Second-century Greek Christian apologies addressed to emperors. Their form and function

Université d'Ottawa University of Ottawa

Second-Century Greek Christian Apologies Addressed to Emperors: Their Form and Function

,'

,P.

, ,: \

-. P.

Lorraine Buck

Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies and Research

in Partial Fuifiilment of the Degree of Doctor of ~hilosophy September 1997

I*I

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Introduction Chapter 1

The Second-Century Roman Empire: and Religious Aspects Chapter 2 Roman Opposition to Christianity: Popular, and Legal

Xts Political

Intellectual

Chapter 3 The Origins of Second-Century Christian Apologies Addressed to Roman Ehperors Chap ter 4 The Apology of Aristides Chapter 5 The Two ~poïogies of Justin Martyr Chapter 6 The

of Athenagoras

Chapter 7 Second -Century Apologies Addressed to Emperors : Their F o m and Func t i o n Conclusion Bibliography

45

78

ABSTRACT

This thesis examines the form and function of four second-century Christian defences:

the &~olow of

Aris tides, the two Bpolocrins of Justin Martyr, and the Leaatio of Athenagoras.

These four works al1 belong to the

same li terary genre, a .e n, they al1 contain addresses to

Roman mperors and they al1 imitate imperial petitions or speeches. They are also the only such works that survive in their entirety. This thesis has three objectives. The f irst is to discover the predecessors, if any, of this particular literary genre. While scholars have traditionally posited Aris totle 's Protrwtj-c11~, Luke/Acts in the New Testament, and Hellenistic-Jewish apology as possible antecedents, it is much more likely that Plato's &olow

for these works.

was the inspiration

Indeed, al1 three apologists were

philosophers prior to their conversion and the only adaptation which they make ta this literary f orm is that necessitated by changes in the political and judicial systems between fifth-centuryB.C.E. Athens and secondcentury C.E. Rome.

The second o b j e c t i v e is to dernonstrate, by a literary/historical approach, that the literary form of the apologies is fictitious.

Although scholars have

traditionally maintained that the apologists at least intended that their works be read and approved by their

imperial addressees, both contemporary and modern works

which consider the form and content of officia1 petitions to

the hperor as well as the particular circurnstances in which they were delivered, demanstrate the speciousness of this position.

The third objective is to determine, by a socio/historical approach, the literary and social function of these apologies in the second-century Empire. Two questions are thus posed: what was the intended audience of these apologies and what purpose were they meant to serve? After examining possible scholarly suggestions, in particular, that they were intended for the pagan public as a means of conversion, it is demonstrated that these

defences were written primarily for a Christian audience for purposes of exhortation, confirmation, and/or instruction.

INTRODUCTION

No description of the second century C.E. can be more entrancing than that of Edward Gibbon:

In the second century of the Christian era, the hipire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilised portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient r e n o m and disciplined valour. The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the pro~rinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury. The image of a f ree constitution was preserved with decent reverence: the Roman state appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors al1 the executive powers of government. During a happy period (A.D. 98-180) of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines.1 Yet while the second-century Empire might well have afforded long-awaited peace, prosperity, and public wellbeing to pagan inhabitants, it could hardly have ranked as a particularly "happy period" to the ever-increasing number of Christians.

While this century witnessed no general or

widespread persecution of Christianity, such as occurred sporadically after the year 250, there were outbreaks of oppression by local authorities, which resulted in the martyrdoms of such prominent Chris tians as Ignatius, bishop

of Antioch

(ç.

3

107) ; 2 Telesphorus, bishop of Rome (ç. 137) ;

' Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fa11 of the Roman Enmire, Everymanls Library, Vol. 1 (London: J.M. Dent 6 Sons Ltd., 19561, p. 1. 2 F. Gerald Downing, however, in his recent article entitled "Pliny's Prosecutions of Christians: Revelation and 1 Peterv (Journal for the Studv of the New Tes tament;, 34, 1988, pp. 105-1231, questions the view, most recently

and Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna (155).4

In the year 177,

moreover, in the cities of Lyons and Vienne in Gaul, a particularly vicious incident of mob violence culminated in the execution of al1 Christians who refused to disavow their faith.

Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical Historv (V.1.3 -63),

vividly recounts the atrocities perpetrated against and the bravery demonst r a t e d by, among others , the aged Pothinus, bishop of Lyons, and the slave-girl Blandina.

Yet what was

even more to be feared by Christians than the occasional outbreak of savagery in their cities was the ever-present threat of private denunciations by pagan and Jewish delators.

Justin Martyr, in his Second A~olocrv,relates how

a man in Rome, a£ter his wife made countless attempts to

convert him to the new faith, denounced her as a Christian when she sent him a r e m di w n or bill of divorce.5

In fact,

Justin Martyr hirnself was delated at Rome, probably by the Cynic Crescens, brought before the urban prefect, Q. I u n i u s

put forward by William R. Schoedel (Ianatiu~,~hiladelphia: Fortress Press, 1985, p. Il) , that t h i s bishop was arrested at the instigation of the authorities rather than as a result of a private denunciation. 3

Henry Chadwick, The Earlv Church (New York: Books, 19671, pp. 28-9.

Penguin

2 Anol. 2.1-20. Unless otherwise noted, the translation of Justin's apologies which will be used throughout this thesis is by Thomas B. Falls, Saint Justin Martvr (Washington, D.C.: Catholic ~niversityof America Press, 1965).

Rusticus, and executed between 162 and 168.~ Since apostasy, therefore, was the only sure de£ence which Christians had against persecution, the written apology became the most effective means at their disposal to vindicate both their religion and themselves against unjus t

charges.

Traditionally. the second-century Greek Christians

who undertook to compose such defences of the faith have been labelled by scholars "the Apologists", and have generally been unders tood to include Aris tides, Justin Martyr, Tatian, Athenagoras , and Theophilus of Antioch.

In

addition, at least five other Greek Christians wrote defences of Christianity at this time, but unfortunately their works are either lost, such as that by Miltiades, or survive only in fragments, such as those by Apollinaris, Axisto of Pella, Quadratus, and Melito of Sardis.

The

Letter to Diocmetus, which was composed by an anonymous Greek author, and the z a t i r e on the Profane Philosmhers, penned by a certain Hermias, both of which works could possibly date to the end of the second century, have also been labelied apologies by some scholars.7 Not al1 these apologists, however, adopted the sarne literary form.

Aristo of Pella, Justin Martyr, and

6

"The Martyrdom of Saints Justint Chariton, Charito, Evelpis tus, Hierax, Paeon, Liberian, and their Cornmunityu, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, trans. Herbert Musurillo (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 19721, pp. 43-61. 7

Johannes Quasten, Patroloav, Vol. 1 (UtrechtAntwerp: Spectrum Publishers, 19661, pp. 248 and 253.

4

Theophilus of Antioch each wrote a defence of Christianity in the f o m of a dialogue, in the first two instances between a Christian and a Jew, and in the last between a Christian and a pagan.

The unknown author of the Letter t~

Diometus composed his work in the f o m of an open letter to

an equally unknown pagan acquaintance, while Hermias wrote an extremely sarcastic treatise and Tatian a vituperative discourse, both directed to the Greeks.

Most of the second-

century de£ences, however, were written in the form of supplications to the Roman Emperor. Aristides' Anolocrv, in other words, was composed in the form of an imperial oration to the Rnperor Hadrian; Justin Martyr's two Apologies imitate the f o m of written petitions to Hadrian's successor, Antoninus Pius ; and Athenagoras ' ~ e a ta i was ~ composed in the f o m of an ambassadorial speech addressed to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his son Cornodus. This thesis will examine the form and function of the

four Apologies by Aristides, Justin Martyr, and Athenagoras. These particular defences have been selected for two

reasons.

First, they al1 belong to the same literary genre;

t h a t is, t h e y al1 contain addresses to second-century Roman

Emperors and they al1 imitate the form of an imperial speech or petition.

Second, they are the only Creek Christian

second-century apologies addressed to mperors which survive in their entirety. Quadratus, a disciple of the apostles, wrote an apology addressed to the Ernperor adr ri an, but only

a s i n g l e fragment survives i n Eusebius, '1 Ristorv ( 4 . 3 . 2 ) .

A p o l l i n a r i s and Melito of S a r d i s both

wrote a p o l o g i e s l a t e i n 175 addressed t o the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, b u t t h e fragments which have been p r e s e r v e d , a g a i n by Eusebius

(5.5.4 and 4.26.71, are i n s u f f i c i e n t f o r

s a t i s f a c t o r y a n a l y s i s and d i s c u s s i o n . After examining the p o l i t i c a l and r e l i g i o u s a s p e c t s of t h e Roman Empire with which C h r i s t i a n i t y was confronted i n the second c e n t u r y (Ch. 1) and the t h r e e m a n i f e s t a t i o n s of pagan o p p o s i t i o n t o t h i s n e w f a i t h (Ch. 2 ) , 1 s h a l l consider

the various ways i n which t h e tezm "apologyfl has r e c e n t l y

been used i n s c h o l a r l y works ( C h . 3 )

.

Indeed i n the l a s t

s e v e r a l decades, s c h o l a r s such as Avery D u l l e s ( 1 9 7 1 ) , Tessa Rajak ( 1 9 8 3 ) , and Robert M. Grant (1988) have been applying t o these and o t h e r a p o l o g e t i c works d e f i n i t i o n s of "apologyN which a r e s o broad a s t o be unworkable.

They have framed

t h e i r d e f i n i t i o n s around i d e a s such a s p r e s e n t a t i o n , confirmation, and persuasion, notions which a r e undoubtedly found i n v a r y i n g degrees i n any a p o l o g e t i c work, b u t they have o f t e n done s o t o the exclusion of t h e two basic and

e s s e n t i a l elements of apology, viz. a t t a c k , o r t h e i d e a t h a t a v e r b a l a s s a u l t has been made; and defence, o r t h e idea t h a t the work i n hand r e p r e s e n t s a response t o t h a t a t t a c k . 1 s h a l l employ i n t h i s t h e s i s , t h e r e f o r e ,

the more

r e s t r i c t i v e and a c c u r a t e d e f i n i t i o n of "apologyn as "a defence of o n e ' s b e l i e f s i n response t o a c c u s a t i o n o r

attackw, and 1 shall use it to accomplish the first of my

objectives, i - e - ,to discover the predecessors, if any, of this literary genre.

1 shall begin by examining the three

antecedents which have traditionally been posited by scholars, viz. Aristotle's Protre~ticus;Lukers two-part narrative in the New Testament, L e . , the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles: and the Hellenistic-Jewish apologetic writings, in particular Philofs Hyaothetica and Josephusf Contra A~ionem. A fourth--and more likely-origin of this genre, however, is the A ~ o l o ~of v Plato.

Indeed 1

shall note the similarities between this philosophical work and the second-century Christian defences addressed to an

Emperor, demonstrating that the only real adaptation which the apologists make to this literary genre was that necessitated by changes to the political and judicial systems

between the fifth century B.C.E

and the second

century C.E. My second objective is to demonstrate that the literary form of each of these four Christian defences is fictitious (Chs. 4-6), a view which clearly contravenes the general scholarly opinion that al1 three apologists presented-or

least intended to present--their defences to the Emperor. In fact, T.D. Barnes has suggested that Athenagoras delivered his Legatio before Marcus Aurelius in September

at

176 in Athens.a

Such an approach to these works, however,

is not entirely satisfactory, since it does not take into account the research currently being done by classicists on the concepts of truth and fiction in classical literature, that is, on the degree to which ancient authors revised, or even manipulated and embellished, their historical and biographical sources. A . J . Woodmanls Rhetoric in Classical Anticruitv,9 for example, as well as C.B.R. Pelling's "Truth and Fiction in Plutarchas ~ives","examine the meaning of

truth and fiction in classical authors and have made it necessary to consider the Christian defences as part of a much larger context.

In fact, they have made it imperative

to question the traditional interpretation of these apologies as official imperial petitions and have opened up entirely new ways of looking at their form and function. My third objective is to determine the literary and social function of these Apologies in the second-century Empire (Ch. 7).

In particular, 1 shall pose two questions :

what was the intended audience of these works, and what were the intended aims of their authors? With respect to the former, 1 shall demonstrate, contrary to general scholarly 8

T.D. Barnes, "The Embassy of AthenagorasM, Journal of Theoloaical Studies, 26, 1975, p. 114. 9

A.J. Woodnan, Rhetoric in Classical Historiocrra~hv (London: Croom Helm, 1988). 10

C.B.R. Pelling, "Truth and Fiction in Plutarch's Livesn, in Antonine Literature, ed. D.A. Russell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, I W O ) , pp. 19-52.

8

opinion, that these works could only have circulated, in significant numbers, arnong Christian communities. With respect to the latter, 1 shall argue that they were written for at least three purposes:

1) to admonish converts

against the evils of polytheisrn; 2) to confirm the truth and superiority of Christianity for the benefit of those who were wavering in the faith or facing possible denunciation; and 3 ) to provide assistance to clergy and other educated Christians who were charged with the instruction and/or guidance of Christians within the Church.

My examination of

the form, audience, and possible functions of these works, moreover, will be based on my previous discussions of the political, religious, and social situation in the secondcentury Graeco-Roman world (Chs. 1 and 2 ) . This research will require two methodological approaches.

The first is a literary-historical approach,

for I shall be studying apologies written according to a specific literary genre and attempting to determine their rhetorical nature, L e . , whether their setting is real or imaginary.

1 shall examine, for example, the addresses

of

these four works to determine if they confonn to accepted practice and were thus suitable for presentation at the imperial court.

In fact, in the case of Aristides' JixiQboav,

1 shall compare the address found in the Armenian version

and the two found in the Syriac version with the addresses of official second-century imperial petitions or libelli

found in such collections of Greek inscriptions as the Svllocre Inscri~tionwnGraecarum-

1

shall also consider the

tone and clarity of these defences to ascertain their appropriateness--ornot-for official written petitions to the ï3nperor.

Indeed the un£ocussed and offensive nature of

Justin's A~oïosiesin particular would have precluded the possibility that they were written for the eyes or ears of the imperial court.

1

shall be aided in this task by the

monumental work of Fergus Millar, entitled The Esnneror in the Roman World, in which he discusses the relationship between the Roman Emperor and his subjects and provides

numerous examples of imperial petitions , letters , and speeches written in the f i r s t £ive centuries of the Christian era.

I shall also be considering the monograph of

the third-century rhetorican Menander which provides a wide variety of prescriptions for writing imperial speeches in the early Empire.

This work will be particularly useful

when examining Athenagoras' L e ~ a t i o . Since this defence was written in the form of an ambassadoriaL speech to the Rnperor, I shall be able, by determining how closely Athenagoras followed Menander's prescriptions, to judge the probability that his defence was actually intended to be read at the imperial court. The second methodological approach is socio -historical.

Based on my conclusion that these Apologies were not intended for the Emperor, 1 shall be attempting to uncover

10

both the intended audience and the social function of these four de£ences.

With respect to the former, 1 shall rely to

a large extent on the very helpful book by Harry Y. Gamble,

entitled Books and Readers in Earlv Christianitv, which provides many insights into the publication and distribution of literature in the second century. With respect to the latter, 1 shall draw upon the research by Victor Tcherikover and Martin Goodman on the function of Hellenistic-Jewish apologies.

In addition, 1 shall consult the works of

notable social historians of the second century, such as Ramsay MacMullen, who discusses the presentation of Christianity to the pagan world in the early Empire, and Rodney Stark, whose new book examines, £rom a sociological perspective, the likely methods by which early Christians won converts to the faith.

This thesis is t h u s a study of a literary genre as actualized in four second-century Greek Christian apologies. S i n c e a paucity of research on their literary form and

f unction has seriously impaired Our understanding of these works, I trust that this investigation will fil1 a very real scholarly gap.

CHAPTER 1

The Second-Centurv Roman E m i r e :

~ t Political s

and Relicrious A s n e c B The political and religious systems of the secondcentury Roman Empire had one common goal: security of the State.

the peace and

For this reason, both systems played

an integral part in the lives of al1 Roman citizens, for good or ill, and the Christians were no exception.

Indeed

the apologists adapted their supplications for relief and toleration to the common and current practice of petitioning the Rnperor, and al1 second-century Chris tians were j udged according to their willingnesç or not to participate in the religious rites and ceremonies of the traditional Roman cult. An examination of the political and religious life of the early Empire, therefore, can aid our unders tanding bo th

of the plight of the Christians and of the apologistsl response to i t .

Political Although in theory the Senate was the ultimate source of power in the state,1 in reality the authority of the Senate rested solely on the Emperor's will, while that of the Emperor rested on something much more real:

the support

' Frank Frost Abbott, A Historv and Descri~tiono f Roman Political Institutions (New York: Biblo and Tannet, l963), p. 341.

of t h e a m y and i t s commanders. 2

The powers of t h e Ernperor,

t o t h e e x t e n t t h a t t h e y had a p u r e l y l e g a l f o u n d a t i o n , were based on t h e i m ~ e r i u mand t h e t r i b u n i c i a ~ o t e s t a s3 , and t h e s e , as d e s c r i b e d by C o r n e l i u s Fronto, con£erred upon him t h e r i g h t " t o urge n e c e s s a r y s t e p s i n t h e s e n a t e ; t o a d d r e s s t h e people on very many matters i n p u b l i c meetings; t o c o r r e c t t h e i n j u s t i c e s of t h e l a w ; t o send l e t t e r s t o a l 1 p a r t s of t h e g l o b e ; t o b r i n g compulsion t o b e a r on k i n g s of f o r e i g n n a t i o n s ; t o r e p r e s s by their e d i c t s t h e f a u l t s of t h e p r o v i n c i a l s , g i v e p r a i s e t o good a c t i o n s , q u e l 1 t h e s e d i t i o u s and t e r r i f y t h e f i e r c e o n e s K 4 The R n p e r o r t s a u t h o r i t y , i n o t h e r words, was v i r t u a l l y a b s o l u t e , and i t was through h i s e x t e n s i v e p e r s o n a l c o n t a c t s w i t h p r o v i n c i a l governors , m u n i c i p a l magis t r a t e s , and i n d i v i d u a l s u b j e c t s t h a t this a u t h o r i t y was most f i l l l y manifested and actualized. S i n c e i t was n o t i n t h e Emperorls i n t e r e s t t o t o l e r a t e 2

William T . Arnold, The Roman Svs tem of P r o v i n c i a l Administration t o t h e Accession of C o n s t a n t i n e t h e Great ( F r e e p o r t , N. Y. : Books for L i b r a r i e s P r e s s , 1 9 7 1 ) , p. 110.

4

A s quoted by F e r g u s M i l l a r , The E m ~ e r o ri n the Roman World (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 19771, p . 2 0 3 . Much of t h e f o l l o w i n g d i s c u s s i o n on t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p between t h e m p e r o r and h i s s u b j e c t s i s taken f r o m t h i s work, s i n c e it was, i n 1977, and s t i l l i s , the d e f i n i t i v e w r i t i n g on t h e s u b j e c t . Articles s u c h as Wynne W i l l i a m s ' "The L i b e l l i i s Procedure and t h e Severan Papyri", J o u r n a l of R o m a n S t u d i e s 6 4 , 1 9 7 4 , pp. 86-103; and William T u r p i n ' s " I m p e r i a 1 S u b s c r i p t i o n s and t h e A d m i n i s t r a t i o n of J u s t i c e I l , J o u r n a l of Roman S t u d i e s 81, 1 9 9 1 , pp. 101-118, w h i l e h e l p f u l , deal primarily with issues not d i r e c t l y related t o t h i s thesis.

administrative mismanagement or unj us t oppression, particularly at the provincial level, it was essential that he be well acquainted with his Empire and hold his governors in strict control. It was his prerogative, therefore, to override any provincial edicts and, when important administrative matters arose, to lay d o m an irnperial "constitution", which was incorporated into the lex grovinciae.

More importantly, however, since such measures

could only be effective if he were made aware of potentially volatile matters, the Emperor expected that his governors regularly inform him, via the elaborate postal system established under Augustus, of any pressing concerns which arose in their territories.5

One need look no further than Pliny for an exarnple of a provincial governor who kept in close communication with the Ehnperor.

As

Millar has pointed out, Pliny not only sought

advice on questions arising £rom legal cases, such as that involving the Christians in his province, he also asked for direction regarding the recruitment and disposition of troops, queried mattexs regarding kings beyond the Ektpire, sought imperial approval of building projects which almost invariably involved requests for the despatch of experts, transmitted requests for communal or individual beneficia, made enquiries about rights and privileges and requested

S

Arnold, QD. cit., pp. 132-3.

rulings on them,6 - -and he even sought permission to establish a city £ire brigade.7

While scholars in the past

have often interpreted this massive correspondence as evidence that the governor was simply "averse to taking decisions on his own" ,' Millar has suggested that Pliny, in his continua1 submissions to Trajan, was simply acting as "a normal imperial governoru.9

In fact, Millar points out,

Plinyls correspondence is significant, not because it was incessant and frequently unnecessary, but because it sepms to mark the beginning of the process of continuing consultation as a means of administering the Empire.

Since

Trajan issued considerably more rescripts than previous Bnperors, and since many of these were in reply to queries £rom the provinces, it could very well be that Pliny was simply paving the way for successive governors to take counsel w i t h the Emperor, not sirnply on political or military matters, but also on their routine jurisdiction and the problems and demands arising f rom their subj ects.1O That such

7

ll&

hoc consultations~"between hiperor and

Pliny, ED. X . 3 3 and Trajan's reply En. X.34.

8

Frend, Martvrdom and Persecution in the Earlv Church (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965) , p. 2 2 8 . 9

Millar,

OD.

cit., p. 325,

governor were nOt simpiy an anomaly of Trajan1s reign is demonstrated by the large nurnber of imperial rescripts which w e possess in response to questions and requests from

provincial governors £ r o m the reign of Hadrian to that of Severus Alexander.

The following examples, two of which

involve Christians, are sufficient to demonstrate the variety of issues on which these emperors were approached. A

rescript addressed by Hadrian to Egnatius Taurinus,

proconsul of Baetica, concerns a minor local incident--the death of a young man due to the carelessness of his friend-and r e c o r d s Hadrianls concurrence w i t h the punishment f i x e d by Taurinus, viz. banishment for five years and financial

compensation to the victim's f a t h e r .

Hadrian also issued a

rescript pertaining to a more serious issue of long-term importance, viz. how to d e a l with accusations against Christians, in which he instructs the current proconsul of Asia, Minucius Fundanus, not to accept delations of Christians wi thout proper and convincing proof of crimes. Antoninus Pius, in response to a query by the proconsul of

Baetica, instructs the latter to invest i g a t e the accusations of h a r s h treatment made by a group of slaves who had s o u g h t

refuge at an imperial statue and, if their cornplaints were legitimate, to o r d e r them to be sold.

At

the time of the

Christian martyrdoms in 177, Marcus Aurelius, having received a request for direction £rom the lesatus of Lugdunum, instructs him to execute al1 Christians, even

16

those who are Roman citizens, and to release those who deny the faith.

Finally, Severus Alexander wrote a most eloquent

reply to a proconsul seeking advice on the subject of gifts f rom the inhabitants of the province:

hear what our view is:

"As regards xenia,

there is an old proverb, 'Neither

all, nor on every occasion, nor f rom al1 ' .

For it is most

uncivilized to accept gif ts £rom no one, but to take thgenerally is degrading and to accept al1 of the?a sign of excessive avariceN.12 Provincial governors thus had no independent power base and no independent executive or administrative authority; they governed at the pleasure of the Emperor.

To enable the

Emperor to remain in touch with provincial concerns, therefore, Trajan introduced an inf ormal system of continual --and sometimes obligatory--consultationwith his governors, a policy which became a fundamental feature of the imperial

governrnent under the Antonines and continued until at least the reign of Severus Alexander. Yet it was also expedient for the Emperor to be in direct communication with organizations within the provinces, and in particular with individual cities.

Once a

district had achieved the status of a city, therefore,

usually after appealing to the Emperor and demonstrating a sufficient potential for self-government, it was almost invariably granted the right to approach the E3nperor on l2

Ibid., pp. 329-333.

matters

O£

legal, administrative, or social concern.

Since

municipal magistrates w e r e rarely of sufficient rank or personal prominence to correspond directly with the Emperor, however, their letters w e r e e i ther f orwarded by the respective provincial governor or presented formally and publicly to the imperial court by embassies.13

They were

then considered and handled by the Emperor personally.'' Imperia1 embassies w e r e despatched by a city for two main purposes.

The first was to make a formal demonstration

of loyalty to the Ehperor, perhaps at the time of a victory or of a specific forma1 event such as when Gaius assumed the tosa virilis, or, more commonly, on the accession of a new Rnperor.

