8.6 is uncertain; it is not clear whether this ‘appointment’ is an additional responsibility or the confirmation of a prior one (see 8.10–11). 8.7–15 takes up the prior readiness and highly significant eagerness of the Corinthians, stressing how important it is that they finish the work. On the basis of the christological pattern
53 See especially Betz, Corinthians 8 & 9. 54 See Section 2 above. 55 Kim Byung-Mo, Die paulinische Kollekte (TANZ 38; Halle: Francke Verlag, 2002). A further possible argument for continuity between 8.24 and 9.1–3 is offered by Marc Debanne, Enthymemes in the Letters of Paul (London: T. & T. Clark, 2006) 223: it is a paraenetic enthymeme picking up the exhortation of 8.24, and with 9.1–2 serving as a ratio or motivating factor; they should now prove that love. However, that would be to treat the particles in 9.1 as only adding a further warrant for 8.24; may they not also serve to introduce further motivations or advice, as in 9.5ff.?
518 ivor h. jones (8.9) Paul envisages a mutuality of reciprocal giving, as means enable, and need among the churches periodically requires. 8.16–21 begins with a thanksgiving for Titus’ similar eagerness and initiative. Paul has sent with Titus a representative appointed by the churches and a colleague Paul particularly trusts. The actions are politically shrewd; they serve the aims of the divine glory, defence against the charge of exploitation and the encouragement of Paul himself. The delegation is described as emissaries for the glory of Christ (8.23). The Corinthians should now complete their work and so provide evidence of their love and of the rightness of Paul’s boast concerning them. The other churches will recognise this (8.24). Paul has boasted to the Macedonians that the Achaeans were ready a while ago, and, although the Corinthians are eager to participate and should now do so, the emissaries had the task of ensuring that the boast was not an empty one (9.2–3). Paul’s own arrival in Corinth is imminent, and he will arrive with a Macedonian embassy. The Collection has a sacrificial nature, and Paul’s emissaries are sent on in advance to proclaim its gospel-value (9.4–9): that means that it is not an imposition, demanding from them more than seems right. God will ensure a bountiful income and loves a willing donor. To complete the two chapters, 9.10–15 concerns divine generosity and the overflowing of this ‘diakonia’ in thanksgiving to God for his ‘gift beyond words’. In this way chs. 8 and 9 celebrate cavri~ as the source, development and purpose of the project. Given that outline of the two chapters, what is the function of the particles in 9.1? Those particular particles are used by Paul in various ways: e.g. to express emphatic contrasts (see Rom 5.16; 14.5; 1 Cor 5.3; 11.27; 12.8); or, to introduce a subsubject within a major theme (see Rom 3.2; 1 Cor 11.18; 2 Cor 11.4). Their function in 9.1would seem approximate to the second option. On either side of 9.1 the emissaries are linked with the realisation of Paul’s boast (8.24; 9.3), with the churches’ witness, and with an expectation of the completion of the Corinthians’ task. On either side of 9.1 thanksgiving marks the progress of the Collection. What then does 9.1 do? All that was needed was to recall the word ‘diakonia’ in 8.4 and what was said in 8.10–11 and 8.16–24; and then to prepare a new reference to motivate and guide the completion of the task: it is to be a eujlogiva, a blessing, a sacrificial offering (9.5), a thanksgiving for the abundance and the coinherence of the financial and divine economies (9.12–14). Neither according to Paul’s usage of particles nor according to Paul’s argument is 9.1 likely to be the beginning of a new letter. 9.1 admits of no gap, of no lack of eagerness, determination or information. So the work of the emissaries, the theme of thanksgiving for abundant grace, and eagerness in finding sacrificial fulfilment bring the three chapters to their climax in 9.15. The work of the emissaries draws attention to a feature of chs. 8 and 9. There is little doubt that language and topics used in these chapters resemble ancient administrative correspondence concerning appointments. That contributes to Paul’s argument. All is being done ‘by the book’; there is no space for administra-
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tive error, intrigue or trickery. But the administrative language and topic are used as part of Paul’s self-presentation and as part of his presentation of the churches as participants in all stages of the project. We are almost at a point where we might consider 2 Cor 1–7 as a continuous letter text, with chs. 8–9 providing a conclusion and climax. There is, however, the problem of 6.14–7.1. Arguments have also swung to and fro between those who regard that portion of the text as Pauline and those who regard it as un-Pauline or even anti-Pauline, and between those who regard the passage as part of a continuous letter and those who regard it as an intrusion into the text. A recent rhetorical attempt to solve the problem makes 6.14–7.1 a bridge between chs. 1–9 and chs. 10–13. The argument for 6.14–7.1 as a bridge runs as follows: 6.14–7.1 was left out at one stage of copying because a separate copy had to be made of so theologically controversial a passage; but it was then restored as a separate sheet into the best of the difficult options left to the copyist (i.e. its present position in 6.14–7.1).56 This proposal aims to answer the double problem of the curious character of the text of 6.14–7.1 and the apparent lacuna between chs. 1–9 and chs. 10–13. The hypothesis of a lost bridge rests on what we can recognize now as an insecure foundation: the argument that 9.15 cannot stand at the end of a letter and 9.15 requires a passage such as 6.14–7.1 to continue the logic of the letter. Our discussion of the ‘epilogues’ in 2 Corinthians provides a strong case against that thesis. We have noted the plethora of rhetorical features in 2 Cor 9 which introduces 9.15 and for which 9.15 is both literary and theological climax; and we have strengthened this case by reference to the repetitions of the unique theological theme of 9.11–15. Significant too is that 6.14–7.1, were it to be added after 9.15, does not supply an explanatory introduction for the structure of chs. 10–13 as we have described it. For (it is argued) 6.14–7.1 is Paul’s presentation of the Jerusalem founding community’s theological position as a prolegomena to chs. 10–13. But in chs. 10–13, as we have seen, such a presentation is tangential to Paul’s exhortation; whereas 6.14–7.1 in its present position between 6.13 and 7.2 could quite possibly be understood as a Pauline strategy, affirming Paul’s respect for the Jerusalem community (as possibly in 1 Thess 2.14) – a community for whom the Collection for the Saints was to be recommended in chs. 8–9. Our purpose is not of course to solve the problem of 6.14–7.1; we simply point to its inadequacy as a lost ‘bridge’ and use the discussion to illustrate the value of identifying and analysing 2 Corinthian ‘epilogues’. If 2 Cor 1–9 can be seen as a more or less continuous text (depending on how 6.14–7.1 is assessed), the opening chapters of 2 Corinthians take on, from what has
56 Thomas Schmeller, ‘Der ursprungliche Kontext von 2 Kor 6.14–7.1’, NTS 52 (2006) 219–38. For an alternative rhetorical discussion of 6.14–7.1, see Hans-Michel Wünsch, Der paulinische Brief 2Kor 1–9 als kommunikative-Handlung. Ein rhetorisch – literaturwissenschaftliche Untersuchung (Münster: DIT Verlag, 1995).
520 ivor h. jones been seen so far of the repetitions of its ideas, syntax and vocabulary in ch. 7, a major significance for the whole structure of chs. 1–9. But, if that is correct, the opening chapters (chs. 1–2) constitute a problem, and a problem which is all too little addressed. So far we have seen the probable role of 1.3–12 and 2.2–11 within the structure of chs. 1–7: they are introductory, designed to be picked up in ch. 7, against the background of pain and tribulation, and as an expression of comfort and joy. But what can be said of the section 1.12–22? It concerns Paul’s failure to stand by his original plans, specifically his travel plans. The precise accusation could be that he (Paul) shows by his change of plans that he is fickle (less probably, in view of the argument that follows, that he regards his plans as a matter for his own decision rather than what God requires of him).57 The charge against him was fickleness, since he begins with an appeal to the faithfulness of God and links God’s faithfulness with his own claim to trustworthiness and with God’s reliability in making him and his colleagues reliable.58 He was faithful in that he wished to spare his community another painful visit. So much for Paul’s past change of plan. But Paul says nothing of another and more immediate change of plan. He says nothing in the opening chapters of 2 Corinthians regarding Paul’s decision not to visit them as he had promised this time (perhaps his notice was given in the warning of chs. 10–13). He had decided not to visit them himself, immediately, even though they were not now in danger of a painful visit, but were welcoming and obedient. He had chosen not to come, and decided instead to write them a long letter, 2 Cor 1–7 (or 9). If fickleness was the charge made against him, why does he say nothing of this current change of plan? A two-fold response can be made. 2 Corinthians 1.17–21 is just as applicable and effective a reposte to criticism of his current change of plan as it was to his former change of mind. Was it then simply that he did not make clear in the opening chapter of 2 Corinthians the relevance of his argument to his present change of plan? Or was there another reason? If chs. 8 and 9 are part of the complete letter, there is an explanation to hand; he could only explain his current change of plan when he had dealt, first, with his immediate experience of the Macedonian preparations for the Collection; second, with the need for the fulfilment of his boast concerning the Corinthians’ work; third, with his intention that Macedonians should accompany him, to witness with him the completion of the Collection (9.4); and fourth, with the emissaries sent in advance of him (with the letter chs. 1–9?) who would bring the Corinthian Collection to its long-delayed conclusion (see the triple use of the preposition pro- in 9.5). The major lacuna in the argument of 2 Cor 1–7 is filled.
57 Young and Ford, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians, 100–4. 58 Morna D. Hooker-Stacey, ‘From God’s Faithfulness to Ours: Another Look at 2 Corinthians 1.17–24’, Studies on a Community in Conflict: Paul and the Corinthians (ed. Trevor Burke et al.; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 233–9.
Rhetorical Criticism and the Unity of 2 Corinthians 521
This would give an added significance to the earlier discussion of 9.15, and the preceding thanksgivings (9.6–14). 9.15 now becomes the ‘epilogue’ or closure to the main letter (chs. 1–9); the thanksgivings in 9.11–14 gather up the thanksgivings in 1.11 and 4.15, and the references to Paul’s missionary work among the various Christian communities in 2.12, 8.24–9.5 and 9.12. Another thanksgiving reference, 2 Cor 2.14, is also picked up in the 9.15 climax, and becomes of major structural importance: it is, in fact, the beginning of the main section of the letter. Paul’s mission (as is the theme in 1 Cor 1.18) divides those being saved from those on their way to destruction, and the demands which that task makes on the apostle, in terms of adequacy and integrity, and the qualifications necessary for its fulfilment, occupy the following three chapters.59 While it may not be misleading to describe chs. 1–9 as a Letter of Reconciliation it is perhaps, in the light of 2.14, very appropriate to describe it as a Letter of Thanksgiving.60
4. A Letter-ending in 13.11–13?
The most obvious letter-ending of all is, as we have seen, the most vulnerable to external damage and editorial adjustment. It is also, of the ‘epilogues’, the most clearly inclusive of Jewish or hellenistic Jewish elements,61 and the one most evidently Pauline: all four of its elements are found elsewhere in the Pauline corpus letter-endings,62 although Pauline endings vary in selection, order and
59 See Maurice Carrier, ‘ ÔIKANOTHS. 2,14–17’, Paolo Ministro del Nuovo Testamento (2 Co 2,14–4,6) (ed. Lorenzo de Lorenzi; Rome: ‘Benedictina Editrice’, 1987) 79–104. 60 C. K. Barrett notes that the working out of 2 Cor 2.14 in the section 2.14–7.4 is incomplete without the message of reconciliation in 5.14–21: see his ‘Conclusion’ in Paolo Ministro del Nuovo Testamento (2 Co 2,14–4,6) 319; see also his A Commentary on the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (London: A. & C. Black, 1973) 165–81. Paul’s crucified-Christ-apostleship gave him hope that reconciliation with God would be a dynamic impulse to a corporate koinonia. Five areas outline the complexities of reconciliation here: (1) The Collection: a movement to common goals, skilful creation of conditions for trust, dealing with past misunderstandings, hope for mutual intercession and, possibly, joy touched with pain? (2) Paul’s changing plans: how acceptable were Paul’s explanations – avoiding damaging conflict, opportunity for mission, time for discipline to work; and did opinion move towards Paul as commanderfounder? (3) Financial independence: reconciliation would be difficult given conviction inbred from social and educational backgrounds (see the logivzomai debate); (4) Jewish christians in Corinth: sarcasm and caricature are not a happy base for good relations (see N. H. Taylor, ‘Apostolic Identity and Conflict’, Paul and his Opponents [ed. Stanley Porter; Leiden: Brill 2005] 118–31); (5) Morality: some discipline may have been exercised in Corinth, but Paul’s activity as a distance-disciplinarian must still have rankled. 61 Hans-Josef Klauck, 2. Korintherbrief (DNEB; Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1986) 103. 62 Weima, Neglected Endings, 208–15. Weima lists the four as: Hortatory Section (13.11a), Peace Benediction (13.11b), Greetings (13.12), Kiss Greeting (and Third person greeting) and Grace Benediction (13.13).
522 ivor h. jones length, and sometimes include other elements, such as intercessions or oath or autograph. The Pauline parallels to the concluding elements in 2 Corinthians raise suspicions that a later editor may have been at work. Did an editor draw them from other Pauline letters? If 2 Cor 10–13 and 2 Cor 1–9 happen to be separate units, then the four elements at the end of 2 Corinthians might have come from either or both units and been brought together by an editor. The four elements might belong to different moments in time, to units each with its own distinctiveness of Pauline self-representation and purpose, each with its own distinctive closing ‘epilogue’. Those suspicions and questions prompt an attempt to relate the four elements specifically to the two units. How, for example, did chs. 10–13 end? The case of 13.11b is very complex:63 is the ending a peace-blessing or a peace-benediction or a prayer-wish? Is it an apodosis to a protasis implied in 13.11a? Why is ajgavph added, unusually for a Peace prayer? Some scholars relate the addition of ajgavph to the implications of 12.20 (which may have been a part of the longer ‘epilogue’). In comparison with 1 Thessalonians the imperatives of 13.11a are brief;64 in contrast with 1 Thessalonians they lack an explicit worship context.65 Might 2 Cor 13.11ab have served as a not inappropriate ending for chs. 10–13? How would 2 Cor 1–9 have ended? If the Pauline pattern of doxological language is given in Rom 11.34–36,66 might not the Grace-Benediction be understood against the same outline and be not inappropriate for the end of ch. 9? ‘Koinonia’ itself constitutes a link between 13.13 and 2 Cor 9.6–15. If the doxological pattern is important, the references to ‘grace’, ‘love’, ‘koinonia’ can be understood in terms of God as doxological source, and should not then be restricted by questions whether the Genitives are objective or subjective. This would remove the supposed problem of a different grammatical structure for ‘koinonia’. The final phrase of 2 Cor 13.13, meta; pavntwn uJmw`n would resonate strongly with 2 Cor 9, and cause us to note the absence of such a universal phrase in 13.11b.67 There are, of course, variants in the text of 13.11–13, and those are further factors to bear in mind. Such associations are bound to be speculative, and it would be wise to keep open the question of editorial work on the final verses of our canonical 2 Corinthians text. So much depends on whether or not chs. 1–9 and chs. 10–13 were
63 For details, see Thrall, Second Corinthians, 2.908–11, where the textual issues are considered. 64 Klauck, 2. Korintherbrief, 109, refers to a ‘brevity’ in 2 Cor 13.11–13 and suggests that it marks an element of reserve in the letter; see also Weima, Neglected Endings, 76. 65 Jones, Thessalonian Letters, 69–77. 66 See n. 38. 67 The kiss of peace in 1 Thess 5.26 may imply the association of ‘sharing peace on behalf of absent friends’; this would underline mutuality, reciprocity and oneness of status and identity across divisions of race, class and gender; see Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000) 1344.
Rhetorical Criticism and the Unity of 2 Corinthians 523
separate letters. If they were separate letters there is still, of course, no generally accepted hypothesis as to why chs. 1–9 and chs. 10–13 should have been brought together, nor why they should stand in our 2 Corinthians text in the order chs. 1–9 and chs. 10–13.68 Perhaps rhetorical criticism might now offer a possible solution to those questions, one which sets the history of the canonical ending in a new light. If modern scholars, trained in the traditions of ancient rhetoric, have made the mistake of identifying chs. 10–13 as a refutatio within a forensic genre, what was there to prevent a scribe, trained in that same tradition, from making the same error? Having recognised the separate sheets as Pauline, he might well have concluded that 10.1–13.10 belonged at the end of 9.15. Read with the eyes of a scribal scholar in the Quintilian period and interpreted by one trained in the classical tradition of rhetorical literature, 10.1–13.10 could well have been identified as a refutatio because of its attack on opponents, and therefore placed within the letter’s text in the position appropriate for a refutatio. That is at least a possible theory. If considered, it would set the history of 13.11–13 in a new light.
Conclusions
1. Where a letter-ending can be defined and its length determined, and when its content and structure can be related to the letter’s various forms of recapitulation and repetition, that ending, however it may be initially described, deserves attention with respect to the tradition to which it belongs, the focus of the content and the self-presentation and audience-presentation to which it points. Possible classical forensic parallels, in the light of this finding, need to be carefully monitored and checked. 2. With regard to the unity of 2 Corinthians, the systematic approach via letterendings can show (a) that chs. 10–13 are in all likelihood a non-forensic unit with an identifiable flowing structure; (b) that the ending of ch. 9 has a distinctive content over against the rest of the Pauline corpus, a distinctiveness absent from chs. 10–13 and suggesting that chs. 10–13 could belong to a different time and a different context from chs. 1–9; (c) that 12.19–13.10 could act as an epilogue to chs. 10–13, and while that does not in itself necessitate the hypothesis that 10.1 begins a new letter, the possible different time and context of chs. 10–13, the uncompromising ferocity of 10.4–6 and 13.10, the rhetoric of 10.1–6 and the serious risk posed by 12.19–13.10 to the practical and reconciliatory programme of ch. 9, makes such a new beginning likely. To that extent the study of the letter-endings could be a useful contribution to the analysis of the composition of 2 Corinthians. 68 Perhaps the most frequently quoted explanation is Bornkamm’s thesis that false teachers would precede the End, and do so in this literary context.
524 ivor h. jones 3. With regard to our understanding of rhetorical criticism, the systematic approach via letter-endings, when linked with the letter’s use of repetition and recapitulation, reveals the importance of allowing full weight to Paul’s selfpresentation and inter-relationship with those receiving the letter. These differ substantially between chs. 1–9 and chs. 10–13. From that point of view this project provides a safer guide to the purpose and function of the letter than genre determination alone can provide. 4. While it is being argued here that chs. 10–13 cannot be a forensic refutatio, precisely the arguments which have caused modern scholars to describe chs. 10–13 as a refutatio could have caused ancient scribes, who were trained in rhetorical schools, and if they had to deal with chs. 1–9 and chs. 10–13 as separate texts, to copy chs. 10–13 as a refutatio after chs. 1–9. If that is a possible theory, rhetorical criticism would provide the much-needed explanation for the placing of chs. 10–13 in their present position in the text of 2 Corinthians.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 525–541. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000271
ΔArrabwvn as Pledge in Second Corinthians* YON - GYONG KWON Anyang University, Anyang 5-dong, Anyang-shi, Kyonggi-do, 430–714, Korea
This article argues that ajrrabwvn in 2 Corinthians (1.22 and 5.5) does not mean ‘down payment’ or ‘first installment’ but ‘pledge’ without any sense of pars pro toto. After showing that the meaning of the word depends on its context, the study goes on to examine the two occurrences of the word, concluding that Paul either appeals to the Spirit as God’s pledge for his apostolicity (1.22) or as a pledge for the surety of bodily resurrection (5.5). The common view that ajrrabwvn depicts the Spirit as the present realization of salvation is thus exegetically unfounded. Keywords: the Spirit, pledge, down payment, eschatology, apostleship, resurrection.
Introduction: ΔArrabwvn in Paul’s Eschatology
Paul twice depicts the Spirit as ajrrabwvn in 2 Corinthians (1.22; 5.5). This metaphor is considered by most to be one of the strongest pieces of evidence for Paul’s realized or inaugurated eschatology. Paul calls the Spirit ajrrabwvn, and since the word means ‘down payment’ or ‘first instalment’, so the argument runs, he is in effect claiming that the Spirit is not merely a pledge for future salvation but is itself part of it, guaranteeing for that reason its full realization in the future.1 Just as a down payment constitutes part of the whole payment, so the Spirit signifies actual, albeit partial, realization of the promised salvation. While its full * This study was originally presented at the Paul Seminar of 2006 British New Testament Conference. I thank the seminar members for helping me to clarify and sharpen my points with perceptive questions, especially Professor Morna Hooker. I also thank Professor Robert Jewett for his insightful clarifications and encouraging suggestions which I have taken up heartily. 1 To name a few, G. Vos, Pauline Eschatology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1994/1930) 165: ‘Now the Spirit possesses this significance of “pledge” for no other reason than that He constitutes a provisional instalment of what in its fullness will be received hereafter’; C. K. Barrett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Black’s NT Commentaries; Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1973) 80: ‘The Spirit is the divine agent that realizes resurrection (i. 9), “eschatological existence,” the life of the age to come, in the present’. Thus, M. J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) 208 translates the term as ‘a down payment and pledge’.
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realization still awaits the future, with the possession of to;n ajrrabw`na tou` pneuvmato~ believers already possess salvation even in the present.2 Not surprisingly, scholars find in this concept a beautiful expression of the eschatological tension between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’.3 Scholars may quibble with the details, but the overall contour of the interpretation presented above seems to be endorsed by most interpreters of Paul, which makes a detailed documentation pointless. The burden of this study is to demonstrate that this predominant interpretation is flawed on many counts.
Is ajrrabwvn a Technical Term?
Perhaps one can begin by pointing out the rather obvious lexicographical slip involved in this widespread interpretation. This majority view pretty much depends on its decision to take ajrrabwvn ‘literally’, namely, as a commercial term. tech. referring to ‘down payment’ or ‘first instalment’.4 The word is not used extensively in ancient Greek literature but those few occurrences cited and discussed in the standard reference works such as TDNT, EDNT, or NIDDNT just seem enough to show that the word can certainly be used in the sense of ‘deposit’, thereby giving the common view a prima facie probability. For example, Aristotle in his Politics (1259a) records a story about Thales who reportedly ‘paid deposits for all the olive-presses in Miletus and Chios’ (ajrrabw`na~ diadou`nai tw`n ejlaiourgivwn tw`n tΔ ejn Milhvtw/ kai; Civw/ pavntwn) to secure a monopoly and made 2 V. P. Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968) 134: ‘the first installment of the promised future inheritance’. J. Behm, ‘ajrrabwvn’, TDNT I.475: ‘The Spirit whom God has given them is for Christians the guarantee of their full future possession of salvation’. More recent interpreters also remain faithful to this line of interpretation, e.g., O. Becker, ‘Gift, Pledge, Corban’, NIDNTT II.39–40; T. Paige, ‘Holy Spirit’, Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove: IVP, 1993) 411; Max Turner, The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts: Then and Now (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1996) 118. Also K. Erlemann, ‘Der Geist als ajrrabwvn (2 Kor 5,5) im Kontext der paulinischen Eschatologie’, ZNW 83 (1992) 202–23. 3 G. D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995) 294: ‘the unmistakable evidence of salvation as “already but not yet”’. C. K. Barrett, Paul: An Introduction to His Thought (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1994) 132:‘the clearest of all the terms Paul uses to denote the place of the Spirit in his eschatological system’. J. D. G. Dunn, Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 421. N. T. Wright, Paul: Fresh Perspectives (London: SPCK, 2005) 146 presents the Spirit’s being the ajrrabwvn as ‘one of the major eschatological tasks Paul ascribes to the Spirit’. From the way he expounds the theme, however, this is easily the most important meaning of the Spirit in Paul’s theology as a whole (pp. 135–6). 4 P. V. Furnish, 2 Corinthians (Anchor Bible; New York: Doubleday, 1995) 137: ‘a technical term for the first installment of a total amount due’. In most cases, this is the only information about the word interpreters tell their readers. E.g., C. M. Pate, End of the Age (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995) 152; Fee, Presence, 293.