An

inscription from approximately the year 37

records the despatch of an embassy by the city of Assos in

the Troad on the accession of Gaius: Since the rule of Gaius Caesar Germanicus Augustus, the hope of the prayers of al1 mankind, has been proclaimed, and the joy of t h e world knows no bounds , and every city and every province has hastened to set eyes on the god, as the happiest of ages i n [ s i c ] now dawning for men: it was voted by the council and the Romans in business among us and the people of Assos to appoint an embassy of the foremost and best Romans and Greeks to address and congratulate him. .1 5

..

Yet embassies were also sent by cities specifically to

petition the Emperor, be it for f inancial help a£ ter a

' 14

I b i d L , pp. 217-219. Ibid., p. 219.

l5

Ibid,, p . 412.

18

natural disaster, for a judgement on a divisive municipal dispute, or even for new rights or privileges.

The city of

Chersonesus in the Crimea, for instance, sought from the Emperox, presumably Cornodus, an extension of their while a letter £rom exemption from the tax on pro~titutes,'~ Antoninus P i u s reveals that he had been approached by the cities of Coronea and Thisbe over a land dispute and had decided f innly in favour of the ~oroneans ."

Yet although

such supplicatory embassies were clearly distinguished from those of a diplornatic nature, it was not unknown for a delegation bringing congratulations to the Ehperor to seize

the opportunity either to request new rights or to ask for a settlement of some local dispute.

When Claudius, for

example, was proclaimed Emperor on 24 January 41, at least two of the embassies which arrived not only honoured his accession but also presented him with urgent demands.11i Yet whatever the purpose of the delegation, the

procedure was almost always the same. Once the assembly of

a city made a decision to send an imperial embassy, 19 it first had to establish the current location of the EYnperor. Given, for instance, that Hadrian made extensive tours of the Empire and that Marcus Aurelius was frequently away on l6

Ibid. , p . 4 2 9 .

"

I b i d , , p . 436. I b i d . , p . 412.

l9

I b i d L , p . 384.

19

military campaigns, this undertaking could be a serious challenge.

Indeed it was often the case that ambassadors

were confronted with arduous journeys, sometimes of thousands of miles; in fact, legal sources frequently refer to the consequences of an individual's absence £rom his city while on such a mission.Zr)

Yet even when an ernbassy reached

the Einperor, further ordeals wexe usually in store.

The

first task was to obtain an imperial hearing, which often involved innumerable frustrations and delays; the second was to make a suitable and convincing oration or leaati~in the I3nperortspresence, again a daunting undertaking for an ambassados.

When the oration had been delivered, the

delegation presented the Emperor with a decree signed by the municipal magistrates, and then had only to await his r e p l y . This usually took the form of an official imperial letter, addressed to the city, which the envoy would then carry back with him.

If the reply were favourable, the letter was

usually inscribed on tablets and placed in the local

marketplace for the information of the citizens .2 1 Commissioned ambassadors, moreover, were not alone in seeking hearings with the Emperor.

Individual subjects also

had the right to make appeals and they, too, sought the

Ibid., p. 382. 21

Ibid., pp. 217-18.

mperor wherever they could f ind hirn. '' Plutarch, in fact, tells how Julius Caesar, just moments before his assassination, was handed a petition by the philospher Artemidorus of Cnidus regarding the conspiracy against him; he was prevented from reading it, however, by the crowd of suppliants closing in upon hh." such as Herodes Atticus,

Virgil,

While some petitioners, and the grammarian Velius

Celer, were of sufficient status to comrnunicate with the Ernperor by letter/

the normal procedure by which private

perçons received an imperial pronouncement w a s to appear before the Emperor in person and to present a libellug or written request.2 5

m i l e on occasion a request was given an

immediate, verbal response," the libellus, being a written document addressed to the Bnperor, generally received a subscri~tioor written r e p l ~ . This ~ ~ was usually inscribed on the petition it~elf,~' which was then, at least from the 22

William Turpin, "Imperia1 Subscriptions and the Administration of JustinM,Journal of Roman Studies, 81, 1991, p . 101.

27 28

Ibid., p. 2 4 3 - 4 .

The question of whether it was the Emperor himself or one of his suboxdinates who actually subscribed the petitions is still being debated. V i d . Tony ~onoré, Ehn~erorsand Lawverg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), passj,m; and Turpin, 00. cit., p. 101 and n. 4.

21

mid-second century onward, posted up at the current imperial residence for the instruction of both the petitioner and the public.'' It was the responsibility of the particular

petitioner to make a copy for himself and to have it wi tnessed.3 O

Individual subjects, like provincial and municipal officials, appealed to the Ebnperor for a wide variety of

reasons, bo th maj or and minor. "

A

libellus, for example,

could contain information demanding immediate attention, such as that submitted to Julius Caesar regarding his imminent demise.

Suetonius , rnoreover, recounts how Gaius

once refused to accept a libellus containing infoxmation about his safety because he believed he had done nothing to provoke anyonegs hatred."

A

petitioner could also appeal

for benefits or favours, just as Atticus approached Caesar regarding protection for his property at Buthrotum.3 3 Sornetirnes a request was made for an indulgence on behalf of

an accused or condemned individual; the Christian hennit, Eutychianus, for example, petitioned for an indulgence to be granted to an accused officer in Constantine's escort.34 29

Millar, on. cit., p. 538.

3O

Williams,

31

Millar, on. cit., p. 2 5 2 .

l2

Jbid., P. 240.

OD. cit,,

Ibid., p . 241.

"

Ibid., p. 541.

pp. 100-101.

Groups of peasants, moreover, from comunities not of recognized city status, petitioned the Emperor for relief from oppression by local or imperial authorities; one group frorn near Vaga in Africa complained to Cormnodus of the excessive demands made upon them for labour in the fields and for payments in kind to an inn used by official

travellers.3 5

Yet by far the majority of libelli were

simply requests f rom individual citizens on legal matters pertaining to family or property.

In some instances, these

petitions were presented by women; Flavia Tertulla, for example, sought advice £rom the Emperor when she discovered that she was married to her uncle," while a woman in Rome, discussed by Justin Martyr in his Second ~ ~ o l o a ypetitioned , the Emperor for t h e to put her affairs in order after having been denounced by her husband as a Christian.3 7 It was one of the foremost duties of the Rnperor, therefore, to hear requests, accusations, and cornplaints from ail corners of his Empire,3 8 an expectation which is vividly reflected in Hadrian's alleged encounter with a woman desiring his attention; after having been told that he had no time to deal with her concerns, she replied:

3s

Ibid., p. 542.

'

Ibid., p 548.

37

2 Aml.

38

williams, on. c i t . , p. 86.

2.

"Then

do not be a king!".3 9 Yet since al1 things depended solely on the hiperor's will, this open-door policy was subject to at least two qualifications. The f irst is that the senatorial elite in Rome, as well as the educated bourgeosie £rom the major cities in the provinces, had far easier and £aster access to the Emperor than those individuals who, for example, had to

progress through the equestrian ranks or, even more particularly, were relegated to the humbler classes and confined to the far reaches of the Empire.

While the

evidence clearly indicates that the Emperor received petitions from common soldiers, freedmen, slaves, and even peasants in remote comrnunities in Thrace and Asia, it was usually only at mass gatherings, such as at the games and shows at Rome or sometirnes at events in provincial cities, t h a t he found himself confronted with the demands and

requests of the lower segments of society.0 O The second qualification is that, "however c o n s i s t e n t and comprehensible were the attitudes and priorities which infomed the systemn, it resulted nonetheless in apprehensiveness and uncertainty on the part of the petitioner and in arbitrariness on the part of the Emperor.

It was not unknown, for instance, for private

-

''

Ibid., p. 3. Jbid., pp. 36-7.

"

Ibid.,

p . 9.

24

petitioners and even ambassadors to be overcome wi th f ear and trembling in the imperial p r e s e n c e .

According to

Quintilian, Augustus, sensing the nervousness of a soldier about to present his libellus, quipped that he was as uncertain as a man giving a present to an elephant.42

In

fact, the experience of meeting the Emperor was s u c h as to

prompt an orator to write: Nor is it any small matter to make a request on one's own behalf to t h e emperor of the whole world, to put on a brave face before the eyes of such majesty. to compose one ' s expression, to summon up one ' s courage, to choose the right words, to speak without f ear, to stop at the right moment, and to await the reply.4 3 Yet sometimes a petitioner's fear was more than justified,

for the Emperor's pronouncement on any reques t , b e it Erom a governor, a city magistrate, or a private subject, could be unpredictable and inexplicable, depending on nothing more than his mood at the tirne.

Arnbassadors £ r o m Gadara, for

example, were well aware of the risk they were taking when they recited before Augustus vicious accusations of oppression against Herod.

They carefully studied the

E3nperorts reaction throughout the ambassadorial oration, and when they realized that, despite their legitimate grievances, he remained well disposed towards Herod, each member of the delegation cornmitted suicide on the spot.4 4

42

43

"

Ibid.,

p. 2 4 2 ,

A s quoted by Millar, ibid., p. 385.

IbidL, p. 9.

25

The Emperor thus made i t his business to keep well acquainted wi th his Ehpire, and his Empire, i .e. , his

administrators and subjects, took advantage of his openness and responsiveness to bring before him innumerable queries, requests and complaints.

Yet notwithstanding the evident

simplicity and even appeal of this system, it must never be forgotten that the E2npire was at the mercy of two overriding factors:

first, that the power of the Emperor was absolute;

and second, that the exercise of that power was a function of bis goodwill and favour.

Reliaious From the late republic through the early Empire, the national cult, viz. the worship of the traditional gods with Jupiter as the supreme patron of the Roman state, formed the basis of Roman public religion."

In the eyes of the

governing classes at least g Rome s long - standing and unwavering devotion to the ancestral religion was her most salient and important feature. As the Stoic Balbus asserts

in Cicero ' s de N a t u r a Deorum, " [Ilf we care to compare Our national characteristics with those of f oreign peoples, we shall find that, while in al1 other respects w e are only the equal or inferiors of others, yet in the sense of religion,

45

J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz, Çontinuitv and Chanae in Poman Reliaion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979 ) , p . 198.

t h a t i s , r e v e r e n c e for t h e gods we are f a r s u p e r i o r " . 4 6 Indeed i t was both n a t u r a l and a c c e p t a b l e t o be s k e p t i c a l about p a r t i c u l a r rites and gods, b u t about t h e reliai0 i t s e l f , L e . , t h e t r u t h s which i t embodied, t h e r e could be no doubt. The main r e a s o n f o r the c o n t i n u i t y of t h e n a t i o n a l r e l i g i o n was i t s c l o s e i n t e r c o n n e c t i o n w i t h t h e w e l l - b e i n g

of t h e S t a t e .

B y v i r t u e of t h e pax deorum,

the ancestral

gods i n t h e i r t o t a l i t y were t h e g u a r d i a n s of R o m e , and f a i l u r e t o appease them by t r a d i t i o n a l ceremonies and p r a c t i c e s c o u l d expose h e r t o m i s f o r t u n e ,

Indeed the gods

had an enormous p o t e n t i a l f o r b o t h h e l p i n g and h a d n g

m o r t a l s , and i t was t h u s important t o minimize t h e i r u n p r e d i c t a b l e anger. 4 7

The h i s t o r i a n Livy, f o r i n s t a n c e ,

r e c o u n t s how Camillus, i n the w a r a g a i n s t V e i i i n 3 9 7 B.C.E.,

a l l e g e d l y admonished t h e Romans V h a t a l 1 went w e l l

s o long a s w e obeyed t h e gods, and il1 when w e spurned themn, w h i l e e a r l i e r i n 4 6 3 , t h e remedy f o r p e s t i l e n c e was a g e n e r a l s a c r i f i c e t o the Roman gods by the e n t i r e p o p u l a t i o n . 48

I t i s t h u s n o t s u r p r i s i n g t h a t Decius, i n the

mid- t h i r d century C . E . , f ound t h e Chris t i a n s ' r e f usal t o

p a r t i c i p a t e i n t h e t r a d i t i o n a l Roman r e l i g i o n t o be both

46

As c i t e d by W . H . C .

Frend,

OD.

c i t . , p. 105.

47

A.

Lane Fox, pacrans and C h r i s t i a n g (New York: Knopf, I n c . , 19871, p . 3 8 .

'

Alfred

unpatriotic and a threat to the unity and safety of the Empire.49

Yet Roman religion underwent considerable change in the f irst century C. E., due principally to the establishment of

a monarchical f o m of goverment.

Since public well-being

had now become largely dependent on the well-being of the

ruler, rather than on decisions reached by the Senate, the primary objective of the national religion was to offer

divine support to both reigning and dead Emperors.

Early in

the f i r s t century, therefore, new rites and ceremonies which expressed and encouraqed loyalty to the Rnperor sprang up

across the Ehpire, usually at the instigation of the people.5 0

During the reign of Augustus, for instance, the

worship of Rama

Auaustus grew up spontaneously in the

provincial capitals and other large cities; after his death the c u l t of Divus A u a s t u s was officially established in Rome and other major centres, while people in the t o m s of Italy and the provinces set up numerous temples in his honour ."

Under Tiberius and Claudius, moreover. altars to

the Emperor or to popular members of the imperial family were set up in various locations.5 2

'' 50

51

Ibid.

Liebeschuetz, OD. c i t , . p. 198. M. Cary and H.H. Scu.liard, A Historv of Rome Down The MacMillan Press ( London :

h Ltd., 19751, p. 399. s2

Ibid.

28

That subject communities should wish to pay due honour and respect to the Emperor was not surprising, given t h a t the Greeks had been offering worship to living rulers since the t h e of Alexander the Great."

Yet while the Greeks

believed that their rulers had supernatural powers, the

Romans for the most part did not, insisting that devotion to the ruler should take second place to devotion to the gods on the ruler's behalf."

This was a point with which the

majority of t h e first-century Emperors agreed--theobvious exceptions being Nero and Caligula--andmany strove to keep the worship of the monarch to a respectable minimum. Augustus, for instance, permitted no public devotion towards himself at Rome except among the poorer people who were permitted "to sacrifice in small chapels at street corners to the Lares Auousti'

55

Tiberius refused to accept the

voting of a temple to himself £rom

pain because he "was

satisfied to be hurnan, to perform human duties, and to occupy the first place among menu,5 6 while Claudius similarly asserted to the Alexandrines that he did not want a high priest or temples, since

he did "net wish to be

offensive to [his] contemporaries" .57

That such tes training

53

Robin Lane Fox, OR. c i t . , p. 40.

54

Liebeschuetz,

55

Cary and Scullard,

56

Ibid., p. 638, n. 42.

"

Ibid,, p. 357.

QD.

cit., p. 198. QD.

cit., p. 350.

measures were necessary is illustrated by an incident in Ephesus during the reign of Claudius in which the provincial governor was compelled to put an end to what were deemed misplaced imperial rites by his subj ects ." B y the second century, however, and even in the last

decades of the first, the cult of the deif ied mperor, although well entrenched in Roman public religion, had become like any cult of the older state gods-a mere formality.5 9

With the exception of Domitian who encouraged

the use of the title dominus

deus,6 O and Commodus who

rewarded himself with divine honours for his achievements at the public venationes,61 Emperors of this period showed little inclination to encourage worship of themselves, Vespasian, for example, was able to joke about his impending deification by stating on his deathbed, "Alas, 1 think that 1 am becoming a godu

.

62

In Pliny ' s letter to Trajan

regarding the Christians, he told the Emperor that he had cornpelled those who denied the faith to offer incense and

Fox, 59

Ibid. For a contrary view with respect to the cult in Ephesus, see Philip A . Harland, Y-Ionours and worship: Ehnperors, imperial cults and associations at Ephesus ( f i r s t to third centuries C.E.)", Studies in Reliaion, vol. 25, no. 3, 1996, pp. 319-334,

wine to h i s s t a t u e as proof of t h e i r s i n c e r i t y . 6 3

In his

r e p l y , T r a j a n agreed t o t a l l y w i t h P l i n y ' s i n s i s tence t h a t t h e accused prove t h e i r l o y a l t y t o the S t a t e by t h e i r actions.

H e made no r e f erence, however,

t o P l i n y fs r u l i n g

t h a t t h e C h r i s t i a n s make s u p p l i c a t i o n t o h i s s t a t u e ; he simply suggested t h a t they should be r e q u i r e d t o worship the Roman gods. 6 4

Marcus Aurelius a l s o demonstrated d i s i n t e r e s t

i n t h e i m p e r i a l c u l t by a c t u a i l y disavowing h i s p e r s o n a 1 i m m o r t a l i t y , 6 5 thereby s e t t i n g t h e s t a g e f o r an even f u r t h e r d e c l i n e of t h e c u l t i n the t h i r d century a t t h e hands of a long s u c c e s s i o n of ephemeral r u l e r s .

That i s not t o Say, however, t h a t C h r i s t i a n s were n o t compelled i n some i n s t a n c e s t o pay homage t o t h e Emperor as proof of l o y a l t y .

While Emperors l i k e T r a j a n d i s c o u r a g e d

t h e i r own worship, 66 p r o v i n c i a l governors l i k e P l i n y found t h i s p r a c t i c e t o be b o t h convenient and a c c e p t a b l e when d e a l i n g w i t h t h e C h r i s t i a n s . 67

Indeed a t J u s t i n M a r t y r ' s

t r i a l t h e p r e f e c t R u s t i c u s passed judgement a s f o l l o w s : Those w h o have r e f u s e d t o s a c r i f i c e t o t h e gods a r e t o be scourqed and executed i n accordance with t h e lawsu, t h e

Ehperor no doubt being included i n the g e n e r i c t e m -

--

63

P l i n y , EL

X.96.

64

P l i n y , EL

X.97.

65

Cary and S c u l l a r d , oo. c i t . , p . 4 8 3 .

66

P l i n y , ED. X.97.

67

Pliny, En., X . 9 6 .

"gods".6 8

Antoninus Pius was de£ initely in the mind of the

irenarch Herod when he beseeched Polycarp, on his way to martyrdom, to Say

Taesar is Lord' and [to] offer., .the

incense, and so forth".6 9

Perpetua, too, was entreated by

the procurator Hilarian to participate in the cult of the Emperor:

"Spare your father's white hairs; spare the tender

years of your child.

Offer a sacrifice for the safety of

the Ehnper~rs.~~" Indeed for provincial governors who were

faced with numerous trials of Christians, a demonstration of loyalty to the State was a useful-and probably not uncommon--means of distinguishing the true f rom the f alse charges of Christianity.

In addition to Emperor-worship, the early Empire also witnessed the introduction of foreign cults or reliaiones externa?.

Isis-worship and Mithraism, two Eastern mystery

religions, held the greatest appeal to the Romans, largely because of their mpersonal~element.71

Isis was an ancient

Egyptian nature-deity who was metamorphosed during the Hellenistic period into a universal goddess and mother, a

68

Herbert Musurillo, trans., The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 19721, p. 4 7 . 69

Maxwell Staniforth, trans., " T h e Martyrdom of Polycarpfl,Earlv Christian Writincrs (New York: Penguin Books, 1982), p. 158. 7O

Willis Barns tone, ed. , "The Passion of Perpetua and Felicityu, The Other Bible (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1984) , p. 176. Liebeschuet z , on. cit.,

Saviour f i g u r e , and perhaps t h e Voremost r e p r e s e n t a t i v e of d i v i n e femininity i n the a n c i e n t world". 72

In return for

s i n c e r e devo t i o n and compliance w i t h some fundamental r u l e s , such a s the o c c a s i o n a l f a s t , s h e was b e l i e v e d t o s u p p l y happiness both i n t h i s world and i n t h e world t o come.

Her

c a r e f u l l y - a r r a n g e d r i t u a l , which was n o t w i t h o u t i t s emotional element, was d i r e c t e d by a p r o f e s s i o n a l c l e r g y , and h e r a r d e n t f o l l o w e r s , i n s t e a d of m e r e l y watching the

cerernonials, were p e d t t e d an a c t i v e p a r t i n them. 7 3 The worship of Isis was most populax among merchants and seamen, no doubt t o some e x t e n t b e c a u s e t h e r i t e s were t i e d t o no p a r t i c u l a r l o c a t i o n and t h u s c o u l d be conducted i n almost any c e n t r e i n t h e Mediterranean world.

Thus f rom

i t s beginnings i n P h i l a e i n t h e s o u t h o f E g y p t , t h i s c u l t soon s p r e a d t o t h e cosrnopolitan c i t y of Alexandria, whence i t was disserninated t o Athens and many o t h e r Greek c i t i e s , Asia

Minor, North A £ r i c a , S a r d i n i a , ~ o m p e i i ,Rome, S p a i n ,

S w i t z e r l a n d , Germany, and even B r i t a i n a 7 ' Although when i t f i r s t reached t h e c a p i t a l i t was b e s e t w i t h scanda1 and p o l i t i c a l o p p o s i t i o n , i t n e v e r t h e l e s s remained p o p u l a r ; i n f a c t , when Aernilius Paulus o r d e r e d t h e dernolition of t h e

temple of I s i s i n Rome i n 50 B.C.E., h e c o u l d find no l2 John Ferguson, The R e l i a i o n s of the Roman minire (London: Thames & Hudson, 1 9 7 0 ) , p . 2 4 ; cf. Cary and S c u l l a r d , on. c i t . , p . 400. 73

'

Cary and S c u l l a r d , o n . c i k . , p . 4 0 0 . Ferguson, o n . c i t . , pp. 2 4 - 5 .

workmen w i l l i n g t o undertake t h e t a s k .'' C a l i g u l a s e r e c t i o n of a temple i n t h e Campus Martius, moreover, met w i t h no popular r e s i s t a n c e , and by t h e time of C a r a c a l l a ,

Isis-worship was f r e e l y and even e n t h u s i a s t i c a l l y a c c e p t e d a t Rome. 76

Indeed t h e s t o r y of t h e c u l t of I s i s , u n l i k e

t h a t of C h r i s t i a n i t y i n t h e s e c o n d - c e n t u r y , was " t h e s t o r y of t h e g r a d u a 1 p e n e t r a t i o n and acceptance of a f o r e i g n c u l t

d e s p i t e o p p o s i t i o n and d e s p i t e p e r i o d i c r e p r e s s i o n " . Y e t £rom t h e r e i g n of Antoninus Pius on,

77

t h e c u l t of

I s i s l o s t i t s primary p o s i t i o n among pagan mystery r e l i g i o n s

t o t h e c u l t of Mithras, t h e P e r s i a n god of l i g h t .

On t h e

one hand, t h e worship of Mithras d e r i v e d p a r t l y £rom P e r s i a n Z o r o a s t r i a n i s m ; M i t h r a s was t h e a g e n t of Ahura-Mazda, t h e power of good, i n o p p o s i t i o n t o Ahriman, t h e power of e v i l . I t also d e r i v e d p a r t l y from t h e c u l t of t h e Phrygian goddess

Cybele, f rom which i t borrowed t h e r i t u a 1 of i n i t i a t i o n by b a p t i s m w i t h the blood of a b u l l .

Like the c u l t of I s i s , i t

b o a s t e d e l a b o r a t e and impressive i n i t i a t i o n r i t u a l s , promise of inmiortality, i.e., a w a y through t h e seven p l a n e t a r y s p i r i t s w h i c h prevented the a s c e n t t o the Milky Way a f t e r d e a t h , and a s t r i c t e t h i c a l code; l i k e

C h r i s t i a n i t y i t o f f e r e d a r i t u a l of s a c r e d meals and placed

75

Ibid., p . 2 5 .

76

Ibid.

77

Frend, o ~ c. i t . , p . 112.

an emphasis upon good works.78 Mithraism appealed largely to the upper classes. and in particular to army officers and important businessmen.

This

was due, no doubt. to its militaristic rites, its high moral

code, and its exclusivity to men.

With the active and

extensive support of the second-century Emperors. most notably Comodus who made it an imperial cult, it spread from the East to the Rhineland, Italy, Spain, North Africa, and Britain."

It survived until the fourth century when

Christianity. now favoured by the imperial court. completely superseded i t . Since Roman religion was essentially a national or State cult, Rome judged a reliqio externa from that standpoint.

a cult was lawful for a particular people "on the

Le.,

basis of tribe or nationality and traditional practices. coupled with the proviso that its rites were not offensive to the Roman people or their gods".B O

Participation in the

State religion thus precluded participation in other cults unless these had been officially sanctioned by the Senate. since such practice could be offensive to the gods and thus injurious to Rome and her people.

Recognition of a cult,

therefore, of ten took a long tirne, and until a new religion was recognized, the practice of its rituals and ceremonies 78

79 MO

Cary and Scullard, o ~ cit., . p. 483. Ibid., pp. 483-4. Frend, m. cit., p . 106.

by a Roman citizen, especially if this resulted in the abandonment of the State cult, could be punishable.

in

186 B.C.E., for instance, participants in the Bacchanalia were imprisoned and executed when Roman Senators learned of

this grava & e x t e r n a reliaio which reportedly engaged in

nocturnal rites, orgies, and secret murder.

Nothing was

more dangerous to religion, the consul Postumius asserted at the time, than "where sacrifices were perfomed not by native, but by foreign r i t u a l " . 8 2

About a century later,

Tacitus was to label Christianity a prava reliaio and to accuse its adherents of criminal offences."

Unlike

Chris tianity, however, by the second century the Bacchic cult was respectable enough to "provide a popular theme on mosaics of the houses of the wealthy".8 4 The early Empire also witnessed a significant r i s e in the authority of oracles, a transformation which was, to a large extent, assisted by the benefactions of the mperors .8 5

While Plutarch, in a dialogue written in the

early 80ts, laments the serious decline of the oracles, he

Ibid., 82

As

pp. 106-8.

cited by Frend,

OD.

cit., p. 110.

83

Ibid.; cf. Stephen Benko, "Pagan Criticism of Chris tianity During the First Two Centuries A. D. ", Auf s ties und Niederaano der n omis ch en Welf 23.2 (New York: Walter de Gruyter, l98O), pp. 1065-67. 84

85

Frend, on. cit . , p . 111. Cary and Scullard, on. c i t . , p. 483.

36

is able approximately forty years later to report a recent metamorphosis of the amenities of the Delphic oracle, a transfomation with which he credits Apollo, but which can be attributed to the generosity of Hadrian.36

Both Trajan

and Hadrian, moreover, provided material assistance to the shrine at Didyma, while a dedication of the impressive Doric temple at Claros also bears Hadrian's name.8 7 The consultants of oracles were those who "wished to know and argue, to be reassured or guided through their many choices of thought and action"," and they could consult the gods on almost any persona1 matter or undertaking.

A

certain Poplas, for example, queried whether it was proper

to petition the hiperor for monies for a public show".9 u

A

little later, when Poplas' health was deteriorating and his finances were depleted, he asked the god who could possibly help him.g' Y e t it was not unknown for oracles to be used as a means of establishing theological truth.

A certain

client, possibly Polites the Milesian, asked Apollo at Didyma about the fate of the soul after death. the following answer:

When the soul is still in the

Lane Fox, oo. cit., pp. 2 0 0 - 1 .

"

Ibid., p. 201.

Ibid. , p. 189.

"

Ibid., p. 227. Ibid., p. 192.

91

Ibid.

He received

37

body,

...i t

t o l e r a t e s t h e p a i n s which c a n n o t h u r t i t .

Xhen

t h e body f a d e s and d i e s , t h e s o u l r a n g e s free through t h e a i r , a g e l e s s , f o r e v e r unwearied. Y2

Some of t h e gods'

r e s p o n s e s , moreover, had a n a n t i - C h r i s t i a n f ocus.

Porphyry

r e c o u n t s , f o r example, how the god w a s asked by a husband £rom which god h e s h o u l d seek a i d i n d e t a c h i n g h i s w i f e £rom Christianity.

The r e p l y , i n e s s e n c e , w a s t h a t the s i t u a t i o n

w a s " r e g r e t t a b l e b u t hopelessu

.

93

Moreover, when Hecate was

a s k e d whether o r n o t C h r i s t w a s God, s h e r e p l i e d t h a t "his s o u l s u r v i v e d death b u t a s t h a t of a n o u t s t a n d i n g l y good m a n , not of a g o d u .94

During t h e late f i r s t a n d t h e second c e n t u r i e s , a w i d e s p r e a d b e l i e f i n the e f f i c a c y of magic a l s o arose. 9 5 Although t h e r e was a n o f f i c i a l ban on m a g i c a l p r a c t i c e s , nurnerous s t o r i e s of rniraculous h e a l i n g s by pagan gods through the m e d i a t i o n of human b e i n g s w e r e b e i n g c i r c u l a t e d a n d , i n many i n s t a n c e s , u n h e s i t a t i n g l y a c c e p t e d .

96

During

t h e reign of Domitian, s u p e r n a t u r a l powers of t h i s s o r t were a s c r i b e d t o a wandering Neopythagorean p h i l o s o p h e r named A p o l l o n i u s of Tyana, while a c c o r d i n g t o S u e t o n i u s . V e s p a s i a n , on h i s v i s i t to Egypt, had c u r e d t h e b l i n d and 9?bid.,

p. 1 9 3 .

93

L i e b e s c h u e t z , o ~ c. i t . , p. 246.

94

Jbid.

95

I b i d . , p. 218.

96

Cary and S c u l l a r d , OD. c i t . , p . 4 8 3 .

the lame.9 7

Under Antoninus Pius, moreover, the false

prophet Alexander of Abonutichus carried on a notorious but highly successful thaumaturgical practice;Y 8 in fact, many prominent Romans, including Marcus Aurelius, were taken in both by bis miracles and by his fraudulent oracle presided over by a snake god of his own invention.9 9

Apuleius'

A D O ~ O ~ Vhowever, , gives us the clearest picture of the Roman reaction to magic, viz. fear, not so much of the ambitions

of conniving men, but of the chance anger of the gods .''O Being a student of fish, Apuleius examined and dissected various species and specimens. His enemies, however, saw this practice as dangerous and brought him to trial on the charge of magic; in fact, it was enough for Apuleius to recite the names of well-known writers on magic to create a disturbance in the courtroom.101

It should not be

surprising, therefore, that even the Christians were suspected of being practitioners of magic.

Glossalalia,

which was still practised in Origen's time, was highly suspect to those who witnessed it, for it closely resembled

97

Ibid.

98

Ibid.

99

Ramsay MacMullen, Paaanism in the Roman m i r e (New Haven: Yale University Press, 19811, p. 98; vide also Stephen Benko, Pagan Rome and the Earlv Chriskia= (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 19841, pp. 110-1. 100

Lane FOX, OD. cit., p. 253.

10 1

MacMullen, on. cit.,, p. 218.

39

the garbled ut terances of the Inagicians.' " The Christians ' nightly gatherings were also closely related to magical practices in the minds of the Greeks and Romans, ; as Apollonius of Tyana insisted, wizards "cloak their art under the cover of night and of every sort of darkness, so as to preclude their dupes from the use of their eyes and ears".103 Even the Christian practice of exorcising demons was

associated with some kind of magical art, at least to some extent because rnagic made use of powerful narnes and the Christians accomplished their exorcisms by calling on the name of Jesus.lu4

Indeed magic was a powerful force in the

early Empire, beguiling both the minent and the humble. A discussion of major religions in the early Empire would not be complete without a consideration of Judaism, particularly since relations between Palestine and Rome at that time were precarious at best.

D u r i n g the f irst

century, there was, among the Jewish people generally, an antagonism towards Rome and a hope of deliverance by the promised Messiah which both prompted and encouraged local insurrections. This situation was worsened, moreover, when Caligula, in 40 C.E., reversed Augustus' policy of religious

toleration and commanded the Jews to erect his statue in the temple at Jerusalem; it was only the Ernperor's sudden death 102

Benko, m. cit., p. 117.

103

Ibid., p. 126.

104

Jbid.,

p . 118.

40

which prevented what would likely have been open revoit in Palestine.10s Under Nero there were also recurrent disorders in Judaea which successive governors were unable to suppress. In 66, a Jewish insurrection in Jerusalem, which began as

little more than a mob skirmish, was allowed to develop into a full-scale rebellion and envelop the entire province as well as Galilee and Transjordania.

Nero compensated for his

previous disinterest in Jewish affairs by sending Vespasian,

an officer with a good military record, to head the Roman army of more than 50,000 men.

In 67 and 68 respectively,

Vespasian reduced Galilee and the lands of Transjordan, but Nero's death forced a cessation of hostilities for two years . 106 Between 70 and 73, however, Titus carried on the war with equal ferocity and brought about the total destruction

of both Jerusalem and the Jewish temple.

The settlement

forced upon Palestine was extremely severe. Most of the surviving population of Jerusalem was reduced to slavery and

a Roman legion was stationed pemnently in the city.

The

Sanhedrin was abolished and its criminal jurisdiction taken over by the Roman procurator's court.

The Jews were

forbidden to rebuild the temple, which had likely been destroyed on Titusg orders, and a ban was imposed on Jewish LOS

Ibid.

106

Ibid., pp. 367-8.

41

proselytizing, an offence which was systematically punished under Domitian.

Yet it was not only Palestinian Jews who

were punished for the war, for Jews across the Empire were required to pay a new poll- tax of two drachmae for the service of Jupiter Capitolinus - - the two drachmae which they had previous ly paid to the Temple a t Jerusalem-- a penalty which Domitian, at leas t, levied "with inquisitorial rigour

.

1O7

I1

The only beneficence that Rome showed to the

Jews was to exempt f rom Emperor-worship al1 those in the Empire born into the Jewish faith.l O t l

Nor were relations between Rome and Palestine any less fragile in the second century. Jewish insurrections were not uncommon in the reign of Trajan, no doubt resulting once again from Messianic hopes, and under Hadrian the Second Jewish War occurred, this time as a consequence of Roman provocation.

In his second tour of the eastern provinces,

Hadrian attempted to solve the problem of the Jews by forcible assimilation, a policy which the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV, had attempted unsuccessfully three centuries earlier.

In 131, therefore, he issued an edict prohibiting

circumcision; he also founded 'Aelia Capitolina', a Roman colony at Jerusalem, complete with a shrine of Jupiter Capitolinus on the site of the temple.

As

a result of these

measures, the Jews, led by Bar-Cochbar, engaged in a war of 107

Ibid., p. 417.

108

Ibid., pp. 415-8.

42

sieges and small skirmishes which lasted from 131 to 134. The Romans, wi th numerous reinforcements f rom

O ther

frontiers, eventually won and inflicted serious losses on

the other side.

Not only did the Romans exterminate a large

part of the population of Palestine, which was later

replenished by Gentile settlers £rom neighbouring lands, but they prohibited the surviving Jews from entering Jerusalem, except for once a year, and they changed the name Judaea to Syria Palestina. 109 Under Antoninus Pius, however, the penalties levied against the Jews were relaxed, although the ban upon proselytizing remained. The Jews were no longer prevented

from engaging in worship, and Jewish schools and synagogues were once again opened.

Indeed an accommodation between

Jews and Romans was finally reached, viz. that the Jews, while remaining bereft of a homeland, were allowed to exercise their religion, and indeed it was only by virtue of this concession that the Jewish race was able to continue as a separate nation.110

Conclusion Such, then, were the poli tical and religious

S ~ tems S

within which Christianity was forced to reach an accomodation with Rome.

With respect to the political

109

Ibid,, pp. 439-41.

Ilu

I b i d . , p . 441.

s y s tem,

Aris tides , Justin Martyr, and Athenagoras , as

subjects of the Roman Empire, would have been f ree to petition the Emperor personally, either on their own behalf in a libellus, or as a representative of an accepted body in a leaatio or ambassadorial speech. Yet they, too, would

have been exposed to the hindrances and hazards of such an undertaking, viz. discovering the Emperor's current residence. perhaps trekking thousands of miles to this location, presenting an acceptable speech in his presence, and, most importantly, finding him receptive to the requests of those who were ostensibly dangerous and expendable

adherents of a proscribed religion. With respect to the religious system, while the Romans were agreeable to incorporating into their traditional religion any legitimate and acceptable cult, they were clearly suspicious and fearful of any sect or practice which might upset the pax deorurn.

Both the Bacchanalia and the

cult of Isis were initially banned for their reprehensible and frightening rituals, and only allowed to take their place in the religious life of Rome when they had undergone the requisite transformations. The Jews and the Romans, moreover, met head to head on several occasions before they

.

reached an agreement which benefitted both sides, i e. the Jews retained their own ancestral religion and were exempted f rom Emperor -worship, and the Romans retrieved wha t they

valued the most, peace and stability. Unlike the Jews,

44

however, the e a r l y Chris tians were unable to reconcile their differences with Rome, and unlike Isis-worship and the

Bacchanalia, Christianity continued to be treated as a a e l i c r i ~i1licit.a throughout the second century.

The next

Chapter will examine the three distinct f o m s in which this Roman opposition to Christianity was m a n i f e s t e d in t h e

second century.

CHAPTER 2

Roman Ormosi tion to Chris t i a n i tv: Inteilectual, Po~ular,and Leaal Second-century Christians encountered Roman opposition on at least three fronts:

intellectual, popular, and legal.

Intellectual hostility took the form of searing critiques by contemporary historians, satirists, and philosophers who depicted them in their writings as atheists, criminals, and even cannibals, primarily on the evidence of hearsay.

On a

popular level, Christians met with antagonism £rom relatives, neighbours, and colleagues who were free, regardless of motive, to denounce them to the authorities. Once they reached the lawcourts, moreover, they faced the

enmity of provincial governors who tried and convicted them, not for any alleged or real crimes, but simply for being Chris tians . Indeed pagan hostility-in al1 its manifestations--was an integral part of second-century Christian life, and it has important implications for this thesis.

First, it was

this continua1 animosity which motivated the Apologists to write their defences, and it was within this context t h a t they did so; second, it was this hostility and abuse which

undoub tedly inspired the Apologis ts t o choose the imperial supplication as their literary form; and third, i t was the prevalence of pagan hostility in t h e second century which has misled scholars into supposing, on the one hand, that

46

the Apologies were intended as imperial petitions for relief £rom persecution (Chs. 4 - 6 , and on the other, that they were written as proselytizing tools among the Gagan masses (Ch. 7 ) .

lntellectuall

Throughout the second century, various members of the Roman and Greek intelligentsia made reference to Christianity in their writings.

Five authors in

particular,2 each representing a different profession-his torian, rhetor, satirist, physician, and philosopher-well illustrate how Christianity was perceived by the elite at that tirne and how, even among this privileged class, knowledge of this new and strange cult was generally based, not on a careful study of Christian writings, but on

1

1 am using the term "intellectualn for that f o m of pagan opposition which was thought out, written d o m , and published by members of the Roman and Greek intelligentsia, as opposed to popular opposition which was g e n e r a l l y an unreflective and spontaneous verbal reproach of Chris tians by the wider populace.

The five selected are Tacitus' Annals 15.44, Frontols speech as cited by Minucius Felix in his Dctavius 8 and 9 , Lucian's De morte Perearini 5, Galen's-. differentiis 2.4, and Celsus' Qn True Doctrine. These five have been selected, not only because they represent a crosssection of views on Christianity, but also because in al1 £ive cases the reference is unmistakeably to Christians, as opposed to Jews (Suetonius, Epictetus, Apuleius), or Cynics (Aelius Aristides) . It is possible, moreover, that Marcus Aureliusl reference to Christians in his Meditations is a gloss. Plinyts letter to Trajan, since it deals with Christian trials, will be considered in the section on legai opposition to Christianity.

u n s k i l l e d o b s e r v a t i o n , h a s t y and unfounded a s s u m p t i o n s , and even m a l i c i o u s g o s s i p . T h e Roman h i s t o r i a n T a c i t u s ( c . 55 -c.117 A . D .

)

makes

b r i e £ ref erence t o C h r i s t i a n i t y i n t h e Annals ( 1 5 . 4 4 1

.

In

t h i s passage, which d e s c r i b e s the £ i r e of Rome i n 6 4 A . D . , he a c c u s e s Nero of s w i t c h i n g t h e blame f o r t h e f i r e £rom

himself t o t h e C h r i s t i a n s , and he recounts i n v i v i d d e t a i l

t h e e x c r u c i a t i n g punishrnent which Nero i n f l i c t e d upon them. As

evidenced by h i s account of the e v e n t s , however, T a c i t u s

was no more w e l l disposed toward t h i s new c u l t t h a n was t h e

"But a l 1 t h e endeavours of men, a l 1 t h e emperor ' s l a r g e s s e and t h e p r o p i t i a t i o n s of t h e gods, d i d n o t s u f f i c e t o a l l a y t h e scanda1 o r banish t h e b e l i e f t h a t t h e f i r e had been o r d e r e d . And s o t t o g e t rid of t h i s rumour, Nero s e t up as t h e c u l p r i t s and punished w i t h the utmost refinement of c r u e l t y a c l a s s h a t e d f o r t h e i r abominations, who are commonly c a l l e d C h r i s t i a n s . C h r i s t u s , f rom whom t h e i r name i s d e r i v e d , w a s executed a t t h e hands of t h e p r o c u r a t o r Pontius P i l a t e i n t h e r e i g n of T i b e r i u s . Checked f o r t h e moment, t h i s p e r n i c i o u s s u p e r s t i t i o n again broke o u t , n o t o n l y i n Judaea, t h e source of t h e e v i l , b u t even i n Rome, t h a t r e c e p t a c l e f o r e v e r y t h i n g t h a t i s s o r d i d and d e g r a d i n g from every q u a r t e r of t h e globe, which there f i n d s a f o l l o w i n g . Accordingly, a r r e s t was f i r s t made of those who confessed [ t o b e i n g C h r i s t i a n s ] ; then, on t h e i r evidence, a n immense m u l t i t u d e was c o n v i c t e d , n o t s o much on t h e charge of a r ç o n a s because of h a t r e d of t h e human r a c e . "'

T a c i t u s c l e a r l y s t a t e s , t h e r e f o r e , not o n l y t h a t C h r i s t i a n i t y was a n e v i l and base s u p e r s t i t i o n , b u t a l s o t h a t C h r i s t i a n s c o m i t t e d b l a t a n t c r i m i n a l a c t s and 3

A s c i t e d and t r a n s l a t e d by Henry Bettenson, Documents of the C h r i s t i a n Church (London: Oxford U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 19461, pp. 1 - 2 .

manifested a hatred toward the rest of humanity.

These

assumptions, however, were based upon little more than vague gieanings from suspicious sources. Tacitus had obviously heard that Christus, the leader of the cult, had been executed under Tiberius as a common criminal, and had quickly concluded that his followers were also wicked malefactors.

Moreover, since Christianity had raised its

ugly head in Rome, the home of al1 pernicious cults, he had assumed that it, too, was a despicable superstition. After all, it was an offshoot of Judaism, a strange religion which manifested a hatred toward the human race, so it no doubt imitated this unfathomable perversion.4

Indeed Tacitus

derived his knowledge of Christianity from both what he had heard and what he had consequently surmised, and drew a picture of this new cult which was both unjust and untrue. One

particularly gruesome attack on the Christians is

found in Minucius Felix' Octavius ( 8 and 91, a Christian apology £rom the early third century.

In this work, the

critique is suspiciously connected with an oration by Fronto in which he allegedly accused the Christians of sirnilar atrocities, viz. the practice of ritual murder and sexualerotic activity.

According to the account in Minucius

4

Tacitus uses the expression odium humani ~eneris with respect to the Christians, which is very similar to his description of the Jews in Histories 5.5.1: ~ , , , fides obstinata, misericordia in promntu, a adversus alios, hostile gdium, as cited by Stephen Benko, OQ. cit . 1980, p. 1064.

.

Felix:

[a]n i n f a n t covered over w i t h meal, t h a t i t may d e c e i v e t h e unwary, is p l a c e d b e f o r e him who i s t o be s t a i n e d w i t h t h e i r rites: t h i s i n f a n t i s s l a i n by the young p u p i l , who has been urged on a s i f t o harmless blows on t h e s u r f a c e of t h e meal, w i t h dark and s e c r e t wounds. T h i r s t i l y - - O h o r r o r ! they l i c k up i t s blood; e a g e r l y t h e y d i v i d e i t s limbs. By t h i s v i c t i m t h e y a r e pledged t o g e t h e r u . A £ t e r much f e a s t i n g , "when t h e . . .f e r v o u r of i n c e s t u o u s l u s t has grown h o t w i t h drunkenness, a dog t h a t h a s been t i e d t o t h e c h a n d e l i e r i s provoked, by throwing a small p i e c e of o f f a l beyond t h e l e n g t h of a l i n e by which he i s bound, t o r u s h and s p r i n g ; and t h u s the conscious l i g h t b e i n g o v e r t u r n e d and e x t i n g u i s h e d i n t h e sharneless d a r k n e s s , t h e c o n n e c t i o n s of abominable l u s t i n v o l v e them i n t h e u n c e r t a i n t y of f a t e . Although not a l 1 i n f a c t , y e t i n consciousness a l 1 are a l i k e i n c e s t u o u s , s i n c e by t h e d e s i r e of a l 1 of them e v e r y t h i n g i s sought f o r which can happen i n t h e a c t of each i n d i v i d u a l . " ' Although t h e o r i g i n of t h i s d e s c r i p t i o n remains u n c e r t a i n , i t i s c l e a r t h a t t h e a u t h o r l a b o u r s under a s e r i o u s misunderstanding r e g a r d i n g the C h r i s t i a n Eucharistie service. 6

This could have been d e r i v e d , on t h e one hand,

£rom t h e language of the E u c h a r i s t , viz. t h e " e a t i n g " of the

body and t h e " d r i n k i n g " of t h e blood of J e s u s , w h o was o f t e n d e p i c t e d as t h e son o r c h i l d of God, o r on t h e o t h e r hand,

£rom s t o r i e s of t h e E u c h a r i s t as p r a c t i s e d by v a r i o u s Gnostic s e c t s . 7

What i s c e r t a i n , however, i s t h a t Fronto

had heard t h e s c u r r i l o u s rumours of C h r i s t i a n debauchery and

5

Stephen Benko, "Pagan C r i t i c i s m of C h r i s t i a n i t y During t h e F i r s t Two C e n t u r i e s A.D. " , A u f s t i e a und Niederaana der n omis ch en Welt 2 3 . 2 (New York: Walter de G r u y t e r , 1 9 8 0 1 , pp. 1 0 8 2 - 3 . I b i d . , p . 1085.

anthropophagy which were rampant at that time;H indeed Plinyls letter to Trajan makes it clear that he, too, had heard reports to that ef fect and was relieved to learn,

after torturing two deaconesses, that they w e r e unfoundedg. U n l i k e Pliny, however, Fronto had not only lent an ear to

these sordid stories, but had both accepted them as true and

made them the basis for his critique, thus spreading the gossip and scanda1 even further. Lucian of Samosata (c.115-c.200) w a s a well-known Greek humourist who parodied the life of an unusual Christian named Peregrinus Proteus (ca.100- 165 1 .

Suspected of

murdering his father, Peregrinus fled to Palestine where he converted to Christianity, took positions of leadership in the Church, and was eventually denounced and imprisoned for his faith. While in jail, he was visited continually by widows, orphans, old women, and even prominent men who read the Bible to him, brought him food, and generally kept hirn Company.

Some Christians sent cash donations, presumably to

alleviate the costs of his l e g a l defence.

Peregrinus, for

whatever reason, was not martyred for his faith. and when he w a s released £rom prison, he returned to his native Parium

8

References to the two charges of debaucheq and anthropophagy among the Christians recur in Justin ' s , u t Anologv (26), Athenagorast Lecrati~ ( 3 1 , ~ertullian's~ m l o w ( 7 ) . Clement of Alexandria's S+rornatei~ (3.2.10), and Epiphanius Panarios (26.4 and 5) . 9

1068-9.

Pliny. EQ. X. 96, as cited by Benko, o ~ .c i t . , pp.

where he was excommunicated from the Church, possibly for eating meat sacrificed to idols.

He then began to travel

and to seek new adventures, one of which was to become a Cynic philosopher.

In 165 A.D., he cremated himself at

Olympia, an event witnessed by his biographer Lucian.LU From Lucian ' s biography, De Morte P e x e s r.u u. , one can easily discern his disparagement not only of the life of Peregrinus, but also, and more importantly, of the lives of those Christians who associated with him.

Indeed he

portrays these individuals as: "poor souls [who] convinced themselves that they will al1 be immortal and will live forever, on account of which they think lightly of death and most of them g i v e themselves up. Furthemore their first lawgiver convinced them that they are al1 each others' brothers after they once deny the Greek gods and break the law and worship that crucified sophist and live according to his laws. They despise al1 things and consider them common property accepting such doctrines by faith alone. So if a cheater who is able to make profit from the situation cornes to them, he quickly becomes rich laughing at the simple people".11 Thus Lucian, too, had only a vague and scanty knowledge of this new religion. What little information he had, moreover, was obviously derived £rom two very suspicious sources :

f irst, f rom what he had suzmised on the basis of

Peregrinus' manipulation of well-meaning Christians; and second, £rom what he had gleaned from personal observation and injudicious local gossip--as Benko has pointed out, the

'O

Benko, ibid., pp. 1093-5.

"

As cited by Benko, ibid,, p. 1095.