ΔArrabwvn as Pledge in Second Corinthians 527 a great profit with it. Or, in the Speeches of Isaeus one hears of a certain Diocles who ‘asserted that he had actually bought some of the requisites for the funeral and had himself paid a deposit for the rest’ (tw`n de; ajrrabw`n dedwkevnai aujto;~ favskwn, 8.23).5 In both cases, the stories involve real, monetary transactions and the word refers to a real monetary deposit which naturally constitutes a part of the full payment and in that way makes the transaction legally binding. Moulton and Milligan also produce many instances of similar usage from non-literary sources. For example, in P. Oxy., 299 the writer asks the recipient of the letter named Apion to send him 8 drachmae, the money he had paid Lampon the mouse-catcher as the earnest money (ajrabw`na) for catching mice. In this case too, ajrrabwvn refers to real monetary deposit (8 drachmae) which will be added to the remaining balance to complete the total payment. The authors, having surveyed many such instances in their sources, confidently conclude that the ‘vernacular usage amply confirms the NT sense of an “earnest,” or a part given in advance of what will be bestowed fully afterwards’.6 With the meaning ‘down payment’ so clearly attested, there then seems to be no reason to question the opinio communis.7 It is not as simple as that, however. From the fact that ajrrabwvn can mean ‘down payment’ in certain circumstances, it does not follow that it must carry the same meaning all the time. While it is true that the word can certainly mean ‘deposit’ which ‘pays part of the total debt’, typically in a commercial context, it is equally clear that it can easily drop the sense of pars pro toto and simply becomes ‘guarantee’ or ‘pledge’. This is especially the case when the word is used figuratively in non-commercial settings, where the ajrrabwvn given now is not of the same kind as what it intends to secure. For example, when Christ is described as ‘the ajrrabwvn of our righteousness’ in Polycarp, Philippians 8.1, the point is simply that Christ is the one who makes sure that believers ‘will attain to righteousness at the last judgment’,8 not that Christ himself is part of that righteousness. Or when Antiphon (Frag. 123.6) describes ‘skillfullness’ (th;n tevcnhn) as ‘ajrrabwvn of life’, his point is not that skillfullness constitutes part of life itself but simply that it is something that ‘gaurantees’ one’s life.9 These examples clearly show that the idea of pars pro toto is by no means something
5 These passages are referred to without discussion in TDNT and NIDNTT. 6 J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1930) 76. 7 For an argument for the word’s being a legal and religious technical term, see Erlemann, ‘Der Geist’, 203–8. However, from the fact that the word has a definite meaning in a certain area, it does not follow that it has to have the same meaning in other areas too. 8 In addtion to the references in TDNT and NIDNTT, also see Sand, ‘ajrrabwvn’, EDNT I.158. The author of Hebrews describes Jesus as the ‘e[gguo~ of a better covenant’ (7.22). 9 This passage is cited in both TDNT and NIDNTT as ‘figurative’ and ‘metaphorical’ respectively. See n. 2. They also list Menander, Frag. 697 as another case of metaphorical use.
528 yon-gyong kwon innate in the word itself but something that can disappear when context does not require it. More significantly, one can also observe that the word does not necessarily mean ‘down payment’ even in commercial contexts, for which the Septuagint provides an excellent case in point. In the only occurrence of the word in Paul’s Scripture, the word clearly means ‘pledge’, not ‘down payment’ (Gen 38.17–20). The signet, the cord, and the staff Judah gave Tamar are ‘pledges’ for the promised young goat, namely, items to be returned on completion of the expected payment, not items intended as part of the real payment.10 In a place where the deposit given is of a different kind from the promised payment itself (young goat), the notion of pars pro toto becomes pointless. From our discussion above, it must be clear that ajrrabwvn is by no means a commercial technical term as is typically claimed. The favored meaning of ‘down payment’ or ‘first installment’ is restricted to certain commercial settings where the word refers to literal (mostly monetary) ‘deposit’ which, being of the same kind (i.e., money) as the forthcoming payment, naturally forms part of the latter. On the other hand, in places where ajrrabwvn is something other than money and thus what is given now is not of the same kind as the real payment to be made later, the thought of pars pro toto automatically becomes irrelevant even in a commercial context and thus disappears, leaving only the idea of ‘guarantee’ or ‘pledge’ on the stage.11 The notion of pars pro toto is not a built-in component of the word itself but an idea generated by the nature of the transaction it refers to. It does make a transaction binding, but it is not necessarily part of the actual payment. Thus, the scholarly habit of assuming the literal (i.e., commercial) meaning of ajrrabwvn for Paul’s figurative use of it is lexicographically ill-advised.12 One is not justified to assume that since ajrrabwvn means ‘down payment’ in certain commercial settings, it should also mean the same thing in Paul’s theological argument where it is introduced as a figure of speech.13 For the same reason, one cannot assume that the word should always carry the same meaning even in Paul, since the meaning of a metaphor will vary according to the kind of argument he
10 In both TNDT and NIDNTT the passage is referred to as the only case of such a meaning. P. Hughes, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962) 42 acknowledges this but ignores its exegetical significance. 11 See LSJ and BDAG ad loc. 12 Most exegetes seem to make this mistake, e.g., N. Watson, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Epworth Commentaries; London: Epworth, 1993) 14; J. Lambrecht, Second Corinthians (SP; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1999) 30 and most others. 13 An instructive case in point is J. B. Lightfoot, Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul (London: Macmillan, 1895) 323 who imposes this point on Paul, claiming that the Spirit itself must be part of salvation. Hughes, Second Corinthians, 41 refers to him with approval.
ΔArrabwvn as Pledge in Second Corinthians 529 actually develops. The precise meaning of ajrrabwvn should be worked out inductively, i.e., paying close attention to the way Paul actually develops his argument. The context determines the meaning of the word, not vice versa. One has first to grasp what Paul is doing with his figure of speech instead of assuming its meaning in advance and impose it upon his argument.
Advance Payment of Salvation or Pledge of Paul’s Apostleship? – The Spirit as ajrrabwvn in Paul’s Apologia (1.22)
Paul’s first use of ajrrabwvn occurs in 2 Corinthians 1: ‘But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment’ (v. 22, NRSV). The NRSV reflects the majority view, rendering the word as ‘a first installment’, presumably of salvation which is expected to be given fully in the time to come. Is this reading, assumed to be obvious by most,14 justified by the flow of Paul’s argument itself? As is widely acknowledged, the context is Paul’s apologia for his apostolic integrity made necessary by his changed itinerary, an important point to remember for correct interpretation of Paul’s line of argument. The paragraph (vv. 15–22) breaks into three parts: Paul’s direct apologies in vv. 15–17 and in vv. 23–24, with vv. 18–22 intervening in between as a theological backup. Even in the middle, theological, section (vv. 18–22), Paul’s aim remains the same: he attempts to lend more weight to his self-defense by appealing to the trustworthiness of God and Christ.15 As an apostle appointed by the will of God (1.1), Paul’s apostolic disposition carefully imitates the simplicity16 and trustworthiness of God Himself (1.12). Surely, God is faithful; by clear implication, the same goes for Paul and his associates too (1.18).17 Moreover, Paul, as Godappointed apostle, preaches the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Once again, this Christ, proclaimed by Paul and his associates, is one who is utterly trustworthy, since it is in him that all God’s promises find their confirming ‘Yes’ (vv. 19–20).18 Now it is in 14 See n. 12 above. 15 This is frequently observed by commentators. E.g., F. J. Matera, II Corinthians (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2003) 54–5. 16 Or ‘holiness’. The textual problem here does not concern us. 17 So Furnish, 2 Corinthians, 146. 18 As N. A. Dahl, Studies in Paul (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1977) 112–36 argues, the point is confirmation or validation, not fulfilment (cf. 7.1). Contra most exegetes such as Lambrecht, Second Corinthians, 34–5; Best, Second Corinthians (Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1987) 18; R. Martin, 2 Corinthians (WBC; Dallas: Word, 1986) 27; Furnish, 2 Corinthians, 146–7. Even in Galatians, Christ comes to the picture as the carrier or reinstater, not the fulfiller of the promise of the land, as I have argued in Y.-G. Kwon, Eschatology in Galatians: Rethinking Paul’s Response to the Crisis in Galatia (WUNT II/183; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004) 101–29 (122–5).
530 yon-gyong kwon this Christ that God establishes Paul together with the Corinthians (v. 21a). Being thus established in the trustworthy Christ, Paul himself cries ‘Amen’, thereby praising God’s mighty glory (v. 21b). What Paul tries to say with all this is that it is impossible for him, commissioned by the faithful God and preaching the trustworthy ‘Yes’ of Christ and standing firm in him, to be inconsistent as some of the Corinthians accuse him.19 It is in this apologetic context that Paul refers to the Spirit as an ajrrabwvn. Thus, the immediate purpose of Paul’s referring to the Spirit is to add yet another, pneumatological, weight to this theological and Christological self-defense, a point well acknowledged by most interpreters. Verses 21–22 (cf. 5.5; Gal 3.5) give a fourfold description of what God did or does to ‘us’. Since Paul carefully distinguishes between ‘you’ on the one hand and ‘me’ or ‘us’ on the other throughout the passage (vv. 12–22), the ‘us’ in these verses too must refer to Paul (including his associates under his auspices).20 To be sure, it is ‘together with you’ that God establishes Paul in Christ,21 but even there the immediate object of God’s action is ‘us’ which stands in clear distinction from ‘you’.22 All the other dimensions of God’s action, i.e., ‘anointing’, ‘sealing’, and ‘giving the ajrrabwvn of the Spirit’, are strictly reserved for ‘us’, without ‘you’ entering the picture at all. That is, in vv. 21–22 Paul is describing what God has done and is still doing to himself (and his associates), and therefore, his reference to the Spirit in v. 22 should also be taken in the same way, namely, as concerning his apostolic status, the very issue presently at stake between him and his Corinthian converts.23 Paul says that he has been anointed and sealed by God. Here ‘anointing’ clearly refers to God’s act of appointing him to the office of apostleship (cf. Isa 61.1).24 In a similar vein, ‘putting a seal’ upon him signifies God’s act of confirming his ownership of Paul as his apostle (cf. NIV).25 Given the natural association of
19 Lambrecht, Second Corinthians, 35: ‘his reliability in this matter participates in the reliability of his gospel proclamation, in the faithfulness of Christ and God’. This is acknowledged by most commentators. 20 Hughes, Second Corinthians, 43, among others. 21 For many this phrase provides the grounds for taking vv. 21–22 as including the Corinthians or believers as a whole. E.g., S. J. Hafemann, 2 Corinthians (NIV Application Commentaries; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000) 85. 22 Contra Fee, Presence, 289–96, who, while acknowledging that the reference is primarily to Paul, still takes vv. 21–22 broadly. 23 It is well acknowledged, as by Fee, Presence, 289. And yet the point is mostly forgotten in their actual exegesis which often treats Paul’s apology as if it were a theological discussion (of the Spirit). 24 BDAG, 1091. ‘Anointing’ may refer to baptism, but in Paul’s case the latter practically coincides with his commission. 25 BDAG, 1091 and 980 respectively. Debate about a possible reference to baptism is irrelevant for us.
ΔArrabwvn as Pledge in Second Corinthians 531 both ‘anointing’ and ‘sealing’ with the gift of the Spirit, it seems reasonable to suppose that all three aorist participles refer to what happened at conversion (or baptism) which was typically accompanied by the outpouring of the Spirit (1 Thess 1.5–6; Gal 3.2–5; 1 Cor 2.1–5). Both ‘anointing’ and ‘sealing’ then explain the significance of that experience, with the bestowal of the Spirit providing a visible sign for it (cf. Luke 4.18; Acts 10.38; Eph 1.13). It is in this context that Paul calls the Spirit ajrrabwvn. Taking, with most exegetes,26 tou` pneuvmato~ to be epexegetical, one is bound to ask: ajrrabwvn of what? While Paul himself does not bother to define it, most exegetes assume that here Paul means ajrrabwvn of salvation, taken broadly.27 However, the abrupt appearance of the idea of salvation in the middle of Paul’s apostolic self-defense seems quite out of place. Both up to this point and in the following one fails to find the idea, since Paul’s singular concern throughout is defending his apostolic authenticity, not expounding his soteriology. He has been saying that God’s anointing is ‘a further pledge’ of his trustworthiness, and that ‘[h]e who carries the impress of the seal of the Spirit of truth is not faithless and insincere’,28 statements which serve Paul’s apologetic purpose most effectively. In an argument like this, the talk of a down payment of salvation is uncalled-for and thus ill fits the context of Paul’s selfdefense. Here one can ask how a reference to his possessing (partial) salvation can support his claim of sincerity. Hughes speculates that sincere faithfulness is ‘absolutely central to such a transaction’ of salvation (cf. 1 Cor 3.15), but such a farfetched explanation only accentuates the awkwardness of the idea in the present context. Martin, assuming that the section is ‘Paul’s theological exposition of God’s covenantal faithfulness’, tries to turn Paul’s apology into theology by suggesting that Paul ‘has more to defend than his reputation’.29 But both vv. 15–17 and vv. 23–24 which bracket our passage do not show any sign that Paul wants to go beyond the immediate purpose of defending himself. Thus, Lambrecht, detecting this logical incongruity, considers the whole of vv. 19–22 to be ‘a remarkable theological digression’ about Paul’s ‘vision of salvation history and
26 Martin, 2 Corinthians, 28; Lambrecht, Second Corinthians, 30, and most others. 27 Furnish, Ethics, 134; Paige, ‘Holy Spirit’, 411; Harris, II Corinthians, 208; M. E. Thrall, 2 Corinthians 1–7 (ICC; Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1994) 158. Furnish, 2 Corinthians, 137 even speaks of ‘the present fulfillment of . . . salvation’ (emphasis original). Harris, II Corinthians, 208, perceives the ambiguity in Paul’s language here, but resolves it by a reference to the data in Eph 1.14. 28 P. E. Hughes, Second Corinthian, 41. 29 Martin, 2 Corinthians, 26–7. He thinks that Paul here makes ‘a cryptically written apologia respecting his apostolic ministry’, but what about this apology is so cryptic?
532 yon-gyong kwon Jesus Christ’.30 But why do we have to bring in the unwarranted idea of salvation in the first place only to complain of a digression?31 Put in the context of a self-defense, the most natural meaning of ajrrabwvn seems to be that of ‘pledge’ in relation to Paul’s apostleship: the Spirit is God’s own pledge that he has indeed ‘anointed Paul and put a seal upon him’ as his entrusted apostle.32 Of particular importance in this respect is Paul’s association of ajrrabwvn with other commercial metaphors such as ‘confirming’ and ‘sealing’, a rhetorical move clearly designed to magnify the force of his claim.33 Here the common denominator of them all is the idea of ‘guarantee’ or ‘pledge’, while the thought of pars pro toto (down payment), potentially present only in ajrrabwvn, is missing in the other two. Thus, as these related figures work in concert with one another to produce the intended, accumulated effect, it is inevitable that the common idea of ‘guarantee’ or ‘pledge’ receives the intended rhetorical momentum, while the idea of ‘down payment’, not found in the other two, is dropped out as irrelevant. In short, Paul’s point is simply that the Spirit means God’s confirmation and authentication of his apostolic integrity.34 The Spirit as the ‘down payment’ of future salvation is an idea not found in Paul’s apology in vv. 21–21.35 Our conclusion receives further confirmation from Paul’s repeated affirmation of the same point in the letter. For example, the claim made in v. 21–22 is resumed in chap. 3.36 Here the polemic gets much more biting, as Paul pits his
30 So Lambrecht, Second Corinthians, 35. Furnish, 2 Corinthians, 145 considers it as ‘a kind of theological excursus’, but he is much more sensitive to the apologetic function of the section. 31 Interestingly, D. J. Williams, Paul’s Metaphors: Their Context and Character (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999) 189 n. 14 thinks the word ajrrabwvn is ‘an awkward concept to apply to a salvation’ which he considers to be something not yet earned. 32 Living Bible seems to perceive this point: ‘as guarantee that we belong to him’. This insight is immediately muddled up, however, by the addition that reproduces the common view: ‘as first instalment of all that he is going to give us’. Though the focus is somewhat different, Kerr’s distinction between ‘a contract for services’ and ‘a contract for sale’ is of considerable merit in exposing the problem of the dominant view. See A. J. Kerr, ‘Notes and Studies: ARRABWN’, JTS 39 (1988) 92–7 (95). 33 Cf. Fee, Presence, 290–96. 34 G. M. Burge represents a rare exception in that he clearly perceives this point: ‘Here, however, he aligns arrabo–n with “seal” (sphragis, sphragizomai), implying that this Spirit is not only a pledge for the future but God’s mark of ownership. And in this particular case, it is a seal of apostolic ministry’. ‘First Fruits, Down Payment’, DPL, 301. 35 Woodcock clearly perceives that ajrrabwvn here cannot mean ‘down payment’, but regrettably, he too misses the context of Paul’s self-defense. E. Woodcock, ‘The Seal of the Holy Spirit’, Bibliotheca Sacra 155 (1998) 139–63, especially 150–56. 36 Beside commentaries, also see S. J. Hafemann, Paul, Moses, and the History of Israel: The Letter/Spirit Contrast and the Argument from Scripture in 2 Corinthians 3 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996). The apologetic function of Paul’s argument is summarized in the
ΔArrabwvn as Pledge in Second Corinthians 533 own ministry of life and righteousness against Moses’ ministry of death and curse. As in 1.21–22 the issue is hJ iJkanovth~ hJmw`n, Paul’s apostolic authority. His apostolate comes from God (v. 5) since it is God himself, not any human agent (cf. Gal 1.1) who has empowered him to become diavkono~ kainh`~ diaqhvkh~ (v. 6). This empowering commission, of course, is given him ouj mevlani ajlla; pneuvmati qeou` zw`nto~ (v. 3) or ouj gravmmato~ ajlla; pneuvmato~ (v. 6). Thus, here too, the Spirit is appealed to as the hallmark of Paul’s apostolic ministry.37 Empowered and supported by this Spirit Paul worked as God’s apostle, of which the undeniable result is the founding of the Corinthian church. For this reason he calls them his ‘letter’ of recommendation (v. 2),38 meaning that the very existence of the Corinthian church, established through the work of the Spirit, ratifies that he is indeed God’s true apostle.39 Paul makes the same point in 12.11–12 too. He complains that he should have been commended by the Corinthians (v. 11), which is practically the same as saying that they are, or should be, his letter of recommendation (cf. 3.2). He insists that the real sign of a true apostle is not a letter written by humans but ‘signs, wonders and miracles (powers)’, which is just another way of referring to the powerful manifestation of the Spirit mediated by Paul to the Corinthians (v. 12).40 Once again, the Spirit, clearly working in Paul’s ministry, proves the authenticity of Paul’s apostolic commission. Gathering our discussion thus far, we can draw the following conclusion: Paul’s point in 2 Cor 1.21–22 then is that the Spirit, given by God and manifest in
37 38 39
40
conclusion, especially pp. 444–51. His earlier work on 3.1–3, Suffering and Ministry in the Spirit: Paul’s Defense of His Ministry in II Corinthians 2:14–3:3 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990) is also worth consulting. Here the Spirit comes into the picture as a ‘functional concept’, as Hafemann, Suffering, 206 notes. M. Hooker, ‘“Beyond the things that are written”: St Paul’s use of Scripture’, NTS 27 (1981) 295–309 calls this ‘a brilliant metaphor’ (296). This seems to explain the rather cryptic ‘in our hearts’ in 3.2. The Spirit given ‘in our hearts’ (1.22) has ‘written’ Paul’s letter of recommendation, the Corinthian church, and for that reason Paul can say that the letter is written ‘in our hearts’ (3.2). It may be true that ‘Paul is also noticeably reticent in his reference to the “signs, portents and miracles” which he had performed’, but it is wide of the mark to pit this ‘display of the Holy Spirit and powers’ (1 Cor 2.4–5) against the hardship Paul had endured. Contra Watson, Second Corinthians, 138 and Lambrecht, Second Corinthians, 212. As Hafemann rightly concludes, ‘it becomes impossible to pit Paul’s suffering against his possession of the Spirit’, since in Paul’s thought they are ‘not in tension with one another’. Suffering, 227 and 208 respectively. Paul consistently presents the powerful working of the Spirit as the hallmark of his apostolic ministry, as he does in 3.1–18 and 12.12 (cf. Phil 3.3; Rom 15.17–18), which is well reflected on his unmistakable preoccupation with the Spirit in his ministry (e.g., 1 Thess 1.5–6; Gal 3.1–5; 1 Cor 2.1–5).
534 yon-gyong kwon his ministry with the Corinthians, is God’s confirmation and pledge of his apostolic integrity. It is in this sense that he speaks of God’s giving him to;n ajrrabw`na tou` pneuvmato~.
First Installment or Pledge?: The Spirit and Resurrection (5.5)
Paul uses ajrrabwvn one more time in 2 Cor 5.5 in a context where he contemplates on his life in the present and the one after death or at the parousia. Expressing a strong hope for his future, he confidently declares that ‘God has prepared us for this very thing and given us to;n ajrrabw`na tou` pneuvmato~’ (5.5). Once again, the genitive seems epexegetical, meaning that God has given the Spirit itself as an ajrrabwvn.41 Here the Spirit is presented as the ajrrabwvn of aujto; tou`to, the object of Paul’s hope, described as ‘over-clothing of the heavenly dwelling’ or the ‘swallowing up of death by life’ (v. 4). In the following verses, Paul expresses the same hope in terms of ‘being at home with the Lord’ which is set in contrast to his present life in which he is ‘away from the Lord’ (vv. 6–7). Despite some ambiguities,42 it seems safe to say that this hope focuses on the final event of ‘bodily resurrection’ (4.14; 5.10). Thus in this context Paul introduces the Spirit as the ajrrabwvn of the future resurrection of the body (cf. 1 Cor 15.50–57; Phil 3.10–12). Then, unlike in 1.21–22, the context is now clearly soteriological. Do we then find evidence for Paul’s view of the Spirit as a ‘first instalment’, i.e., a real, though partial, fulfilment of the promised hope, as is typically assumed? NRSV is somewhat cautious here, translating the word ‘a guarantee’. But Martin, as most others, goes much further, reading out of it an idea of ‘a down payment, something to assure that the “final installment will come”’: ‘God gave part of himself to be enjoyed now, as well as offering us the assurance that eternal life awaits the Christian’.43 Matera sums up the dominant interpretation succintly. By saying that God has prepared believers for resurrection life by giving them the Spirit as a “pledge,” Paul means that the presence of the Spirit in the life of believers is the first installment or down payment of the fullness of life that will come with the resurrection of the dead.44
As Fee puts it, our glorious future is guaranteed ‘precisely because the down payment of that future, the Spirit himself, is already our present possession. . . . Thus, we live in the present, “already” but “not yet”’.45 41 See n. 26 above. 42 See the discussion in Martin, 2 Corinthians, 97–102. Our point, however, does not depend on one’s decision about the precise nature of the future Paul is expecting. 43 Martin, 2 Corinthians, 108. Also Harris, Second Corinthians, 392. 44 Matera, II Corinthians, 123. 45 Fee, Presence, 326. Not surprisingly, a reference to ‘the new age’ is not hard to find. Paige, ‘Holy Spirit’, 411; Furnish, 2 Corinthians, 149; Harris, Second Corinthians, 393–4.
ΔArrabwvn as Pledge in Second Corinthians 535 This is fine theology, but one drawn almost exclusively from the assumed sense of the word ajrrabwvn itself which is invariably taken to mean ‘down payment’ or ‘first instalment’. As in 1.21–22, Paul’s use of the word is figurative but scholars insist on the literal sense of ‘down payment’ without arguing for it. As we observed at the beginning section of our study, however, the word falls far short of being a technical term; the meaning ‘down payment’ cannot be assumed, unless required by the thrust of the argument itself. Is the common view supported by what Paul actually says in the passage? A sober look at Paul’s argument suggests that the answer has to be in the negative. A few observations are in order. First, as is widely noted, Paul’s discussion is marked by a series of sharp and consistent contrasts,46 even opposition: outer/inner, momentary/eternal, light/weighty, groaning and troubles/glory, seen/unseen (4.16–18), earthly/heavenly, unclothing/clothing, being in the body/being with the Lord, faith/eidos (5.1–10). This sort of contrastive diction usually demands a clear-cut, disjunctive either/or type of thinking rather than a harmonizing or dialectic combination of the two, and it is certainly better to avoid the line of interpretation which hampers this antithetical clarity, unless required by the logic of the argument itself. Paul’s use of ajrrabwvn, itself an ambiguous metaphor, provides no such indication. Nowhere in the context do we find any clear sign that he is smoothing over his own antithetical logic. Secondly, in line with his antithetical thinking, Paul’s description of the present is marked by a consistent eschatological reservation.47 He explicitly says that the future glory is still ‘invisible’ in contradistinction to the suffering which is very much ‘visible’ in the present (4.17–18). This explicit denial of the visibility of future glory would be a highly unlikely, if not impossible, move to make, if he considered the present possession of the Spirit as an ‘advance enjoyment’ of that glory. If he wanted to remind his readers of its present, albeit partial, realization, why would he mislead them by saying that this glory is still ‘invisible’? Likewise, the present life ‘in the body’ is also depicted as one in which he is ‘away from the Lord’ (5.6). Once again, this is quite a striking statement to make which naturally renders any suggestion of present fulfilment out of place. In effect, saying that he is away from the Lord amounts to saying that the expected future is not visible yet.48 One may wish to qualify Paul’s statement in light of his 46 It is widely noted, e.g., Hughes, Second Corinthians, 156ff.; Lambrecht, Second Corinthians, 80; Martin, 2 Corinthians, 97. Significantly enough, however, this observation is not brought to bear on their actual interpretations of ajrrabwvn. 47 This led some interpreters to the view that Paul here fights against the ‘over-realized’ eschatology of the Corinthian Teachers. Martin, 2 Corinthians, 107–8, referring to A. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet (SNTSMS; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1983) 67. 48 Martin’s comment that ‘God gave part of himself to be enjoyed now’ flies in the face of what Paul says in 5.6.