"information Lucian gives us about Christians in this txeatise is not particularly profound and everybody who knew Christians probably knew as much about them as he mentions".12

Indeed Lucian expended little tirne or effort

on a study of these "simple peoplem; he simply described, for al1 those who had not yet discovered the absurdity of

this new superstition, what he and others had chosen to accept-on extremely little evidence- -as the truth. Galen of Pergamum (c.1 2 9 - 199 ) , the well-known medical doctor and philosopher, makes three b r i e £ references to Christianity in some of his medical writings.

In the first,

which is preserved in Arabic, Galen praises the Christian

way of life and likens it to that of philosophers: "Most people are u n a b l e to follow any demonstrative argument consecutively; hence they need parables, and benef it from them.. .just as now we see the people called Christians drawing their faith from parable (and miracles), and yet some acting in the same way (as those who philosophize) . For their contempt of death...is patent to us every day, and likewise their restraint in cohabitation ... and they also number individuals who, in self-discipline and self-control in matters of food and drink, and in their keen pursuit of justice, have attained a pitch not inferior to that of genuine philosophers".1 3 The second quotation, which appears in his work entitled

Christianity:

"In order that one should not at the very

beginning, as if one had come into the school of Moses and

Christ, hear talk of undemons trated laws, and that where it is least appropriate".1 4

A third ref erence, again preserved

in Arabic, confirms this view:

"If 1 had in mind people who

taught their pupils in the same way as the followers of

Moses and Christ teach theirs--forthey order them to accept

everything on faith--1should not have given you a definition".1 5 As

is evident £rom Lhese texts, therefore, Galenls

acquaintance with Christianity was superficial at best.

In

the first reference, while he clearly takes the unprecedented step of putting Christianity on an equal footing with philosophy, he does so by virtue of its active pursuit of justice, its insistence upon sexual propriety, and its blatant contemnation of death--again,respects in which Christianity was known to any pagan who encountered its adherents in the course of their daily lives or who frequented the Roman amphitheatre. As Wilken affims, it was "through their way of life, not simply their teachings, that Christians first caught the attention of the larger s ~ c i e t ~ ~and ' ~ ,it is clearly upon this way of life, which waç "patent to [him] every dayl1, that Galen bases his

conception of this n e w religion.

14

l5

16

In the last two

As cited by Benko, op. c i t . , p. 1099. Ibid.

Robert L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), p. 8 2 .

references, moreover, Galen fails to make any clear distinction between Christians and Jews .

In both cases, he

considers them rnembers of the same "schoolM,obviously a philosophical school. and he denounces them both for their reliance upon faith rather than reason."

Given that

Christianity, as Wilken attests. was well established as a movement independent of Judaism by the mid-second century,

and that even those who were only casually acquainted with Christians could differentiate between them, Galen's remarks

are clearly not indicative of a keen understanding or an indepth study of Christian practices and b e l i e f s .

in

Unlike these four pagan authors, however. the Platonic philosopher Celsus (c. 117-c.180) published a critique of Christianity, entitled On the True Doctrine. which was primrily grounded. not in hearsay or casual observation, but in a considered reading of Christian texts."

Although

only brief fragments of this treatise remain, these suggest that Celsus was familiar with a variety of Christian works 17

Wilken, ibid., p. 73, suggests that. since Galen was concerned with the sane problern in both Christianity and Judaism, viz. their absence of reason. and since both religions held the creation account in Genesis, upon which he was basing his criticism, as authoritative, he saw no need to di£ferentiate between thern. Such a view, however, requires one to assume that Galen's knowledge of both Judaism and Christianity was far greater than is suggested by these three references.

L9 In fact, he was well acquainted not only with Christian texts, but also with Jewish and even Gnostic wri tings .

and even with some Christian apologies--particularlythose

of Justin Martyr whose arguments, i n several instances, he Seems to reverse.2 0 In his treatise, Celsus attacks Christianity on many

and varied issues, but three receive particular attention. First, like Galen, Celsus criticizes Christianity for its insistence upon faith rather than reason, for this invariably results, he insists, in the gullible and the uneducated being duped by myths and absurdities. Indeed " [ O ] ne ought f irst to follow reason as a g u i d e bef ore

accepting any belief, since anyone who believes without testing a doctrine is certain to be deceivedu.2 1 Second, Celsus exposes the unoriginality of Christianity. The stories of Jesus' birth, for example, derive £rom the myths of Danae and Melanippe, and Jesus is

clearly not the only one "who goes about begging and claiming to be t h e Son of God".2 2

Even t h o s e "tricks"

ascribed to Jesus by his disciples are no different from 20

I n particular, he answers Justin's charge that Plato borrowed £rom Moses by insisting that Jesus borrowed from Plato and Paul £rom Heraclitus, and he replies to Justin's contention that paganism is a corruption of the truths of Christianity by asserting that Christianity has rnisinterpreted the truths embodied in the works of Plato. Henry Chadwick, Eariv Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. 22 - 2 3 and note 59.

R. Joseph Ho££man, trans . and intro., Ç e l s u ç . On the True Doctrine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987) , p. 54. 21

56 those of t h e s o r c e r e r s , and t h e s e , a t l e a s t , perform t h e i r magic b e f o r e everyone i n the marketplace. 2 .l T h i r d , Celsus p a r t i c u l a r l y d e l i g h t s i n denouncing t h e a b s u r d i t i e s of C h r i s t i a n i t y , e s p e c i a l l y t h e d o c t r i n e s of t h e I n c a r n a t i o n and t h e R e s u r r e c t i o n . God of P l a t o - t r a n s c e n d e n t ,

Since C e l s u s g God is t h e

immutable, and i m p a s s i v e - - h e

f l a g r a n t l y a t t a c k s the C h r i s t i a n God who found i t n e c e s s a r y "to descend £rom t h e h e i g h t s " t o Save h ~ m a n i t y . ' ~Was t h e

purpose of t h i s d e s c e n t t o d i s c o v e r what was going on among his creatures?

For i f he d i d n o t a l r e a d y know, he i s n o t

o m n i s c i e n t , and i f h e did know, his d i v i n e power must s u r e l y have been s u f f i c i e n t t o c o r r e c t them.

"A f i n e god i n d e e d

who must pay a v i s i t t o t h e r e g i o n s below, o v e r which h e i s s a i d t o have c o n t r o l " . 2 5

I t i s a l s o absurd, he w r i t e s ,

to

b e l i e v e t h a t a body, once i t h a s decayed, can r e t u r n t o i t s original condition.

The sou1 may be immortal, b u t

H e r a c l e i t u s w a s surely c o r r e c t t o s t a t e t h a t "corpses s h o u l d 26

be d i s p o s e d of l i k e dung, for dung they a r e N .

Thus C e l s u s was c l e a r l y unique among seconci-century pagan a u t h o r s f o r his a c q u a i n t a n c e with contemporary Christian texts.

Yet even he was n o t wholly a t e a s e w i t h

t h i s s t r a n g e , new r e l i g i o n , and even he was w i l l i n g t o heed 2J

I b i d . , p . 59.

"

Ibid., p . 3 9 .

''

I b i d . , p. 76.

L6

I b i d G , p . 86.

- -and to publish--unsubstantiated rumours. He states, for example, that Christian teachers were afraid of the educated classes and appealed solely to the helpless and hopeless of society.

"Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible

draw near[, he writes] . us to be evils.

For these abilities are thought by

But as for anyone ignorant, anyone stupid,

anyone uneducated, anyone childish, let him corne boldly . "" Recent sociological investigations into the class basis of early Christianity, however, reveal that this was clearly not the case.

As Rodney Stark points out, since 1931, when

scholars first began to question "this proletarian view of the early church, a consensus has developed among New Tes tament his torians that Chris tianity w a s based in the

middle and upper classes".2 8

Stark goes a long way to

confirming this view, moreover, by considering not only individual case studles,29 but also survey research studies of general populations,JO and he concludes that "people rnust

have a degree of privilege to have the sophistication needed to understand new religions and to recognize a need for

27

Ibid., pp. 7 2 - 3 .

28

Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianitv: A Sociolo~istReconsiders Historv (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 31. ZY

For example, the Mormons and the Christian Scientists, ibid., pp. 39-40. 3O

For example, the 1977 Gallup Poll of the adult U.S. population, and the 1989-90 National Survey of Religious Identification, ibid., pp. 40-44.

them.

This is n o t t o Say t h a t t h e mosc p r i v i l e g e d w i l l be

most p r o n e t o embrace new r e l i g i o u s movements, b u t o n l y t h a t c o n v e r t s w i l l be f rom t h e more, r a t h e r than the l e s s , privileged c l a s s e s " ."

As

S t a r k p o i n t s out, moreover, Wayne

Meeks, t o o , suggests t h a t r e l a t i v e d e p r i v a t i o n accounted f o r

a large p r o p o r t i o n of c o n v e r t s t o the early church, Le., t h a t p e o p l e who were r e l a t i v e l y p r i v i l e g e d , b u t who b e l i e v e d t h a t t h e y m e r i t e d more, w e r e most likely t o convert t o C h r i s t i a n i t y .3 2

Indeed C e l s u s ' c r i t i c i s m of C h r i s t i a n

t e a c h e r s i s c l e a r l y unfounded; i n f a c t , i t i s n o t h i n g o t h e r than hearsay . Nor is Celsus t o t a l l y a p p r i s e d of one of the most fundamental of e a r l y C h r i s t i a n d o c t r i n e s , viz. t h e disciplina arcana.

According t o t h i s t e a c h i n g , t h e most

i m p o r t a n t of r e l i g i o u s t r u t h s were w i t h h e l d Erom t h e u n i n i t i a t e d , L e . , £rom t h o s e who were not r e a d y o r worthy t o r e c e i v e d i v i n e knowledge.

Even catechumens were

p e r m i t t e d t o p a r t i c i p a t e fully i n t h e f a i t h o n l y a f t e r a prolonged and s t r i c t p r e p a r a t i o n ; i n fact, t h e y had t o b e deemed m o r a l l y and s p i r i t u a l l y fit b e f o r e t h e y were i n s t r u c t e d i n t h e n a t u r e of the Sacraments. 3 J

" 33

Celsus,

Ibid., p . 3 9 .

A l l u s i o n s t o t h i s p r a c t i c e are found i n T e r t u l l i a n , Cyprian, and Origen, and more d e f i n i t e l y i n C h r i s t i a n a u t h o r s of the f o u r t h and f i f t h c e n t u r i e s . Numerous examples of e a r l y C h r i s t i a n s i l e n c e r e g a r d i n g t h e i r d o c t r i n e s and p r a c t i c e s a r e found i n I s a a c Williams, T r a c t ç

however, criticizes the Christian teachers for resolutely refusing to answer questions about their religion--infact, for discouraging questions of any sort.

"If only they would

undertake to answer my question", he writes, but their "favorite expressions are:

' Do not ask questions, just

believe!' and 'Your faith will save you!'".

Indeed for

ail his study of Christian texts and investigation of Christian doctrines, even Celsus was wholly ignorant of one of the basic teachings of the early Church. Second-century pagan authors, therefore, were more cognizant of the vicious gossip which surrounded this new religion than of the teachings and practices which it expounded; not even Celsus' condemnation of Christianity was based strictly on Christian texts.

Nor were they averse to

spreading the rurnours even further--and thus to exacerbating the uneasy and unenviable situation of the Christians. Indeed, as will be seen in the following section, the pagan masses were already more than willing to inflict hardship on their Christian relatives, neighbours, and colleagues, and needed little incentive or encouragement from the Greek and Roman intelligentsia.

80 and 87, Tracts for the Times (London: Gilbert Rivington, Printers, 18404842). 34

Hoffman, QD. c i t . , p. 54.

&

Popular For most second-century Christians, the foremost threat of persecution came from the private denunciations of their fellow citizens.

In fact, as Geoffrey de Ste. Croix states,

flthestandard procedure in punishing Christians was 'accusatoryr and not %-tquisitorialt: a qovernor would not normally take action until a forma1 denunciation. ..was issued by a delatortl." This form of malevolence was far more worrisome and frightening than the later systematic persecutions, moreover, because it was much more insidious. Indeed, a Christian had to be constantly on his or her guard against possible denunciation by someone who might previously have been considered trustworthy-be neighbour, a colleague, or a relative-but

it a

who now

saw

denunciation as a foolproof means of settling a score. That such a threat was very real, however, is clearly borne out by the account of Polycarprs martyrdom, which states that this elderly bishop was hauled before the authorities at the instigation of an angry mob'".

Justin Martyr,

moreover, relates two incidents of private denunciation in his Second Apology.

These two narrations are unique,

however, in that they focus attention, not on the respective Christians who were placed on trial, but on their respective 35 G.E.M. de Ste. Croix, "Why were the Early Christians Persecuted?", Past and Present, 26, November 1963, p. 15.

The Martvrdorn of Polvcar~

61

private delators.

The first (Ch. 2 ) is a vivid account of

the denunciations of a Roman woman and her catechist by the former's pagan husband, while the second (Ch. 3) describes the character and activities of the Cynic Crescens, Justin's frequent opponent in public philosophical debate, by whorn he expected t o be denounced i n t h e near future.

I n each of

these narratives, Justin not only describes an incident of private delation, but he also creates a striking profile of the accuser himself, making it abundantly clear just how i n s i d i o u s and h o w alarming t h i s form of hostility actually

was . Justin's first story runs as follows: Under Q. Lollius Urbicus, urban prefect £ r o m 146 to 160, a certain Roman woman, once she had been taught the doctrines of Christ,

refused to persist in the immoral and wicked deeds which she had previouly performed with the household servants, and sought to convince her pagan husband likewise to amend his

licentious ways and to follow her example of self-control. When her husband refused to alter his behaviour, at the

urging of her friends and although desiring a divorce, she forced herself to remain with him in t h e hope of his eventual transformation. Yet when he journeyed to Alexandria and news reached her of his worsening behaviour,

she promptly sent him a bill of divorce and left him, lest she herself be implicated in his impiety.

Incensed that she

had divorced him against his will, her husband denounced her

to the authorities as a Christian.

She thereupon petitioned

the Rnperor for a delay in her trial t o set her affairs in order, and her husband, prevented £rom pursuing his case against her, directed his attack towards her Christian teacher, Ptolemaeus, whom he contrived to have arrested on the same charge.

Ptolemaeus was thus imprisoned, enchained,

and severely beaten over a long period of t h e , and when he

was finally brought to trial, he was merely asked one question:

"Are you a Christian?". When he readily

confessed his devotion to Christ, he was martyred on the spot, along with Lucius and another Christian who boldly challenged Urbicus about the injustice of the trial proceedings. Scholars have traditionally treated this narrative as yet another example of Christian hagiography.J 7

Yet as

Justin himself states, his primary aim in recounting this s t o r y is to expose the disturbing e v e n t s occurring at

orne^', viz. unjust denunciations by malevolent pagans, and

this account is well suited to such an undertaking.

Indeed

it allows Justin to portray the husband £rom two very

different, but equally despicable sides, iie, £rom the perspectives of both the woman and her catechist, and thus 37

The most notable example is R.M. Grant, A ~ o l o c r i s t s of the Second Centurv Whiladelphia: ~ h e Westminster Press, 19881, pp. 69-73. 38

Justin Martyr, Second A~aîocrv,trans. Thomas B. Falls, Saint Justin Martvr (Washington, D.C. : Catholic University of America Press, 19651, p. 119.

to emphasize, doubly eff ectively, the outrage being perpetrated against innocent Christians. Justin takes pains, first of all, to expose the sexual degeneracy of the husband, and he does this by contrasting his conduct with that of the wife.

Indeed the husband's

unbridled lust, his obstinate refusa1 to change his behaviour, and his desire that his wife continue participating in his debaucheries are well demonstrated in the light of her self-control,her patience with her husband's impiety, and her desire to distance herself frorn his sinful acts.

Justin's reference to her repugnance at

sharing her husbandrs table and bed, moreover, is a further but more subtle condemnation of the latter's immorality.

In

early Chris tianity, the two notions of food and sex were strongly linked as communicators of vice.3 9

This is

evidenced, for example, in Revelation 2:20,

where the author

rebukes the Christians in Thyatira for tolerating the prohetess Jezebel, who beguiles the servants into practising immorality and into eating food sacrificed to idols.

What

Justin is saying, therefore, is that the husbandls actions were so impious that the wife was repelled at the thought of physical intimacy with him, fearing that his e v i l might somehow enter and contaminate her.4 O 39

Margaret Y. MacDonald, Earlv Christian Wamen and Pauan Opinion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

64

Yet J u s t i n r e v e a l s n o t o n l y t h e husband' s immorali t y , b u t also h i s i r r a t i o n a l and o b s e s s i v e b r u t a l i t y .

He

accomplishes t h i s by c o n t r a s t i n g t h e behaviour of t h e husband, who b r i b e s a c e n t u r i o n t o e n q u i r e i n t o Ptolemaeus' b e l i e f s and who has him r u t h l e s s l y abused i n p r i s o n , w i t h that of Ptolemaeus h i m s e l f , who accepts h i s u n f o r t u n a t e circumstances w i t h b o t h honour and courage.

The u l t i m a t e

comparison is manifested, however, i n t h e t r a n q u i l i t y a n d r e s i g n a t i o n w i t h which t h e c a t e c h i s t f a c e d martyrdom and the

rage and arrogance w i t h which t h e husband faced r e j e c t i o n . Yet not o n l y Ptolemaeus, b u t a l s o t h e two onlookers i n t h e

s t o r y i l l u m i n a t e t h e d i s r e p u t a b l e conduct of the husband, for while t h e l a t t e r a c t s u n j u s t l y towards Ptolemaeus and compels him t o f o r f e i t h i s l i f e , h i s two f e l l o w C h r i s t i a n s s t a n d up a g a i n s t i n j u s t i c e and pay with t h e i r own l i v e s . I n r e c o u n t i n g t h i s s t o r y , t h e r e f o r e , J u s t i n has

c r e a t e d a p r o f i l e of t h e t y p i c a l pagan d e l a t o r :

an

i n d i v i d u a l whose c h a r a c t e r was lewd and depraved, whose methods w e r e l i t t l e l e s s than savage, and whose m o t i v e s - l u s t , r a g e , and revenge- -were b a s e and contemptible.

Indeed

f o r J u s t i n i t was n e c e s s a r y t o d i s c l o s e the cause of t h e C h r i s t i a n s ' d i s t r e s s , and one way t o accomplish t h i s end w a s

t o p u b l i c i z e t h i s p a i n f u l s t o r y of pagan m a l i c e and vengeance. That J u s t i n should wish t o promulgate t h e d i s t u r b i n g e v e n t s t h a t were o c c u r r i n g around him is c l e a r l y n o t

65

surprising in that he himself was expecting to be denounced, in the near future, by the Cynic Crescens, "that lover of fanfare and ostentation". Indeed this so-called philosopher, he insists, purposely depicted Christians "as if they were atheists and irreligious, merely for the purpose of captivating and gratifying the deceived mob". When Justin attempted to question him, moreover. and thus to convince him of his errors, he found him to be totally ignorant of Christian doctrines and practices.

Indeed if

Crescens was attacking Chris tians without studying their teachings, he "is positively wicked, and far worse than illiteratew, and if he has studied them, but chooses, through fear of his audience, to deny that he is a Christian, then "he is much more vile and evil, because he is then inferior even to a slave in popular and unreasonable opinion and feartl. In fact, Justin rails, Crescens is so enslaved to popularity and irrationality that even the saying of Socrates - - "no one is to be preferred to truthn- - is disregarded by him. Thus once again Justin has created an effective

paradigm of an evil pagan delator.

Crescens was clearly

dishones t, ostentatious, and vile, and his actions were motivated solely by fear and self-gratification. Once again, therefore, Justin felt the need to publicize the gravity of the situation and the potential dangers which confronted Christians in the form of vindictive and angry

pagans . Nor w a s J u s t i n o v e r - r e a c t i n g w i t h r e s p e c t t o t h e s e p r i v a t e d e l a t i o n s , for their numbers were r a p i d l y

i n c r e a s i n g . This is evidenced by t h e governor P l i n y i n h i s l e t t e r t o Trajan:

"Before long, as is of t e n t h e case, t h e

mere f a c t t h a t t h e charge [of C h r i s t i a n i t y ] was t a k e n n o t i c e of made i t commoner, and s e v e r a l d i s t i n c t cases a r o s e .

An

unsigned paper w a s p r e s e n t e d , which gave t h e names of

manym.4 1

T h a t many d e l a t o r s were a c c u s i n g C h r i ç t i a n s s o l e l y

as a means of s e t t l i n g persona1 v e n d e t t a s , moreover, a s i n t h e two i n s t a n c e s recounted by J u s t i n , i s demonstrated by T r a j a n t s r e p l y t o P l i n y t h a t C h r i s t i a n s were n o t t o be sought o u t , and t h a t any unsigned o r anonyrnous p a p e r s , s u c h as P l i n y had already r e c e i v e d , were n o t t o be a d m i t t e d ,

s i n c e they were "a very bad example and unworthy of o u r t ime

." Hadrian, T r a j a n ' s s u c c e s s o r , was also concerned a b o u t

t h e i n c r e a s e i n private p r o s e c u t i o n s .

This i s evidenced by

h i s r e s c r i p t t o t h e Proconsul of Asia, a copy of which J u s t i n appended t o h i s F i r s t Apology, which r e v e a l s not o n l y t h e i r frequency, b u t a l s o t h e confusion and h y s t e r i a surrounding them: " I f ... t h e s u b j e c t s of your province can back up t h e i r cornplaint a g a i n s t t h e C h r i s t i a n s , s o a s t o accuse them i n c o u r t , 1 do not obj e c t t o their p

p

41

p l i n y , En, X.96.

42

Pliny, EnL X.97.

doing sol but 1 cannot allow them to proceed solely by noisy demands and shouts . 1 t is f ar more appropriate, if anyone wishes to make an acccusation, that you decide [the question] . " 4 3 the citizens of Asia Minor were clearly accustomed to denouncing Christians, not by submitting signed papers, but by creating such disturbances that the Proconsul was obliged

to seek counsel from Rome.

Indeed they were obviously aware

of the many benefits such delations could afford, and were both well able and well prepared to take advantage of them. For second-centuryChristians, therefore, the e v e r increasing number of private delations by pagans was serious cause for alarm, and Justin, in particular, took steps to warn Christians of their vulnerability to this injustice. Yet the tribulations of the Christians did not end with denunciation. Their subsequent trials, often conducted by strict and unyielding governors, were no less distressing, since the only charge laid against them was that of being Christian, and the only punishment for such a charge was execution.

Lecrai The basis of the legal opposition to Christianity in the second-century has been a question of considerable debate during the past several decades.

It is generally

agreed by scholars that the normal charge against the

"

As

translated by Falls,

QD.

c i t . , p. 108.

Christians, from at least the year 112 onwards (and perhaps even £rom 6 4 1 , was the nomen Christianum, i . e . , they were accused simply of being Christians.4 4

This conclusion is

based primarily on the second- and early third-century Christian apologists ; on several accounts of early martyrdoms; and, most particularly, on the correspondence of 111-12 between Pliny and the Rnperor Trajan.4 5

In his

letter to the Ehperor, Pliny asks for direction regarding those individuals accused before him "as Christians" (aui tamauam Christiani def erebantur),

and he outlines the

procedure which he had been following up to that point, viz.

he asked the accused three tirnes if they were guilty of the charge.

If they denied their faith and willingly offered

prayers to the gods, they were allowed to go f ree; if they confessed, they were executed.

Although ~ r a j a nis very

cautious in his reply to Pliny and refuses to lay down a set form of procedure, he instructs the governor that Christians must not be sought out and that any anonymous accusations must not be considered.

He concurs with Pliny's course of

V i d . A.N. Sherwin-White, "Early Persecutions and Roman Law Againtt,Journal of ~heolocricalStudies, N.S., Vol. III, 1952, pp. 205-7; de Ste. Croix, llWhyWere the Early rend, QL Christians Persecuted?", on.cit. , pp. 9f £ . ; and

çit,, p. 2 2 0 . 45

De Ste. Croix, g ~ cit., . pp. 9-10. The two letters in question are Pliny, EnR, X.96 and X.97. 46

Unless otherwise noted, al1 xeferences to the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan will be to the edition and translation by J. Stevenson, A New Eusebjus (London: SPCK, l987), pp. 18 -21.

69

a c t i o n , however, i n punishing t h o s e brought b e f o r e h i m and convicted "as Christianstl ( a u i C h r i s t i a n i

a&

delati

f u e r a n t ) and i n r e l e a s i n g t h o s e who deny t h e charge and worship t h e gods.