536 yon-gyong kwon theology as a whole, but it will not do to attempt in this particular context to blunt the polemical edge produced by such a ‘drastic’ manner of speaking. Thirdly, the repeated references to ‘groaning’ further heighten the note of ‘not yet’ (5.2, 4). Simply taken, the imagery of groaning in suffering does not go well with the idea of present fulfilment at all. Some argue that such groaning, prompted by the Spirit, is itself the very sign of our having the foretaste of what we long for, 49 but that is a speculation which finds no exegetical ground in the text. Finally, the reference to the final judgment also adds to the note of eschatological reservation (5.10–11). The statement that in the future one will have to receive what is due one according to one’s performance makes any suggestion of present possession hollow and therefore out of context. The resurrection Paul is hoping for is not the continuation, extension, or consummation, of what believers already possess but the recompense which will be meted out as the result of what they do in their present life.50 One may point to those places where Paul seems to reveal the common view of the ‘already and not yet’. For example, does not Paul’s talk of ‘our ongoing inner renewal’ (4.16) which is said to be ‘from glory to glory’ (3.18) suggest ‘an already present participation in that future glory’?51 This is not the case, however. Paul uses ‘glory’ in many different senses;52 it does not have to be the same ‘eschatological’ glory all the time. In fact, Paul even attributes ‘glory’ to the ministry of Moses which he unabashedly denigrates as hJ diakoniva tou` qanavtou and hJ diakoniva th`~ katakrivsew~ in opposition to his own ministry of life and righteousness (3.7, 9). Then, is this ‘glory’ too some sort of advance manifestation of that eschatological glory that Paul is anticipating to experience in the future, namely, bodily resurrection (5.1–5)?
49 Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, 212 and 214 who speaks of both ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ groanings. Similarly, Martin, 2 Corinthians, 104; H. Balz, ‘stenavzw’, EDNT III.272. That believers’ ‘groaning’ comes in the context of strong expectation does not change the fact that ‘groaning’ itself depicts the reality of ‘not yet’ rather than ‘already’. In Romans 8.22–23, the creation, which does not have ‘the first fruit of the Spirit’, ‘groans and suffers’ all the same, just like ‘us’ who do have it. As v. 4 (‘weighing down’) makes clear, ‘[t]he reason for groaning is first of all the suffering’. Lambrecht, Second Corinthians, 84. 50 Even though Harris, Second Corinthians, 208 notes, ‘As long as, but only as long as, that heritage of glory remains unpossessed and an object of hope, the Spirit functions as its deposit and, guarantee’, he still renders the word as ‘down payment’. 51 Lambrecht, Second Corinthians, 81; Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, 191. R. Jewett, Romans (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 2007) 503 appeals to this passage in his discussion of Rom 8.17 to argue that the glory there is ‘both a present and a future bonus’. 52 Though her concern is different, Morna Hooker (‘Paul’s use of Scripture’, 298) perceives the different nuances in Paul’s use of ‘glory’: ‘Paul is using the idea of glory in two different ways in the two paragraphs’.
ΔArrabwvn as Pledge in Second Corinthians 537 However one interprets ‘from glory to glory’,53 the ‘glory’ of Christ which believers are presently ‘seeing as in a mirror’ (3.3.18; 4.4, 6)54 must not be confused with the ‘glory’ associated with future bodily resurrection and thus still ‘invisible’ (4.17–18; 5.7).55 As is indicated by a comparison of 4.10–12 and 4.14, the inner, moral, renewal in the present and the resurrection of the body at the judgment, though necessarily related, are not the same, just as the present manifestation of the lifegiving power is not identical with eternal life which is to be given as the reward for our life in the Spirit (Gal 6.7–9; Rom 6.22–23; 8.6, 10, 13). The final transformation or the resurrection of the body follows our moral transformation as the reward for that life-long process, not as the consummating part of that process itself.
Wider Contextual Considerations
Wider contextual considerations further reveal the problems inherent in the opinio communis. First, it is instructive to observe that the idea of ‘down payment’ or ‘first instalment’ necessarily requires corresponding concepts such as ‘wholeness’ or ‘fulness’, concepts not found in Paul, either in our passage or in any other places. Typical is Best’s statement: believers ‘already possess the first installment of the fulness of God’s salvation and are certain to receive it in its totality’.56 Paul talks in opposite pairs, playing one off against the other, while scholars are busy reconciling the two, trying to make it only a matter of mere difference in degrees within a gradually developing process.57 So the sharp contrast between suffering and glory slips into talks of partial glory and its full possession; the antithesis between what is visible and what is invisible, or one between faith and ei\do~, is explicated in terms of relative difference between the limited vision in the present and the full, unlimited one in the future. The opposition between ‘away from the Lord’ and ‘with the Lord’ is also explained as meaning the gradual advancement from ‘partial fellowship’ into the ‘full’ enjoyment of it.58 It almost 53 Fee, Presence, 318 suggests that the point is the transition from ‘the glory of the old’ to ‘the glory of the new’. 54 The contrast suggested by ‘mirror’ is that between indirection and immediacy, not between invisible and visible. Fee, Presence, 316–17. 55 In 1 Cor 15.40–41 Paul talks about the ‘glory’ of heavenly bodies before moving to the eschatological ‘glory’ in v. 43. And vv. 51–52 suggests that the transition is an instantaneous, not gradual, transformation. 56 Best, Second Corinthians, 19 (italics added). 57 Typical is J. D. G. Dunn, Theology of Paul, 421: ‘the beginning of the salvation process’ and ‘the arrabo–n of the process of transformation’ or Fee, Presence, 293: ‘the beginning of the process’. 58 Best, Second Corinthians, 46–7; Martin, 2 Corinthians, 110; Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, 191, 211, 215. More generally, Dunn, Theology of Paul, 469: ‘wholeness of salvation’. Similarly, P. Stuhlmacher, Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1994) 134,
538 yon-gyong kwon seems that scholars are more intent on qualifying Paul’s straightforward statements than explaining them, a phenomenon made inevitable by the postulation of the Spirit as the ‘down payment’. Is it really the case that Paul has expressed himself so poorly as to require such extensive clarifications and qualifications by modern scholars? Secondly, at times scholarly ‘clarifications’ even make Paul mean the opposite of what he actually says. For example, commenting on 4.18, Best states: We now see the new age, though not with the physical eyes. We see it in ourselves as our Christ life takes shape, and we see it in the life of the Christian community. The “unseen” things are there but visible only to those whose inner nature is being renewed.
It is ‘invisible’ but that applies only to our physical eyes. Paul says ‘invisible’ but as a matter of fact it is visible to those whose inner nature is currently under renewal.59 Does that then mean that here Paul is speaking as one whose inner nature is not under renewal, as one who only sees through physical eyes? Best’s words sounds more like an exposition of, let’s say, 1 Cor 2.6–16 rather than of our passage. We observe that the same thing happens in 5.6 too, as scholars take great pains to prevent readers from taking Paul at his word. That we are being ‘away from the Lord’ does not mean that we do not have fellowship with Christ; our ‘being with the Lord’ cannot mean to be with him for the first time but only the full enjoyment of the fellowship we already have with him.60 If that is the case, one wonders, why did he put things in such a stark antithesis in the first place, instead of making its part–whole relationship more explicit, as he did, for example, in 1 Cor 13.9–12? Thirdly, the hope Paul describes here most probably concerns the definite event of bodily resurrection (4.14; 5.10; cf. 1 Cor 15.51–52). Since this idea does not go well with the usual dialectical interpretation of ajrrabwvn, scholarly comments at this point tend to become paradoxical or even contradictory. Once again, Best states that ‘God has prepared the new garment and as a guarantee that Paul will some day wear it he has already given him the first installment, the Spirit’.61 That the Spirit guarantees Paul’s future possession of that garment is clear, but the commenting on Paul’s use of aparche– in Romans 8, says that the Spirit, being the firstfruit of the redemption of the body, ‘raises . . . the expectation of being able to experience the complete fullness, of that same redemption’. 59 Similarly, Lambrecht, Second Corinthians, 82: ‘the future invisible realities that, however, by way of anticipation are already present’. Martin, 2 Corinthians, 92 further elaborates that ‘Paul deliberately averts his gaze from what is to be seen by eyesight to the invisible world of God’s providence and rule’. How does Martin know that Paul actually means ‘God’s providence and rule’? 60 E.g., Hughes, Second Corinthians, 176–8; Martin, 2 Corinthians, 110. 61 Best, Second Corinthians, 47.
ΔArrabwvn as Pledge in Second Corinthians 539 claim that Paul has already received (part of) that garment which he ‘will some day wear’ defies understanding. Martin too acknowledges that ‘glory for Paul will come only at the Parousia’ and that the present life is shot through suffering rather than the glory of ecstasy’.62 But one cannot but wonder how such acknowledgment can go along with his interpretation of the Spirit as the ‘first installment’ of that hope. If believers are to receive their ‘heavenly bodies’ only after death or at the Parousia, what does it mean that they have already received its ‘first installment’? Fourthly, it is thus inevitable that scholars tend to manipulate the way they put the matter in such ways that avoid such a stark contradiction. Martin says that what believers possess as the ‘down payment’ is ‘the saving power that raised Jesus from the dead’.63 But the saving power is the means to the resurrection, not the resurrection itself.64 Hafemann too affirms that Paul’s exclusive concern is ‘the future resurrection at the judgment seat of Christ’, but in his explanation of ajrrabwvn, he turns the matter into ‘a down payment of his presence’ and ‘the fullness of the resurrection glory’ instead of future resurrection itself.65 But the question still remains unanswered: what does it mean that believers already possess the ‘down payment’ or ‘first instalment’ of the future resurrection? The stark contrast between present and future advises strongly against taking ajrrabwvn as ‘down payment’. In 5.6 Paul juxtaposes faith and ei\do~ side by side. That clearly calls back to the previous antithesis between ‘what is seen’ and ‘what is unseen’ in 4.18. In turn, that what is seen is temporary and what is unseen is eternal tells us that v. 18 takes up the immediately preceding antithesis between the brief suffering in the present and the eternal glory in the future in v. 17. The most natural conclusion from this would be that ‘what is seen’ refers to the suffering Paul is experiencing in the present, while ‘what is unseen’, the ei\do~, refers to the glory which will be given only in the future.66 This conclusion is further supported by the use of skopevw, ‘to regard as your aim’ in 4.18, a cognate of the word used in Philippians in a clearly eschatological setting (Phil 3.14).67 As a further confirmation, we can also point to Romans 8 where Paul virtually repeats the same points with a slightly different metaphor but in virtually the same sets of
62 Martin, 2 Corinthians, 101. 63 Martin, 2 Corinthians, 101, 108. Similarly Hughes, Second Corinthians, 174–5. 64 Martin, 2 Corinthians, 108 acknowledges that the Spirit is God’s ‘instrument’ for inner renewal but ignores it by switching to the meaning of the Spirit as ‘God’s presence’. 65 Hafemann, 2 Corinthians, 211, 214–15. 66 The uncertainty concerning the precise time reference (parousia or death) is not important for us. 67 Martin, 2 Corinthians, 93, himself acknowledges this.
540 yon-gyong kwon antithesis: present suffering vs. future glory and what is now visible vs. what is invisible (Rom 8.18, 24–25).68 The Spirit guarantees the surety of the hope of resurrection but it is not the down payment or the first instalment of that resurrection itself. Throughout the passage Paul keeps saying that ‘we do not despair’ (4.1, 8–9, 16; 5.6, 8; cf. Gal 6.9; 1 Cor 15.58). He can have such confidence, not because we already possess (part of) what we hope for69 but because the Spirit confirms our status as sons-heirs and guides us through the thickets of present suffering toward the promised and thus eagerly awaited, destiny of ours (Gal 5.5; Rom 5.5; 15. 13; Eph 1.14).70
Conclusion
From the discussion above, an important conclusion has been drawn: Depicting the Spirit as ajrrabwvn, Paul does not mean to say that the Spirit is a down payment or the first instalment of future salvation but God’s pledge of it. In our first passage (1.22) it refers to the Spirit as God’s personal pledge of Paul’s apostleship, and in the second (5.5) that of future resurrection. In neither of these two passages do we find the idea of the Spirit as a present ‘down payment’ of the salvation to be given fully in the future. The idea of the Spirit being part of salvation itself must be something scholars themselves impose upon Paul’s text, not
68 There Paul calls the Spirit ajparchv (8.23). Most scholars take it to be a virtual synonym of ajrrabwvn, finding in both the idea of pars pro toto. Space precludes any extensive treatment but a few words seem in order. First, the word is not a technical term; the sense of pars pro toto is not a fixed part of its meaning. Like ajrrabwvn, ajparchv too can carry a wide variety of meanings (see the entry in LSJ, for example), and in this case too the context should be the key to its specific meaning. Secondly, the word occurs very heavily in LXX, usually meaning ‘choice portion’ set apart for offering (Ex 22.28[H 22.29]; 23.19) or simply ‘offering’ (Ex 25.2–3; 35.5; Deut 12.6, 11, 17). Significantly, there the word typically connotes the idea of (cultic) separation rather than that of pars pro toto, a point that mostly escapes scholarly observation (see Num 15.19–21 for an example). The same goes for the two instances in the NT (Jas 1.18; Rev 14.4). Thirdly, as noted above, the thrust of Romans 8 is also marked by a sharp contrast between the present suffering/groaning and the future glory, and that makes any talk of the ‘present realization of salvation’ out of context. True, ‘we have been saved’ but only ironically so, since the believer’s salvation is ‘in hope’ (v. 24), namely, in the hope of ‘adoptions as sons’ which is another way of saying ‘the redemption of our bodies’ (v. 24). Paul’s telling reminder of the invisibility of that hope flies in the face of the common attempt to make it present, i.e., visible (vv. 24–25). The idea of the Spirit as a partial fulfillment of salvation itself is not found in Paul’s argument. As we have seen, it is not found in the word itself either. Where then have scholars found such a notion? 69 Actual possession, even partial one, would render Paul’s repeated emphasis on the surety of hope rather pointless and even puzzling (cf. Rom 8.24–25). 70 This applies to Pauline theology as a whole. For Galatians, see my Eschatology, 107–15, 138–43.
ΔArrabwvn as Pledge in Second Corinthians 541 something they have drawn out of it.71 The gift of the Spirit is God’s personal pledge that believers will surely be saved, and that explains the reason why Paul could posit the same Spirit as the hallmark of his apostolicity. With this conclusion in mind, one can further ask if Paul’s view of the Spirit, or his eschatological thinking as a whole for that matter, is really as dialectical as most scholars believe. Following Paul’s discourse of the Spirit, one can easily find Paul trying his best to make sense of his (believers’) present suffering in the light of God’s sure victory in the future. However, does that mean, as scholars usually claim, that he ignores the commonsensical notion of time and sees the breakingin of that future in the form of the Spirit? Is it a mere accident that Paul tends to make ample use of time references in his discussion of the Spirit, especially such words as accentuate the idea of ‘not yet’? (e.g., Gal 5.5; 6.8–9; Rom 8.11, 13; 18–30; 15.13) Is it that we are forced to invent such a dialectical concept of ‘overlap of time’ or ‘overlap of the ages’ in order to make sense of Paul’s otherwise cryptic statements, or that we ourselves are at pains to read his fairly simple talks in the light (or darkness) of such notions we have acquired from somewhere else?
71 I already made the same point in relation to the notion of a ‘new age’ in Paul and the role of the Spirit in Galatians in Eschatology, 138–43.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 542–556. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000283
Alius Paulus: Paul’s Promise to Send Timothy at Philippians 2.19–24 PAU L A . HOLLOWAY Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland, UK
Interpreters of Paul’s letter to the Philippians continue to struggle to understand the place of Paul’s promise to send Timothy (Phil 2.19–24) in the overall rhetoric of the letter. However, if one reads Philippians as a letter of consolation the problems associated with this text can be solved. In particular, it becomes evident that the imprisoned and possibly soon-to-be-executed Paul offers Timothy to his anxious readers as his replacement, as another Paul or alius Paulus, according to the topos ‘consolation by means of a replacement’ for which there are many pertinent ancient parallels. This reading also explains why Paul describes Timothy as his ‘child’ (tevknon) in the gospel ministry – children were often seen as replacements for dead parents – and why he insists that Timothy is ‘of like soul/mind’ (ijsovyucon) to himself. Keywords: consolation, Philippians, Timothy, Paul, replacement Alium tibi Fata Phileton, forsan et ipse dabit, moresque habitusque decoros monstrabit gaudens similemque docebit amorem Statius Silvae 2.6
Paul’s promise to send Timothy to the Philippians at Phil 2.19–24 poses at least two problems for interpreters. First, it is not at all obvious how Paul’s promise relates to the material that precedes it: the substantial theological consolation offered in 1.12–26,1 followed by the equally substantial exhortation to behave worthy of the gospel mission in 1.27–2.16.2 And second, neither is it clear what a discrete piece of logistical information like 2.19–24 is doing in the middle of a Pauline letter, since Paul typically waits until the end of his letters to discuss this
542
1 For Philippians as consolation, esp. 1.12–26, see Paul A. Holloway, Consolation in Philippians: Philosophical Sources and Rhetorical Strategy (SNTSMS 112; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2001). 2 I shall argue below that the exhortation beginning in 1.27 ends at 2.16, with 2.17–18 returning to the mission report of 1.12–26. Traditional paragraphing, however, includes 2.17–18 with 1.27–2.16 (e.g., Nestle–Aland, UBS).
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kind of thing.3 Scholars who believe Philippians to have been patched together out of two or three smaller missives have been able to solve these problems by assigning 2.19–24 to an earlier letter where it formed a part of the letter’s final ‘travelogue’ or so-called ‘apostolic parousia’, which necessarily would have included such information and would have been only loosely connected to the preceding materials.4 This is an elegant solution so far as it goes, but it is naturally only persuasive to those who on other grounds partition the letter, which most scholars today are increasingly reluctant to do.5 Scholars who do not partition the letter have addressed these problems differently. Dibelius has suggested, somewhat beside the point, that Phil 2.19–24 constitutes ‘a kind of letter of recommendation’ for Timothy.6 More to the point, Culpepper has proposed that Paul here adduces Timothy as a further example of the behavior enjoined in the so-called Christ Hymn of 2.6–11.7 Others scholars have pointed out that Paul does in fact at times include logistical information in the central portion of a letter.8 These explanations are not mutually exclusive, and taken together they offer some real interpretive gains. But there is, I think, an even better explanation of the role that 2.19–24 plays in the developing logic of the letter, and in this study I wish to present evidence for that explanation. My thesis is that Phil 2.19–24 serves as a further piece of consolation supplementing the consolation already offered in 1.12–26, and that in particular Timothy is offered as a substitute for the imprisoned and likely soon-to-be-executed Paul according to the familiar consolatory topos which for lack of a better name I shall call ‘consolation by means of a replacement’. I begin with a brief discussion of this topos, after which I apply the findings of that discussion to a reading of Phil 2.19–24.
3 E.g., 1 Cor 16.5–12; 2 Cor 12.14–13.10; Rom 15.14–29, Phlm 22; Udo Schnelle, The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998) 40–42. 4 Robert W. Funk, ‘The Apostolic Parousia: Paul’, Parable and Presence (ed. Robert W. Funk; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982) 81–102; cf. the earlier comments by F. W. Beare, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians (BNTC; London: A. & C. Black, 1956) 95: ‘It is obvious that when Paul wrote these words [Phil 2.19ff.] he had not the slightest intention of adding further long paragraphs of warning and exhortation. He is bringing his letter to an end’. 5 The evidence is summarized in Holloway, Consolation in Philippians, 7–33. 6 Martin Dibelius, An die Thessalonischer I–II; An die Philipper (HNT 2/11; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1937) 65: ‘eine Art Empfehlungsbrief’. This suggestion is taken up by Joachim Gnilka, Der Philipperbrief (HTKNT 10/3; Freiburg: Herder, 1968) 157, and Jean-François Collange, L’épître de Saint Paul aux Philippiens (Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1973) 103, both of whom, however, partition the letter. 7 R. Alan Culpepper, ‘Co-workers in Suffering: Philippians 2:19–30’, RevExp 77 (1980) 349–58. According to Culpepper both Timothy (Phil 2.19–24) and Epaphroditus (Phil 2.25–30) further exemplify the behavior of Christ highlighted in the Christ Hymn. 8 See David E. Garland, ‘The Composition and Unity of Philippians: Some Neglected Literary Features’, NovT 27 (1985) 141–73, esp. 150, for the evidence.
544 paul a. holloway 1. Replacing Absent Loved Ones
It was common practice in Greco-Roman antiquity for those having lost or having been separated from a close friend or loved one to seek consolation in some kind of replacement or surrogate.9 This often took the form of a physical likeness such as a portrait or statue.10 Euripides offers an early example of this strategy in his Alcestis, where at lines 348–54 Admetus speaks the following words to his dying wife: An image of you shaped by the hand of skilled craftsmen shall be laid out in my bed. I shall fall into its arms, and as I embrace it and call your name I shall imagine, though I have her not, that I hold my dear wife in my arms. A cold pleasure, to be sure, but thus shall I lighten my soul’s heaviness.
Admetus’s plans are clear. He will have a life-like statue of Alcestis constructed after her death and have it placed in his bed, and he will console himself by pretending that it is his wife. A similar story was told about Laodamia, the wife of Protesilaus, the first Greek killed at Troy.11 She also commissioned a statue of her dead spouse that she kept in her bedroom.12 According to Ps.-Apollodorus, the statue was extremely realistic and Laodamia consorted with it regularly.13 According to Hyginus Laodamia’s devotion to the statue became so extreme that her father had the image burned, at which point Laodamia killed herself.14 Ovid, however, implies that it was only an image of Protesilaus’ face and that Laodamia had it made immediately after Protesilaus’s departure for Troy, as her letter to him at Aulis reports:15 While you, a soldier, are bearing arms in a far-off land, I keep for myself an image in wax that brings back your face. I say to it sweet words which I would otherwise say to you; it receives my embraces. Believe me, that image
9 Lucian characteristically jeers at this technique at Tox. 34, where he has Demetrios reason that 20,000 drachmas should be a fair substitute for himself. 10 Maurizio Bettini, The Portrait of the Lover (Berkeley: University of California, 1999) 10: ‘the portrait is a substitute, a consolation’. 11 Il. 2.698–702. 12 Euripides also wrote a tragedy about Laodamia; TGF frags. 645–57 (Nauck); see comments in A. M. Dale, Euripides’ Alcestis (Oxford: Clarendon, 1954) 79; cf. Carlo Franco, ‘Una statua per Admeto (a proposito di Eur. Alc. 348–54)’, Materiali e Discussioni per l’Analisi dei Testi Classici 13 (1984) 131–6. 13 Ps.-Apollod. Epitom. 3.30. On sexual relations with statues, see Bettini, Portrait, 59–74. 14 Fab. 104. 15 Her. 13.151–158. Adolf Deissmann, Light From the Ancient East (New York: Doran, 1927) 179, cites a second-century papyrus letter from Apion, an Egyptian soldier in the Roman navy, to his father Epimachus, in which he speaks of a small portrait (eijkovnin) of himself that he has sent home (⫽ BGU 2.423; my thanks to Troy Martin for pointing out this text to me); cf. Lib. Ep. 143.1–2, on the receipt of a portrait of Aristides.
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is more than it seems: give the wax a voice, and it would be Protesilaus! I gaze upon it and press it to my breast in place of my true husband.
By the early Empire devotion to funerary portraits seems to have become quite common, if not actually fashionable. The Augustan elegiac poet Sextus Propertius can assume that Lucius Aemilius Paullus spoke regularly to the portrait of his dead wife Cornelia.16 Similarly, Statius knows that Polla Argentaria slept beneath a portrait of her dead husband, the poet Lucan,17 and that Atedius Melior, who owned an encaustic portrait of his friend Blaesus, kept the portrait freshly garlanded and was regularly seen by his slaves ‘caressing it to [his] chest’.18 Xenophon of Ephesus parodies this practice in a particularly macabre scene at Ephesiaca 5.1.11. The protagonist Harbrocomes has come to Sicily in his search for his beloved Anthia, where he meets an aged Spartan exile-turned-fisherman named Aegialeus. Recently a widower, Aegialeus has embalmed the body of his wife Thelxinoe and now keeps it in an inner room in his fishing hut. He explains to the amazed Habrocomes: ‘I still talk to her as if she were alive and lie down beside her and have my meals with her, and if I come home exhausted from fishing, the sight of her consoles me (me paramuqei``tai)’.19 In the sometimes desperate quest to replace a lost lover, bereaved loved ones often commissioned multiple likenesses of the dead. Thus Apuleius at Met. 8.7 tells how Charite in her search for consolation (solacium) commissioned numerous imagines of Tlepolemus after his death. At the height of his grief Cicero, too, planned to have numerous portraits of Tullia made, but apparently never followed through.20 According to Pliny Ep. 4.7.1, Regulus commissioned ‘as many portraits and statues of his dead son as possible’. Statius reports in Silv. 5.1 how Domitian’s ab epistulis Flavius Abascantus grieved for his wife Priscilla’s death for two years, during which time he had a multitude of likenesses made. Addressing the dead Priscilla at lines 6–9, he writes: 16 El. 4.11.84–85. 17 Silv. 2.7. Libanios reports at Ep. 143.1–2 that he studied the writings of Aristides beneath a portrait of the sophist and that he often found himself speaking to the portrait. Similarly, Libanios’s student John Chrysostom was said to have kept in his cubiculum a portrait of Paul, beneath which he also studied and to which he often spoke (Geo. Al. v. Chrys. 27 [147.1–6 Halkin]; cf. Leo VI Phil. Or. 18.15 [PG 107.256D–257D]; Sym. Metaphr. v. Chrys. 23 [PG 114.1104B–1108B]). This scene is represented in two beautiful polychrome manuscript illuminations at Vatican Cod. gr. 766, fol. 2v, and Athen. 7, fol. 2, for which see Paul A. Holloway, ‘Portrait and Presence: A Note on the Visio Procli (George of Alexandria, Vita Chrysostomi 27)’, ByzZ 100.1 (2007) 71–83, figures 2 and 3. According to legend Paul would visit Chysostom at night and explain his letters to him. 18 Silv. 2.1.192–193. 19 Trans. G. Anderson, in B.P. Reardon, ed., Collected Ancient Greek Novels (Berkeley: University of California, 1989) 159. 20 Ad Att. 12.18.1.
546 paul a. holloway So does he strive to rescue your shade from the pyre and wages a mighty contest with Death. He exhausts the efforts of the artisans; he seeks your love in every material.
Priscilla’s tomb, which has been identified just south of Rome on the Via Appia Antica near the church of Domine Quo Vadis?, still shows thirteen niches where presumably at least some of these statues were displayed.21 Tacitus knows of and disapproves of such excesses.22 Two well-known inscriptions also attest to this strategy of consolation. The following is from the epitaph for Allia Potestas, whose husband Allius has obviously had a portable image of her carved:23 Instead of you (pro te) I hold an image, my consolation (solacia), which I venerate devotedly, and which I crown with many garlands. And when I will come to you [in death] it will follow me as my companion.
Cornelia Galla describes her husband’s funerary monument in similar terms:24 Here lies Varius Frontonianus, interred by his dear wife, Cornelia Galla. In order to restore to life the sweet consolations of the past (dulcia restituens veteris solacia vitae), she placed this face in marble, so that her eyes and soul could yet sate themselves with the sight of his dear features.
The strategy also appears in Judaism, albeit less frequently. It lies behind Wis 14.15–16, which blames the origin of idols on parents who sought consolation in statues of their dead children: ajwvrw/ ga;r pevnqei prucovmeno~ path;r tou`` tacevw~ ajfaireqevnto~ tevknou eijkovna poihvsa~.25 Particularly striking is Rabbi Nathan’s use of the practice to explain the scandalous killing of the Egyptian firstborn during the Exodus. According to his version of the story, preserved at Mekhilta on Exodus 12.30, the Angel of Death did not kill live children, but destroyed the funerary statues of children who had already died, the loss of which statues grieved the Egyptians as if they were their actual children.26 A similar interpretive move, this 21 See further Bruce Gibson, Statius Silvae 5 (Oxford: Oxford University, 2006) 75–6; two sketches of the tomb can be found in L. Canina, La prima parte della Via Appia dalla Porta Capena a Boville (2 vols.; Rome: Bertinelli, 1853) vol. 2, table 6. 22 Agr. 46.3. 23 CIL 6.3795 (cited by Bettini, Portrait, 26). For translation and commentary, see N. Horsfall, ‘CIL VI 3795 ⫽ CLE 1988 (Epitaph of Allia Potestas): A Commentary’, ZPE 61 (1985) 251–72. 24 CIL 8.434 (cited by Bettini, Portrait, 28). 25 See the discussion in David Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon (AB 43; New York: Doubleday, 1979) 273–7; cf. Franz Cumont, Lux Perpetua (Paris: Geuthner, 1949) 303–42. Firmicus Maternus will employ the topos in a similar fashion in his euhemeristic attack on pagan images at Err. Prof. Rel. 6.1–4 claiming that Jupiter, historically a Cretan king, resorted to making a statue of his dismembered son Liber (Dionysus) after he could find no other means of consolation (nullis solaciis). 26 Cf. Hygin. Fab. 104 for the grief of Laodamia at the destruction of the image of Protesilaus, and Ps.-Quint. Declam. maior. 10.11 for a mother’s devotion to the statue of her son.
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time exonerating Helen not the Hebrew god, can be found in the scholia on Alius Aristides where Paris does not return to Troy with Helen herself, but with her portrait.27 In addition to physical likenesses, absent loved ones were often replaced, when circumstances allowed, by a living person. Seneca was particularly fond of this strategy and he employs it in virtually all of his consolatory letters.28 At Ep. 63.12–13, for instance, he advices Lucilius regarding the death of his friend Flaccus: ‘You have lost someone you love; seek another to love. It is better to replace a friend, than go on mourning for him’. Similarly, at Ad Poly. 12.1 he urges Polybius who is grieving the unexpected death of his brother: ‘Turn your mind from the thoughts that torture you to the great and many consolations that you still possess: look to your other accomplished brothers, your wife, your son’. Again, at Ad Helv. 18.3, written while in exile in Corsica, he advises his mother to allow his two remaining brothers to serve as his replacements: ‘the gap that one [son] has left can be filled by the devotion of two’ – and if they are not enough she can add her grandchildren (18.4) and sister (19.1). Statius invokes this strategy at the end of Silv 2.6, which was written to console an otherwise unknown Flavius Ursus regarding the death of a favorite slave boy Philetos. In lines 103–4 he writes: ‘The Fates, perhaps even the dead boy himself, will give you another Philetos’ (alium tibi Fata Phileton, forsan et ipse dabit).29 Statius apparently has in mind here some kind of metempsychosis such as at the end of Aeneid 6, where Aeneas famously observes the souls of future Roman greats preparing to reenter the world.30 Ursus is thus to imagine his beloved Philetos in Hades seeking out a suitable replacement for himself among the souls ready to reenter the world and then instructing his replacement in his habits and in his love for Ursus: moresque habitusque decoros monstrabit . . . similemque docebit amorem. Statius has conceived the ideal replacement for a dead loved one: some-
27 Wilhelm Dindorf, ed., Aristides (3 vols.; Leipzig: Reimer, 1829 [reprint Hildescheim: Olms, 1964]) 3.105 (panaqhnaikov~); cf. Stesichor. Palin. frag. 192; Herodot. Hist. 2.112–120; Eur. Hel. 28 In addition to the texts cited in this paragraph, see also Ad Marc. 16.8 (discussed below). Cf. Thuc. Hist. 2.44.3; Eur. frag. 757.3 (Nauck), Dionys. Epit. 28.12; Plut. Ad ux. 611b; Epic. Drusi 471–472; José Esteve-Forriol, Die Trauer- und Trostgedicte in der römischen Literatur (Munich: Schubert, 1962) 151–2 (§ 64); Harm-Jam van Dam, P. Paninius Statius, Silvae Book II: A Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1984) 449. 29 This is a challenging text, and Shackelton Bailey (Statius: Silvae [LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2003] 156, 391) finds the idea that the dead Philetos would somehow arrange his own replacement ‘impossibly bizarre’, and has therefore proposed that ipse dabit, ‘he [⫽ the dead Philetos] himself will give’, be read as ipse dabis, ‘you yourself [⫽ Ursus] will give’, meaning that Ursus would simply buy another slave boy to take Philetos’ place. But in as much as these are the last lines of the poem and Statius is obviously striving for point, Schackleton Bailey’s emendation, which borders on the banal, should be rejected. 30 van Dam, P. Paninius Statius, Silvae Book II, 391.
548 paul a. holloway one personally selected by that loved one who also reproduces his or her habits and affections. Jesus employs this topos with almost identical terminology in John 14.16 when he promises the disciples ‘another advocate’ (a[llo~ paravklhto~) to replace himself.31 Jesus, it is implied, had been the disciples, advocate during his life time, and now with his death, in his absence, another advocate, the divine spirit, is offered in his place.32 Like the slave boy who will come as alius Philetos, so too the spirit will come as a[llo~ paravklhto~.33 Further, just as the dead Philetos will teach his replacement in his ways towards Ursus, so too Jesus will instruct the spirit in what he must say to his disciples: o{sa ajkouvsei [ajf j ejmou`] lalhvsei (John 16.13).34 Hans Windisch has correctly dubbed the spirit Jesus’ Doppelgänger or double.35 Perhaps the most obvious and compelling replacement for an absent or deceased loved one was his or her child. This topos is already evident in Euripides’ Alcestis when Admetus promises Alcestis that only her children and not another woman ‘will take your place’ (ajntiv sou).36 The early Greek novelist Chariton has his heroine Callirhoë console herself after the supposed death of Chaereas with a similar thought: ‘Nevertheless you have given to me [in this child] an image of a most beloved man, so that I am not completely bereft of my Chaereas’.37 Dido, of course, longed for precisely such a consolation after Aeneas’ departure:38 If only I had conceived a child of yours before your flight; if only there were a little Aeneas (parvulus Aeneas) to play here in my halls, who might bring you back to me in the features of his face (qui te tamen ore referret) – then I would not feel so entirely vanquished and abandoned.
Seneca employs this strategy in his letter of consolation to Marcia, the daughter of the Stoic historian Cremutius Cordus, regarding the death of her son Metelius:
31 A connection already identified by Friedrich Vollmer, P. Papinii Statii Silvarum Libri (Leipzig: Teubner, 1898) 372: ‘Die Vorstellung, dass der Tote selbt einen Ersatz für sich auf die Erde sendet, kann ich, abgesehen vom christlichen Paravklhto~, sonst nicht belegen. Der Knabe, den Philetos sendet, wird von ihm selbst ihm gleichgemacht werden’. 32 Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John XIII–XXI (AB 29A; New York: Doubleday, 1970) 1141: ‘the one whom John calls “another Paraclete” is another Jesus’; J. L. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 3d ed. 2003) 138: ‘He [⫽ the Spirit] is the other Paraclete, Jesus being the first Paraclete’ (emphasis original). 33 Cf. Chrys. In Ioannem, hom. 75.3 (PG 59.403.53): toutevstin, a[llon wJ~ ejmev. 34 Cf. John 16.14: ejkei`no~ ejme; doxavsei, o{t i ejk tou` ejmou` lhvmyetai kai; ajnaggelei` uJmi`n. 35 ‘Die funf johanneische Parakletsprüche’, Festgabe für Adolf Jülicher zum 70. Geburtstag (Tübingen; Mohr, 1927) 110–29, here 129. 36 Eur. Alc. 328–329. 37 Chaereas et Callirhoë 3.8.7; spoken to Dionysius, Callirhoë’s husband, who thinks that the child is his, while Callirhoë knows that it is Chaereas’. 38 Vir. Aen. 4.327–30.
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‘Substitute for Metelius his two surviving daughters. Fill the empty place with them’, adding with characteristic flourish: ‘and in so doing lighten your grief for one with the consolation of two’.39 Jerome will reproduce this exact argument, complete with rhetorical conceit, in his letter of consolation to the recently widowed Salvina:40 You have, therefore, Salvina, those whom you nurse, in whom you can imagine yourself to hold your absent husband . . . You have in the place of one man gained two sons, increased in number by love.
Tacitus exploits the topos at Ann. 12.68, where after the death of Germanicus he has Agrippina, ‘as if overcome by grief and seeking consolation (solacia)’, wrap Britannicus in her arms and call him ‘a true portrait of his father’ (veram paterni oris effigiem). He employs it again at the end of the Agricola when he argues that his deceased father-in-law’s presence is to be found not in images and monuments, but in the ‘characteristic actions’ (tuis moribus) and in the ‘soul’ (animus) of his daughter, Tacitus’s wife.41 Basil will argue along almost identical lines in his letter of consolation to the widow of Briso, calling Briso’s surviving children ‘living (e[myucoi) images’ of their father.42 It is probably with this topos in mind that Menander Rhetor stipulates that those taking leave of a city promise to send their children back to visit their friends there at some point in the near future.43 It is safe to say that at the time Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians it was a common practice to seek comfort in the face of bereavement and other forms of absence by searching for a surrogate for the dead or departed loved one. This was often accomplished (or at least attempted) in realistic funerary portraiture. But where possible such comfort was also sought in living replacements: a new friend or spouse, another slave, or ideally a surviving child who reproduced both the features and the character of the absent or deceased parent. With these conclusions in mind, let us now turn to Paul’s announcement of his plans to send Timothy to the Philippians at Phil 2.19–24. 2. Paul’s Promise to Send Timothy as His Replacement
As with all of Paul’s letters, Philippians is an occasional document written in response to a particular situation. In the case of Philippians the most salient 39 40 41 42 43
Ad Marc.16.8. Ep. 79.7. Agr. 46.4. Ep. 302. Men. Rhet. 2.15. 431.22–30; 433.10–14 (D. A. Russell and N. G. Wilson, Menander Rhetor [Oxford: Clarendon, 1981]). Speeches of departure were generally understood to be consolatory (e.g., Men. Rhet. 2.5.396.3–4; 2.15.430.10–11; cf. 431.31–432.2); for tears at separation in early Christianity, see Acts 20.37 (iJkano;~ de; klauqmo;~ ejgevneto pavntwn); 2 Tim 1.4 (memnhmevno~ sou tw`n dakruvwn).
550 paul a. holloway feature of this situation is that Paul is in prison awaiting trial on capital charges.44 Paul has recently been visited in his confinement by Epaphroditus, a member of the Philippian church, who has brought a gift from the believers at Philippi as well as news of certain troubling developments in the church.45 Paul has not heard from his supporters at Philippi for some time,46 but he learns from Epaphroditus that they themselves have recently become targets of persecution,47 and that this, coupled with their considerable anxiety over Paul’s own situation, has left them discouraged and disillusioned.48 Indeed, Epaphroditus is so concerned for his coreligionists that he is afraid that news of his own recent illness – he fell seriously ill on his way to Paul – has gotten back to them and rendered their already fragile condition even more precarious.49 Epaphroditus also reports that as a result of these stressful circumstances the church has become plagued by a certain fractiousness and in-fighting,50 which has even affected two of Paul’s erstwhile coworkers, Euodia and Syntyche.51 Paul writes from prison to console and correct. Scholars have long struggled to find a coherent structure to Philippians, and more than a few have concluded that the letter is actually a compilation of earlier letter fragments.52 This is not necessary, and I have argued elsewhere at length that once one identifies Philippians as a letter of consolation an obvious logic emerges.53 Paul begins his letter, as had become his custom by the time he wrote Philippians, with a short prescript (1.1–2) followed by a more lengthy ‘thanksgiv-
44 45 46 47 48 49 50
51
52 53
Phil 1.7, 13–14, 17, 19, 21–22, 29–30; 2.17–18, 23, 29–30; 4.14. Phil 1.5; 2.25, 30; 4.10, 14, 18. Phil 4.10. Phil 1.7, 29–30. Phil 1.24–26; cf. 1.27 and 2.12 where the problem of Paul’s forced absence is an obvious and overriding concern. Phil 2.26. Phil 1.27; 2.1–4, 14; cf. 3.15–16; 4.5; Nicholas Walter, ‘Die Philipper und das Leiden: Aus den Anfängen einer diedenschristlichen Gemeinde’, Die Kirche des Anfang (FS Heinz Schürmann; ed. Rudolf Schnackenburg et al.; Leipzig: St. Benno, 1977) 417–33, esp. 423: ‘[Paulus] spricht zu Christen . . . denen ein Leiden um Christi, um des Evangeliums willen den Glauben und die Standfestigkeit, aber auch den Zusammenhalt untereinander zu zerstören droht’. Phil 4.2–3. See esp. Nils A. Dahl, ‘Euodia and Syntyche and Paul’s Letter to the Philippians’, The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne Meeks (ed. L. Michael White and O. Larry Yarbrough; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) 3–15. E. g., Beare, Philippians; Gnilka, Der Philipperbrief; Collange, Philippiens. It is precisely in the assigning of genre, I believe, that modern analyses of the letter have gone awry. This is odd, however, since both Jerome and Chrysostom are clear that Philippians is a letter of consolation; Jer. In Epist. ad Phil. (PL 30.842C): consolatur eos de sua tribulatione, ‘he consoles them regarding his own suffering’; Chrys. In Epist. ad Phil., hom 3.3 (PG 62.201.36–37): tau`ta dh; pavnta pro;~ paramuqivan tw`n Filipphsivwn levgei, ‘he says all these things for the consolation of the Philippians’.
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ing’ paragraph (vv. 3–11).54 Near the end of this paragraph he reports his current prayers for the Philippian church (vv. 9–11),55 which also serves to summarize, as it were, the theme or thesis of his letter. It is Paul’s view that the Philippians are finding the present situation grievous because they have failed ‘to discern the things that really matter’ (dokimavzein . . . ta; diafevronta, v. 10). Paul here signals: (1) that his principal concern in writing the Philippians is to console them and (2) that he will adopt as his basic strategy of consolation the Stoic theory that grief lies in mistaking things that do not matter for things that do.56 This strategy provides the letter with both a thematic and a logical unity. Paul develops his thesis in the central portion or body of his letter under two headings: (1) the things that matter in the gospel mission (1.12–2.30) and (2) the ‘one thing’ (e{n, 3.13) that really matters in the religious life of the believer (3.1–4.1).57 We are here interested in only the first of these headings (1.12–2.30), which takes the form of a mission report of sorts, with Paul reporting to the Philippians what has happened to him and how he expects things to turn out: ‘I want you to know, brothers, regarding the things that have happened to me . . .’ 54 Paul’s thanksgiving paragraphs were first studied in detail by Paul Schubert, Form and Function of the Pauline Thanksgivings (BZNW 20; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1939). Subsequent studies include: James M. Robinson, ‘Die Hodajot-Formel in Gebet und Hymnus des Frühchristentums’, Apophoreta: Festschrift für Ernst Haenchen (ed. W. Elterster and F. H. Kettler; BZNW 30; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1964) 194–235; Peter T. O’Brien, Introductory Thanksgivings in the Letters of Paul (NovTSup 49; Leiden: Brill, 1977); and most recently Peter Arzt, ‘The “Epistolary Introductory Thanksgiving” in the Papyri and in Paul’, NovT 36 (1994) 29–46, and Jeffery T. Reed, ‘Are Paul’s Thanksgivings “Epistolary”?’, JSNT 61 (1996) 87–99. 55 For the programmatic nature of Paul’s introductory prayer reports, see Gordon P. Wiles, Paul’s Intercessory Prayers (SNTSMS 24; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1974) 175–229; cf. Schubert, Form and Function, 62; O’Brien, Introductory Thanksgivings, passim; Wayne A. Meeks, ‘The Man from Heaven in Philippians’, The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester (ed. Birger A. Pearson; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 329–36, esp. 333. 56 The theory works on the assumption that events conventionally judged to be grievous fall into the category of ‘things that do not matter’ (ta; ajdiavfora) and should be discounted as such. For a discussion, see Holloway, Consolation in Philippians, 66–7, 74–8. Commentators have long recognized that Paul is appropriating technical philosophical language in Phil 1.10, but have not made the connection with philosophical consolation; e.g., Ernst Lohmeyer, Der Brief an die Philipper (KEK 9/8; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1953) 32–3: ‘[ta; diafevronta] ist eindeutiger Ausdruck hellenistischer Moralphilosophie’; cf. Gnilka, Der Philipperbrief, 52; Wolfgang Schenk, Die Philipperbriefe des Paulus: Kommentar (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1984) 112–13. 57 For the first of these, ‘the things that matter in the gospel ministry’, see the discussion below. For the second, ‘the one thing that really matters in the religious life of the believer’, see Holloway, Consolation in Philippians, 130–45, where it is argued that the one thing of overriding importance for Paul was ‘the surpassing greatness of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my lord’: to; uJperevcon th'~ gnwvsew~ Cristou` jIhsou` tou` kurivou mou (Phil 3.8), a ‘knowledge’ gained through suffering in the service of the gospel: tou` gnw`nai aujto;n . . . kai; th;n koinwnivan tw`n paqhmavtwn aujtou`, summorfizovmeno~ tw`/ qanavtw/ aujtou` (Phil 3.10).
552 paul a. holloway (1.12).58 Paul does more here, however, than simply report to the Philippians about his circumstances. He has carefully shaped his report to provide the Philippians with an example (in himself) of how those engaged in the gospel mission should interpret and respond to suffering and hardship.59 The key, as he hinted in 1.9–11, is to distinguish between the things that matter and the things that do not. It does not matter that Paul is in prison and that certain of his rivals are taking advantage of this (1.12–18a); nor does it matter that he might be executed (1.18b–21).60 Rather, what matters is that ‘Christ is proclaimed’ (1.18a) and that ‘Christ [is] magnified’ (1.20a). Because Paul has correctly observed these distinctions, he is consoled in his present circumstances: ‘What does it matter? . . . I rejoice, and I will rejoice’.61 Paul has given the Philippians an example to follow,62 and he will soon urge them to apply that example to their own struggles (1.27–2.16). But he has heard from Epaphroditus of their near despair over his imprisonment and possible execution, and so before he moves to exhortation he offers them one further consolation: the prospect of his return (1.22–26). To be sure, Paul believes that to die is to ‘depart and be with Christ, which is much better by far’.63 But he is convinced that, for their sake at least, he must try to see the Philippians again,64 and thus he professes ‘confidence’ (pepoiqwv~) that he will survive his present ordeal and be returned to them ‘for your joy and progress of faith’. If the Philippians cannot at 58 The Philippians had supported Paul’s mission from the very beginning (Phil 4.15–16) and had continued to do so as they were able (Phil 1.6; 4.10; cf. 2.25–30). 59 Philippians is a relatively unique letter of consolation in that it is Paul the sufferer who is consoling his friends not the other way around. The only ancient parallels to this that I am aware of are Seneca’s letter to his mother on the occasion of his own exile, the Ad Helviam, and Epicurus’ death-bed letters to Hermarchus (Cic. De fin. 2.96) and Idomeneus (Diog. Laert. Vit. 10.22). Like Paul in Philippians, both Seneca and Epicurus argue by way of example, reporting that they are not grieved by their present circumstances, and that therefore their readers should not be grieved either. 60.Paul signals his indifference by the expression ‘whether . . . or’ (ei[t e . . . ei[t e): ‘whether in pretense or in truth’ (1.18); ‘whether by life or by death’ (1.20); cf. ‘whether I come again and see you or remain absent’ (1.27), where it is applied to the Philippians. The listing of such contraries was typical in Stoic discussions of indifferent things: ‘Indifferent things are such as these: life and death, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, sickness and health, and the like’ (Zeno according to Stob. Ecl. 2.57.18 Wachsmuth ⫽ SVF 1.190). Note also the expression tiv gavr; ‘What does it matter?’ (Phil 1.18). 61 Cf. Seneca’s sustained boast in Ad Helv. 4.2–5.1 that he is happy (beatus), full of joy (gaudium), in circumstances that would make others miserable (miser). 62 Bengel has famously summarized the logic of Paul’s argument at this point: Gaudeo, gaudete! This logic is made explicit in Phil 2.17–18. 63 The Greek here is quite emphatic: pollw/` ma`llon krei`sson. 64 Phil 1.24: ajnagkaiovt eron di j uJma`~. That the Philippians are deeply troubled by Paul’s absence can be seen from such texts as 1.25–26 (eij~ th;n uJmw`n prokoph;n kai; cara;n . . . dia; th`~ ejmh`~ parousiva~ pavlin pro;~ uJma`~), 1.27 (ei[te ejlqw;n kai; ijdw;n uJma`~ ei[te ajpwvn), and 2.12 (mh; wJ~ ejn th`/ parousiva/ mou movnon ajlla; nu`n pollw`/ ma`llon ejn th`/ ajpousiva/ mou).
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this point fully adopt Paul’s ‘Stoic’ outlook and see his imprisonment and possible execution as matters of indifference in light of the overriding importance of the gospel mission, then at least they can find comfort in his verbal assurance that they will see him again. At this point, Paul interrupts his mission report in 1.27–2.16 to urge the Philippians to take his example to heart: ‘I only ask that you live your lives in a manner worthy of the gospel’. Paul delivers what is in effect a litany of demanding exhortations: the Philippians are to endure the present hardships and ‘stand together’ in the gospel ministry (1.27); they are ‘not to be surprised’ by the fact that others oppose them, but see it as part of their calling to suffer for Christ (1.28–30); they are to ‘be of the same mind’ and heal any divisions that have developed in their assembly because of their present discouragement (2.1–4); they are to follow Christ’s own example of patient suffering (2.5–11); they are to continue to ‘obey’ even in Paul’s absence (2.12–13); and they are to accept their circumstances ‘without grumbling’ against God (2.14–16). These exhortations occupy Paul through 2.16, after which he returns in 2.17 to his mission report and to further efforts to console the Philippians. Philippians 2.17–18 is a challenging text on a number of grounds. Both the Nestle–Aland and the UBS texts include 2.17–18 in the paragraph beginning in 2.13, and most scholars today accept this paragraphing. This is not without problems, however, and commentators continue to struggle to explain how exactly 2.17–18 completes the thought of 2.13–16.65 A better option is to interpret 2.17–18 as picking up the thought left off in 1.25–26 and thus resuming the mission report of 1.12–26. This is the view taken by early twentieth-century commentators such as Barth and Lohmeyer, and it has much to commend it.66 On this reading the exhortation begun in 1.27 – a digression as it turns out – concludes in 2.16, and 2.17–18 serves as a kind of ‘transition’ (Überleitung) back to the topics of 1.12–26,67 which are then properly taken up again in 2.19–30. This proposed relationship between 2.17–18 and 1.25–26 can be seen in the following juxtaposition of these texts:68 I am sure that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, so that because of me you shall have yet another reason to boast in Christ Jesus through my coming to you again (1.25–26) . . .