As

G.E.M. de S t e . Croix concludes, " P l i n y

c o u l d j u s t i f i a b l y t a k e t h i s t o mean t h a t punishment was t o be for t h e Name a l o n e u .4 7

S c h o l a r s a l s o tend t o a g r e e t h a t t h e j u d i c i a l p r o c e s s used against t h e e a r l y C h r i s t i a n s was i n v a r i a b l y t h a t used for most c r i m i n a l t r i a l s , v i z . the çocrnitio extra ordinem. A s A.N.

Q f3

Sherwin-White has p o i n t e d o u t , the c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s

of t h i s procedure were t h r e e i n number: be made i n p r o p e r form, i. e

1) a c h a r g e had t o

n o t by an i n d e x o r i n f o r m e r ,

b u t by a d e l a t o r o r p r i v a t e p r o s e c u t o r ; 2 ) a case had t o b e h e a r d by a h o l d e r of i r n ~ e r i u x q - - u s u a l l ythe P r a e f e c t u s Urbi o r a P r a e f e c t u s P r a e t o r i o i n Rome and t h e p r o v i n c i a l governor i n t h e provinces4g-- w i t h t h e a s s i s t a n c e of h i s

concilium o r a d v i s o r y c o u n c i l of f r i e n d s and officiais; and 3

the m a g i s t r a t e o v e r s e e i n g a c a s e w a s f r e e , n o t o n l y to

f o r m u l a t e and impose p e n a l t i e s , b u t a l s o t o decide which cases would be recognized a s c r i m i n a l and which would n o t

47

D e Ste. Croix,

ut p . 10-

48

D e S t e . C r o i x , QD. c i t . , pp. 1 1 - 1 3 ; A.N. ~ h e r w i n White, Roman Çocietv and Roman Law in t h e N e w Testament (Oxford: Clarendon P r e s s , 19631, pp. 1 3 - 1 9 ; Frend, Q L s i t e , p. 218. 49

De S t e . C r o i x , pg. cjt,,

p . 11.

even be considered.50

The essence of this procedure.

therefore, which has been described as a "legalised absence of settled fonn",5 1 was quite simple:

an accuser alleged a

crime against an individual and the magistrate hearing the case decided if and how it should be handled.52

With the exception of the çoncilium, al1 the elements of the cocrniti~e x t r a ordinem can be discerned in the j 53 correspondence be tween Pliny and ~ r aan.

At f

irst

.

according to the usual process of delation, individuals were brought before Pliny by private accusers and charged with

being Chris tians .

As

governor of Bithynia, and therefore

the holder of im~erium,Pliny was free to deal with these accusations the way he thought fit, and thus he tried and executed al1 those who obstinately clung to their f aith. Before long, however, because of the success of previous delators, the number of cases began to increase and, what was worse, the usual process of denunciation began to be abandoned, i.e . , certain individuals were being accused of Christianity, not by a private prosecutor, but by the

submission of an unsigned list of names.

It was at this

point that Pliny thought it necessary to seek instruction

Sherwin-White, on. cit., 1963, p. 17.1 51 Theodor Mommsen, omisc ch es St r a f recht (~erlin, 1899), p. 340. SZ

Çherwin-White, on. cit.

0

1952, P D 1 8 -

£rom the Emperor, whose response made it very clear that anonymous accusations were not to be heeded.5 4 By the t h e of Trajan, therefore, Christianity was . c. i t a ,and private citizens were free already a reliaio i l l ~ to denounce to the Roman authorities those suspected of

adhering to this new cult. The question which has been exercising scholars for many years, however, and which has yet to be conclusively, or even satisfactorily, answered is: Why was the Name su£f icient to condemn the Christians?

Throughout this period, according t o Sherwin-White, there

was considerable change and development in the attitude of the Roman goverment towards the Christians.

In its

earliest stage, i e . , f rom Nero to Hadrian, Christianity was banned because of the alleged flaaitia, or crimes, associated with it.

There is thus a parallel, in this

respect, between Christianity and bo th the Bacchanalia in 186 B.C. and the Druids under the Julio-Claudians, L e . ,

that when a cult appears to be inseparably comected with criminal offences, a complete ban, or at the very l e a s t strict control, may be placed upon that cult.SS

Because of

. .

the flaaitia, the Name constitutes a capital charge and acts

as "a pointer to the magistrate, indicating a man whom it is proper for him to coerce as a malefactor if accusedu.56

''

Piiny, Ep, X.97.

55

~herwin-White,QD. c i t . , 1952, p . 2 0 7 .

''

Ibid,

That Christianity in this period was closely linked to immoral and criminal activity, moreover, is demonstrated by Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny; in al1 three, "the only

ground indicated for the proscription of the cult is its association with crimes and imrnoralitiesflS7-most probably cannibalism, incendiarism, and magic.se Yet even as early as 112, Sherwin-Whitemaintains, the attitude towards the Christians was changing.

Pliny was

satisfied, subsequent to the torture of Christian deaconesses and apostates, that the flagitia associated with Christianity were a fabrication; yet he nonetheless continued to persecute.

In a very clear statement to

Trajan, however, he explains that, whatever e l s e their offences might b e l the Christians were deserving of punishment due to their contumacia. . e t their refusal to obey a reasonable order of the magis trate.

That the

Christians continued to pay for their noncornpliance is demonstrated by the words of the proconsul who prosecuted the Scillitan martyrs in 180: "though time was given to them to return to the Roman tradition, yet they remained obstinate in their will. by the sword".5 9

Therefore 1 condemn them to death

Indeed in both instances the attitude of

57

A . N. Sherwin-Whi te, "Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?- -An Amendment", Past and P r e s e n t , Number 27, April 1 9 6 4 , p. 23. 58

Sherwin-White, QD. cit..., 1952, p . 2 0 8 .

the Christians seemed seditious--andtherefore àeserving of capital punishment. De Ste. Croix contends, however, that the basis for the persecution of the Christians in the second century lies neither in their flaaitia nor in their conturnacia, There

are, he maintains, some minor factors which undoubtedly contributed to the hostility of the authorities:

the

disturbances between Christians and Jews instigated by Christian preaching, the secrecy and seeming seditiousness

of the c u l t , the need to appease public opinion, as well as the provocative nature of voluntary martyrdoms.6 0

Yet the

major ground of the oppression against the Christians can only have been their "total rejection of the whole of Roman 'religio' summed up in the charge of 'atheismq". 6' This "reLigiousU motivation--in the ancient denotation of the word--appeared in two d i s t i n c t forms:

"superstitious" and

"political". The first, which inspired the majority of the pagan masses as well as certain members of the governing class, arose Erom an overwhelming fear of arousing the gods' a n g e d 2 Since t h e Christians were asserting either that the gods did not exist or that they were evil daimones, and

were refusing to participate in pagan religious rites, the De Ste. Croix, gn. c i t . , p. 27; vid. also G . E . M . de "Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?--A Rejoinderfq,Past and Present, Number 27, April 1964, p . 32. 'O

Ste. C r o i x ,

6'

De Ste. Croix, -, Ste. Croix,

OD,

1964, p. 32.

cit.,

74

superstitious began to expect imminent divine retribution. when disaster did strike, therefore, whether in the form of

a f iood, an earthquake, or a plague, the Christians were immediately saddled with the blame, denounced by the populace, and, in many instances, willingly prosecuted by the authorities.h J

Yet the motivation to persecute also appeared in a

"political" f o m and impelled those magistrates and Ernperors who were not bound by superstition.

Such individuals

usually felt very deeply and emotionally about their religion, since it was equated in their minds with the divinum, i .e. , that corpus of state law which pertained to

sacred matters and which guarded the pax d e o r m by means of particular rites and ceremonies.

Their religion, in other

words, was an integral and vital part of the Roman way of life-the

foundation of the state--andthe instrument by

which they were able to guard the reins of power.6 4 Ste. Croix asks:

AS de

T a n we imagine that such men, however

intellectually emancipated f rom the superstitions of the vulgar, would have had any compunction about executing the devotees of a new-fangled sect which threatened almost every element of Roman religion...?"."

Indeed i t was always

their intention--and to their benefit--tobreak d o m the

'' " ''

I b i d L , pp. 2 5 - 6 .

Ibid., pp. 29-30. Ibid., p. 30.

75

Christians ' rej ec tion of the pagan gods .6 6 Until very recently, most modern scholars followed de Ste. Croix in insisting that the major offence of the Christians was their godlessness.

In fact, as recently as

1987, Robin Lane Fox contended that "martyrs died because

they refused to honour the pagan godsn,6 7 and that atheism

was " the basic cause of [the Chris tians ' ] maltreatment" .6 8 In 1991, however, in his article entitled "On Christian Atheism", Joseph J. Walsh refers to de Ste. Croix' theory as "a satisfying but oversimplified explanation for pagan 69 hostility towards the new faithl'. In an in-depth survey

of the evidence of pagan ill-will in the second century, he demonstrates persuasively that, in its earliest stages, other characteristics of Christianity, such as "separateness, aggressive proselytizing and polemic, secrecy, Jewish origins, apocalyptic expectations, [and] disruption of familiesu, played an equally important role in arousing animosity. white, 66

Moreover, while he, like Sherwin-

agrees with de Ste. Croix that atheism gradually

De Ste. Croix,

OD. c i t . ,

1963, p . 2 8 .

67

Robin Lane Fox, Paaans and Chris tians (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1987). pp. 4 3 7 - 8 .

. . Joseph J. Walsh, "On Christian Atheism", Viwliae Çhristianae, 45, 1991, p . 256. 69

"

Sherwin-White, on. cit., 1964, p . 2 5 .

became t h e primary cause of pagan h a t r e d , i .e . , i n t h e l a t e

second and t h i r d c e n t u r i e s , he i n s i s t s t h a t i t c a n n o t a c c o u n t f o r t h e e a r l i e r manif es t a t i o n s of t h i s hos t i l i t y . A s he

points out:

"In t h a t Our sources suggest o t h e r

a t t r i b u t e s of t h e C h r i s t i a n s o f f e n s i v e t o t h e i r pagan n e i g h b o r s , t h e r e i s no need t o p r o j e c t a t h e i s m l s ef f e c t s b a c k t o a p e r i o d f o r which t h e y are v i r t u a l l y u n a t t e s t e d u .7 2

The b a s i s of t h e l e g a l o p p o s i t i o n t o C h r i s t i a n i t y i n t h e second c e n t u r y thus remains a n open q u e s t i o n .

What i s

c e r t a i n . however. i s t h a t C h r i s t i a n s w h o were denounced by t h e i r neighbours o r r e l a t i v e s could b e dragged before the a u t h o r i t i e s f o r t h e Name o n l y , and t h a t t h o s e who r e f u s e d t o r e c a n t w e r e u s u a l l y executed.

This is w e l l i l l u s t r a t e d i n

t h e a c c o u n t of t h e t r i a l of J u s t i n Martyr and h i s companions.

Having asked each of the accused whether o r n o t

he adrnitted t o b e i n g a C h r i s t i a n , the urban p r e f e c t s i m p l y announced t h a t t h o s e "who have r e f u s e d t o s a c r i f i c e t o the gods a r e t o b e scourged and executed i n accordance w i t h t h e Iaws

."

The t r i a l of the S c i l l i t a n Martyrs w a s no less

s t r a i g h t f orward.

The proconsul. having off e r e d t o each of

t h e martyrs a thirty-day reprieve to consider h i s o r h e r

73

"The Martyrdom of S a i n t s J u s t i n , C h a r i t o n , C h a r i t o , E v e l p i s t u s , H i e r a x , Paeon, L i b e r i a n , and t h e i r Community", i n The A c t s of the C h r i s t i a n Martvrs, t r a n s . H e r b e r t M u s u r i l l o (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972) , p . 4 7 .

77

p o s i t i o n , f i n a l l y read h i s d e c i s i o n t o t h e c o u r t :

Whereas

S p e r a t u s , Nartzalus , C i t t i n u s , Donata, V e s t i a , Secunda, and t h e o t h e r s have confessed t h a t they have been l i v i n g i n accordance with the r i t e s of t h e C h r i s t i a n s , and whereas though g i v e n the o p p o r t u n i t y t o r e t u r n t o the usage of t h e Romans t h e y have persevered i n t h e i r o b s t i n a c y , t h e y a r e hereby condemned t o be executed by t h e sword". 74

Indeed

Christianity was a r e l i a i 0 i l l i c i t a i n the eyes of Rome, and t h e punishment imposed upon i t s a d h e r e n t s was s t r i n g e n t and unambiguous.

I n f a c t , i t was t h i s u n y i e l d i n g a t t i t u d e on

t h e p a r t of Rome which was r e s p o n s i b l e , t o a l a r g e e x t e n t , both f o r the w r i t i n g of the A ~ o l o a i e sand for t h e l i t e r a r y form which they t o o k , j . e . ,

official petitions or orations

addressed t o the Roman Emperor.

It is t o the o r i g i n s of

t h i s l i t e r a r y f o m t h a t a t t e n t i o n now t u r n s .

74

"The Acts of the S c i l l i t a n Martyrsu, a s c i t e d in The Acts of the C h r i s t i a n M a r t v r ~ ,a u , , p . 89.

CHAPTER 3

The Oriuins of Second-Centurv Christian Anoloaies Addressed to Roman E9n~erors The tem "apology" is derived £ r o m the Greek w o r d

a~olocriaor "speech in defenceut the noun Ioaos meaning "speech delivered in court or assemblytl,and the prefix indicating "the removal of a chargen.1

~ D Q

Apology was thus

originally considered to be a speech in defence of an individual seeking acquitta1 on a specific charge, and as such it embodies two distinct ideas:

that an attack or

accusation has been made, and that a defence has been

launched.

These ideas are aptly demonstrated in the

classic example of such an address, viz. Plato's ,?i~oloov,

which depicts Socrates, upon being accused of atheism, as defending himself before the men of Athens. In the last several decades, however, the tem apology, with respect to both Christian and ~ellenistic-Jewish examples, has become blurred. This results, to a large extent, £rom applying definitions that are so inclusive as to be useless.

Avery Dulles, for example, understands this

term, with respect to the New Testament, to include the notions both of persuading unbelievers to accept 1

Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, eds., Greekh Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 19681, s . V . a ~ locria o . 2

For a discussion of apology as defence, see Wolfram Kinzig, "Der 'Sitz irn Lebent der Apologie in der Alten Kirche", ZKG. 100, 1990, pp. 298-300.

Christianity and of helping believers to overcome their doubts and hesitations.

Indeed in the light of such an all-

encompassing description, most of the New Testament, as he himself affirms, can be regarded as apologetic.3

Equally

broad and unhelpful is his conception of second-century apology as an attempt "to demonstrate the credibility of the Christian f aith".4

Again, such a def inition can incorporate

many works that contain little apologetic material.

The vagueness of this t e m , moreover. is also due to the tendency of scholars to use definitions which downplay or even omit entirely any notion of a t t a c k or defence.

R.M.

Grant, for instance, considers that an apologetic work "emerges from minority groups that are trying to come to t e m s with the larger culture within which they live".5

Yet

it is not unnatural for a minority group to wish to "corne to terms with", L e . , to understand its place within, its larger environment, and thus t o produce works outlining and interpreting its views o r beliefs to a wider audience, without these having been assailed, and without even the pretence of a defence, thus bringing into obvious question the designation of such works as apologetic.

Even more all-

encompassing are the de£initions. for example, of Tessa 3

Avery Dulles, A Historv o f Anolocretics (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd., 1971), p. 13.

5

R.M. Grant, Greek A~olodstsof the Second Centurv (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1 9 8 8 ) , p. 9.

Rajak, who characterizes Hellenistic-Jewish apology as "the presentation of Judaism to outsiders",6 and of Jean ~aniélou.who understands second-century Christian apology as "the presentation of the Gospel to the pagan worldl1.' Clearly each of these definitions fails to recognize that an apologetic work both results from an assault on an mdividual's beliefs and represents a serious attempt to repel it.

While other elements, such as persuasion,

confirmation, and presentation. are undoubtedly found in varying degrees in any apologetic enterprise. a de£inition which omits the two essential components of attack and defence is merely a definition of the less polemical and

more general acts of preaching and proselytizing.

For the

purposes of this thesis, therefore, tfapology"will be de£ined as "a defence of one's beliefs in response to accusation or attack". An

unfortunate result of this confusion over the term

apology has been an equal amount of confusion over its origins as a literary genre, and in particular over the origins of those apologies addressed to Emperors.

Indeed

scholars have suggested at least three precursors of this form of Christian de£ ence--Aristotlel s Protre~ticus,

6

Tessa R a j a k , Josenhus: The ~ i s t o r i a nand His $ocietv (London: Gerald ~uckworth& Co. Ltd., 19831, p. 225. 7

Jean ~aniélou,G o ç D e l s a a e and ~ellenis tic Culture (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 19731, p . 9.

81

Hellenistic-Jewish works, and some writings £rom the New Testament-yet none of these stands up to careful scrutiny.

A)

Aristotlels Protre~îicua

In Jean ~aniélou'swork, Çosnel Messaue and Hellenistic Culture, he refers to early Christian apologies addressed to Emperors as "the missionary literature of the second century".B

A

little further on. he states that traces of

Aristotlels Protre~ticus,a work which exhorts the reader to abandon worldly pursuits and to convert to a life of philosophy, can be found in the writings of the Apologists.9 While its influence has been traced in a number of apologetic works, he writes, it "has been demonstrated very precisely with regard to several themes in Justin".10 Danielou thus xefers the reader to Michele Pellegrino's discussion of Justin's Apologies and Aristotle's

"bid.

.

I b i d . p. 11. Anthony Guerra similarly contends that Aristotlets Protre~ticu~ was a primary mode1 for Justin in writing his First Apology ("The Conversion of Marcus Aurelius and Justin Martyr: The Purpose, Genre, and Content of the First Apology'. The Second Centurv, Vol. 9 , No. 3 , 1992. pp. 171-187). His arguments, however, are based on two extremely dubious premises: 1) that Justin was directing his Apology to Marcus Aurelius primarily and in his capacity, not as future Emperor, but as philosopher; and 2 ) that Justin's foremost purpose in writing his Apology was to convert Marcus to Christianity. lu

Ibid.

Protre~ticusin his work, S t u d i su l'antica amloaetica.11 Yet Pellegrinolscornparison of these two works is based primarily on four motifs which are so common as to be unserviceable in determining literary dependency, viz, that humans are the only animals which stand upright; that Christians, in their disparagement of death, can be compared to athletes; that the pains and persecutions of just Platonists, such as Socrates, can be contrasted with the material pleasures of the Epicureans; and the image £rom Greek tragedy of the &eus

machina.

As

Pellegrino himself

attests, the second motif is used at least £ive times by

Paul, and the f o u r t h is a common element of both Christian and pagan protreptic traditions.l2

in fact, Pellegrino

states, many of the Apologistsl ideas could easily have been lifted £rom the florilegia and doxographic handbooks which

abounded in the second century."

Thus i t appears that

~aniélou' s overzealous interpretation of Pellegrino ' s analysis is based on--andnecessary for--hisown very loose definition of apology as missionary literature, since

protreptic is an indispensable component of proselytization. Clearly the P r o t r e u t i c u ~ ,as Anton-Hermann Chroust attests,

is first and foremost a wlhortatory'composition or eulogy

11

Michele Pellegrino, S t u d i su l'antica a~oloqetica (Rom: Edizioni di Storia e Letterature, 19471, pp. 22-24. l2

Ibid.,

pp. 23-24.

l3

Xbid. , p. viii.

which contains a sustained and apparently systematic argument in favor of a life devoted to philosophyw.1 4

As

the philosophic life was not under any f o m of attack or persecution at that time, it thus stands t o reason that this work was not written as a defence of such a lifestyle, and that any influence which it might have had upon Christian apologies was super£icial at bes t .

B)

Hellenistic-Jewish Works

Scholars have pointed to the works of Hellenistic Judaism as precursors both of the content and of the literary f o m of Christian apologies.1 S

~ i m éPuech, for

inç tance. has çtated that " [l] apologétique chrétienne a été préparée par une ~ p o l o ~ é t i ~juive, ue qui s ' était développée pendant lfépoquehellénistique,

à

Alexandrie, quand les Juifs de la Disners ioq. . .s ' 6 taient

14

Anton -Hermann Chroust, ~ r i s t o t l e : Protre~ticus. 4 Peconst r u c t i o q (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964). p. ix. 15

In addition to the scholars discussed below, see Johannes Geffcken, Zwei ariechische A~oloCgeten (Leipzig: Teubner, 1907), p. ix, and H. Koester, "Early Christian a s Dictionam of the Bible: Literature", Jnter~reter Su~lementarvVolume, 1976, p. 555; although Arthur J e Droge argues in his book Homer or Moses? Earlv Christian Inter~retationçof the Historv of Culture that "the roots of early Christian apologetics are not to be sought exclusively within the domain of Hellenistic Judaism, but in the broader historical and cultural context of the Hellenistic and Roman periods" (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 19891, p. 195. -

-

trouvés en contact avec 1 lhellénisme". l6

A

little further

on, he adds that the Christians learned from HellenisticJudaism "une méthode pour démontrer le monothéisme et commenter la Bible, et aussi des procédés commodes pour exploiter a leur profit la littérature classique ellemême".

17

.

Other scholars, taking their cue £rom Puech, have

attempted to pinpoint specific Hellenistic-Jewish antecedents of either the content or the form of Christian defences addressed to Ehnperors.

~aniélou,concerned with

the content of the apologies, states that Hellenistic Judaism produced many missionary works similar to the

Christian apologies, such as " t h e Jewish Svbilline Oracles, the Letter of A r i s t e a s of the second century B .C., and the

Contra Anionern of Josephus f rom the first century. Above al1 a large proportion of the work of Philo is the product of this missionary preoccupation, notably the Hmothetica. . . , the De Vita Mosis, and the De ~ecalocroand DP S~ecj,alibus Leqibusw, since these discuss such themes as

" the criticism of idolatry. . . [and] the assertion of the primitive character of rnon~theism".'~W.H.C. Frend, moreover, notes that it w a s

the Jewish arguments against

paganism that [the Christian apologist] adopted in his 16

~ i m éPuech, Les A~olocristesGrecs du IIe siècle du

notre Ère 10.

(Paris: Librairie Hachette et Cie., 1912). p.

l7

Ibid., p . 13.

18

~aniélou,QD. cit., p. 10.

defence of his new faithn, and that Justin Martyr's First Apology "repeats the arguments of two centuries of Jewish apologetic.

With respect to the literary form of these

defences, Edwin R. Goodenough follows Paul Heinisch in concluding that " t h e practice of addressing apologetic epistles to a ruler was taken over from Hellenistic Judaism" ."

An investigation, however, into the possible

similarities of both content and form between the Hellenistic-Jewish writings and the Christian apologies reveals the speciousness of these suggestions.

1.

Content

With respect to the content of the defences addressed to Emperors, Puech, ~aniélou,and Frend al1 agree that the

apologistsl arguments against paganism and idolatry are borrowed £rom the writings of Hellenistic Judaism. S i n c e the Christian apologies, however, are replete with arguments against pagan culture, and since ~ellenistic-Jewishworks are both numerous and varied, it is difficult to examine

this proposal constructively w i t h o u t restricting the investigation. It seems f easible, therefore, to examine t h e

similarities of content between t h e Christian apologies W.H.C. Frend. IlThe Old Testament . in the Age of the Greek Apologis ts A . D. 130 - 1 8 0 m 1 & , l l r r i o n P o D u J ~and ~ Unnonular in the Earlv Christian Centuries (London; Varioruni Reprints, 1976), p. 130. 19

' O Edwin R. Goodenough, The Theolow o f Justin Martvl; (Jena: Verlag Frommannsche ~uchhandlung,19231, p. 82.

a d d r e s s e d t o Ehnperors and two H e l l e n i s t i c - J e w i s h works which a r e , l i k e t h e C h r i s t i a n defences , "syst e m a t i c a l l y apologeticfl",

v i z . P h i l o ' s H m o t h e t i c a and J o s e p h u s ' C o n t r a

Aoionm. O f P h i l o ' s H m o t h e t i c a , which is f r a g m e n t a r y , w e have

two e x t r a c t s .