65 E.g., Gnilka, Der Philipperbrief, 154. 66 Karl Barth, Erklärung des Philipperbriefes (Munich: Kaiser, 1927) 73–82; Ernst Lohmeyer, Der Brief an die Philipper (KEK 9/8; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1929) 112–14. This view is traceable at least back to Calvin; more recently, Gerhard Friedrich, Der Brief an die Philipper (NTD 8; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962); Sigfred Pedersen, ‘ “Mit Furcht und Zittern” (Phil. 2,12–13)’, ST 32 (1978) 1–31. 67 Lohmeyer, An die Philipper, 112. 68 See esp. Barth, Erklärung des Philipperbriefes, 76: ‘[2,17–18] folgt . . . offenbar auf 1,24–26’.
554 paul a. holloway But even if69 I am poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and offering of your faith, I rejoice with you . . . and do you with me (2.17–18).
This second way of interpreting 2.17–18 (viz. with reference to 1.25–26) carries with it at least two important implications for a reading of 2.19–30. First, and most obviously, it implies that 2.19–30 is a resumption of the mission report of 1.12–26. In 1.25–26 Paul had expressed confidence that he would survive his present ordeal and eventually see the Philippians again. He returned to that theme in 2.17–18 insisting that, his earlier expression of confidence notwithstanding, the Philippians must reckon with the possibility that he might be ‘poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and offering of [their] faith’. Now in 2.19–30 he reveals his interim plans. He is first of all sending Epaphroditus back with the present letter (2.25–30). He will next send Timothy as soon as he has something definite to report regarding his trial and its outcome (2.19–23). Finally, he hopes that he himself will soon be able to visit the Philippians again (2.24). Omitting then the digression of 1.27–2.16, the line of thought for 1.12–26 ⫹ 2.17–30 runs something like this: Paul rejoices in the uninterrupted progress of the gospel and the prospect of personally glorifying Christ and invites the Philippians to do likewise (1.12–21); he trusts he will survive his present ordeal and be restored to them (1.22–26); it is possible, however, that he will not survive to see the Philippians again (2.17–18); he will send Timothy shortly, as soon as he has something definite to report (2.19–24); he is now sending Epaphroditus with the present letter (2.25–30). Second, the above interpretation of 2.17–18 implies that, like the mission report in 1.12–26, the resumption of that report in 2.19–30 is most likely also consolatory. This is directly relevant to the thesis that Paul’s promise to send Timothy in 2.19–24 was intended to provide further consolation for the Philippians after the topos consolation by means of a replacement. Before turning to that promise two items in 2.19–30 that are obviously consolatory should be noted. The first of these is Paul’s expression of confidence at the end of 2.19–24 that he himself would soon (tacevw~) return. This simply repeats the almost identical expression of confidence of 1.25–26 and like that earlier expression is clearly consolatory.70 The second is Paul’s decision to send Epaphroditus back with the present letter as described in 2.25–30. Paul clearly intends this to console the Philippians and explicitly says so 69 For the expression eij kaiv, see 1 Cor 7.21; 2 Cor 4.16 (cf. Gos. Pet. 5: eij kai; mhv ti~ aujto;n h/jthvkei, hJmei`~ aujto;n ejqavptomen). Commentators sometimes make too much of the order of eij and kaiv, translating ‘if even’ rather than ‘even if’. But word order probably does not matter; BDAG (s.v. eij 6.e) do not think so. Yet even if the text is translated ‘But if I am even about to be poured out . . .’, the contrast is still with 1.25–26. For a similar use of ajllav, see 2 Cor 7.6 where 2 Cor 2.12–13 is at least in part recalled. 70 1.25–26: kai; tou`to pepoiqw;~ oi\da o{t i menw` kai; paramenw` pa`s in uJmi`n eij~ th;n uJmw`n prokoph;n kai; cara;n th`~ pivstew~; 2.24: pevpoiqa de; ejn kurivw/ o{ti kai; aujto;~ tacevw~ ejleuvsomai.
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in 2.28: ‘that seeing him again you might rejoice, and I might have one less thing to worry about’. Two items in Phil 2.19–24 strongly suggest that Paul’s promise to send Timothy to the Philippians is consolatory and appropriates the topos consolation by means of a replacement.71 The first of these concerns Paul’s statement in 2.20, oujdevna ga;r e[cw ijsovyucon, which should probably be translated, ‘I have no one so like myself’.72 Timothy is here described as ijsovyuco~, ‘of like soul/mind’,73 with Paul. Indeed, Timothy is without peer (oujdevna e[cw) in his reproduction of Paul.74 And it is precisely in his genuine concern for the Philippians that he is so like Paul: o{sti~ gnhsivw~ ta; peri; uJmw`n merimnhvsei. Each of these elements evoke the topos consolation by means of a replacement. Tacitus, it will be recalled, found consolation in the fact that his father-in-law Agricola was reproduced in the ‘soul’ (animus) of his (Tacitus’s) wife,75 Agricola’s daughter, while Ursus was to take comfort in the thought that Philetos’s replacement would reproduce the boy in his ‘manners and customs as well as in his special love [for Ursus]’ (moresques habitusque. . . similemque . . . amorem).76 The Philippians may take comfort that when he comes Timothy will reproduce Paul’s ‘soul’ and his ‘genuine concern’ for them. The second item linking Paul’s promise to send Timothy to the topos consolation by means of a replacement is the statement in 2.22 that Timothy has become like a ‘child’ (tevknon) to Paul in his service to the gospel, a resemblance that the Philippians have themselves already observed: th;n de; dokimh;n aujtou` ginwvskete.77 This recalls one of the best attested features of the topos: that one of the first places to turn to find a substitute for a dead or otherwise absent loved one is that loved one’s surviving children.78 This was true in the case of death (a realistic possibility for Paul), but also in the case of unwanted separation (presently the 71 Cf. Lohmeyer, An die Philipper, 114: ‘an Stelle des [Paulus]’. 72 Commentators are split on whether ijsovy ucon carries with it an implied aujtw/` (‘no one so like him [⫽ Timothy]’) or moiv (‘no one so like me’). For the former interpretation, see Gnilka, Der Philipperbrief, 158; for the latter, see Collange, L’épître de Saint Paul aux Philippiens, 103. The latter, which understands the comparison to be with Paul, makes better sense in light of the statement in 2.22 that Timothy is Paul’s ‘child’. According to Collange this interpretation is also favored by the wordplay with eujy ucw` in 2.19. 73 BDAG s.v. ijsovy uco~. 74 Paul amplifies this in 2.21: oiJ pavnte~ ga;r ta; eJautw`n zhtou`s in, ouj ta; jIhsou` Cristou`. 75 Cf. Bas. Ep. 302: eijkovne~ eu[y ucoi. 76 Tac. Agr. 46.4; Stat. Silv. 2.6.103–104. 77 Cf. 1 Cor 4.17, where it is also implied that to see Timothy is also to see Paul: parakalw` ou]n
uJma`~, mimhtaiv mou givnesqe. dia; tou`to e[pemya uJmi`n Timovqeon, o{~ ejstivn mou tevknon ajgaphto;n kai; pisto;n ejn kurivw/, o{~ uJma`~ ajnamnhvsei ta;~ oJdouv~ mou ta;~ ejn Cristw`/. 78 Paul’s use of childhood imagery is a topic of current interest to a number of scholars and has recently been surveyed by Reidar Aasgaard, ‘Paul as Child: Children and Childhood in the Letters of the Apostle’, JBL 126 (2007) 129–59. It is questionable whether Paul’s reference to Timothy as his ‘child’ in Phil 2.22 (cf. 1 Cor 4.17) adds much to this discussion, since Paul is
556 paul a. holloway case between Paul and the Philippians), as can be seen in Dido’s desperate longing for a child by which to remember Aeneas.79 Taken together, these two items – the claim that Timothy is ‘of like soul’ (ijsovyucon) with Paul in his concern for the Philippians, and the claim that he has become Paul’s ‘child’ (tevknon) in the gospel ministry – clearly evoke the topos consolation by means of a replacement and indicate that Paul is sending Timothy to the Philippians as his replacement, an alius Paulus to adapt the words of Statius, in a further effort to console them regarding his absence and possible death.
3. Conclusion
Paul wrote to the Philippians with two objectives in mind: to console them in their grief over his imprisonment, and to exhort them to work together in the gospel mission. He treats the first objective (consolation) in 1.12–26 in what I have described as a mission report of sorts, and the second (exhortation) in 1.27–2.16 in a litany of dos and don’ts relating to the gospel mission. I have argued in this paper that Paul ends this litany in 2.16, after which he returns to his mission report and to the earlier theme of consolation. In particular, I have argued that Paul’s promise to send Timothy in 2.19–24 should be read as a further attempt to console the Philippians by offering Timothy as Paul’s replacement, a consolatory technique well attested in contemporary sources. This reading answers the two problems identified at the beginning of this paper: (1) the relationship of 2.19–24 to the material that precedes it, and (2) the rather odd inclusion of so much logistical information in the middle of a Pauline letter. As to the first problem: Paul’s promise to send Timothy in 2.19–24 explicitly resumes the mission report of 1.12–26 with its theme of consolation.80 As to the second: the logistical information conveyed in 2.19–24 is not only a continuation of similar information in 1.12–26 (esp. 1.22–26) but is also integral to the consolatory strategy employed in 1.19–24 of offering Timothy, Paul’s ‘likeminded child’, as Paul’s replacement. here deploying a set topos one of the standard elements of which is the replacement as child. This perhaps points up a problem with surveys like Aasgaard’s which do not take the use of such topoi into account. 79 Vir., Aen. 4.327–330. 80 Culpepper’s insight noted at the beginning of this paper may also be included at this point. Culpepper, it will recalled, argued that both Timothy and Epaphroditus are adduced as further examples of the Christ-like behavior enjoined in the Christ Hymn of 2.6–11. On this reading then, when in 2.19–30 Paul returns to the mission report begun in 1.12–26, he does not forget what he has written in intervening material 1.27–2.16. Rather, he uses the fact that in sending Timothy and Epaphroditus he must in some way recommend them (so Dibelius’ ‘Empfehlungsbrief’) to present them as Christ-like exempla. Or to put it slightly differently, he returns to the mission report of 1.12–26, but in a way that continues to press home the exhortation of 1.27–2.16.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 557–572. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000295
The Dragon Spitting Frogs: On the Imagery of Revelation 16.13–14* STE P HAN WITETS CH E K Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9BS, England
In Rev 16.13–14 we encounter minor characters of the book’s diabolic bestiary, ‘three unclean spirits like frogs’ that proceed from the mouths of the Dragon and the two Beasts. This article attempts to understand this detail in relation to the metaphorical connotations other ancient Greek and Jewish writers attributed to frogs: they were mostly connected with silliness and loquaciousness. In this context, the picturesque detail of frog-like demons belongs to John’s strategy of reassuring his audiences by ridiculing the Dragon and the Beasts and the powers they represent. Keywords: Revelation 16, frogs, beasts, ‘Kings of the Earth’, Psalm 2, joke
The Book of Revelation is famous for its diabolic bestiary. John uses a highly developed animal imagery, drawn from previous apocalyptic traditions, to depict the enemies of God and of the Christians as graphically as possible. The most prominent are the two frightening beasts of chap. 13, but minor characters in John’s apocalyptic drama are also presented as animals. In Rev 9.3–11, for instance, we encounter composite locusts as the fifth trumpet plague. The present contribution, however, is interested in even more minor characters that appear as animals: ‘three unclean spirits like frogs’ (Rev 16.13–14).
Rev 16.13–14 in Context
The little scene with ‘three unclean spirits like frogs’ coming forth from the mouths of the Satanic Triad1 – the Dragon, the Beast and the False Prophet (the
* This article is based on lectures given at the University of Aberdeen (21 March 2007) and at the SBL International Meeting in Vienna (22–26 July 2007). I am grateful to the participants on both occasions for their helpful questions and comments. 1 It is more usual to speak of a ‘Satanic Trinity’. This term, however, tends to suggest a fully developed Trinitarian theology in the Book of Revelation, which does not seem to be an adequate understanding of texts like Rev 1.4; cf. T. J. Bauer, Das tausendjährige Messiasreich
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558 stephan witetschek Second Beast of Rev 13.11–18)2 – is part of the sixth Bowl Vision (Rev 16.12–16). This literary complex is somewhat heterogeneous; one can mark three literary units:3 (1) the bowl vision itself (16.12), (2) the scene with the ‘unclean spirits like frogs’ gathering the ‘kings of the whole inhabited world’ for the battle at Harmageddon (16.13–14, 16) and (3) a warning macarism that recalls chaps. 2–3, especially 3.18 (16.15).4 Moreover, one can see a certain tension between the ‘kings of the East’ in 16.12 and the ‘kings of the whole inhabited world’ in 16.14, so that one might consider 16.13–14, the verses that are of interest for this article, as a later interpolation.5 Yet since Revelation is anything but a word-process of end-time-events, and since John allows himself considerable artistic freedom in many other instances, one should not press the imagery:6 If the Euphrates dries out, the aggressive ‘kings of the East’ are the most natural beneficiaries of this development – seen from the perspective of Asia Minor. On the other hand, John seems to switch to the more universal expression ‘kings of the whole inhabited world’ in 16.14 in order to use this scene as preparation for the universal final battle that is graphically presented
2 3 4
5 6
der Johannesoffenbarung. Eine literarkritische Studie zu Offb 19,11–21,8 (BZNW 148; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2007) 37 n. 85; who prefers the term ‘widergöttliche Trias’. This identification is made explicit only in Rev 19.20. Nevertheless, John introduces the False Prophet with the article already in 16.13 as a known character. Cf. D. E. Aune, Revelation 6–16 (WBC 52b; Nashville, TN: Nelson, 1998) 867. This macarism that seriously disturbs the flow of the narrative is sometimes explained as another prophetic voice that interferes with the performance of John’s visions – maybe one of the fellow prophets mentioned in Rev 19.10; 22.9. Paul’s ruling in 1 Cor 14.29–33 might serve as an informative parallel; cf. G. Biguzzi, L’Apocalisse e i suoi enigmi (Studi Biblici 143; Brescia: Paideia, 2004) 167–9. For U. Vanni, ‘Dalla venuta dell’ “ora” alla venuta di Cristo. La dimensione storico-cristologica dell’escatologia nell’Apocalisse’, StMiss 32 (1983) 309–43, esp. 323–5, this verse is an interruption by John himself who thus intends to provoke his audience (‘il soggetto interpretante’). Cf. Aune, Revelation 6–16, 895; similarly A. Loisy, L’Apocalypse de Jean (Paris: Nourry, 1923) 292 (redactional). There are a number of explanations for Rev 16.12–14 as a coherent text. The two appearances of kings provide a double preparation for the final battle: W. Bousset, Die Offenbarung Johannis (KEK 16; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2d ed. 1906) 398.–The doubling emphasises the kings’ mythical significance: H. Kraft, Die Offenbarung des Johannes (HNT 16a; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1974) 208.–The doubling is a styilistic device, a hendiadyoin, to point out that the whole world is in revolt against God: H. Giesen, Die Offenbarung des Johannes (RNT; Regensburg: Pustet, 1997) 358.–The ‘kings of the East’ join the indefinite number of the ‘kings of the whole inhabited world’: O. Pisano, La radice e la stirpe di David. Salmi davidici nel libro dell’Apocalisse (Tesi Gregoriana. Serie Teologia 85; Roma: Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 2002) 294.–John’s geography is guided by theology: S. S. Smalley, The Revelation to John: A Commentary on the Greek Text of the Apocalypse (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005) 408.
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in 19.11–21.7 So, although Rev 16.12–16 is not the prime example of a coherent text, it can well be understood with 16.13–14 as an integral element of it. These two verses function as a transition from the Sixth Bowl with its rather particular scope – concerning the ‘kings of the East’ only – to the preparations for the universal final battle which John will depict after his extensive presentation of the judgment over Babylon; this can be seen as contained in the Seventh Bowl, which would then comprise Rev 16.17–19.10.8 Hence the frog-like spirits introduced in 16.13 act as messengers who are to arrange for the further development of the story John has set out to tell. However, this does not answer the question: Why frogs? Why does John use this quite unusual imagery at this point?
Frogs in Contemporary Greek Literature
The following section offers a brief survey of what ancient authors used to connect with frogs, with particular regard to the metaphorical use of frogs: it will become evident that they mostly focussed on frogs’ unintelligible but intrusive croaking and their supposed silliness. This will provide a background for the frog imagery in Rev 16.13–14. It is certainly not possible to mention everything here that was known and presumed about frogs in antiquity and the survey is limited to some authors who can roughly be seen as contemporaries of John and who have some connection with Asia Minor. As for a kind of common lore, however, a short glance at Aesop’s fables and Aristophanes’ comedy titled ‘Frogs’ is in order. Frogs in Earlier Authors Frogs figure in a number of fables attributed to Aesop (43, 44, 70, 92, 143, 146, 201, 302, 307, 312) and to Phaedrus (1.6, 24). According to C. Hünemörder, they are pictured as cowardly, silly and arrogant in fables.9 However, they mostly appear quite like human beings, who can be either silly or prudent (cf. Aesop Fab. 43). Aesop seems to see them especially as being gifted with loud voices only (Fab.
7 Cf. Kraft, Offenbarung des Johannes, 208; Smalley, Revelation to John, 410–11. According to Loisy, L’Apocalypse, 292, ‘the kings of the whole inhabited world’ are the kings who are not yet subjects of Rome, hence primarily oriental princes. For the difference in terminology (‘kings of the whole inhabited world’ instead of ‘kings of the earth’), see also n. 48. 8 Similarly Pisano, La radice, 290. According to Bauer, Messiasreich, 108–10, however, Rev 19.11–21.8 is to be understood as a continuation of the Sixth Bowl. This link would also enhance the coherence of the even larger complex Rev 15.1–22.9. Similarly, according to R. Herms, An Apocalypse for the Church and for the World: The Narrative Function of Universal Language in the Book of Revelation (BZNW 143; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2006) 226, Rev 16.14 anticipates what follows in 17.1–21.8. 9 Cf. C. Hünemörder, ‘Frosch’, Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike, Vol. 4 (ed. H. Cancik and H. Schneider; Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler, 1998) 680–82, esp. 681.
560 stephan witetschek 92, 146). Thus, they are a simile for those who talk much but are unable or unwilling to act accordingly. One of Aristophanes’ comedies is known under the title ‘Frogs’ (performed 405 bce).10 However, frogs do not play a decisive role in this play which is mainly about bringing back a dead poet (apparently Aischylos) from Hades. Frogs appear on Dionysos’s journey to the realm of the dead; they accompany the passage on Charon’s ferry-boat with their croaking, which Aristophanes transcribes as brekekeke;x koa;x koavx (Frogs 209–268). Their appearance in the play is probably due to the location of Dionysos’s sanctuary in Athens (‘in the Marshes’) where they might have appeared to ‘sing’ for Dionysos.11 In this case, however, their croaking seems to be just unbearable, even for Dionysos. Frogs in Artemidoros’s Dream Book In Book 2 of his Oneirokritikon, Artemidoros gives a brief statement on dreaming of frogs (2.15). He states that frogs signify a[ndre~ gohvtai kai; bwmolovcoi. That may, but need not necessarily, imply cheating.12 Nevertheless, the word bwmolovco~ does connote some degree of obscenity and vulgar or cynical behaviour toward sacred things,13 and a gohvth~ is a somewhat dubious, oscillating figure anyway. This emphasises the aspect of impertinently loud and, from human perception, senseless croaking. But Artemidoros has more to say: according to him, dreaming of frogs is good for those who make their living from the crowd, or in relation to a larger group (oiJ ejx o[clou porizovmenoi); he mentions a slave who, after having dreamt of himself whipping frogs, was appointed householder. Here, however, the imagery does not seem to concentrate on the frogs as such, but rather on the frogs’ pond as a symbol for the household, or generally for a larger group of people: frogs figure for humans. Frogs in Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom In his treatise ‘On the Delays of Divine Vengeance’, Plutarch, a near contemporary of John, expresses similar ideas about frogs as Aesop and Aristophanes before him, when he pictures Nero’s post-mortem fate (Plutarch Ser. Num. Vind. 567F–568A): the emperor has been transformed into ‘an animal of swamps and ponds’, that is, a frog. Yet this is already an alleviation of his former sentence (to be transformed into a snake for having killed his mother), on account of his favourable treatment of Greece. The frog-imagery seems to allude to Nero’s 10 Cf. e.g. D. M. McDowell, Aristophanes and Athens: An Introduction to the Plays (Oxford: Oxford University, 1995) 274. 11 Cf. McDowell, Aristophanes and Athens, 280–81. 12 As G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999) 833, would interpret this passage. 13 Cf. LSJ s.v. bwmolovco~.
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ambitions as a singer, especially in connection with his voyage to Greece. The tone of the whole scene makes this quite clear. Dio Chrysostom, too, was a near contemporary of John and lived in the neighbouring province of Pontus et Bithynia – except during his exile which he owed to emperor Domitian. At the end of his Speech On Virtue (Or. 8.36), he compares the sophists, as opposed to Diogenes, to frogs in a pond who do not see the watersnake. In his First Speech On Glory (Or. 66.22), he propagates independence from others’ judgments. In this context he states that we do not understand what ravens, jackdaws, or frogs or cicadae might say about us – and for good; but many human beings who utter their opinion about others are even more foolish than frogs and jackdaws. Remarkably, from among the four animals he mentioned as making their unintelligible voices heard, he names only two – frogs and jackdaws – as instances of foolishness. Thus, for Dio, the frog seems to be a prime example of foolish talk. Frogs in Medical Writers One less known medical writer from Asia Minor, but almost a contemporary of John, was Dioskorides from Anazarbos (Cilicia). In the second book of his De Materia Medica14 (2.26) he mentions the stock of frogs cooked with salt and oil as a counter-poison against the poisons of snakes and other reptiles; it may also be used against inflammation of sinews. The ashes are useful as medication for bleedings and a pathological loss of hair (ajlwpekiva),15 and the blood of green frogs, in his view, should prevent hair growth on the eyelids. Frogs seem to be of particular interest here in their quality as hairless animals, and their therapeutical use shows some affinity with sympathetic magic. The more famous Claudius Galenos needs to be mentioned here, not only because he mentions frogs several times in his impressive œuvre, but also because he lived in Pergamon, one of the seven cities in which John’s communities were located. In his work on different pulses, he briefly compares barbarian languages to the sounds of pigs, frogs, ravens and jackdaws.16 But he knows much about the medical uses of frogs, too: he briefly mentions the opinion (held, e.g., by Dioskorides, see above) that the blood of small green frogs be a remedy against undesired hair growth, but he dismisses it as false.17 The ashes of burnt frogs, according to him, too, are useful against bleeding18 as well as, together with other 14 Ed. M. Wellmann (Berlin: Weidmann, 1958). 15 Cf. LSJ s.v. ajlwpekiva: ‘disease, like mange in foxes, in which hair falls off’; so also R. J. Durling, A Dictionary of Medical Terms in Galen (SAM 5; Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill, 1993) s.v. ajlwpekiva – with a list of the occurrences in Galen’s works. 16 Galen Puls. Diff. 2.5 (ed. C. G. Kühn [Reprint Hildesheim: Olms, 1965] 8.586). 17 Galen Simpl. Med. 10.2.5 (ed. Kühn 12.262); Comp. Med. 1.4 (ed. Kühn 12.455). 18 Galen Simpl. Med. 11.1.40 (ed. Kühn 12.362).