The second, p r e s e r v e d by E u s e b i u s , i s

e s s e n t i a l l y a d e s c r i p t i o n of t h e Essenes and i s t o o b r i e f t o g i v e any c l e a r i d e a of t h e s t r u c t u r e o r c o n t e n t of t h e work. The f i r s t , however, which i s a l s o p r e s e r v e d by Eusebius, opens w i t h t h e s u g g e s t i o n t h a t t h e a u t h o r w i s h e s t o d e f e n d t h e Jews a g a i n s t t h e h o s t i l e c r i t i c i s m of t h e G e n t i l e s by o f f e r i n g a r a t i o n a l and o r d e r l y a c c o u n t of t h e i r h i s t o r y . P h i l o thus r e l a t e s t h e causes of t h e Exodus £rom Egypt, proposes p o s s i b l e r e a s o n s f o r Moses' s u c c e s s i n l e a d i n g t h e p e o p l e through t h e w i l d e r n e s s and i n conquering P a l e s t i n e , and concludes w i t h a n a t t e s t a t i o n of the p e o p l e ' s d e v o t i o n and adherence t o t h e Mosaic Law t h r o u g h o u t the c e n t u r i e s . He t h e n g i v e s a b r i e f overview of t h e Mosaic c o n s t i t u t i o n , comparing i t s s e v e r i t y fa v o u r a b l y wi t h t h e l a x i t y of G e n t i l e l a w and p r a c t i c e , and p o i n t s t o t h e p u r i t y and i n t e g r i t y o f

J e w i s h l i f e w i t h r e s p e c t t o c h a r i t a b l e a c t i v i t i e s and r e v e r e n c e f o r t h e Sabbath. Josephus' Contra A~ionem, the second of a two-volume work d e d i c a t e d t o a c e r t a i n E p a p h r o d i t u s , r e s p o n d s t o a n t i -

21

Martin Hengel, ~ u d a i s mand Hellenism (London: P r e s s , 19741, p . 70.

SCM

87

Jewish c r i t i c i s m s which w e r e made b e t w e e n the t h i r d c e n t u r y B.C. E . and t h e f i r s t c e n t u r y C.E."

Josephus begins w i t h

t h e staternent t h a t any r e a d e r of h i s e a r l i e r work, t h e A n t i a u i t i e s , w i l l no doubt be a p p r i s e d of how a n c i e n t and of what p u r e s t o c k t h e Jews a r e .

But some malicious d e t r a c t o r s

have caused o t h e r s t o contend t h a t t h e Jews a r e a young people, s imply because t h e mos t prominent Greek h i s t o r i a n s

omit mention of them.

Josephus thus c h a l l e n g e s the

a n t i q u i t y of the G r e e k s . e x p l a i n s t h e s i l e n c e of Greek h i s t o r i a n s w i t h respect t o Jewish concerns, d e m o n s t r a t e s t h e a n t i q u i t y of the Jewish n a t i o n . s u c c e s s £ u l l y r e f u t e s a n t i Jewish s l a n d e r s , and defends t h e Mosaic L a w . L i k e the C h r i s t i a n a p o l o g i e s , t h e r e f o r e , t h e s e two

Jewish works have a clear a p o l o g e t i c i n t e n t .

What is more,

they were b o t h , as were t h e C h r i s t i a n defences, w r i t t e n a t a

time of Roman p e r s e c u t i o n .

While P h i l o ' s Hmothetica cannot

be d a t e d p r e c i s e l y , Grant maintains t h a t i t l i k e l y appeared

d u r i n g t h e r e i g n of C a l i g u l a . "around t h e t i m e when P h i l o

himself w a s d i r e c t l y concerned with the p e r s e c u t i o n of Jews

a t Alexandria and elsewhere". 2 3

Josephus ' work was a l s o

composed d u r i n g a time of i m p e r i a l h o s t i l i t y toward the Jews , probably around 9 5 C .E .''

Throughout t h e previous

t h i r t y y e a r s , a n obvious d e t e r i o r a t i o n had occurred i n t h e 22

Grant, OD. c i t e . p . 1 7 -

'

Ibid.

"

Ibid.

88

r e l a t i o n s between Jews and Greeks, which w a s exacerbated by t h e h u m i l i a t i n g d e f e a t of t h e r e b e l s i n P a l e s t i n e .

This

s e r v e d n o t only t o d e s t r o y t h e Jews ' con£ i d e n c e , b u t a l s o t o b u t t r e s s t h e Greeks' hope t h a t Rome would now r e s c i n d h e r s u p p o r t of Jewish r i g h t s i n t h e e a s t e r n c i t i e s .

While t h i s

p r o t e c t i o n d i d n o t t o t a l l y d i s a p p e a r under Vespasian and T i t u s , W e s p a s i a n ' s t r a n s f e r e n c e of t h e Temple tax of two drachmas p e r person t o the fiscus I u d a i c u w - a p a r t of the

i m p e r i a l t r e a s u r y - -and i t s d e d i c a t i o n t o C a p i t o l i n e Zeus e f f e c t i v e l y a l t e r e d t h e s t a t u s of t h e J e w s £ r o m t h a t of a p r i v i l e g e d m i n o r i t y t o t h a t of one v i s i b l y t r e a t e d w i t h p a r t i c u l a r severity". 15 Yet w h i l e t h e r e a r e c l e a r s i m i l a r i t i e s between the C h r i s t i a n a p o l o g i e s and t h e s e two Jewish w r i t i n g s , t h e q u e s t i o n i s whether o r not t h e C h r i s t i a n a p o l o g i s t s borrowed arguments £rom t h e i r Jewish c o u n t e r p a r t s .

As

Frend h a s

s u g g e s t e d , t h e a p o l o g i e s of J u s t i n Martyr c o n t a i n themes which can a l s o be found, m u t a t i s mutandis, i n t h e Jewish a u t h o r s , and i n p a r t i c u l a r i n Josephus.

Three of t h e s e a r e

p a r t i c u l a r l y notable. T h e Eirst is a tremendous r e s p e c t f o r c e r t a i n elements

of Greek c i v i l i z a t i o n , and i n p a r t i c u l a r , for t h e Greek p h i l o s o p h e r s .26

Josephus , f o r example, commends

Tessa R a j ak, 26

Samuel Sandmel, Judaism and C h r i s t i a n Becrinnings Oxford U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1978), p. 2 6 7 .

( N e w York:

"Pythagoras , Anaxagoras, P l a t o , t h e S t o i c s who succeeded him, and indeed n e a r l y a l 1 t h e p h i l o s o p h e r s " , s i n c e t h e s e

seem t o have u n d e r s tood t h a t God was "One, u n c r e a t e d and i m u t a b l e t o a l 1 e t e r n i t y ; i n beauty surpassing a l 1 mortal t h o u g h t , made known t o us by h i s power" ( 1 1 . 1 6 8 )

/'

S i m i l a r l y J u s t i n , i n h i s Second Apology, comments on t h e goodness of some of t h e Greek p h i l o s o p h e r s , p a r t i c u l a r l y S o c r a t e s (11.712 ' , and p o i n t s o u t t h a t t h e y p o s s e s s e d a share of t h e d i v i n e Logos by which t h e y were e n a b l e d t o

e x p r e s s themselves v e r y w e l l and t o approximate t h e d i v i n e n a t u r e i n t h e i r c o n t e m p l a t i o n s ( I I .1 0 ; 1 3

.

T h e second theme c o m o n t o b o t h J u s t i n and Josephus i s

t h e i d e a t h a t " s p e c i a l v i r t u e i n h e r e d i n a n t i q u i t y " ; 29 i n f a c t , Josephus stresses t h i s idea i n h i s work and s t a t e s a t t h e o u t s e t t h a t one of t h e purposes of t h e Contra Anionan i s t o " i n s t r u c t al1 who d e s i r e t o know concerning t h e a n t i q u i t y of Our r a c e u .3 O

H e t h u s p o i n t s t o such a u t h o r s a s Manetho,

t h e m i n e n t Egyptian p r i e s t ; Berossus, the Babylonian a s t r o n o m e r and p r i e s t of B e l ; and Menander of Ephesus, a l 1 " A l 1 r e f e r e n c e s t o Josephus' Contra A ~ i o n e mw i l l b e t o t h e f o l l o w i n g t r a n s l a t i o n : H. S t . J . Thackeray, t r a n s . , The Loeb Classical L i b r a r y , Vol. 1 (London: W . El. Heinemann Ltd., 1 9 5 6 ) . 28

A l 1 r e f e r e n c e s t o J u s t i n ' s two Apologies will b e t o t h e f o l l o w i n g t r a n s l a t i o n : Thomas B . F a l l s , trans., Zainc J u s t i n Martvr (Washington, D . C . : C a t h o l i c U n i v e r s i t y of America P r e s s , 1 9 6 5 ) . 29

Sandmel,

OD.

cit,,

p. 2 6 7 .

of whom, he S t a t e s , n o t e d t h e J e w s i n t h e i r works. 3 1 S i m i l a r l y J u s t i n . i n h i s F i r s t Apology, a t t e m p t s t o demonstrate t h e a n t i q u i t y of C h r i s t i a n i t y by p o i n t i n g t o i t s Jewish r o o t s and reminding h i s readers t h a t Moses w a s l'the f i r s t of t h e Prophets (1.32) and "more a n c i e n t t h a n a l 1 t h e

Greek a u t h o r s " (1.14; çÉ. 1 - 5 9 ).

Moreover, C h r i s t I

w a s f o r e t o l d by t h e Jewish Prophets:

s

coming

"In t h e books of the

P r o p h e t s , indeed, w e found J e s u s Our C h r i s t f o r e t o l d a s coming t o u s born of a v i r g i n .

...being

hated. unrecognized,

and c r u c i f i e d , dying, r i s i n g £rom the dead, a s c e n d i n g i n t o Heaven, and b e i n g c a l l e d and a c t u a l l y being t h e Son of Godw (XXXI.7). A t h i r d and r e l a t e d theme common to both Josephus and

J u s t i n i s t h e i d e a t h a t t h e Greek philosophers borrowed t h e i r i d e a s £rom t h e J e w s .

According t o Josephus, t h e

w i s e s t of t h e Greeks, i . e . , Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, P l a t o , and t h e S t o i c s , adopted views promulgated by Moses. b u t whereas t h e p h i l o s o p h e r s d i r e c t e d their i d e a s t o o n l y a f e w e l i t e pagans, Moses d i r e c t e d h i s t o al1 t h e Jews.

32

Justin,

t o o , s t a t e s c a t e g o r i c a l l y t h a t V l a t o borrowed f rom Moses" ( L X . 1 ) . This

is e v i d e n t , he maintains, £rom P l a t o ' s

s t a t e m e n t i n t h e Tirnaeus t h a t God placed His Son Ifin the u n i v e r s e i n t h e manner of t h e l e t t e r X" (LX. 1) , which i s c l e a r l y a m i s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of Moses' claim that he made a

" 32

1.69EE. As p o i n t e d

out by Sandmel,

OD.

c i t . , p. 2 7 4 .

91

brazen serpent shaped into the figure of a cross and set it up for a sign. (LX.3).

Arcrumen ts Asains t Literarv Deriendence

Thus it is clear that Justin introcluces into his defences at least three themes which are also found in Josephus' apology; yet there is little evidence to indicate that he appropriated these ideas f rom Hellenistic Judaism. First, given Justin's previous interest in and knowledge of philosophy, and in particular of Platonic philosophy, it is not extraordinary that he would have had and expressed a great respect for Plato or for any of the Greek

philosophers, or that he would have wished to draw parallels, or even to forge links, between Greek philosophy and Christianity. Second, the fact that Justin attempts to demonstrate

the antiquity of Judaism is not surprising, since it was a c o m o n accusation against Chris tianity , as against Judaism, that it was of very recent origin. This is clearly attested by Celsus ' statements that "Jesus, the so-called

savior,. . .not long ago taught new doctrines1~, and that the Christians were wholly unlike the Jews in that they did not "observe certain rites and practices which, though peculiar, [had] a grounding in ancient tradition".3 3

"

The most direct

R. Joseph Hoffman, Celsus. On the T r u e Doctrine Oxford University Press, 19871, pp. 57 and 87.

( N e w York:

and c o n v i n c i n g way t o r e f u t e such a charge, t h e r e f o r e , w a s t o e s t a b l i s h an a f f i n i t y between C h r i s t i a n i t y and Judaism and t o demonstrate the antiquity of t h e l a t t e r .

Moxeover,

t h e two p r e s e n t a t i o n s of t h i s motif d i f f e r c o n s i d e r a b l y . Whereas Josephus p o i n t s t o t h e a n t i q u i t y of Judaism w i t h a view s o l e l y t o d e m o n s t r a t i n g i t s s u p e r i o r i t y and v i r t u e , J u s t i n f o l l o w s his s t a t e m e n t t h a t t h e a n c i e n t Prophets f o r e t o l d t h e coming of C h r i s t w i t h a rebuke t o t h e Jews; indeed the Prophets, h e p o i n t s o u t , had a l s o p r e d i c t e d t h a t t h e G e n t i l e s , n o t t h e Jews, would b e l i e v e i n Him, a l t h o u g h

"He was f o r e t o l d ... b e f o r e H e a c t u a l l y appeared, f i r s t £ i v e thousand years bef o r e , then t h r e e thousand, t h e n two thousand, then one thousand, and, f i n a l l y , e i g h t hundred" (XXXI. 7 - 8 )

.

Indeed i f J u s t i n was following Josephus, o r any

H e l l e n i s t i c - J e w i s h work, when he introduced t h i s m o t i f , h e was c l e a r l y n o t a v e r s e t o b i t i n g t h e l i t e r a r y hand t h a t fed him.

Third, J u s t i n ' s i n s i s t e n c e t h a t Moses was t h e f o r e r u n n e r of the Greek p h i l o s p h e r s does n o t a t t e s t t o a

l i t e r a r y dependence on Jewish works.

While t h e Jewish

p h i l o s o p h e r s A r i s t o b u l u s , Artapanus. Eupolemus, and P h i l o undoubtedly d e p i c t Moses as t h e f a t h e r of Greek wisdom. 3 4

J4

John G . Gager, Moses i n Greco-Roman Pacranism (New York: Abingdon Press, 1 9 7 2 ) . p . 7 7 . Sce also E. S c h u r e r , The H i ç t o r v of t h e Jewish P e o ~ li n~ the A m of Jesus C h r i s t , V o l . 3/1, rev. and e d . Geza Vermes, Fergus M i l l a r , and Martin Goodman (Edinburgh: T . & T . Clark Ltd. , 1 9 8 7 ) , p . 611.

this motif can also be found in the works of the classical Greek philosophers.

The Middle Platonist Numenius of

Apamea, for example, asked the poignant question: Plato but a Greek-speaking

"mat is

os es?" :" the Peripatetic

Hemippus of Smyrna (c.200 B.C.E. 1 emphasizes in his Pvthaaora the dependence of Pythagoras on the doctrines of the Jews and the Thracians, a passage which Josephus himself reproduces in his Contra A~ionem ( 1 . 1 6 2 - 65) ;36 and Antonius Diogenes (late first century C.E. ) , the author of an adventurous romance, was quoted in Porphyry ' s work on the life of Pythagoras as stating that Pythagoras studied Eastern nations, including the Hebrews, from whom he learned the exact knowledge of dreams.3 7

This motif, therefore, was

no doubt a well-known tradition not only in Jewish, but also in Greek philosophical circles. Being a Greek-speakinq Middle Platonist, moreover, Justin is much less likely to

have derived it £rom the works of ~ellenisticJudaism than from those of the Greek philosophers. There is one motif, moreover, which is found not only

in Josephus (C. AD. II.7 3 - 6) and Justin (1 A ~ o l . IX) , but also in the works of many Hellenis tic-Jewish authors as well

55

York:

Robert M. Grant, From Aucrustus to ~onstantine (New Harper & Row, 19701, p. 107.

Menahem Stern, ed. trans . corn. , G r e e k and L a t j n Authors on Jews and Judaism, Vol. 1 (Jerusalem: The 1sraeli Acaderny of Sciences and Humanities, 1 9 7 4 , p. 95. 36

Ibid.,

as in those of Aristides and Athenagoras, viz. the argument against paganism.

Yet despite Frendls assertion, quoted

earlier, that it was the Jewish arguments agains t paganisrn that the Christian Apologists adopted, there is little evidence to suggest any literary dependence, since the Hellenistic-Jewish and Christian authors each focus their condernnation on a different aspect of paganism.

That is,

the Jews direct their attack more consistently to the idols themselves, i . e . , to the actual statues of silver and gold, and denounce these as at best helpless and foolish, while the Christians focus their assault on the vulgarities and absurdities of the pagan gods.J 6 In the Letter of Jeremiah, for example, the author

mocks the pagan idols: beauty-they

"As for the gold which they Wear for

will not shine unless some one wipes off the

rust . . .Having no feet, they are carried on men's shoulders, revealing to mankind their worthlessness.

And those who

serve them are ashamed because through them these gods are made to stand, lest they fa11 to the ground.

If any one

sets one of them upright, it cannot move of i t s e l f . . .but gifts are placed before them just as before the dead ( 6 : 2 4 28) .j 9

The author of the Wisdom of Solomon points to the

3 11

That is not to Say, however, that the Jews never repudiate the gods or the Christians idolatry. I9 "The Letter of Jeremiahw, The Oxford Annotated A ~ o c r v ~ h aed. , Bruce M. Metzger (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965).

95

f o o l i s h n e s s of t h e Gentiles who "thought t h a t a l 1 t h e i r heathen idols were gods, though these have n e i t h e r the use

of t h e i r eyes t o s e e with, nor n o s t r i l s w i t h which t o draw b r e a t h , nor e a r s w i t h which t o hear, n o r f i n g e r s t o f e e l with, and t h e i r feet are of no use for walking 5

:1

.

In

J o s e ~ hand Aseneth, moreover, t h e Jewish hero r e f u s e s t o k i s s t h e pagan h e r o i n e who p l a n t s k i s s e s on "dead and dumb

i d o l s " (8.5) , w h i l e t h e h;ibvlline Oracles (IV.1) r e j e c t pagan i d o l s as lldumb and h e l p l e s s " .

Philo,

~ O O ,i

n

S ~ e c i a lLaws (I.iv.21-22), makes a p o i n t of a t t a c k i n g those "perçons who have given gold and s i l v e r t o s c u l p t o r s and statuaries, as people able t o fashion gods f o r them.

And

they, t a k i n g t h e l i f e l e s s m a t e r i a l s and using a m o r t a l model, have (which i s a rnos t e x t r a o r d i n a r y t h i n g ) made gods, a s f a r a s appearance w e n t , and have b u i l t temples and e r e c t e d a l t a r s , and dedicated them t o them. . .To [ t h e p r i e s t s and p r i e s t e s s e s ] t h e Father of the u n i v e r s e thus s p e a k s ,

saying . . . "You s h a l l not make t o yourselves any gods whatever of t h i s o r of any o t h e r m a t e r i a l , nos s h a l l you worship anything made w i t h handsu. Y e t while t h e Hellenis t i c - Jewish a u t h o r s make l i t t l e o r

no r e f e r e n c e t o t h e gross immoralities of the pagan d e i t i e s . i t i s n o t , a s Josephus p o i n t s o u t , because they a r e

undisturbed by t h e s e a t r o c i t i e s .

Rather, he w r i t e s , " i t is

our t r a d i t i o n a l custom to observe our own laws and t o r e f r a i n £ r o m c r i t i c i s m of those of a l i e n s .

Our l e g i s l a t o r

has e x p r e s s l y forbidden u s t o d e r i d e o r blaspheme t h e gods recognized by o t h e r s , out of r e s p e c t f o r t h e v e r y word 'GodH' K . A D .

11.237).

Yet d e s p i t e t h i s p r o h i b i t i o n ,

Josephus himself cannot r e f r a i n from denouncing t h e pagan d e i t i e s , " f o r o u r a c c u s e r s [ , he s t a t e s , ] expect t o con£u t e us by a cornparison of the r i v a l r e l i g i o n s " and t h u s i m p o s s i b l e t o remain s i l e n t " .

O

i

t

is

He i s convinced, however,

t h a t what he i s about t o Say i s t r u e , f o r i t "has been made by many writers of t h e highes t r e p u t a t i o n w (Ç. AD.

II.238) .

The C h r i s t i a n s , however, g e n e r a l l y f ocus t h e i r a t tack, n o t on t h e t a n g i b l e images of t h e gods, 4 0 but on the s t o r i e s of t h e i r hideous human a t t r i b u t e s and t h e i r v i l e and immoral deeds, and they denounce t h e s e f a b r i c a t i o n s as a p o s i t i v e f o r c e of e v i l . 4 L

A r i s t i d e s , f o r i n s t a n c e , i n h i s attack on

the Greeks, d e s c r i b e s t h e i r many gods "some of t h e . male,

some female, p r a c t i s e d masters i n every p a s s i o n and every v a r i e t y of f o l l y

.

[And t h e Greeks themselves r e p r e s e n t e d

'O While t h e Letter t o D i o m e t u s c l e a r l y f o l l o w s t h e Jewish p a t t e r n of denouncing pagan i d o l s , i t rnust b e remernbered t h a t t h e author of t h i s work i s p u r p o r t i n g t o answer t h e q u e s t i o n of h i s a d d r e s s e e a s t o why C h r i s t i a n s hold t n e c u l t s of t h e Greeks and the Jews i n e q u a l a v e r s i o n . I n o t h e r words, he i s comparing the i d o l a t r y of t h e Greeks w i t h the s a c r i f i c e s and r i t e s of t h e Jews, and he concludes that [ o l n e p a r t y , i t seems makes i t s o f f e r i n g s t o c r e a t u r e s which cannot p a r t a k e of the g i f t s , and t h e o t h e r t o One who needs none of themu ( E R . Dioa. 3 ) . This t r a n s l a t i o n is by Maxwell S t a n i f o r t h , Earlv C h r i s t i a n W r i tincrs ( N e w York : Penguin Books, 19821, p . 175.

This i s not t o Say t h a t the Apologists make no r e f e r e n c e a t a l 1 t o pagan i d o l a t r y . What i s c l e a r , however, i s that by far t h e l a r g e s t p o r t i o n of t h e i r critiques is d i r e c t e d a g a i n s t t h e v i c e s and misdeeds of the Greek gods.

97

them to be adulters and murderers, wrathful and envious and passionate, slayers of fathers and brothers, thieves and robbers, crippled and limping, workers in magic and victims of f renzy. . .]

(VI111 .

He then proceeds wi th a detailed

account of individual gods to demonstrate the truth of his words

( IX-XII),

concluding that mankind,

taking an impulse

£rom their gods, practised al1 lawlessness and brutality and impiety, polluting both earth and air by their awful deedsu (XI).

Justin Martyr points out how the Christians, prior to their conversion, used to worship "~acchus,the son of Semele, and Apollo, the son of Latona (who in their lusts for men practiced things too disgraceful even to mention), and Proserpine and Venus (who were thrown into a frenzy for

love of Adonis. . . ) and Aesculapius , or any one of the

O ther

so-called gods", but how they now hold these in contempt and worship the llunbegottenand impassible God, who, we know,

never descended with sexual desire upon Antiope, or other such women, or Ganymede" ( 1 . 2 5 ) .

Indeed Christians, he

maintains, now feel sorry for those who believe such tales. These gullible individuals have obviously been seduced by

evil demons (1.25), which "strive to make [ them] their

slaves and servants. They ensnare, now by apparitions in dreams, now by tricks of magic, al1 those who do not labor with al1 their strength for their salvation--even as w e , also, after

Our

conversion by the Word have separated

98

ourselves from those demons and have attached ourselves to the only unbegotten Gad" (14). Athenagoras is the most fulsome in his attack, dedicating 10 of his 3 7 chapters in the Leaatio to a denunciation of the forms and deeds of the gods.

While he

first attacks lltheirnames, showing that they are very recent, and ...their images, showing that they were made, so to speak, only yes terday or the day bef orew (17.1), he then

proceeds to a lengthy and vivid description of their hideous and twisted bodies, a . , "They Say that Heracles is a coiled serpent-god and the others Hundred-handed. They Say that the daughter of Zeus ...had two eyes in the natural place and two more on her forehead and the face of an animal on the back of her neck and that she had horns" (20.21 .

He

saves his most vicious attack, however, for the supposed deeds of the gods, e . a .

"Cronus cut off the genitals of his

father and threw h i m down £rom his chariot and ...he slew his children by devouring his male offspring;

...Zeus

bound his

father and cast him into Tartarus ...and fought with the Titans for sovereignty; and . . .he pursued his mother Rhea when she resisted marriage with him . . .when she became a serpent. he likewise turned himself into a serpent, entangled her in the so-called knot of Heracles, and had intercourse with herl' (20.3). It is the influence of evil demons, Athenagoras points out, which drive men to these gods and thus to immoral activity:

"For some-- 1 mean the

99

devo t e e s of Rhea - - c a s t r a t e themselves ; o t h e r s - - 1 mean t h e devotees of Arternis-make

i n c i s i o n s and gash t h e i r g e n i t a l s .

(And t h e Artemis among t h e Taurians s l a u g h t e r s s t r a n g e r s ! ) 1 s h a l l n o t d i s c u s s t h o s e who m u t i l a t e themselves w i t h

knives and knuckle-bones and what f o m of demons t h e y have. For it i s n o t God'ç doing t o i n c i t e men t o t h i n g s c o n t r a r y t o naturen. ( 2 6 . 2 ) . It is evident, therefore,

t h a t t h e a t t a c k upon pagan

r e l i g i o n launched by t h e C h r i s t i a n A p o l o g i s t s d i f f e r e d c o n s i d e r a b l y f rom t h a t by the H e l l e n i s t i c J e w s .

In fact, i f

t h e C h r i s t i a n s i m i t a t e d anyone i n t h e i r d e n u n c i a t i o n of paganism, it w a s much more l i k e l y t o have been t h e Greek p h i l o s o p h e r , P l a t o , as evidenced from h i s p h i l o s o p h i c a l t r e a t i s e , T h e R e ~ u b ï i c . I n this work, P l a t o explains t o h i s i n t e r l o c u t o r , Adeimantus, t h a t t h e r e i s no redeeming f e a t u r e t o t h e l i e s w h i c h Hesiod r e p e a t s , about Uranus' deeds and

Cronusf revenge on Uranus, o r about Cronus' deeds and what h i s son d i d t o him.

" [Elven i f t h e s e t h i n g s were t r u e , 1

d i d n o t t h i n k they ought t o b e j u s t c a r e l e s s l y t o l d b e f o r e

simple young people; they were b e s t l e f t i n s i l e n c e . . . a young man should n o t be allowed t o h e a r t h a t he would be doing nothing s u r p r i s i n g i f h e d i d t h e w o r s t of wrongs, even i f he c h a s t i s e d an e r r i n g f a t h e r i n e v e r y p o s s i b l e w a y , b u t t h a t he would be doing t h e same a s t h e f i r s t and g r e a t e s t of t h e gods ...And he must never h e a r a t a l 1 t h a t gods w a r a g a i n s t gods and p l o t and f i g h t ( f o r t h a t i s n o t t r u e

either)" .' 2

Indeed it can only be concluded that if the

apologists did borrow arguments against paganism £rom an outside source, it was £rom Plato and other Greek philosophers, such as the academic skeptics, who similarly repudiated the vile stories of the gods and warned of the detrimental ef fect these were having on society ." It is worth making two further arguments, moreover, which support the opinion that the Hellenistic-Jewish writings were not the forebears of the Christian apologies. First, an examination of the most notable published editions

of the four Christian apologies reveals numerous references to the New Testament, the Greek Old Testament, and classical Greek works, but none to the Hellenistic-Jewish writings.4 4 The one exception is Justin's First Apology in which he narrates a story found in the

Letter of Aristeaa concerning

the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, viz. the Septuagint .

That Justin reproduces this story, however,

does not indicate that he borrowed it directly £rom PseudoAristeas, since this author, as George W.E. Nickelsburg

42

York: 43

44

Plato, The Republic, W.H.D. Rouse, trans. (New New Arnerican Library, 1956, Book II, 376E f. Ernil Schurer,

a, p. 612, n.

138.

u s t i n Martyr, ~ n d r éWartelle, trans. (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1987); The Amlocrv of Aristides on Behalf o f the Chxistiang, ed. trans. J. Rende1 Harris, Texts a n d Studies, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893); Athenacroras: Leqatin and de Resurrectione, William R. Schoedel, ed. and trans. (Oxford: Clarendon press, 1972).

attests, undoubtedly knew a tradition regarding the translation of the Old Testament.4 5

Indeed this story w a s

well known in both Jewish and Christian circles, being recounted by Philo and osep ph us^^ and described by "many of the early church fathers " ." Moreover, that the origin of the Greek t e x t was common knowledge among early Christian conununities is hardly surprising, given that the Church inherited the Greek version £rom the Jews; in fact, as Samuel Sandmel states, "the use of the Septuagint among Christians, and their basing their claims and theological doctrines on it, sometimes on passages where the Septuagint is markedly different from the Hebrew, led t h e Rabbis t o a virtual disowning of [ i t l

".

48

In addition, the New

Testament writers commonly quote the Old Testament books £rom this text (eg., Matt. 1:23), and almost al1 the church fathers, until at least the f o u r t h century, considered the Septuagint as the standard f o m of the Old Testament, rarely making reference to the Hebrew.4 9

45

George W.E. Nickelsburg, 'Stories of Biblical and Early Post-Biblical Times" in Jewiçh ~ r i t i n c r sof the Second T e m ~ ï ePeriod (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 19841, p. 79, n. 259. 46

As pointed out by Falls, DR. cit., p. 67, n. 3.

a7

Nickelsburg, OD. cit., p. 8 0 . Sandmel, o ~ .cit., p . 261.

49

Oxford Dictionarv of the Christian Church, 2nd ed., F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 19741, S.V. Septuagint.

The second argument pertains to the Jewish war in Palestine in 132-5, following which it became very obvious that the Christians wished to separate themselves £rom any association with Judaism.

As

Grant attests, " the Jewish

revolt under Bar Cochbals leadership was not supported by Christians, who in Palestine were persecuted by the 'messiah'. Christians turned toward Greek culture and rather rapidly abandoned the original Jewish context of their religion".5 U

This abandonment was seen very clearly

in the move among Chris tians f rom Hellenis tic - Jewish to Greek writings.

As Martin Goodman writes, "the separation

of Judaism and Christianity after the first century rendered Jewish Greek writings irrelevant to Christians, who therefore lacked incentive to copy them".5 1

The writings of

Justin Martyr clearly attest to this "abandonment", for they warmly embrace the rich storehouse of ideas and concepts

offered by Greek philosophy, particularly Plato's notion of

a transcendent God, but they make few references to Hellenistic-Jewish writings.

The question must be asked,

therefore, why the Christian Apologists would deliberately borrow £rom the works of Hellenistic-Judaism when the general trend in the Christian church was to push thern to one side and to draw primarily upon the writings of the

50

51

Grant, Au~ustusto Constantine, P. 1 0 s .

Martin Goodman, Mission and Conversio~ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 19941, p. 48.

103

Greeks.

Indeed it seems much more likely, and natural,

given the philosophical backgrounds of the Christian

apologists, that they would consult the works of the classical Greek authors for the incentive, inspiration, and material which they required, rather than the unpopular writings of the Jews,

2.

Form

As already indicated, Heinisch and Goodenough are in agreement that "the practice of addressing apologetic epistles to a ruler was taken over £rom HellenisticJudaismw.5 2

Yet an examination of the corpus of

Hellenistic-Jewish epistles, which spans the period £rom 200 B.C.E. to 200 C.E., reveals none, so far as 1 a m aware,

which comprises al1 three characteristics suggested by this proposal, v i z . an epistolary f o m , an apologetic intent, and

an address to a ruler. The corpus of Hellenistic-Jewish epistles comprises approximately 28 manuscript letters, some extremely fragmentary; the 11 missives quoted in 1 Maccabees; the 7 found in II Maccabees; the 2 cited in III Maccabees; the 37 or so quoted by Josephus in his various writings, 13 of which are duplicates of letters found elsewhere in the corpus; the 4 contained in the surviving fragment of the Jewish historian Eupolemus; the 1 recounted in each of the 52

Goodenough,

QD.

cit., p . 8 2 .

Enistle of Aristeas, the A ~ o c a l w s eof Baruch, and the Greek Paralinomena Ieremiae, and the 8 letters and fragments of letters contained in rabbinic literature.SJ

Scholars have

generally divided this correspondence into two categories labelled non-literary and literary.5 4

The first group

contains those letters which were intended for a restricted and precise audience and which generally had very specific objectives, while the second comprises letters directed to a wider audience which aimed at communicating beliefs or ideas ."

Both of these categories will be examined with a

view to uncovering possible precursors of the Christian apologies.

Non-Li terarv Let- ter^ Non-literary letters were al1 written in a standard epistolary form, and most were addressed to kings or other high-ranking individuals, such as high priests and generals.

Yet it is unlikely that the apologists looked to this correspondence for either assistance or inspiration, for it is not apologetic in either intent or style. with respect to intent, these letters served a wide 53

P.S. Alexander, "Epistolary Literature" , Jewish Writinqs of the Second T m l e Period, Michael E. Stone, ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984). pp. 579 - 5 8 2 . S4

u.

Adolf Deissmann, ~ i c r h t£rom the Ancient E a a , trans. Lionel R.M. Strachan (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, l96S), pp. 148-9.

variety of purposes.

For instance, an epistle sent by

Josephus and reported in his L i f e expresses joy at the news that Jonathan w a s weli. and was coming to Galilee ( 2 2 6 - 2 2 7 1 , while a manuscript letter £rom a certain Soumaios announces to the addressee, Jonathes, that he has sent a messenger to pick up the shafts and citrons for the Jewish citron ~elebration.'~ Yet by far the majority of this correspondence is official, L e . ,

it was written by one king

or other high-ranking individual to another for a very specific military, political, or diplomatic purpose, such as reporting on military progress, requesting aid in battle, issuing warnings regarding an enemy, or establishing or restoring friendly relations between independent nations.

I

Esdras 2:16-24, for example, quotes a letter £rom the Council and the Judges of Coelesyria and Phoenicia to the Persian king, Artaxerxes, warning him of the imminent arriva1 of the Jews to restore and fortify Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple; a letter £rom King Solornon recorded in Josephus' Jewish Antiouities 8 5 0 - 5 2 requests King Hiram of

Tyre to send sorne of his subjects to help cut timber for the

new temple; and 1 Maccabees 14:20-22 records a letter £rom the rulers of the Spartans to Simon, the new high pries t, confirming friendship between Sparta and Israel. By contrast, however, the Christian apologies, although

5/6 Hev 15 (Aramaic). As translated by P.S. Alexander, ftEpistolaryLiteratureN, QD. cit , p . 589.

.

106

addressed to a king, viz. the Emperor, were os tensibly directed to him not in his capacity as military c o m n d e r or even as political leader, but as judicial administrator, and their apparent purpose was not to seek direction or even to make requests, but to explain and defend the religious beliefs of their authors in the hopes of persuading him to cease the persecution of the Christians. With respect to the style of these non-literary letters, moreover. since they were written for a very precise and official purpose, they are composed in extremely terse, direct, and authoritative language--indeedmany contain only a few lines. The apologies, however, were seemingly intended to persuade the Ernperor to alter his policy against the Christians, and are duly protracted and detailed and even bordering, in some instances, on tedious

and verbose.

It seems evident, therefore, that Hellenistic-

Jewish non-literary letters are not obvious precursors of the Christian apologies.

Indeed, given the obvious

dissirnilarities of both intent and style between these two literary forms, it can only be concluded that these Jewish epistles would have proved both an unsuitable and an unhelpful prototype for the Christian defences.

Literarv Letters Literary letters adopted the epistolary f o m "as a means of communicating moral, philosophical, or religious

ideas",57 and thus they tended, on the whole, to be longer and more florid and rhetorical than non-literary letters . The two examples of such epistles which most closely compare to the Christian apologies addressed to Emperors are the Letter of Jeremiah and Baruch's letter in the

Aaocalvase of ~ a r u c h .

Yet even these works, as an

examination of each will reveal, cannot be considered antecedents of the Christian apologies. The Letter of Jeremiah can be discounted as a precursor of the Christian apologies for several reasons. intent of this work is not primarily apologetic.

First, the As

Bruce

M. Metzger points out, the Letter of Jeremia. which professes to be a copy of an epistle sent by Jeremiah in 597 B .C.E. to Jews who had been captured by the king of the 57

Alexander,

58

OD.

cit., p. 583.

These two works can best be compared to the apologies because 1) they have, like the apologies, only one primary addressee although they were intended for a wider audience, and 2) they were relatively well-known works, at least among the Jews, and could therefore have been familiar to the apologists . Other non-literary epistles, such as Artaxerxes' two lettexs in Greek Esther Addition BI as well as the letter of King Ptolemy Philopator in 3 Maccabees 3 :11- 30, are no t even closely parallel to the Christian apologies addressed to Emperors: first, they were intended as encyclicals , i e., they have mu1 tiple addressees; second, they have, despite their rhetorical style, what is essentially an off icial purpose; and third, they are attempts by Artaxerxes to j u s t i f y his decision to slaughter the Jews, not a work which a Christian apologis t would have been tempted to imitate. The two letters between Baruch and Jeremiah in paraliaornena Ieremiac?, moreover, also lack an address to an Emperor and an apologetic intent. Moreover, since this work is much more obscure than either the Svriac A ~ o c a i m s eof Baruch or the E~istieof Jeremiah, i t is ïess likely to have inf luenced the apologists .

.

Babylonians, "is an earnest though rambling discourse against the folly of idolatry.. . [attempting] to prove the utter impotence, whether for good or ill, of gods of wood and silver and goldm.59

In other words, it is not providing

the Jews with a defence of their beliefs or practices agsinst outside aggressors, but rather it is an exhortation to fellow-Jews to rernain firm in the faith and to disregard

the temptation to "becorne.. . like the foreigners or to let f ear for [pagan] gods possess [ them]"

is not addressed to a ruler.

.

6O

Second, this work

On the contrary, Jeremiah is

writing this letter to a group of frightened and oppressed captives in Babylon in order "to give them the message which God had c o m n d e d him".61

Third, despite its title, this

work bears little resemblance to a letter.

As

Alexander

remarks, the work manif es ts no obvious epistolary form and it is even tempting to dismiss the superscription, which clearly refers to a letter, as mistaken. temptation, however, for two reasons:

He resists this

1) if the

superscription is removed, the work has no setting and thus becomes an incomplete fragment; and 2) it is dangerous to be too categorical about what constitutes a standard epistolary 59

Bruce M. Metzger, ed., The Oxford Annotated A ~ o c m h a(New York: Oxford University Press, 19651, p. 60

Let ter of Jeremiah 6:S, as translated by Metzger,

o ~ cit. . 61

oz>. cit.

e t t e r of Jerem

6:1, as translated by Metzger,

form i n a pseudepiqraph. 6 2

Y e t d e s p i t e t h e s e two

cons i d e r a t i o n s , he i n s i s t s , t h e work " b a r e l y s u s t a i n s even t h e second person address t o t h e r e a d e r s " . 6 3

So why, he

asks, d i d t h e a u t h o r use the term " l e t t e r " ?

"It i s p o s s i b l e

t h a t t h e a u t h o r r e f e r r e d t o h i s work as a l e t t e r n o t because of i t s l i t e r a r y form, b u t as a way of a t t a c h i n g i t c o n v i n c i n g l y t o t h e b i b l i c a l t r a d i t i o n ' l . 64

It i s l i k e l y ,

t h e r e f o r e , t h a t the L e t t e r of Jeremiah d i d n o t p l a y a s i g n i f i c a n t role i n the p a r t i c u l a r l i t e r a r y f o m chosen by the Christian apologists.

Indeed i t i s n o t a n apology, i t

i s n o t addressed t o a r u l e r , and i t i s p o s s i b l e t h a t i t was n e v e r intended t o b e - - o r even t o i m i t a t e - - a l e t t e r . Unlike t h e L e t t e r of Jeremiah, however, B a r u c h ' s e p i s t l e i n t h e S v r i a c Apocalavse of Baruch does m a n i f e s t a r e c o g n i z e d e p i s t o l a r y formula - - i n f act , Baruch l i f ts t h e opening of h i s l e t t e r o u t of Jeremiah 2 9 : 4 :

65

**T~US says

t h e Lord of h o s t s , t h e God of I s r a e l , t o a l 1 the exiles whom 1 have sent i n t o e x i l e £rom Jerusalem t o Babylon".

66

Yet

t h i s i s not t o Say t h a t the l i t e r a r y f o m of t h i s work i s unproblematic, for, d e s p i t e i ts s u p e r s c r i p t i o n , i t d i s p l a y s

characteristics of a sermon and i t represents itself, in a t 62

Alexander, on, c i t . , pp. 5 8 4 - 5 , n . 2 6 .

6J

L U L

"

Ibid.

6s

Ibid*

66

Revised Standard Version.

l e a s t two passages, a s Baruch's l a s t w i l l and testament (78:5:

ruler.

84:l).6 7

The work, moreover, l a c k s an a d d r e s s t o a

Like t h e L e t t e r of Jeremiah, i t p r o f e s s e s t o be

w r i t t e n by a prophet, L e * , Baruch, t h e r u l i n g son of Neriah, but it is d i r e c t e d , not t o a king, b u t t o a group of c a p t i v e s , viz. t o the nine and a h a l f t r i b e s which had been e x i l e d on t h e o t h e r s i d e of the Euphrates River.

The

primary purpose of t h i s l e t t e r . moreover, as of t h e L e t t e r of Jeremiah, i s c l e a r l y not a p o l o g e t i c , b u t r a t h e r h o r t a t o r y and c o n s o l a t o r y , i;%,

the exiles.

As

t o give encouragement and comfort t o

Alexander a t t e s t s , t h i s work tlwas b a s i c a l l y

conceived of as a sermon o r exhortatory a d d r e s s .

Note,

among o t h e r f e a t u r e s , how the author c l o s e s i t w i t h t h e i n j u n c t i o n t h a t i t b e read out p u b l i c l y i n t h e congregations of the e x i l e s " . 6 8 Baruch himself c o n f i m s a h o r t a t o r y and

c o n s o l a t o r y f u n c t i o n f o r h i s l e t t e r when he s t a t e s : brothers,

. . .1

"My

have w r i t t e n to you t h a t you may f i n d

c o n s o l a t i o n w i t h regard t o the m u l t i t u d e of t r i b u l a t i o n s . . . [Moreover,] you ought t o know t h a t . . . t h e end which t h e Most High prepared i s n e a r , and t h a t h i s g r a c e i s coming, and t h a t t h e f u l f i l l m e n t of h i s judgment is n o t f a r v .6 9

Baruch's e p i s t l e , t h e r e f o r e , l i k e t h e L e t t e r o f

J ~ r e m i a h .was not a l i k e l y antecedent for t h e form of t h e 67

Alexander, OD. c i t e ,

Ibid. 69

2 Baruch 82:l-2.

Christian apologies.

Although it manifests a standard

epistolary foxmula, it bears no address to a ruler and its main intent is to offer solace to fellow-Jews in captivity, no t verbal ammunition against hostile enemies. 1t mus t be concluded, therefore, no twiths tanding the

views of such learned scholars as Puech, ~ a n i é l o u ,and Goodenough, that the Hellenistic-Jewish writings were neither suitable nor feasible precursors for the Christian apologies.

With respect to the content of the Jewish and

Christian works , there is little evidence that the apologists appropriated themes from the Hellenistic-Jewish writings.

On the one hand, many of the motifs which appear

in both the Jewish writings and the Christian apologies could also have been found either in classical works or in the Septuagint, and on the other hand, the similarities between their respective assaults on pagan practices and beliefs tend to fade upon closer examination.

With respect

to the form of the Jewish writings and the apologies, a thorough search for extant Hellenistic-Jewish epistles addressed to rulers has proved unfruitful. Moreover, the Hellenistic-Jewish epistles which we do have differ significantly £rom the apologies in intent, addressee, and/or epistolary form.

What remains, therefore, is to look

at the New Testament writings as possible precursors of the Christian apologies.

C)

New Testament Writinas

Scholars such as Avery Dulles, Robert M. Grant, and F.F. Bruce have posited various New Testament writings, as

well as portions of these writings, as possible precursors of Christian apology.

Among the most popular suggestions

are Romans 1:28-32 and 1 Corinthians 1 5 : 2 9 - 3 3 ,

j.e.,

Paul's

discussions of the doctrines of creation and the resurrection, respectively; A c t s 14:15-18 and 17:22-32, i . ~ Paulls , speeches at Lystra and Athens; and the entire two-part narrative of Luke, i . e , , the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles .'O

Each of these possibilities will be

examined in turn.

Romans and 1 Corinthians Robert M. Grant has devoted a chapter of his mos t recent book to a discussion of New Testament writings as an

'O In his book Let W-s Be Submissive: The ~omestiç Çode of 1 Peter (Chico, CA: Scholars Prêss, 1981), David L Balch suggests that the code of household ethics found in 1 Peter serves an apologetic function. He describes this function, however, not as defence against attack, as it is understood in the Christian apologies, but simply as exhortation. In other words, Peter is exhorting his readers to hamony, to long-suffering, and, more significantly, to a preparedness to defend their faith to unbelievers. Balch is stating, therefore, not that the household code as laid d o m by Peter is itself a defence of Christianity, but that through this code unbelievers may be made aware of Christian activity and behaviour and "put to silencett(p. 81). Balch makes no suggestion, therefore, that this code in any w a y served as a mode1 for the later Christian Apologies.

a n t e c e d e n t of second- c e n t u r y apology .71

I n t h i s c h a p t e r , he

d i r e c t s c o n s i d e r a b l e a t t e n t i o n t o the Pauline e p i s t l e s , contending t h a t t h e "mos t important examples of a p o l o g e t i c argument i n the letters of Paul are h i s defenses of the

d o c t r i n e s of c r e a t i o n and r e s u r r e c t i o n which a n t i c i p a t e the main l i n e s of s e c o n d - c e n t u r y a p ~ l o g e t i c " . ' ~What he f a i l s t o demonstrate, however, i s how e i t h e r of t h e s e t e x t s , v i z . Romans 1:18-32 and 1 C o r i n t h i a n s 15:29-33, a r e i n any s e n s e uapologetic". Indeed, with r e s p e c t t o t h e passage i n Romans, Paul i s c l e a r l y a d d r e s s i n g a group of c o n v e r t e d C h r i s t i a n s - i n

fact,

the l e t t e r i s d i r e c t e d t o " a l 1 Godes beloved i n Rome" - - a n d

h i s i n t e n t i o n , as Avery Dulles p o i n t s o u t , is t o "con£i r m h i s r e a d e r s i n t h e i r worship of t h e t r u e God and t o a c c o u n t f o r t h e d e p r a v i t y of t h e i r pagan contemporaries". "

Indeed

t h i s l e t t e r o f f e r s no h i n t t h a t Paul i s defending t h e faith a g a i n s t o u t s i d e a t t a c k ; h i s purpose i s unrnistakeably to preach and t o e x h o r t .

With r e s p e c t t o the passage i n 1

C o r i n t h i a n s , moreover, Grant himself s t a t e s t h a t Paul "is n o t t r y i n g t o ' p r o v e ' t h e a c t u a l i t y of r e s u r r e c t i o n s o much as t o e x p l a i n how i t w i l l t a k e p l a c e n ?

''

I n o t h e r words,

Grant, Greek Aaoloaiçts of the Second C e n t u r v , pp.

9-27.

70

Grant, Greek Aaoloqists of the Second Centurv, p .

Grant is using the tem wapologyn as a synonym for "explanation". a definition which leads one to ask how apology differs. in Grant's mind, £rom catechism or tuition. Indeed there is little to suggest, in either of these passages. that Paul is responding to an attack against Christianity by non-believers; he is simply preaching the

word of God to two groups of newly-converted Christians who. faced with daily temptations from Graeco-Roman society,

require instruction. confirmation, and exhortation--not de£ence.

Paul's S~eechesat Lvstra and Athens

Grant also maintains that the speech by Paul at Lystra. in Acts 14:15-18, and that on the Areopagus, in A c t s l7:22 3 2 . demonstrate the reaction of the nascent church to early

pagan confrontation and thus represent the beginnings of Christian apology.7 5

Yet once again he neglects to explain

either how these situations were antagonistic for the apostles or how Paul's speeches constitute an apologetic response. According to Luke, the people of Lystra were amazed at Paul's healing of a cripple and haled both hirn and Barnabas as gods, bringing them oxen and garlands and preparing to

offer them sacrifice. The two apostles tore their garments lS ço alço does F.F. Bruce, The Anostolic Def ence of the Gos~el. ~hriçtian~ ~ o l o a e t iin c the New Testament (London: Inter-Varsity ~ellowship,1959), pp- 29-41.

115

in disxnay at this turn of events and rushed out among the

multitude, urging them to abandon the worship of idols and to turn to the living God who, although previously allowing the nations to follow their own chosen paths, had nonetheless left himself a witness in the form of rains, fruitful seasons, food, and gladness. Y e t while Paul and Barnabas were unmistakeably upset by the reaction of the

Lystraeans, there are in this text at least three indicators that the position in which they found themselves was anything but combative.

First, Paul and Barnabas, much to

their distress, were the helpless objects of the crowd's misplaced and extravagant flattery, not the targets of

attack.

Indeed once they realized that they were being

mistaken for gods, they "rushed out among the multitudeu ( 1 4 :14), hardly an advisable move if the crowd were irate.

Second, the people of Lystra were unlikely to attack Paul's beliefs before they were apprised of them, and prior to his address they were wholly u n f a m i l i a r with Christian doctrine --andcertainly with the acts of healing performed by the

disciples.

I n fact, given their continued insistence upon

worshipping the two apostles, i t is clear that they were no b e t t e r informed i m e d i a t e l y following it.