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ingredients, against pathological loss of hair (ajlwpekiva).19 He also refers to one Archigenes, according to whom the stock of a frog boiled in vinegar and water is an excellent remedy against toothache – if kept in the mouth for a while.20 Frogs are also used in several traditional recipes for painkillers.21
Frogs in the OT and Early Jewish Literature
Frogs in the Book of Exodus In the Book of Exodus, frogs are the second of the ten plagues that precede the Exodus (Exod 7.26–8.11).22 W. H. Schmidt states that this plague forms part of a certain gradation: While the first plague was confined to the Nile, this second plague, although coming forth from the Nile, affects the whole country; and while the Egyptian magicians can imitate the first two plagues (that follow after the prelude of Moses’ staff being transformed into a snake), their powers fail with the following plagues.23 Yet one can hardly deny an intention to entertain the audience and to make fun of mighty Egypt in these verses.24 First, Pharaoh is not only threatened with frogs, but with frogs intruding everywhere, even into his bedroom and his very bed. Then, the Egyptian magicians who might have used their arts to put an end to the plague, have nothing better to do than to produce even more
19 20 21 22
Galen Comp. Med. 1.1 (ed. Kühn 12.403, 416, 417) – referring to other medical writers. Galen Comp. Med. 5.5 (ed. Kühn 12.856). Galen Comp. Med. 7.12 (ed. Kühn 13.1023, 1024, 1026, 1028, 1029). According to J. van Seters, ‘A Contest of Magicians? The Plague Stories in P’, Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (ed. D. P. Wright, D. N. Freedman and A. Hurvitz; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995) 569–80, esp. 575, the account in its present form is based on a story from J which has been strongly supplemented by P (especially with the motif ‘contest of the magicians’). 23 Cf. W. H. Schmidt, ‘Die Intention der beiden Plagenerzählungen (Exodus 7–10) in ihrem Kontext’, Studies in the Book of Exodus: Redaction–Reception–Interpretation (ed. M. Verwenne; BEThL 126; Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 1996) 225–43, esp. 229–31, 236; idem, Exodus 2/2 (BKAT II 2/2; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1999) 393–4. 24 Cf. J. I. Durham, Exodus (WBC 3; Waco, TX: Word, 1987) 104–6; T. E. Fretheim, Exodus (Interpretation; Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1991) 116. Some exegetes add that this plague, while making life quite unpleasant, is not designed to harm or kill anybody; cf. Fretheim, Exodus, 116; W. H. Schmidt, Exodus 2/1 (BKAT II 2/1; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1995) 388. For T. Römer, ‘Competing Magicians in Exodus 7–9: Interpreting Magic in the Priestly Theology’, Magic in the Biblical World: From the Rod of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon (ed. T. E. Klutz; JSNTSup 245; London/New York: T&T Clark International, 2003) 12–22, esp. 19, the P account of the plagues is characterised by ‘a more irenic, indeed humorous, version of the manifestations of Yhwh to the nations’ – in contrast to deuteronomistic theology, the priestly writer does not seem to see any difficulty in presenting Moses and Aaron as magicians who compete with their Egyptian counterparts; cf. n. 25.
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frogs and thus serve only to make things worse.25 The whole scene seems to be intended to grant a laugh to those who are ‘on the right side’. Reception in Early Judaism This Exodus plague is taken up again in the Book of Wisdom. In Wis 16.1–4 it is alluded to although frogs are not mentioned explicitly. Yet these verses are neatly connected with Wis 15.18–19, the conclusion of the great excursus Wis 11.15–15.19,26 where the author speaks (as in 11.15) of the Egyptians worshipping animals:27 the most hated animals that are worse than any others in their stupidity, that do not happen to look beautiful and have lost God’s praise and blessing. In 16.1–4 he continues that therefore (dia; tou`to, 16.1) they are punished with similar animals that, by way of their unappetising appearance, cause them greatest disgust to the point of making them refuse even the most necessary food, while the Israelites at the same time enjoy exquisite exotic delicacies. Thus the author of Wisdom uses the frog plague to illustrate the two principles that guide his reception of the Exodus story: (1) Sinners are punished with what they sinned with (11.16) and (2) nature uses the same means both to punish the sinners and to save the righteous (11.5).28 In Wis 19.10, then, frogs are mentioned explicitly. Their being thrown out29 by the Nile is put on the same level as the gnats being produced by the earth. Thus 25 For a slightly different evaluation, see Römer, ‘Competing Magicians’, 19–21, who understands the priestly account of the plagues as a story about competing magicians: Both Aaron and the Egyptian magicians are able to produce frogs, therefore this stage of the context ends with a remis. The decision follows later, in the fourth and fifth plagues. 26 According to G. Scarpat, Libro della Sapienza. Testo, traduzione, introduzione e commento. Volume terzo (Biblica. Testi e studi 6; Brescia: Paideia, 1999) 177, with Wis 16.1 the author takes up the thread he has left in 11.16. 27 Cf. D. Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 43; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979) 292; S. Cheon, The Exodus Story in the Wisdom of Solomon: A Study in Biblical Interpretation (JSPSup 23; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997) 40; H. Engel, Das Buch der Weisheit (NSKAT 16; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1998) 240; H. Hübner, Die Weisheit Salomons (ATD Apokryphen 4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999) 189. According to J. Vílchez Líndez, Sapienciales V. Sabiduría (Nueva Bíblia Española; Estella: Verbo Divino, 1990) 410; Cheon, Exodus Story, 43, Wis 16.1–4 refers to four exodus plagues: frogs (Exod 7.26–8.11), lice (8.12–15), flies (8.16–28), locusts (10.1–20). 28 Cf. C. Larcher, Le Livre de la Sagesse ou La Sagesse de Salomon III (EtBNS 5; Paris: Gabalda, 1985) 890, 895; M. Kolarcik, ‘Universalism and Justice in the Wisdom of Solomon’, Treasures of Wisdom: Studies in Ben Sira and the Book of Wisdom (FS M. Gilbert; ed. N. Calduch Benages and J. Vermeylen; BEThL 143; Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 1999) 289–301, esp. 297–300; similarly Engel, Buch der Weisheit, 241. Somewhat more skeptical in this instance is Vílchez Líndez, Sabiduría, 410. 29 The verb ejxereuvgomai, which also appears in Exod 7.28 LXX, reflects the disgust about the multitude of frogs intruding everywhere; cf. Scarpat, Libro della Sapienza, 319; see also LSJ s.v. ejxereuvgomai: ‘vomit forth’.
564 stephan witetschek river and land cooperate in punishing the Egyptians30 while the quail for the Israelite’s ‘consolation’ (paramuqiva) come forth from the sea.31 Different from the Book of Exodus, where they are just elements of comic, Wisdom in its reception of the Exodus story gives the frogs a clearly negative meaning of themselves: they are ugly and silly. Philo of Alexandria refers to the biblical frog plague several times in his works. In his On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain, he allegorises the frogs with their loud and senseless croaking as the ‘soulless opinions’ (a[yucoi dovxai) that blind the eyes of Pharaoh’s soul (Sacr. Abel et Caini 69). Similarly, in his On Dreams he compares uneducated discourse to the Nile in the Exodus story that easily brings forth blood- and soulless frogs, as he puts it (Somn. 2.259). In his Life of Moses, he refers to the frog plague twice (Vit. Mos. 1.103, 144), but does not attribute special significance to these animals. The same is true for one instance in his On Abraham’s Migration, where the emphasis is rather on the Egyptian magicians (Migr. Abr. 83). In his rendering of the frog plague (Ant. 2.296–298), Flavius Josephus particularly stresses the abominable appearance of frogs – especially when they come into contact with food – and the disgust caused by dead and rotting frogs. The first point shows some similarity with the retelling of the Exodus story in the Book of Wisdom; with the second point Josephus puts particular emphasis on the postlude of the plague in Exod 8.10 that is not developed in the Book of Wisdom. Compared to Wisdom and Philo, one may speak of a less creative retelling of the Exodus narrative at this point.
The Function of the Imagery in Rev 16.13–14
This short tour through Greek authors as well as through OT and early Jewish literature has resulted in some converging threads with regard to what was thought and said about frogs: they were mostly thought of as disgusting and as exemplarily silly. Now the last part of this discussion will be concerned with the question whether and how this can affect the understanding of Rev 16.13–14. An Exodus Reference? It has become common among exegetes of Revelation to understand this book as heavily influenced by Exodus motifs. The successive series of plagues 30 In line with Wis 19.6, one might even regard this as a kind of ‘new creation’ or a refashioning of creation; cf. Vílchez Líndez, Sabiduría, 458; P. Enns, Exodus Retold. Ancient Exegesis of the Departure from Egypt in Wis 10:15–21 and 19:1–9 (HSM 57; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997) 72–3, 112–14. In any event, the frogs that normally have some affinity to water become a kind of land animals, for the sake of punishing the Egyptians; cf. Larcher, Sagesse, 1066–7. 31 On the contrast, cf. Engel, Buch der Weisheit, 298–9.
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resume the plagues of Exod 7–11, and the programmatic verse, Rev 18.4 (‘Come out of her, my people . . . ’), makes it explicit that John wants his audience not to get settled in their environment in the cities of Asia Minor, but to separate from these city societies, at least through inner emigration. Thus, the appearance of frogs in Rev 16.13 may be seen as one further allusion to the biblical Exodus narrative.32 However, the frog-spirits in Rev 16.13 are not exactly a plague. The plague connected with the Sixth Bowl is the Euphrates drying out and leaving the civilised world open to the ‘kings of the East’ (16.12). The frog-spirits in the following verse are not directly issued by one of the angels charged with pouring out the bowls of God’s wrath (16.1), nor are they directly harmful. John, unlike the Books of Exodus and Wisdom, does not evoke the picture of huge numbers of ugly frogs hopping around everywhere. The frog-spirits in Rev 16.13–14 are limited to the number of three, and they are in the service of the Satanic Triad and their ultimately selfdestructive plans. It is not certain that this reworking of an Exodus motif is adequately understood as a spiritualisation.33 The transformation seems to be even more radical since the frog imagery in Rev 16.13–14 is no plague at all, neither physical nor spiritual; the frogs’ purpose is a different one. Unclean Animals? Some exegetes propose that John chose frogs as messengers of the Satanic Triad because, according to Lev 11.10–12 frogs are unclean animals.34 In 1906, W. Bousset simply dismissed this proposal as wrong,35 and indeed it is not without problems: A lesser difficulty is that frogs are not explicitly named in Lev 11.10–12, and that John could well have chosen other ‘forbidden’ animals for the function the frogs have in the narrative, for example, snakes or some birds of prey. Moreover, if these frogs were simply intended to figure as unclean animals (and nothing more), their role in this context would not be clear.36 They are not only
32 Cf. Loisy, L’Apocalypse, 291; Kraft, Offenbarung des Johannes, 208; P. Prigent, L’Apocalypse de Saint Jean (CNT 14; Lausanne/Paris: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1981) 247; U. B. Müller, Die Offenbarung des Johannes (ÖTBK 19; Gütersloh: Mohn/Würzburg: Echter, 1984) 282; U. Riemer, Das Tier auf dem Kaiserthron? Eine Untersuchung zur Offenbarung des Johannes als historischer Quelle (BzA 114; Stuttgart/Leipzig: Teubner, 1998) 138; E. Lupieri, L’Apocalisse di Giovanni (Scrittori Greci e Latini; Milano: Mondadori, 1999) 243; Smalley, Revelation to John, 409. According to I. Boxall, The Revelation of Saint John (BNTC 18; London/New York: Continuum, 2006) 231, these allusions serve to point out that Christian existence is a new Exodus. 33 So Beale, Book of Revelation, 832; Smalley, Revelation to John, 409. 34 Cf. Prigent, L’Apocalypse, 247; Giesen, Offenbarung des Johannes, 358. Rev 18.2 shows that the concept of ‘unclean’ birds and beasts was current to John; even more so when the reading of Nestle–Aland’s 27th edition is indeed accepted as original. 35 Cf. Bousset, Offenbarung Johannis, 398. 36 Cf. Loisy, L’Apocalypse, 291; similarly Kraft, Offenbarung des Johannes, 208.
566 stephan witetschek displayed as a part of John’s depiction of the Satanic Triad, but they have a particular function: to summon the ‘kings of the whole inhabited world’ for battle. So while it is correct that frogs are to be counted among the animals not suitable for consumption as outlined in Lev 11.10–12, this observation in itself does not provide a satisfactory answer to the question ‘Why frogs?’. Demonic Powers? In the present parcours through so many possible connotations of frogs, one is tempted to forget that John is not simply speaking of frogs in Rev 16.13, but of unclean spirits like frogs. Therefore it is important to point out that these beings have to be evaluated first and foremost as demonic beings37 that are subservient to the Satanic Triad.38 But nevertheless the question remains pressing, why John chose the appearance of frogs for these demons. One rather desperate answer is that this appearance was chosen due to the frogs’ similarity with dragons and snakes.39 Of course this is hardly plausible on the level of physical appearance (but it partly depends on how one imagines a dragon). Moreover, since John is otherwise so creative in depicting monsters,40 it should be assumed that the simply frog-like appearance of these unclean spirits is not without a specific purpose. This issue becomes even more urgent when one considers a parallel text that combines the imageries of Rev 16.13–14 and of Rev 9.3–11: Hermas Vis. 4.1.6.41 There, fiery locusts (similar to Rev 9.3–11) come forth from the mouth of a monster (similar to Rev 16.13–14). However, the similarity between Hermas Vis. 4.1.6 and Rev 9.3–11 seems closer, for in these two texts the beings that come forth from some 37 Cf. E.-B. Allo, Saint Jean. L’Apocalypse (EtB; Paris: Gabalda, 1921) 237; Prigent, L’Apocalypse, 247: The genitive case is to be understood in an explicative sense (as in Luke 4.33). 38 Cf. E. Lohse, Die Offenbarung des Johannes (NTD 11; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960) 84 (with reference to Iranian mythology); B. Kowalski, ‘“Lichtfrau, Drache, Zornesschalen . . .” Zur Bedeutung eschatologischer Zeichen in der Offenbarung des Johannes’, EThL 78 (2002) 358–84, esp. 377: The connection between the frog-like spirits and the Satanic Triad consists in their commitment to battle. For U. Vanni, ‘Regno “non da questo mondo” ma “regno del mondo”. Il regno di Cristo dal IV Vangelo all’Apocalisse’, StMiss 33 (1984) 325–58, esp. 350 (⫽ idem, L’Apocalisse. Ermeneutica, esegesi, teologia [SRivBib 17; Bologna: Dehoniane, 1988] 279–304, esp. 298), the frog-like spirits seem to be just a function – ‘un impulso di energia negativa’ – of the Satanic Triad. 39 Cf. Kraft, Offenbarung des Johannes, 208; Riemer, Das Tier auf dem Kaiserthron?, 137. 40 This is certainly not creativity ex nihilo, but it is informed by previous prophetic and apocalyptic literature, most notably by the Book of Daniel. The ancient iconography of ‘composite’ mythical beings may also have influenced John’s – and not only his – apocalyptic imagery; cf. J. H. Charlesworth, How Barisat Bellowed: Folklore, Humor, and Iconography in the Jewish Apocalypses and the Apocalypse of John (Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins Library 3; North Richland Hills, TX: Bibal, 1998) 38, 43–4. 41 Cf. R. H. Charles, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Revelation of St. John (2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1920) 2.47; Aune, Revelation 6–16, 894.
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ungodly source are clearly frightening and aggressive. The frog-spirits in Rev 16.13–14 do not really fit into this scheme, since they are merely presented as messengers, but not as dangerous or aggressive in themselves; their correspondence with the locusts of Rev 9 should therefore not be over-emphasised.42 So, if Hermas Vis. 4.1.6 can be seen as referring to the imagery of the Book of Revelation,43 one might say that Hermas produced a more coherent picture than John did in Rev 16.13–14: While Hermas’ fiery locusts are perfectly in line with the frightening appearance of the beast, the frog-like appearance of the demonic spirits in Rev 16.13–14 breaks up the monstrous image of the Satanic Triad. In other words, by combining the imageries found in Rev 9 and 16, Hermas shows what an apocalyptic scenario is supposed to look like. This comparison again highlights the very peculiar character of what we find in Rev 16.13–14. The frog-spirits obviously play a very special role in the bestiary of ungodly beings that is displayed in Revelation. The beasts of chap. 13 can be seen as standing in ‘polemical parallelism’44 to John’s depictions of Christ, e.g., in Rev 1.18; 5.6. Therefore it is quite justified to look for a correspondent to the frog-spirits among the characters on the ‘right’ side. Several scholars point out that the three frogspirits stand in contrast to the three angels that precede the Son of Man coming for judgment in Rev 14.6–13.45 While these three angels powerfully call the whole world to worship God, proclaim the downfall of Babylon and announce judgment, the three frog-spirits serve to carry out just one element of the scenario that unfolds after Rev 14: They prepare the final battle that will be depicted in Rev 19. Moreover, I. Boxall observes that the vision of frog-like spirits proceeding from the mouths of the Satanic Triad also stands in contrast to two of the Christ-visions: In Rev 1.16 (also 2.16) and 19.15, 21, Christ is depicted with a sword coming out of his mouth, a symbol of his power to judge. In 16.13–14, Christ’s opponents produce something from their mouths, too: the frog-spirits.46 Here it becomes obvious what ‘polemical parallelism’ means: All the impressive displays of the ungodly powers are in fact nothing but poor imitations of God’s genuine power and glory.
42 This correspondence is mostly fixed on the demonic character of both the locusts and the frog-spirits; cf. W. J. Harrington, Revelation (SP 16; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1993) 166; Giesen, Offenbarung des Johannes, 357–8. 43 If we follow Justin Dial. 81,4, we may assume that the Book of Revelation was known in Rome by the middle of the second century – at least in some circles. 44 On this concept in general see esp. A. Deißmann, Licht vom Osten. Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der hellenistisch-römischen Welt (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 4th ed. 1923) 287–324; P. Barnett, ‘Polemical Parallelism: Some Further Reflections on the Apocalypse’, JSNT 35 (1989) 111–20. 45 Cf. Allo, L’Apocalypse, 237; Lohse, Offenbarung des Johannes, 84; Müller, Offenbarung des Johannes, 281–2; Giesen, Offenbarung des Johannes, 358. 46 Cf. Boxall, Revelation, 231.
568 stephan witetschek Deceivers? This leads to one more aspect. Several scholars observe that the frog-spirits join in the deceptive work of the Second Beast (Rev 13.14). An explicit point of contact is that both the Second Beast and the frog-spirits are said to perform ‘signs’ (Rev 13.14; 16.14).47 Moreover, on the background of the judgment drama that is to unfold in Rev 17–20, it becomes clear that the frog-spirits deceive the ‘kings of the whole inhabited world’48 as they summon them not just for battle, but in reality for their ultimate destruction (Rev 19.19–21).49 The task they are being called to is futile from the very beginning – John has already made this clear in Rev 1.5, where Christ is expressly named ‘ruler over the kings of the earth’, and even more explicitly in the throne room vision of Rev 4–5. In line with this, it is not impossible to see in Rev 16.13–14 an allusion to 1 Kings 22.19–23, where a spirit of deceit incites kings to senseless and self-destructive warfare.50 So the frog-scenario of Rev 16.13–14, by creating a somewhat ‘broken’ image, makes clear that the endeavour of opposition against God is ultimately a foolish one. A Joke? This last point leads back to the central question of this article: Why frogs? What does John want to achieve by depicting the messengers of the Satanic Triad in a frog-like appearance? The tour through some ancient Greek and Jewish authors (see above) has shown that, when mentioned in a metaphorical way, frogs were mostly considered as symbolising foolish talk (by their croaking) and human silliness in general. In the Book of Revelation, the frog-spirits coming forth from the mouths of the Satanic Triad can be seen as standing in opposition to quite serious things: to the sword, symbol of judgment, that is shown coming forth from Christ’s mouth (Rev 1.16; 2.16; 19.15, 21), and to the three angels that precede the arrival of the Son of Man for judgment (Rev 14.6–13). In comparison to these, the frog-spirits of Rev 47 Cf. Smalley, Revelation to John, 409; similarly Biguzzi, L’Apocalisse, 48. According to Lupieri, L’Apocalisse, 243, the explicit mention of frogs in this place associates the Second Beast or False Prophet with the Egyptian magicians of Exod 8.3. 48 This is a unique variation in wording; otherwise John calls them ‘kings of the earth’ (Rev 1.5; 6.15; 17.2, 18; 18.3, 9; 19.19; 21.24). This modification may explain itself as an intratextual reference to Rev 12.9 where the devil is said to deceive ‘the whole inhabited world’. This small detail may thus be understood as providing a hint for understanding the frog-spirits’ function. 49 Cf. Loisy, L’Apocalypse, 292; Harrington, Revelation, 166; Smalley, Revelation to John, 409; similarly Allo, L’Apocalypse, 237. Most ironically, the Satanic Triad does not only incite others to self-destructive opposition against God, but by waging war against Christ (Rev 19.19) they even bring about their own destruction; cf. Kowalski, ‘“Lichtfrau, Drache, Zornesschalen . . .”’, 377. 50 Cf. Giesen, Offenbarung des Johannes, 359; Aune, Revelation 6–16, 894–5.
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16.13–14 appear not particularly glorious,51 one might even say positively ridiculous. This is what C. Brütsch in particular has pointed out, inspired mainly by dialectical theology, but quite on target: What the Satanic Triad has to say is ultimately nothing better than silly, senseless, even grotesque croaking.52 This points back to chap. 13: In 13.5, the First Beast, in addition to its powerful and outright frightening appearance, has been given ‘a mouth to speak great and blasphemous things’, and in 13.14, the Second Beast, by virtue of its deceptive signs, has told the inhabitants of the earth to worship the First Beast. Now, three chapters later, John makes clear what all this magnificent talk is worth: it is in no way better than frogs’ croaking. To achieve this, he can build on the metaphorical connotations that were connected with frogs throughout the Hellenistic world, in early Jewish literature as well as in Greek authors of his time and in his area. Particularly Philo of Alexandria, Dio Chrysostom and – some centuries earlier – Aesop used the image of frogs for comic effect. Therefore, it seems at least not implausible that John, too, might have used the frog imagery in Rev 16.13–14 in order to ridicule the demonic powers that have made such frightening appearances in chaps. 12 and 13, as well as the ‘kings of the whole inhabited world’, who obviously have nothing better to do than to follow the call of frogs. This latter detail further supports the interpretation of the frog-imagery as a deliberate joke. The ‘kings of the earth’, as John usually calls them in accordance with OT usage, are stock figures in the Book of Revelation – they appear again and again from 1.5 to 21.24. In Rev 16.14, the ‘kings of the whole inhabited world’ are depicted in revolt against God – a clear allusion to Ps 2.2.53 This Psalm that celebrates God’s sovereign power over against the futile revolt by the ‘kings of the earth’ is widely acknowledged as John’s most important reference text from the Book of Psalms,54 even to the point of forming a structural and thematic back-
51 Cf. Loisy, L’Apocalypse, 291: ‘aspect peu glorieux et qui sans doute convient à leur qualité.’ 52 Cf. C. Brütsch, Die Offenbarung Jesu Christi (Prophezei; Zürich: Zwingli, 1955) 75–6; idem, La clarté de l’Apocalypse (Genève: Labor et Fides, 5th ed. 1966) 268–9; idem, Die Offenbarung Jesu Christi. Johannes-Apokalypse. 2. Band: Kapitel 11–20 (Züricher Bibelkommentare; Zürich/Stuttgart: Zwingli, 2d. ed. 1970) 211. In the latter two editions of his commentary on Revelation (5th French ed. 1966, 2d German ed. 1970), Brütsch identified the frogs’ croaking explicitly with the literary, philosophical and artistic (in the 1970 ed. also: religious) manifestations of human culture as opposed to the Word of God. 53 Cf., e.g., R. Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (New Testament Theology; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1993) 69; Harrington, Revelation, 166; Giesen, Offenbarung des Johannes, 358. According to Pisano, La radice, 290, Rev 16.13–14 can be understood as an answer to the question of Ps 2.2 – and at the same time the allusion makes clear who is the object of the kings’ hostility (p. 299). Notwithstanding these observations, it must be seen that John has modified the wording at this particular point; see n. 48. 54 Cf. S. Maiberger, ‘Das Verständnis von Psalm 2 in der Septuaginta, im Targum, in Qumran, im frühen Judentum und im Neuen Testament’, Beiträge zur Psalmenforschung. Psalm 2 und
570 stephan witetschek ground for the Book of Revelation as a whole.55 Now this Psalm not only depicts God’s reaction to the aggressive revolt of the ‘kings of the earth’ in terms of destruction and wrathful judgment. First and foremost God can only laugh about their efforts (Ps 2.4). So their aggression is not just seen as an offence that excites God’s anger; from the strictly monotheistic point of view which John and the author of Psalm 2 share, it is just ridiculously futile.56 As the throne-room vision (Rev 4–5) shows, the Book of Revelation intends to offer a view on earthly history from a heavenly perspective.57 All that happens on earth is shown to be under God’s control, and over against God’s majesty all human power – even that of the Roman emperor – is relativised. From this heavenly perspective, the display of Roman power all over the Empire, the eagerness of cities in Asia Minor to grant divine honours and worship to the Roman emperors, the impressive celebrations of the traditional Greek city cults like that of the Ephesian Artemis – all this appears as a kind of dwarves’ revolt, just like that depicted in Ps 2. John obviously wants his audiences to share this perspective on history, thus encouraging them to endure a situation that they seem to perceive as difficult, even threatening. The picture of frog-like spirits coming out of the mouths of the terrific diabolic beings that constitute the Satanic Triad is, then, one contribution to this perspective: John not only wants to give his audiences a laugh; he wants his audiences to join in God’s sovereign laughter about the rebellious ‘kings of the earth’ and even about the Satanic Triad and their ambitions: At first glance they may appear terribly frightening; but all they can bring forth are ultimately – frogs.58 J. H. Charlesworth has shown that humour was one possibility for early Jewish authors to react to the overwhelming power of Hellenistic states or the Roman
55 56
57
58
22 (ed. J. Schreiner; FzB 60; Würzburg: Echter, 1988) 85–151, esp. 113; R. Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1993), 314; idem, Theology, 69; K. Huber, ‘Psalm 2 in der Offenbarung des Johannes’, Horizonte biblischer Texte (FS J. M. Oesch; eds. A. Vonach and G. Fischer; OBO 196; Fribourg: Academic/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003) 247–73, esp. 247. Cf. Huber ‘Psalm 2’, 257–60; similarly Herms, Apocalypse, 178–81. John has made this point clear in Rev 11.18, too, where the inceptive aorist ta; e[qnh wjrgivsqhasn is contrasted with God’s coming ojrghv: Judgmental wrath is a divine prerogative; when ‘the nations’ assume it, they transgress their boundaries. Cf. S. Witetschek, ‘Der Lieblingspsalm des Sehers. Die Verwendung von Ps 2 in der Johannesapokalypse’, The Septuagint and Messianism (ed. M. A. Knibb; BEThL 195; Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 2006) 489–502, esp. 492–3 with n. 25. Cf., e.g., K. Backhaus, ‘Die Vision vom ganz Anderen. Geschichtlicher Ort und theologische Mitte des Johannes-Offenbarung’, Theologie als Vision. Studien zur Johannes-Offenbarung (ed. K. Backhaus; SBS 191; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2002) 10–53, esp. 14. For the original audiences, of course, it would have been crucial how the ajnaginwvskwn (Rev 1.3) performed the text.
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Empire and their polytheistic religions; he points specifically to 3 Macc 5.1–6.29 and ApcAbr 2.1–9; 5.6–15.59 The authors of both writings do not limit themselves to soberly presenting the message of monotheistic faith or to polemically attacking pagan religions; they ridicule these gods and their worshippers. This is a strategy of dealing with the situation of effective powerlessness over against overwhelming political and social powers; one may even call it a strategy of survival – the many political jokes that were current under the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century are a more recent analogy.60 Laughter, however, is not only a means of enduring ‘objective’ political oppression; on a deeper level, it is a means of mastering fears;61 thus it serves the same purpose as John’s apocalyptic visions that show God in ultimate control of all the weird things that happen on earth.62 Revelation 16.13–14 is one instance of comic relief that strips the ‘villains’ of the apocalyptic narrative of their terrifying power: In chaps. 12 and 13, John has made immense literary efforts to present the Dragon, the Beast from the Sea and the Beast from the Land in most scaring appearances. At the end of chap. 13, the reader is left almost desperate, confronted with the immense power of the Beast from the Sea and the quasi-totalitarian regime set up by the Beast from the Land; one might be tempted to take the fatalistic-sounding statement of Rev 13.10 as the last word. To be sure, John has already displayed the other side in chaps. 14 and 15, but in 16.13–14 he launches an attack on the Satanic Triad that is already valid for the present. In the last sevenfold series of judgments, between the penultimate and the final bowl visions, he makes the Dragon and the two Beasts – the second now clearly identified as false prophet – reappear, only to show what they really have to say. Even if the powers that John represents by his beast imagery are still in charge, the audience has already been given an apocalyptic – revealing, unveiling, unmasking – glimpse of their true character, and a liberating laugh about them. Conclusion
The little scene of Rev 16.13–14 does not fit perfectly into John’s diabolic bestiary. The three unclean spirits that come forth from the mouths of the 59 Cf. Charlesworth, How Barisat Bellowed, 8–23. 60 Cf., e.g., V. Klemperer, LTI. Notizbuch eines Philologen (Leipzig: Reclam, 1996); S. Landmann, Der jüdische Witz (Olten/Freiburg/Br.: Walter, 6th ed. 1968) 13–14, 29, 555–77. 61 For a very recent analogy I refer to J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (London: Bloomsbury, 1999). In this novel the ‘Riddikulus’ curse is introduced as a means of mastering fears: things or persons that are normally experienced as dreadful are deprived of their frightening power if one imagines them to be of a laughable appearance (pp. 145–52). 62 Cf. Charlesworth, How Barisat Bellowed, xii: ‘Laughter is cathartic. It releases us from present problems, even from insurmountable terror. Laughter and apocalyptic thinking are often grounded in the same anthropological needs.’
572 stephan witetschek Dragon, the Beast and the False Prophet are not depicted in some terribly frightening appearance, but ‘like frogs’. This is certainly an allusion to the Exodus narrative, but a look at the connotations which John’s (Jewish and non-Jewish) contemporaries used to connect with frogs is even more revealing: Frogs (due to their croaking) were often used as metaphors for senseless, silly talk and for foolishness in general. To make sense of Rev 16.13–14, it seems advisable to consider these contemporary connotations. The result is a short intermezzo of comic relief within the apocalyptic drama. John engages the evil powers represented by beasts not only by announcing their doom for the end of time. Already in the present he challenges their threatening appearance by making fun of them: The beasts have tremendous mouths, but all that comes forth is just something like frogs.
New Test. Stud. 54, pp. 573–590. Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0028688508000301
The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic ALICE WH EALEY 216 Stanley Ave. Pacifica, CA 94044, USA
‘Agapius of Hierapolis’ and Michael the Syrian’s versions of the Testimonium Flavianum, a passage about Jesus from Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities, both derive from the Syriac translation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Historia Ecclesiastica. Michael’s Testimonium is more authentic than Agapius’ Testimonium, and it is more authentic than the textus receptus in reading that Jesus was ‘thought to be the Messiah’. Some features of Agapius’ Testimonium previously considered to be more authentic than the textus receptus can be explained by distinctive readings in the Syriac text that Agapius used. Keywords: Agapius, Michael the Syrian, Testimonium Flavianum, Josephus.
It has been some time since Shlomo Pines drew scholarly attention to distinctive Arabic and Syriac versions of the famous and controversial Testimonium Flavianum,1 a passage about Jesus present in all extant manuscripts of Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities (Ant. 18.63–64).2 These two distinctive versions can be found in two different medieval Christian chronicles: the tenth-century Arabic chronicle of Agapius, Melkite bishop of Hierapolis; and the twelfth-century Syriac chronicle of Michael the Syrian, Monophysite patriarch of Antioch (1166–1199). Agapius’ Testimonium differs widely from the Greek textus receptus Testimonium. Pines proposed that it was closer to Josephus’ original passage about Jesus than the textus receptus Testimonium because, in his words, it seemed to contain less ‘pronounced Christian traits’ than the textus receptus.3 Pines paid much less attention to Michael’s version of the Testimonium, which is quite close to the textus receptus. Noting that Michael’s Testimonium shares a few distinctive elements in
1 Shlomo Pines, An Arabic Version of the Testimonium Flavianum and its Implications (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Arts and Humanities, 1971). 2 The secondary literature on the Testimonium Flavianum is enormous in part because its authenticity has been in dispute since the late sixteenth century. A relatively concise overview of recent literature can be found in J. Carleton-Paget, ‘Some Observations on Josephus and Christianity’, JTS (n.s.) 52.2 (2001) 539–624. 3 Pines, Arabic Version, 66.
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574 alice whealey common with Agapius’ version of the Testimonium that are lacking in the textus receptus Testimonium, Pines proposed that Michael and Agapius had used common sources. Thus Michael’s Testimonium was important for Pines mainly insofar as it could explain the origin of Agapius’ Testimonium. This article argues that Michael’s Testimonium is closer to what Josephus originally wrote about Jesus than Agapius’ Testimonium, and it asserts that in at least one important respect Michael’s Testimonium is also more authentic than the textus receptus Greek Testimonium Flavianum. It also aims to show that some of the distinctive elements in Agapius’ Testimonium that Pines considered to be neutral or nonChristian, and thus reflecting Josephus’ original text, can be accounted for by distinctive elements in the original Syriac source that Agapius paraphrased for his own version of the Testimonium.
The Testimonia of Agapius and Michael the Syrian
As already indicated, Agapius’ Arabic Testimonium differs widely from the textus receptus. Pines translated it as follows: at this time there was wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.
In contrast to Agapius’ version of the Testimonium, Michael the Syrian’s version is quite close to the textus receptus, although it shares a few common elements with Agapius’ Testimonium that are lacking in the textus receptus. Pines argued that the overall vocabulary of Michael’s Testimonium indicated that it was based on the Testimonium taken from the Syriac translation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Historia Ecclesiastica. From these facts Pines concluded that Michael’s Testimonium reflected a mixture of both the Testimonium translated by the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica, and the original source of Agapius’ Testimonium, which Pines assumed be independent of the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica. Pines concluded that Agapius’ Testimonium was more authentic than either the textus receptus Testimonium or Michael’s Testimonium because he focused almost entirely on its content. For Pines, Agapius’ Testimonium must be more authentic because it weakens the more Christian-sounding elements of both Michael’s Testimonium and the textus receptus. Unlike the textus receptus Testimonium, Agapius’ text specifically fails to ask if it is necessary to call Jesus a man; it does not clearly call Jesus’ deeds miraculous; it does not mention a role for Jewish leaders in Jesus’ death; it makes Jesus’ post mortem appearance clearly the report of his disciples; and it qualifies Jesus’ Messianic status in a dubitative way.
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There are weaknesses with Pines’ a priori argument from content that Agapius’ Testimonium must be closer to Josephus’ original passage about Jesus than Michael’s Testimonium or the textus receptus because it is less Christiansounding. Pines himself noted that too much past critique of the textus receptus Testimonium was based on assumptions about what Josephus’ attitude towards Jesus must have been rather than actual textual evidence.4 In fact, much of the past impetus for labeling the textus receptus Testimonium a forgery has been based on earlier scholars’ anachronistic assumptions that, as a Jew, Josephus could not have written anything favorable about Jesus. Contemporary scholars of primitive Christianity are less inclined than past scholars to assume that most first-century Jews necessarily held hostile opinions of Jesus, and they are more aware that the line between Christians and non-Christian Jews in Josephus’ day was not as firm as it would later become.5 The implication of this is that supposedly Christian-sounding elements in either the textus receptus or in Michael’s Testimonium cannot be ruled inauthentic a priori. Moreover, in order to assess the relative authenticity of Agapius’ and Michael’s Testimonia, it is crucial to first resolve from what sources they are derived.6
Sources of Agapius and Michael the Syrian
At the time that Pines’ wrote his monograph on Agapius’ Testimonium, relatively little was known about the sources of Agapius’ and Michael’s chronicles and their mutual relationship. However, since then critical scholars of early Islam have devoted a considerable amount of effort to establishing the relationship between Agapius’ and Michael’s chronicles. Their interest in the two chronicles derives from the fact that their common source contains a narrative account of the seventh- and eighth-century Muslim conquests of the Roman Near East that long predates the earliest Muslim narrative accounts of these conquests. This source, which unfortunately is no longer extant in its original form, was the Syriac chronicle of the Maronite Christian, Theophilus of Edessa (d. 785).7 4 Pines, Arabic Version, 21. 5 Alice Whealey, Josephus on Jesus (New York: Peter Lang, 2003) 104–5, 148, 204–7, passim. 6 Whealey, Josephus on Jesus, 188. Pines himself acknowledged the importance to his thesis about Agapius’ Testimonium of ‘examining the sources of the portion of Agapius’ chronicle dealing with the period of the Second Temple and the early centuries of Christianity’ (Arabic Version, 68). 7 See Lawrence I. Conrad, ‘The Conquest of Arwad’, Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East (ed. Averil Cameron and Lawrence I. Conrad; Princeton: Darwin, 1992) 322–38, and Robert Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It (Princeton: Darwin, 1996) 400–409, 416–19, 440–42. Hoyland calls this work ‘the Syriac common source’, and attempts to reconstruct its narrative of the early Muslim conquests (Seeing Islam, 631–71). This source was not only used by Agapius and Michael, but the section on the early Islamic period was also used by the Greek
576 alice whealey Pines noted that Agapius himself claimed that his own chronicle was based on the Syriac chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa.8 This claim is confirmed by the fact that Agapius’ chronicle, which begins with creation, breaks off around 780, just before Theophilus’ death, rather than continuing until Agapius’ own time in the tenth century. Michael the Syrian’s chronicle broadly parallels Agapius’ chronicle for the same period from creation to about 780, with the two chronicles being particularly close for the period from the first Muslim conquests of the Roman Near East to about 780.9 Michael the Syrian claimed that he directly used the chronicle of Dionysius of Tellmahre (Monophysite patriarch of Antioch 818–848) for the period 582–843. However, in the preface to Dionysius’ chronicle, which Michael copied verbatim and included in his own chronicle, Dionysius himself acknowledged that he drew on the work of Theophilus of Edessa.10 This confirms that Theophilus was the major source for Michael’s and Agapius’ coverage of the period ca. 582–ca. 780. One cannot necessarily conclude, however, that Agapius’ and Michael’s Testimonia likewise derive from Theophilus’ chronicle, Agapius using it directly and Michael using it indirectly by means of Dionysius’ chronicle: the Testimonia of Agapius and Michael appear in their respective accounts of the first century, while Dionysius’ chronicle apparently only covered events beginning in 582.11 Moreover, another Syriac chronicle that certainly used Dionysius’ chronicle, the Chronicle to 1234, does not closely follow either Agapius or Michael for the first century, and it entirely lacks a Testimonium.12 This indicates that
8 9
10 11
12
chronicler Theophanes, and the anonymous author of the Syriac Chronicle to 1234. Parallels for the same period in Bar Hebraeus’ chronicle are explained by his direct use of Michael’s chronicle. Agapius, Kitab al-Unwan 2.2 [240]. Edition used is Kitab al-Unwan. Histoire universelle (ed. A. Vasiliev; PO 5, 7, 8, 11; Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1910, 1912, 1913, 1915). The close resemblance between events reported by Agapius and those reported by Michael for the period from the first Muslim conquests of the Roman Near East to the second half of the eighth century indicates that Michael and Agapius depended almost exclusively on Theophilus of Edessa for this period. The reliance on only one main source for the early Islamic period is not surprising given the complete cessation of Greek history writing in the period ca. 630–ca. 810 (M. Whitby, ‘Greek Historical Writing after Procopius’, Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East [ed. Averil Cameron and Lawrence I. Conrad; Princeton: Darwin, 1992] 66–77; Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 538–41), and significant reduction in Syriac history writing in the same period (Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 409). In contrast, for the late antique Roman period Michael’s chronicle used numerous different Greek and Syriac histories. Michael, Chron. 10.20 [378]. The edition used is Michel le Syrien: Chronique (ed. J.-B. Chabot; 4 vols.; Paris, 1899, 1901, 1905, 1910; reprint Brussels: Culture et civilization, 1963). Robert Hoyland has questioned whether Theophilus of Edessa’s original chronicle began with creation, as Agapius’ and Michael’s chronicles do, suggesting rather that in imitation of classicizing histories it only covered a limited and relatively recent period (Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 406–7). The edition of the Chronicle to 1234 consulted is Anonymi auctoris ad A.C. 1234 pertinens (ed. J.-B. Chabot; CSCO 109; Louvain: Peeters, 1937). One reason this chronicle does not closely
The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic 577
Agapius and Michael may have independently included an earlier chronicle covering the first century that was appended to Agapius’ version of Theophilus of Edessa’ chronicle, and to Michael’s version of Dionysius of Tellmahre’s chronicle, but that was not appended to the Chronicle of 1234’s version of Dionysius’ chronicle. It has been suggested that a likely author of such a hypothetical earlier chronicle might be the Syriac scholar and chronicler James of Edessa (d. ca. 708).13 Agapius dedicated his chronicle to a certain Abu Musa ‘Isa, son of Husayn, about whom nothing further is apparently known.14 Under the influence of an inadequate understanding about Muslim patronage of the translation of Syriac and Greek texts into Arabic, it has been assumed that Abu Musa ‘Isa was a Muslim who had patronized Agapius’ translation of Theophilus’ chronicle.15 However, what is known about the translation movement of Greek texts into Arabic in the period 750–1200 casts some doubt on the idea that Agapius’ chronicle was addressed to a Muslim patron. For although Muslim elites of the Abbasid period sometimes employed Syriac-speaking Christians to translate Greek and Syriac scientific, medical and philosophical works into Arabic, they showed very little interest in Greek or Syriac historical texts, and are not known to have had such texts translated.16 The general lack of Muslim interest in Greek or Syriac historical texts
13
14 15 16
follow either Michael or Agapius for its treatment of the period from creation to the first century is that it relied heavily on the Syriac text known as the Cave of Treasures; the common elements that it does share with Agapius’ and Michael’s early material can be attributed largely to the mutual use of Eusebius’ Chronicon or intermediary sources that used it. Whealey, Josephus on Jesus, 39. One reason for favoring James of Edessa is that Michael claims that James made an abridgement of all the sources that he used that covered creation to the time of Heraclius (Michael the Syrian Praef. apud Chabot, Chronique, 1.2). This abridgement should probably be identified with James’ adaptation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Chronicon (Michael the Syrian Chron. 7.2 [127–28] apud Chabot, Chronique, 2.253–5). Moreover, James of Edessa is frequently cited in the early part of Michael’s chronicle covering creation to the first century, while Theophilus of Edessa is never cited there. That James’ chronicle originally covered the period before Constantine is apparently also proven by extant fragmentary excerpts (E. W. Brooks, ‘The Chronological Canon of James of Edessa’, ZDMG 53 [1899] 261–327, esp. 263). Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 441. Whealey, Josephus on Jesus, 190. However, some Muslim historians showed an interest in Arabic Christian chronicles, presumably because their language made them more accessible than Greek or Syriac histories. Al-Mas‘udi, for example, apparently knew of Agapius’ work (Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 441). Lack of interest in Greek histories and language barriers probably also account for the fact that Josephus’ original Greek works were neither read by Muslims nor translated into Arabic in the Middle Ages, while during the same period the medieval Hebrew adaptation of Josephus’ works, known as the Josippon, was translated into Arabic and known to some medieval Muslims (Whealey, Josephus on Jesus, 60).
578 alice whealey makes it more likely that Agapius translated his chronicle for a fellow Christian than for a Muslim patron. By the tenth century the older languages of Syriac and Coptic were losing ground among many Middle Eastern Christians to Arabic, so it is hardly surprising that Agapius should have chosen to recast an older Syriac source, namely the original chronicle of Theophilus, into an Arabic version that would be understood by his co-religionists.17 The probability that Agapius translated Theophilus’ chronicle for the benefit of Arabic-speaking Christians rather than for Arabic-speaking Muslims calls into question the idea, suggested by one reviewer of Pines’ monograph, that the distinctive elements of Agapius’ Testimonium can be explained by Agapius’ desire to shape the text in response to an ‘Islamic environment’, which is an idea that can be questioned on other grounds as well.18 If, as is probable, Agapius and Michael were both dependent for their Testimonia on a Syriac source, whether that source was Theophilus of Edessa or some other Syriac chronicler, such as James of Edessa, then Michael’s Syriac Testimonium is much more likely to reflect this original Syriac version of the Testimonium more closely than Agapius’ Arabic Testimonium, which at best can only be a translation of a Syriac original, and most likely is only a paraphrase of this Syriac original. In addition, the general nature of Michael’s and Agapius’ chronicles confirms that Michael’s Testimonium is much more likely to reflect this original Syriac Testimonium than Agapius’ version of the Testimonium. For Agapius’ relatively brief chronicle is clearly an abbreviated paraphrase of a longer source, while the section of Michael’s chronicle that parallels Agapius’ chronicle, from creation to the eighth century, is much longer and it frequently quotes entire sources verbatim. This suggests that Agapius’ Testimonium was also a paraphrase rather than a verbatim quotation of its original Syriac source.
The Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica
As already indicated, Pines argued on the basis of common vocabulary that Michael’s Testimonium must have been taken directly or indirectly from the Syriac translation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Historia Ecclesiastica, which quotes the Testimonium Flavianum verbatim (HE 1.11. 7–8).19 Pines’ argument about 17 The main Coptic history for the early Islamic period, the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, was likewise first recast into Arabic in the tenth century (Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 446). 18 The reviewer who suggested this was Ernst Bammel, ‘A New Variant form of the Testimonium Flavianum’, Expository Times 85 (1974) 145–7. For a critique of this idea, see Whealey, Josephus on Jesus, 190–92. 19 The Testimonium from the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica in the appendix is a collation of both Ms. A and Ms. B as edited by William Wright and Norman McLean (William Wright and
The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic 579
vocabulary is confirmed by comparing this vocabulary with the independent translation of the Testimonium appearing in the Syriac translation of Eusebius’s Theophania.20 Among the more salient common characteristics shared by the Testimonia of the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica and Michael the Syrian, but distinct from the Testimonium of the Syriac Theophania are the following: Both Michael and the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica translate a[ndra of the Greek Testimonium’s phrase ei[ge a[ndra aujton levgein crhv (‘if it is necessary to call him a man’) with the word )rBG (‘man’), while Theophania uses the word )$N) rB (‘human being’). Both Michael and the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica use a form of dMLt (‘to make disciples’) to represent the Greek Testimonium’s ejphgavgeto, while Theophania uses $NK (‘gather’). Both Michael and the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica use )M8M( (‘nations’) to translate the Greek Testimonium’s tou` ÔEllhnikou`, while Theophania uses )PN*X (‘pagans’). Both Michael and the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica use the idiom )$rB mSML hBhY )BYLcd to refer to crucifixion (literally ‘imposed on him the putting of the cross on the head’), while Theophania uses the idiom )PYQz h$YrB mS. (literally ‘put on his head a cross [or stake]’), where even a different word for cross is employed. Both Michael and the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica write oYM8wY )tLt rtB oM (‘after three days’) while Theophania writes oYM8wY )tLtL (‘on the third day’).21 Both Michael and the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica translate the Greek Testimonium’s oujk ejpauvsanto oiJ to; prw`ton ajgaphvsante~ as ‘those who loved him did not cease from loving him’ (hBwX oM wYL$ )L), while Theophania translates it as ‘those who previously loved him were not silent (wQt$ )L)’. Both Michael and the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica write )M( for the word fu`lon, which is used as a collective for Christians in the Greek Testimonium, while Theophania writes )SNG (from Greek gevno~) for the same word. The comparison of Michael’s vocabulary with that of the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica confirms that Michael’s Testimonium must derive ultimately from an edition of the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica, as Pines intimated by arguing that Norman McLean, The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius [Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1898] viii-ix, 48). These editors followed Ms. B entirely for the text of the Testimonium, and they relegated the readings of Ms. A to the apparatus on the grounds that Ms. B is generally of better quality. However, as even they note in the apparatus, Ms. A occasionally presents better readings, for example, in placing the final stop in the correct position. 20 For an accessible text of the Testimonium appearing in the Theophania, which is taken from Samuel Lee’s 1842 edition of the work, see Pines, Arabic Version, 24 n. 106. 21 Agapius also refers to Jesus appearing after three days rather than on the third day, and so does Pseudo-Hegesippus, De excidio Hierosolymitano 2.12. However, this form is common among Christians, and appears in most manuscripts of Mark 8.31, so it is hardly a clear indication of contact between Pseudo-Hegesippus and the Syriac Historia Ecclesiatica. The use of ‘after’ by the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica and Pseudo-Hegesippus may have been prompted independently by the unusual Greek: trivthn e[cwn hJmevran.
580 alice whealey the two texts ‘reflect the same translation’.22 Confirming this is the fact that JeanBaptiste Chabot, the first Western scholar to edit Michael’s manuscript, had already long before observed that material in Michael’s account of the first century was dependent on a source that had quoted excerpts of Josephus from the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica rather than translate them directly from Josephus’ works. For Chabot supplemented and corrected a quotation by Eusebius (HE 1.8.5–7) of Josephus’ works (Ant. 17.168–170; Bell. 1.656), which appears in Michael’s account of the first century, with readings of the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica.23 Moreover, Michael’s chronicle states clearly that this particular quotation was actually taken from Eusebius’ works rather than directly from Josephus’ works.24 A close comparison of this passage from Michael’s chronicle with Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica 1.8.5–7 confirms that the former text quotes from the latter text.25
Common elements in the Testimonia of Agapius and Michael
As already noted, Pines had little interest in Michael’s Testimonium per se; his attention to it was stimulated mainly by the fact that it contains a few distinctive elements in common with Agapius’ version of the Testimonium but lacking in the textus receptus Testimonium, which led him to argue that Michael’s text reflected a mixture of the textus receptus Testimonium and Agapius’ original Syriac source. However, it is much more probable that these distinctive common elements simply reflect the nature of the literal translation of the Testimonium that was taken from the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica by the common source that both Agapius and Michael followed, the former loosely and the latter literally. The most significant common elements are that both Agapius and Michael qualify the Testimonium’s statement about Jesus being the Messiah, and that both make a more explicit reference to Jesus’ death than the textus receptus Testimonium. Regarding the first point, Agapius writes of Jesus that he was ‘perhaps’ the Messiah, and Michael writes that Jesus was ‘thought to be the Messiah’ ()wh yhwtY) )XY$Md )rBtsM). Pines noted that the latter sentence is almost exactly the same as that appearing in Jerome’s translation of the Testimonium, namely credebatur esse Christus, and he pointed out the implausibility of Jerome’s translation influencing Michael since Latin and Syriac writers did not read one another’s works in ancient or early medieval times except through the medium of Greek translation. Since it is scarcely credible that the writers could have independently modified the Testimonium in this same way, 22 23 24 25
Pines, Arabic Testimonium, 27. Chabot, Chronique, 1.138 n. 2. Michael the Syrian Chron. 5.10 [88–89] apud Chabot, Chronique, 1.137, 139. Chabot, Chronique, 4.88 column 1 (right to left), lines 10–35 // Wright and McLean, Ecclesiastical History, 39, lines 15–19; 40, lines 1–7 and lines 13–19.
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their readings must reflect an original Greek Testimonium reading something like ‘he was believed to be the Christ’. Jerome’s translation reading credebatur esse Christus is highly significant because the earliest manuscripts of his De viris illustribus, the work in which his translation of the Testimonium appears, date to the sixth or seventh century; thus they are several centuries older than the earliest Greek manuscripts of Book 18 of Josephus’ Antiquities or of Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica. It has already been shown that Michael’s Testimonium was clearly based on a version of the text taken from the Syriac translation of Historia Ecclesiastica. It is highly likely, although less certain, that Jerome’s translation of the Testimonium was taken from the Greek Historia Ecclesiastica, rather than directly from a copy of Josephus’ Antiquities. For Jerome’s De viris illustribus is elsewhere highly dependent on Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica. In addition, a further although less conclusive indication that Michael is unlikely to have forged ‘he was thought to be the Messiah’ ex nihilo is that the masculine singular passive (ethpe‘al) participle )rBtsM is unusually skeptical for a medieval Christian bishop like Michael to use for Jesus’ Messianic status. The skeptical connotation of )rBtsM is indicated by its use in the Syriac NT at Luke 3.23 to translate the Greek ejnomivzeto, and at Heb 12.11, where the Greek reads dokei`.26 In the passage from Luke the connotation is that Joseph was merely supposed to be Jesus’ father but that this was not necessarily true. The passage from Hebrews openly states that appearances are deceiving. An original Greek Testimonium reading ejnomivzeto, as in Luke 3.23, instead of the textus receptus oJ Cristov~ oJu|to~ h\n would not only account for Michael’s )rBtsM and Jerome’s credebatur, it would also explain why Origen, who was familiar with Book 18 of Antiquities, argued that Josephus did not believe in Jesus ‘as the Christ’.27 A reading like ejnomivzeto would also explain why Pseudo-Hegesippus, the author of De excidio Hierosolymitano, an anonymous Latin adaptation of Josephus’ works composed around 370, does not allude to the Testimonium’s statement oJ Cristov~ ou|to~ h\n, even though he exaggerates the positive connotations of other parts of the Testimonium. In addition, Pseudo-Hegesippus’ sentence plerique tamen Judaeorum, gentilium plurimi crediderunt in eum (De excidio 2.12), looks very much like a positive paraphrase of the text that Jerome translated more literally as plurimos quoque tamen de Judais quam de gentilibus sui habuit sectores et credebatur esse Christus. One other possible resemblance between Michael’s and Jerome’s versions of this particular sentence, which was not considered by Pines, should be noted. The 26 G. A. Kiraz, A Computer-generated Concordance to the Syriac New Testament (6 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1993) 3. 1923–24. 27 This was already pointed out by Pines, Arabic Version, 65, and reiterated by Whealey, Josephus on Jesus, 41–2. The relevant texts of Origen are Contra Celsum 1.47, and Commentarium in Matthaeum 10.17.
582 alice whealey last word of the sentence preceding Michael’s statement about Jesus being thought to be the Messiah, appears to read wdMLt, which is the third person plural of the verb meaning ‘make disciples’. Pines assumed that the subject of this verb was ‘many from among the Jews and the nations’, for he translated the whole sentence as ‘many from among the Jews and the nations became his disciples’. However, the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica has a third person singular of this verb, and Jesus, rather than his followers, is the subject. Thus its version of this sentence can be translated ‘he turned many Jews and many from the nations into disciples’. The Greek original confirms that the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica, and not Michael’s manuscript, is correct here: the verb should indeed be singular and the subject should be indeed be Jesus rather than his disciples. Moreover, it is questionable whether Pines’ translation here is apt because the L on the ))Y8GS (‘many’) confirms that ‘the many Jews and Gentiles’ must be the object rather than the subject of the sentence, just as they are the object in the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica.28 Now, Jerome’s Testimonium provides a plausible explanation of why Michael’s Testimonium seems to read plural wdMLt instead of singular DMLt. For Jerome separates the sentence about Jesus attracting many from the Jews and Greeks from the following sentence about Jesus being thought to be the Messiah with an ‘and’: plurimos quoque tamen de Judais quam de gentilibus sui habuit sectores et credebatur esse Christus. This suggests that the original Testimonium that Michael followed read not )wh yhwtY) )XY$Md )rBtsM .wdMLt but rather )wh yhwtY) )XY$Md )rBtsMw. DMLt or ‘he made disciples of many Jews and Gentiles and he was thought to be the Messiah’. In that case, one of the copyists of Michael’s chronicle,29 or Michael himself or Michael’s ultimate source for the Testimonium, mistook the ‘and’ at the beginning of the latter sentence for the third person plural ending of the verb at the end of the former sentence. As already noted, the other major similarity between Agapius’ and Michael’s Testimonia is that both texts refer more explicitly to Jesus’ death than does the textus receptus Testimonium. Agapius’ text reads ‘Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die’ and Michael’s text reads tYMw )BYLcd )$rB mSML sw+LYP hBhY (‘Pilate condemned him to the cross and he died’). Unlike the case of a reading like ‘he was thought to be the Messiah’, which is directly supported by the literal translation of the Testimonium appearing in Jerome’s De viris illlustribus, there is no clear parallel to this distinctive feature in any early Greek 28 Oral communication with Professor Michael Guinan of the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California. I would like to thank Dr. Guinan and Dan Reilly for helpful advice about Syriac. 29 The sole extant copy of Michael’s manuscript dates to the late sixteenth century (Chabot, Chronique, 1.xxxvii.
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or Latin translation of the Testimonium. It is unlikely, therefore, that this amplified reference to Jesus’ death after his condemnation by Pilate can be part of the original Testimonium.30 Pines was puzzled by this feature of the Testimonia in the two Semitic-language chronicles because he knew of no doctrinal reasons why a Syriac writer between the late fourth or early fifth century, when the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica was translated, and the time of Michael the Syrian should have added a more explicit reference to Jesus’ death than that contained in the textus receptus Testimonium.31 In contrast, it has been argued that this amplified reference to Jesus’ death could have been consciously or unconsciously added by a Christian Syriac writer or copyist of that period in reaction to Muslims’ traditional interpretation of Quran 4:156–159, an interpretation that consists of a denial that Jesus died on the cross.32 Thus the amplified reference to Jesus’ death in Agapius’ and Michael’s chronicles could be viewed as evidence that their common Syriac source dates to sometime after the Muslim conquest of the Roman Near East. This hypothesis is, of course, chronologically consistent with the hypothesis that either Theophilus of Edessa or James of Edessa was responsible for excerpting a Testimonium from the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica, and including it in the historical compilation that stands behind Michael’s and Agapius’ treatments of the first century. In addition, there is one other Syriac translation of the Testimonium, which was overlooked by Pines, that is of some relevance to the question of why Michael’s and Agapius’ Testimonia both contain an amplified reference to Jesus’ death. This Testimonium is included among a long list of quotations, mainly from patristic works, in a late eighth-century or ninth-century florilegium that is catalogued among the British Museum’s Syriac manuscripts.33 Its lemma explicitly
30 Pseudo-Hegesippus’ De excidio Hierosolymitano 2.12, which contains a loose paraphrase rather than a literal translation of the Testimonium, writes ne mors quidem eius vel fidei vel gratiae finem imposuit, and apparuerit discipulis suis post triduum mortis suae vivens iterum, and also principes synagoguae quem ad mortem conprehenderant. Here there are so many references to Jesus’ death that one suspects that Pseudo-Hegesippus was repeating the word to vilify Jesus’ executioners rather than that he was paraphrasing an original version of the Testimonium that contained an explicit reference to Jesus’ death. 31 Pines, Arabic Version, 30. 32 Whealey, Josephus on Jesus, 191–2. 33 This florilegium is listed as document dccclx [Add. 12154] in William Wright, A Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum (3 vols.; London: British Museum, 1870–72) 2.976–89. That a Syriac compiler should have extracted a literal quotation of the Testimonium from a larger work like Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica and included it with extracts from authors other than Josephus is not surprising given that there are several Greek manuscripts that contain a Testimonium included with extracts from other authors (Heinz Schreckenberg, Flavius-Josephus-tradition in Antike und Mittelalter (Leiden: Brill, 1972) 30, 34–5, 37.
584 alice whealey states that it was taken from Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica,34 and this attribution is confirmed by the fact that its basic vocabulary, like that of Michael’s Testimonium, is unquestionably the vocabulary of the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica. In fact, William Wright collated this version of the Testimonium with the manuscripts of the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica for his edition of this text. He gave the identifying letter C to this Testimonium, following the letters A and B, which had been given respectively to a manuscript of the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica that is explicitly dated to 462, and a manuscript believed on paleographical grounds to date to the sixth century. Wright included Ms. C’s distinct readings in the apparatus of his edition.35 From this it can be seen that Ms. C reads )BYLcd )twMd )$rB mSML sw+LYP hBhY adding the phrase )twMd (‘to death’) so that the whole phrase could be translated as ‘Pilate condemned him to death by crucifixion’. In other words, like Michael’s and Agapius’ Testimonia, Ms. C. also contains a more explicit reference to Jesus’ death after his condemnation by Pilate than the textus receptus Testimonium. Remarkably, Pines, although ignorant of Ms. C’s distinctive reading here, conjectured on the basis of Agapius’ and Michael’s Testimonia that the original Syriac version of the Testimonium used by Agapius added something similar to Ms. C’s )twMd, either )twMw, or the variant twMw. Pines rendered this hypothetical text ‘Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die’.36 The fact that both Ms. C and Michael’s Testimonium contain an amplified reference to Jesus’ death raises a broader question about the two texts’ relationship. Signficantly, both Ms. C and Michael’s Testimonium share a number of much more minor similarities, as compared to the readings of Ms. A, and especially of Ms. B, the manuscript that was favored by Wright for his text of the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica. Specifically, Michael and Ms. C both omit the word ml entirely in the first sentence, while this word does appear in Ms. B after the words )rBG and )wh; Michael and Ms. C both omit the word bwt (‘again’), which appears before yX dK; Michael and Ms. C both read kY)d in the second to last sentence before the word oYLh instead of just kY) as in manuscripts A and B; and Michael and Ms. C both add the word rYG (from Greek gavr) between the word )YBN and )hL)d. The mutual omission of the word bwt (‘again’) in both Ms. C and Michael’s Testimonium suggests a further explanation of why both texts might include an amplified reference to Jesus’ death. For this word corresponds to the pavlin of the Greek Testimonium. This word, used in combination with zw`n (‘alive again’), is the only clear indication in the textus receptus Testimonium that Jesus had actually died from his crucifixion. It would not be surprising if Theophilus of Edessa, 34 Wright, Catalogue, 2.983. 35 Wright and McLean, Ecclesiastical History, 48, vii. 36 Pines, Arabic Version, 32 and n. 126.
The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic 585
or James of Edessa, or whoever was the original source for Michael and Ms. C, having seen a version of the text lacking bwt (‘again’), consciously or unconsciously added an explicit reference to Jesus’ death by way of clarification, particularly if he had been exposed to the argumentation of Muslims that Jesus had not actually died on the cross. The mutual agreement of the minor variants in Ms. C with Michael’s text suggests that the manuscript traditions of Michael and Ms. C share a common provenance. This common provenance is most likely Edessa: Michael’s manuscript was located there when it was first brought to the attention of Western scholars at the end of the nineteenth century,37 and the British Museum florilegium that contains Ms. C was, according to its fragmentary colophon, apparently written for the benefit of a monk named John of Edessa.38 Adding weight to the hypothesis of an Edessene provenance, is the likelihood, already discussed, that Michael’s Testimonium goes back, at least at some stage, to the historical compilations of either Theophilus of Edessa or James of Edessa. Another characteristic of the Syriac florilegium that might indicate a common provenance with Michael’s chronicle is the fact that it contains extracts from the writings of James of Edessa and his disciple John of Litarb,39 both of whose historical writings were used to construct the first part of Michael’s chronicle.40 If distinctive variants in the Testimonia of Michael’s chronicle and the British Museum’s florilegium might explain one unusual aspect of Agapius’ Testimonium, namely its explicit reference to Jesus’ death, can other distinctive aspects of Agapius’ text be explained from other characteristics of the four extant Testimonia that are known to derive from the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica, namely the Testimonia of Ms. A, Ms. B, Ms. C, and Michael? Pines himself noted that the word )xYB4, used by Michael and the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica to qualify Jesus’ deeds, does not necessarily connote something miraculous, as is often assumed of the Greek Testimonium’s term paradovxwn e[rgwn. As in the case of Josephus’ use of the term paradovxwn e[rgwn at Ant. 12.63, which refers to King Ptolemy’s remarkable but not really miraculous deeds, the word )xYB4 can connote something closer to fine or glorious than to something miraculous. Pines judged it plausible that Agapius could have paraphrased )xYB4 )dB(d )rw(s (‘doer of glorious works’) with a sentence that does not clearly refer to
37 38 39 40
Chabot, Chronique, 1.xxxvii. Wright, Catalogue, 2.989. Wright, Catalogue, 2.984, 988. Chabot, Chronique, 1.xxv–xxviii, 20. It is suggestive that both of these writers are cited in the first part of Michael’s chronicle, where the Testimonium appeared, while Theophilus of Edessa, originally favored by Pines as the ultimate source of Agapius’ Testimonium, does not appear in this part of Michael’s chronicle.
586 alice whealey Jesus’ miraculous deeds, but rather merely characterizes Jesus’ conduct as being fine or virtuous.41 It is possible that another distinctive aspect of Agapius’ Testimonium, namely its lack of a reference to Jewish leaders’ role in Jesus’ death, can also be explained by the nature of its Syriac source. As Pines himself noted, Michael’s manuscript appears to differ from the standard Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica in reading not )M(d yhwN$YD8d )twdhS kY) hlw (‘upon the testimony of the principal men of our nation, Pilate condemned him to the cross’) but rather )M(d yhwN$YD8d )twdhS kY) wlw, which can be translated, ‘but not according to testimony of the principal men of our nation’. This difference derives from the fact that either Michael or his copyist or his source has apparently confused hL (accusative of ‘him’) in the textus receptus Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica with wL , a form of the word ‘not’. Now wL is clearly an error since the Greek reads aujtovn. However, a scribal error confusing hL with wL is orthographically understandable in Syriac, and this error is attested in the earliest layer of the Syriac tradition, for it also appears in Ms. A, the oldest extant manuscript of the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica. The antiquity of the confusion between hL and wL in the Syriac tradition indicates that it could well have been Michael’s source, rather than Michael himself or a later copyist, who confused the two words. The significance of this confusion between hL and wL for our inquiry is that it appears to connect the Testimonium’s sentence about the Jewish leaders’ testimony not to Pilate’s execution of Jesus, but rather to his being the Messiah in Ms. A, or to his being thought to be the Messiah in Michael’s manuscript. And if Agapius also originally read in his source a Syriac Testimonium that appeared to read ‘he was thought to be the Messiah, but not according to the testimony of the principal men among our nation. Pilate condemned him to death by crucifixion’, it might explain why he paraphrased the text in a way that excluded a reference to Jewish leaders’ role in Jesus’ death.42 One final overlooked variation in Ms. C should be noted. At the end of its sentence about the prophets having said many things about Jesus, Ms. C adds 41 Pines, Arabic Version, 34. Pines translated Agapius’ sentence here as ‘his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous’. 42 Michael may have consciously or unconsciously made up for the lack of a clear reference to the Jewish leaders’ role in Jesus’ death in his manuscript, caused by the apparent substitution of wL for hL, by adding the word )dhL+M (‘because of this’) between the sentence about the Jewish leaders and the sentence about Pilate’s condemnation. Thus his Testimonium reads, ‘he was thought to be the Messiah. But not according to the leaders of the nation. Because of this, Pilate condemned him to the cross, and he died.’ The addition of )dhL+M links the Jewish leaders’ attitudes to Pilate’s actions. There can be no doubt that Michael, as an uncritical medieval Christian reader of the Gospels, would have believed that Pilate’s condemnation of Jesus was indeed linked to the Jewish leaders’ attitude towards Jesus.
The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic 587
yh )(Y DY which can be translated as ‘it is known’. Thus this part of Ms. C can be translated as ‘for after three days he appeared to them alive: it is known that the prophets of God said these things and many wonders like these things about him’. No early Greek or Latin translation of the Testimonium contains a clear parallel to this yh )(Y DY , so it is unlikely to be original to Josephus. But if Agapius had seen in his Testimonium such a phrase qualifying the sentence about the prophets, it is possible that he paraphrased this into his final sentence, which can be translated, ‘they made known (or ‘reported’: dhakaru) that he appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah about whom the prophets have spoken wonders’. It has already been shown that Ms. C contains one major parallel, a word referring to Jesus’ death, and several minor parallels with Michael’s Testimonium, and that Michael’s Testimonium in turn has some parallels with Agapius’ text. It is conceivable therefore that yh )(Y DY or a similar reading in Agapius’ original Syriac source could explain the apparent idiosyncrasy of Agapius’ qualifying the Testimonium’s reference to Jesus’ post mortem appearance in accordance with the prophets’ pronouncements.
Conclusion
Pines significantly advanced the debate about the authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum by directing the attention of Western scholars to versions of the text in Eastern Christian chronicles that had been virtually unknown in the West before the late nineteenth century. Pines argued that the version of the Testimonium found in the Arabic chronicle of Agapius of Hierapolis was closer to what Josephus originally wrote about Jesus than the textus receptus Testimonium because it seemed to lack a number of the ‘Christian traits’ that are commonly believed to characterize the textus receptus Testimonium; he placed considerably less importance on the Syriac Testimonium found in Michael the Syrian’s chronicle, although he thought that some of the distinctive elements that it shares with Agapius’ Testimonium might shed light on Agapius’ known Syriac source. By arguing that Agapius’ Testimonium is a loose paraphrase of the Testimonium from the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica while Michael’s Testimonium is a literal rendition of this same text the present study indicates that the importance of Agapius’ text lies in the extent to which it supports readings in Michael’s text rather than vice versa as Pines assumed. This study thus also implies that it is Michael’s Testimonium that is much more important as a witness to Josephus’ original text about Jesus than Agapius’ Testimonium. By far the most important aspect of Michael’s Testimonium in terms of recovering Josephus’ original passage is its reading ‘he was thought to be the Messiah’, because this reading is inde-
588 alice whealey pendently supported by Jerome’s very early translation of the Testimonium, and because it can readily explain Origen’s claim that Josephus did not believe in Jesus as the Messiah. Therefore the most important aspect of Agapius’ text is its reading that Jesus was ‘perhaps’ the Messiah, because this reading lends weight to the hypothesis that Michael’s qualification of Jesus’ Messianic status was based on an older exemplar of the Testimonium rather than being created by Michael ex nihilo. This study has also argued that some of the other elements of Agapius’ Testimonium that Pines identified as more neutral and less Christian-sounding than the textus receptus Testimonium can also be explained by the distinctive readings of the Syriac exemplar of Historia Ecclesiastica upon which Agapius’ Testimonium was based. However, in contrast to the phrase ‘he was thought to be the Messiah’, these readings are not clearly supported by any early Greek or Latin translation of the Testimonium, such as that of Jerome; indeed, some have been shown to be simple errors of transmission. In arguing that Agapius’ Testimonium was closer to Josephus’ original passage about Jesus than any extant Testimonium, Pines followed a long line of earlier scholars who assumed that Josephus’ original passage about Jesus must have been very different from the textus receptus Testimonium, which these same scholars assumed to have been substantially rewritten by a Christian forger.43 In contrast, in arguing that Michael’s Testimonium, which is generally close to the textus receptus Testimonium and which has clearly been taken from a recension of the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica, is more authentic than Agapius’ Testimonium, this study implies that the textus receptus Testimonium is much closer to the passage that Josephus originally wrote about Jesus than is often assumed. Indeed, the evidence of Michael the Syrian’s Testimonium, used in conjunction with the evidence of Jerome’s Testimonium, indicates that the only major alteration44 that has been made to Josephus’ original passage about Jesus is the alteration of the phrase ‘he was thought to be the Messiah’ to the textus receptus phrase ‘he was the Messiah’.
43 The idea that Josephus’ original passage about Jesus was substantially altered by a Christian forger dates back to the seventeenth century (Whealey, Josephus on Jesus, 132). The idea that the entire Testimonium is a fabrication that was interpolated into Jewish Antiquities dates back to the late sixteenth century (p. 93). 44 For a discussion of textual evidence for possible minor alterations to the Testimonium see Alice Whealey, ‘Josephus, Eusebius of Caesarea and the Testimonium Flavianum’, Josephus und das Neue Testament (ed. Christfried Böttrich and Jens Herzer; WUNT 209; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007) 73–116, 101–5, esp. 115–16.
The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic 589
APPENDIX Testimonium, Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica 1.11.7–8 oL )Lw n) . (w$Y hM$d )MYKX dX 1)rBG )NBz )Nhb ml )wh )XYB8$ )dB8(d )rw(S rYG )wh yhwtY) .yhwYrQN )rBGd .)rr$L hL oYLBQM )tGrBd nwNh .)$N) yNB8d )NPLMw 2 .)wh dMLt )MM8( oM p) oYd ))YGS8Lw )Ydwh8Y oM ))YGS8Lw yhw$D8 )$N)d )twdhS oMd kY) 3hLw .)wh yhwtY) oYd )XY$M )L yhwBX)d nwNhw .)BYLcd )$rB mSML sw+LYP hBhY .oM(d dK bwt oYM8wY )tLt rtB oM rYG nwhL yzXt) .hBwX oM wYL$ .)thY8Mt yhwL( wrM) oYLh kY) wBrw oYLh )hL)d )YB8Nd .yX hMt$M hNMd)NY+SD8Kd )M( )drGM )L )NMwYL Md(w 1 Ms. B adds mL. 2 Ms. B reads )Nh. 3 Ms. A reads wLw. Testimonium, Michael the Syrian (Chabot, Chronique 4.91) n) . (w$Y hM$d )MYKX dX )rBG )wh tY) )NB8z oYLhBd )8dB(d )rw(S rYG )wh yhwtY) .yhwYrQN )rBGd oL )Lw )M8M( oMw )Y*dwY oM ))Y8GSLw .)rr$d )NPLMw )XY8B$ )twdhS kY) 2wLw .)wh 1yhwtY) )XY$Md )rBtsM .wdMLt )BYLcd 3)$rBSML sw+LYP hBhY .)dhL+M )M(d yhwN$YD8d nwhL yzXt) .hBwX oM wYL$ )L yhwBX)d oYd nwnhw tYMw wrM) oYLh kY)dw )hL)d rYG )Y*BN .yX dK oYM8wY g rtB oM )NY+SD8Kd )M( )drGM )L )NMwYL )Md(w .)th8YMt yhwL( .hMt$) )Md(w hNMd 1 Videtur. The ms. may read hLw, which is the correct translation of the Greek Testimonium’s aujtovn. 2 Michael’s manuscript represents the yh with a thin line over wtY) which is a symbol for abbreviations. For a parallel elsewhere in the manuscript note the line over wMdh (Chabot, Chronique 4. 88, column 1 (right to left), line 35) used to represent yhwMdh (Wright and McLean, Ecclesiastical history, 40 line 19). 3 Videtur. The correct reading should be )$rB mSML (‘puting on his head’). Textus receptus Testimonium Flavianium
Givnetai de; kata; tou`ton to;n crovnon Ihsou`~ sofo;~ a[nhr, ei[ge a[ndra aujto;n levgein crhv. h\n ga;r paradovxwn e[rgwn poihthv~, didavskalo~ ajnqrwvpwn tw`n hJdonh`/ tajlhqh` decomevnwn, kai; pollou;~ me;n Ioudaivou~, pollou;~ de; kai; tou` ÔEllhnikou` ejphgavgeto. oJ Cristo;~ ou|to~ h\n. kai; aujto;n ejndeivxei tw`n prwvtwn ajndrw`n parΔ hJmi`n staurw`/ ejjpitetimhkovto~ Pilavtou oujk ejpauvsanto oiJ to; prw`ton
590 alice whealey
ajgaphsante~: ejfavnh ga;r aujtoi`~ trivthn e[cwn hJmevran pavlin zw`n tw`n qeivwn profhtw`n tau`ta te kai; a[lla muriva peri; aujtou` qaumavs ia eivrhkovtwn. eij~ e[ti te nu`n tw`n Cristianw`n ajpo; tou`de wjnomasmevnon oujk ejpelivpe to; fu`lon. Flavius Josephus, Antiquates Iudaicae 18.63–64