Third, Paul's

speech, as Dulles points out, is simply a n exposition of " a popular type of natural theologyw,76 or, as F.F. B r u c e describes it, an a p p e a l

to God's natural revelation as

C r e a t o r and Sus t a i n e r of t h e u n i v e r s e " . 77

It i s , in other

words, no more t h a n a d e s p e r a t e a t t e m p t on t h e p a r t of t h e apos t l e s simply t o preach t h e d i v i n e n a t u r e and r e v e l a t i o n t o an impassioned and i g n o r a n t crowd of pagans i n t h e hope of e x t i n g u i s h i n g t h e i r z e a l f o r i d 0 1 worship.

It i s not,

t h e r e f o r e , even an early a p o l o g e t i c e f f o r t , for i t c o n t a i n s no h i n t of a t t a c k on t h e p a r t of t h e pagans o r of defence on t h e p a r t of Paul; i n f a c t , i n t h i s n a r r a t i v e any h o s t i l i t y a r i s e s n o t f r o m t h e people of L y s t r a , but £rom Paul, who b l u n t l y and u n a p o l o g e t i c a l l y r e f e r s t o pagan p r a c t i c e s as ''vain t h i n g s " (Acts 14: 15) . A s i m i l a r s i t u a t i o n a r o s e i n Athens.

According t o

Luke, Paul was dismayed t o find t h e city f i l l e d with i d o l s and he began t o d i s c o u r s e every day with the Jews i n t h e synagogues and w i t h t h e G e n t i l e s i n t h e marketplace about J e s u s and t h e r e s u r r e c t i o n .

Despite his e f f o r t s , however,

t h e Athenians f a i l e d t o comprehend h i s message.

They t h u s

took hold of him and brought him t o t h e Areopagus, a name which is s i n g u l a r l y confusing for s c h o l a r s , s i n c e it c o u l d r e f e r t o e i t h e r t h e s l o p e s of a h i 1 1 o r a f o w l j u d i c i a l c o u r t .''

Once on t h e Areopagus, Luke s t a t e s , t h e crowd

importuned Paul t o e x p l a i n h i s t e a c h i n g , f o r t h e ideas t h a t he was expounding were a l i e n t o them.

77

Bruce,

OB.

Like t h a t a t L y s t r a .

~ i tr .P - 3 1 -

T h e I n t e r n r e t e r t ç B i b l e , Vol. IX (New York: Abingdon Press, 19541, p. 2 3 2 .

therefo r e , the s i t u a t i o n a t Athens was non-combative.

Some

s c h o l a r s have maintained t h a t Paul, when he w a s taken t o the Areopagus, w a s subj e c t e d t o a "forma1 t r i a l " , and they b a s e t h i s , t o some e x t e n t , on t h e p h r a s e " i n the middle" (17: 2 2 ) and on t h e c l a u s e "Paul went o u t from among them" (17:33), which could r e f e r t o a t r i a l s i t u a t i o n ; 7 9 y e t t h e r e i s no clear evidence t h a t a t r i a l took place.

I n f a c t , the tone

of c o n c i l i a t i o n w i t h which the people urged Paul t o explain h i s teaching s u g g e s t s that they were e x t r e m e l y i n t e r e s t e d i n

what he had t o Say and e s c o r t e d him t o t h e s l o p e of a hi11 t h a t he might a d d r e s s them more f r e e l y and e f f e c t i v e l y . MU As

Luke hirnself e x p l a i n s , e x p l o r i n g new s o p h i s t r i e s was a n

integral part of life f o r many Athenians (17:21), and i t would have been n a t u r a l f o r them t o p r e s s t h e Apostle f u r t h e r a b o u t J e s u s and the r e s u r r e c t i o n . The c o n t e n t of P a u l ' s speech, moreover, l i k e t h a t a t

Lys t r a , is non-con£r o n t a t i o n a l .

He speaks t o t h e crowd i n

very g e n e r a l terms about Godls c r e a t i o n and u n i v e r s a l

providence, and he r e p e a t s t h e argument made a t Lys t r a t h a t God p r e v i o u s l y overlooked t h e pagans ' i d o l a t r y , b u t now r e q u i r e d them t o r e p e n t , s i n c e H e would one day judge t h e world through t h a t man whom He r a i s e d f rom t h e dead.

Paul ' s

r e f e r e n c e t o t h e t e s u r r e c t i o n c l e a r l y caused some of h i s h e a r e r s t o "mock" (17:32) , b u t t h i s is s u r e l y n o t

Ibid. "

Ibid.

118 surprising. Active and often aggressive debates on that subject frequently occurred between Scribes and Pharisees at that time, and both Stoics and Epicureans. who rej ected any f o m of material resurrection, were arnong his audience. Indeed, as Bruce notes, if Paul had "replaced the doctrine of the resurrection of the body by the Greek doctrine of the immortality of the soul. al1 but the Epicureans who listened to him would have agreed with him"."

But Paul, of course,

was not there to conciliate the crowd, but to preach the Christian gospel.

It is also important to note that, when

he had completed his address, Paul sirnply "departed £ r o m among them", as he would naturally have done £rom a philosophical discussion among a group of sophists.

Indeed

the Athenians, like the Lycaonians, did not attack Paul, and Paul's speech, like that at Lystra, was not antagonistic and

offered no defence of Christianity.

In both these

instances, Paul was simply expounding the faith to a crowd of pagans unacquainted with Christian doctrine in the hope that he might convert t h e . .

He was, in other words, simply

preaching and proselytizing, and only if one's definition of apology accentuates these activities and disregards the notions of attack and defence, can these two addresses be conçidered apologetic.

81

Bruce, on. ~ i t . .p. 4 1 .

Lukets Two-Part Narrative Yet it is not only certain passages of the New Testament which have been posited as precursors of early Christian apology.

Bruce has suggested, in his work The

hnostolic Defence of khe Gos~eL, that the whole of the Third Gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles are antecedents of second-century apologies addressed to high-ranking Roman officials,8 2

He bases this theory essentially on two

observations. The first is that both these works are addressed to a certain "most excellent" (kratistos) Theophilus, a title which was often used of Romans of the equestrian rank, the second order in the hierarchy of Roman society.LI 3

In fact, Luke himself uses this title at least

three other times in Acts to refer to the procurators Felix

" I b i d . , pp. 47-50. More recently, Mary Rose D'Ange10 has suggested that, although Luke-Acts was intended for believers, its ethic was presented in such a way as to serve an apologetic function, i,e., to demonstrate the "surety of the Christian instructionu ("Women in Luke-Acts: A Redactional View" , Journal of Biblical Literature, 109/3, 1990, p. 449) . She thus characterizes the work as ' a defense of Christianst ability to live with the empire" I b . From such a description, however, it is evident that D'Ange10 sees the apologetic function of Luke-Acts, not so much as a defence against blatant attack, but more as persuasion and/or confirmation, L e . , an effort to convince readers of the safety of the Christian message. In other words, D'Ange10 does not suggest, as does Bruce, that LukeActs is primarily concerned with responding to or refuting a specific attack against Christianity and thus that it is a possible precursor of Christian apology.

and Festus (Acts 23:26; 24:2; and 26:25)," and thus Theophilus could have held a position of importance to the hearing of Paul's case by the emperor or his deputy.n 5 Un£ortunately, however, Bruce ' s theory is not wi thout flaws.

First of all, there is no conclusive evidence that Theophilus was a real individual; indeed the name Theophilus could easily have been a fiction or even a symbol for every "lover of God".86

Moreover, even if it be conceded that he

actually existed, since writings were often dedicated to real persons whether or not the works themselves were of direct interest to them,67 the name Theophilus was very common among Jews, Gentiles, and even Chris tians ," and the title "most excellent" was used in other than Roman administrative circles .

Indeed, as Gealy points out , the

term '5s not always used in an official sense; it need not refer to equestrian rank; it occurs in conventionally 89

f onnal, f riendly, or f lattering speech".

F.D. Gealy, The Inter~reter'sDictionarv of the Bible, Vol. 4 (New York: Abingdon Press. 19621, s.v. Theophilus.

Bruce, on. cit., p. 51. He rejects the suggestion, however. that Theophilus was the lawyer engaged to take Paul's case and that Luke wrote his two-part history in order to provide material for his defence.

"

Gealy, oo. cit., S.V. Theophilus.

"

Ibid. Ibid.

121

Bruce's second argument for considering the Gospel and the Acts as precursors of second-century apologies is that both of these writings have a strong apologetic emphasis. Given the complexity of his arguments, it is necessary to consider each of these texts in turn.

Gosnel of Luke

In the Third Gospel, Bruce argues, the author makes a concerted effort to def end Chris tianity against what would have been the common assumption in the Roman Empire at that time that Jesus was a rebel against Rome by emphasizing that

his condemnation was a miscarriage of justice.9 0

Bruce

cites the following three examples as evidence:

Luke

relates 1) that Pontius Pilate was reluctant to condemn Jesus; 2 ) that one of the centurions in charge of the

detachment of Roman soldiers who carried out the crucifixion proclaimed him innocent; and 3) that one of the bandits crucified with him attested that he had done nothing wrong, e . , that he did not belong to a rebel organization

91

Yet

these examples indicate, not that the author was writing an

apology, but that this Gospel provides no more--and in some

instances less--so-calledapologetic material than do the other three. With respect to Bruce's first example: 90

91

Bruce, on. cite, PP. I b i d L , pp. 4 7 - 8 .

48-9.

Luke portrays

P o n t i u s P i l a t e as r e l u c t a n t t o condemn J e s u s , b u t s o a l s o do t h e a u t h o r s of Matthew ( 2 7 : 1 1 - 2 5 ) , Mark 1 5 : - 5 and John (18:29-40, 19:12).

I n f a c t , t h e a u t h o r of Matthew relates

how P i l a t e ' s w i f e warned him a g a i n s t condemning V h a t r i g h t e o u s man", t h e r e b y adding t o h i s u n w i l l i n g n e s s t o become i n v o l v e d i n t h e whole a£f a i r ( 2 7 :29) .

Luke s t a t e s ,

moreover, t h a t P i l a t e asked J e s u s o n l y once whether h e was t h e k i n g of the Jews, while t h e a u t h o r s of Matthew and John r e c o u n t t h a t P i l a t e asked him t w i c e , t h u s a l l o w i n g J e s u s more o p p o r t u n i t y t o r e f u t e t h e c h a r g e and P i l a t e t o r e l e a s e hirn and be a b s o l v e d of r e s p o n s i b i l i t y . B r u c e ' s second example i s a l s o unconvincing.

While

Luke c l e a r l y r e c o r d s t h a t the c e n t u r i o n r e s p o n s i b l e f o r c a r r y i n g o u t t h e c r u c i f i x i o n a t t e s t e d t o J e s u s ' innocence ( 2 3 : 4 7 ) , t h e a u t h o r s of Matthew ( 2 7 : 5 4 ) and of Mark (15:39) a l s o r e c o u n t t h e i n c i d e n t , w h i l e John s p e a k s a b o u t t h e s o l d i e r who p i e r c e d J e s u s t s i d e and w i t n e s s e d t h e o u t p o u r i n g of b l o o d and w a t e r (19:33-34)

.

Indeed, i f t h i s p a s s a g e

dernonstrates a n a p o l o g e t i c i n t e n t w i t h r e s p e c t t o Luke, i t d e m o n s t r a t e s t h e same w i t h r e s p e c t t o Mark, Matthew, and John. Bruce i s a l s o s t r e t c h i n g t h e e v i d e n c e i n h i s t h i r d example.

While Luke c e r t a i n l y a t t r i b u t e s t o one of t h e m e n

c r u c i f i e d w i t h Jesus t h e words, " T h i s man has done n o t h i n g wrong" (Luke 23 :41) , t h e r e i s no i n d i c a t i o n whatever that t h i s w a s i n t e n d e d as a v i n d i c a t i o n of J e s u s £rom t h e p r e c i s e

123

charge of insurgency.

First, it was the Jews, not the

Romans, who wished to bring charges against Jesus, and they, in and of themselves, could not have arrested him on the charge of insurgency against Rome.

Second, given Rome ' s

paranûia with regard to any form of local uprising, both Herod and Pilate would no doubt have welcomed the chance to charge Jesus if there had been the slightest hint that he was encouraging open insurrection; neither one, however, "could f ind [him] guilty of any of [the] charges against himu (Luke 23:14).

Third, there is no suggestion at al1

that the condemned man had any direct knowledge of Jesus1

activities.

In fact, Luke refers to this man simply as eis

de ton krwsthenton,

Le.,

"one of those who were hanged"

with Jesus, and not even as do Matthew (27:44) and Mark (15:2 7 ) , as a lestes or robber.

Indeed Luke is completely

silent about both the status and the crime of this man, and to suggest that he was able to--and actually did--attest to something as specific as Jesus' non-involvement in a revoit against Rome is to read far too much into the text--perhaps even to impute to Luke information provided by the other

Evangelists . Clearly, therefore, none of Bruce's three examples in any way demonstrates that LuketsGospel manifests a strong apologetic emphasis.

Indeed, if one insists on ascribing

the label apology to this Gospel, one must be prepared to ascribe it to al1 four--orperhaps, as Avery Dulles has

done, to the entire New Testament.

Acts of the Amst-les Nor are Bruce's examples of apologetic content in the Acts of the Apostles persuasive. In this work, Bruce maintains, Luke attempts to de£end Christianity against the accusation that it incited disorder and riots wherever it went.''

This he does by introducing into his narrative a

nontrivial group of Roman of ficials who attested that the charges against the Christians were groundless and who even,

in some instances, treated Paul and the other Nssionaries with integrity and goodwill.

Among such officiais were the

proconsul Sergius Paulus, 'la man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God" (Acts 1 3 : S f f ) ; the chie£ magistrates in Philippi who apologized to Paul and his cornpanions for the il1 treatment they had received (Actç 16:37ff); Gallio, the proconsul of Achaia, who refused to listen to the Jews' accusations against Paul and drove them from the tribunal (Acts 18 :12ff ) ; the Asiarchs in Ephesus who sought to convince

Paul to avoid the theatre where a disturbance had broken out (Acts 19:23ff); and the procurator Felix and his successor Festus, who treated Paul decently during his imprisonment in

Judaea and repudiated the attempts of the Jews to condemn

him unjustly (Acts 24:l-26:32). 92

Ibid., pp. 49-50.

Indeed al1 these

observations, Bruce attests, point to the conclusion that "Luke must be recognized as the pioneer in that type of apologetic which is addressed to the secular authorities in order to establish the law-abiding character of Christianity" .93 Yet of these five supposed examples of Luke's intention of absolving Chris tianity f rom the charge of inciting

disorder, only the first one actually fulfils this purpose.94

Indeed, in this f irst instance, relations

between the Apostles and the proconsul Sergius Paulus were very friendly, for the latter graciously invited Paul and

Barnabas to explain their teaching and, following a miracle performed by Paul. accepted the new religion.

The remaining

four examples, however, can hardly be deemed amiable encounters for the Apos tles, since they demons trate, not that the authorities were lenient and congenial towards the Christians. but that they refused to prosecute them simply because of their own ulterior motives. In Philippi, for example, the magistrates tore the garments off Paul and Timothy, gave orders for them to be

94

Bruce actually cites a sixth instance. Acts 28:301. in which Luke states : "And he lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed a l 1 who came to h h , preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ quite openly and unhindered". Since this passage describes no particular encounters between Paul and the Romans, however, but simply a general impression of Paul's two-year stay in Rome, there can be no means of detemining how congenial the relationship actually was .

126

b e a t e n with r o d s , and threw them i n t o p r i s o n ( A c t s 16: 2 2 - 3 1

.

While Bruce r i g h t l y p o i n t s o u t t h a t t h e s e same m a g i s t r a t e s

l a t e r apologized f o r t h e i r a c t i o n s and allowed t h e Apostles t o go free, h e f a i l s t o mention t h a t t h e y d i d s o , n o t because they w e r e p e n i t e n t , b u t because " t h e y were a f r a i d when they h e a r d t h a t they were Roman c i t i z e n s " ( A c t s 16:38).

Bruce s t a t e s , moreover, t h a t G a l l i o , when h e was proconsul of Achaia, r e f u s e d t o a t t e n d t o t h e Jews' d i s p u t e w i t h Paul.

Bruce does n o t s t a t e , however, t h a t G a l l i o

wished t o a v o i d t h e Jews because t h e i r a c c u s a t i o n s per t a i n e d s o l e l y t o J e w i s h l a w - -and a l s o , i t seems, because t h i s was n o t t h e f i r s t t h e t h a t t h e Jews had brought t h e i r i n t e r n a i d i f f i c u l t i e s b e f o r e him.

Indeed G a l l i o was so u n w i l l i n g t o

d e a l w i t h t h e Jews t h a t he p a i d no a t t e n t i o n when t h e people s e i z e d and b e a t up t h e r u l e r of the synagogue i n f r o n t of t h e t r i b u n a l ( A c t s 1 8 :1 2 - 1 7 ) .

In Ephesus, f u r t h e m o r e , some of t h e Asiarchs, who were f r i e n d s of P a u l , pleaded w i t h h i m not t o g e t involved i n a d i s p u t e between t h e Ephesians and some of the A p o s t l e s . While Bruce i s s u r e l y c o r r e c t t o suggest t h a t t h e A s i a r c h s w e r e sympathetic t o P a u l ' s p l i g h t and worried f o r h i s s a f e t y , he f a i l s t o p o i n t o u t t h a t they were a l s o concerned, a s was a l o c a l o f f i c i a l , t h a t t h e C h r i s t i a n s were c a u s i n g an unlawful d i s t u r b a n c e .

A s t h e town c l e r k d e c l a r e d ,

"we a r e

i n danger of b e i n g charged w i t h r i o t i n g today, t h e r e being no c a u s e t h a t w e can g i v e t o j u s t i f y t h i s commotion" (Acts

19:40-1).

Finally, when Paul was imprisoned in Jerusalem, the procurator Felix, as Bruce indicates. treated him with integrity and goodwill and conversed with him often.

Bruce

neglects to add, however, that Felix did so because "he hoped that money would be given him by Pauln (Acts 24 :26) . No doubt Felix also hoped for money from the Jews two years

later when. recalled from his post. he left Paul in prison, "desiring to do the Jews a favour" (Acts 24:2 7 )

.

In these latter four instances, therefore, the authorities ei ther treat the Chris tians tolerably or eventually release them, not because they are sympathetic to the Christian cause, but because it best serves their purposes to do so.

Indeed Luke clearly includes in his

narrative some examples of favourable incidents between Christians and Romans, such as the Apostles' meeting with Sergius Paulus, but it is also apparent that he recounts many unfortunate and unpleasant encounters as well. On the one hand, therefore, Luke ' s two -part narrative,

like the history of any organization composed by one of its own members. contains partisan material.

It would have been

absurd for Luke to have written a history of Christianity which did not attempt to emphasize its strengths and to j u s t i f y its weaknesses--or, more to the point, which did not

128

attempt to nake converts.9 5

On the other hand, while it is

clear that any written work betrays the particular biases of

its author, that does not make the work an apology, a . e. , a defence against known and feared aggressors.

Indeed only if

one's definition of apology, as applied to Christian writings, centres around the acts of proselytizing and preaching can Luke's two-part narrative be given this label.

D

onc cl us ion^^ What, then, can be said about the precursors of the

Christian Apologies addressed to Emperors?

While it is

possible that Aristides, Justin Martyr. and Athenagoras borrowed themes from the Hellenistic-Jewish writings, and even--althoughless likely--fromAristotle's P r o t r e ~ u u s , the literary f o m which they adopted follows closely in the tradition of Plato's Amlocw, the classic example of a defence of one's beliefs.97

95

Clearly Plato's work is similar

Particularly if he was a missionary, as some argue.

96

Portions of this conclusion, as well as of Chapters 6 and 7, are reproduced from my article entitled "Athenagoras' hibassv: A Literary Fiction. This article was published by Harvard Theoloaical ~ e v i e w .89, 1996, pp. 209-26; Copyright 1996 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission. 97

Th. Wehof er also subscribes tomthis view ("Die Apologie Justins des Philosopher und Martyrers in Beziehung zum erstenmal unter~ucht~~, .. literarhistorischer Jlomische Ouartalschrift, Suppl. 6, 1897, p. 85. as pointed out by Charles Munier, 'La Structure Littéraire de de JustinN, Revue des Sciences Reliaieuses, 60, ~l~oolocrie

129

to that of the Christian Apologies in at least three respects.

First, Plato depicts Socrates, who was unjus tly

charged with atheism, as defending his teaching before the men of Athens.

The Apologies, too, represent attempts to

defend the Christian beliefs of their authors against what they perceived to be unfair accusation and attack both by their pagan fellow-citizens and by the Roman authorities. Second, Plato chose for his A ~ o l o a va literary form with which contemporary Athenians were well acquainted, viz. an

appeal before the Heliaea os People's Court.

Indeed fifth-

c e n t u r y Athenians were an extrernely litigious people, and a

court of law was undoubtedly a setting both cornmon and familiar to them.

Similarly, the Christian Apologists

composed their defences in the form of imperial petitions or orations, a form to which second-century Roman citizens could easily relate.

Indeed making appeals to the Ebperor

on a wide range of legal, f inancial, and even persona1 matters was an integral part of daily life in the Empire.

Third, Plato portrays Socrates as appealing to that particular group of men which was charged with deciding his particular case. The Apologies, similarly, are written as though directed to the Emperor, who was charged with responding to the particular grievances of his subjects. In other words, both Plato's J i ~ o l o a yand the Christian defences are addressed to influential figures who had the authority

to end the i n j u s tices being perpetrated agains t the aggrieved parties. In f act, the mos t obvious adaptation which the Apologists make to the classic form of the apology is that necessitated by changes in the political and judicial systems between fifth-century B . C . E . century C.E. Rome.

Athens and second-

More specifically, Plato represents

Socrates as defending his actions and beliefs by presenting

a forensic or legal oration before a court of law, a form which was not only common and accepted in the fifth century, but also perfectly suited to Platois purpose of defending the memory of Socrates.

In the second century C.E.,

however, Roman citizens brought their legal disputes and grievances. not before a select group of men. but before the Ehnperor, by presenting before him imperial petitions or mations.

The ~pologies, therefore, in order to reflect

this evident change in legal f o m and procedure, are directed to the reigning Emperor and his family, a literary

form which, like that of Plato, was both accepted at the time and well suited to t h e Apologists' purpose. Nor is it remarkable that the Apologists should seek inspiration for their literary form £rom a work of Plato. Aris tiàes , Justin Martyr, and Athenagoras were ail Greek philosophers prior to their conversion to Christianity--and

in Justin Martyr's case, a Middle Platonic philosopher--and al1 three were familiar with and admirers of Plato's

131

philosophical work.

In fact, al1 three adapted many of his

ideas to serve the aims of their own Christian agendas, an obvious e x m p l e being Plato's denunciation of the pagan gods i n The ~ e ~ u b l i gM c.

Vid. pp. 99 -100 of t h i s thesis.

CHAPTER 4

The A ~ o l o a vof Aristides

The Apology of Aristides is most likely the oldest extant defence of Christianity.1

The earliest Christian

author to refer to this work is Eusebius, who writes in his Chronicon : [Quadratusl, a pupil of the Apostles. and Aristides of Athens, a philosopher of Our faith, gave to Hadrian apologetic entreaties at his c o m n d . He had. however, also received £rom Serennius, that glorious judge, a writing concerning the Christians, that it was certainly wrong to kill them on the basis of rumor alone without trial or any accusation. He wrote to Armonius Fundanus ( ? ) , proconsul of Asia. that he should not condemn them without formal condemnation and trial; and a copy of this edict survives to this day.'

In his Ecciesiastical Historv, Eusebius adds that he himself possessed a copy of Quadratust defence, and that Aristidesg Apology was preserved by a large number of the brethren, even at that t h e . 3

It is believed by most scholars, due to

the brevity and vagueness of Eusebius

comments, that he had

not actually read Aristides' Apology.4 1

Johannes Quas ten, patroloqy, Vol. 1 (UtrechtAntwerp: Spectrum Publishers, 1966), p. 191; also David T. Runia, Philo in Earlv Christian Literatur~. A Survev (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 19931, p. 95. 2

As translated by Runia. on. c i t . . p. 239, from Edgar Hennecke, Die A D o I o ~des ~ ~Aristides. Recension und n des Textes (Leipzig, 1893). p . 4 4 . 3 O

st. 4.3.1.3.

See Runia, QD. cit., p. 239.

Several scholars who hold this view are cited by G.C. OtCeallaigh,wMarcianus' Aristides, On the Worship of

About a century l a t e r , Jerome (c. 3 4 2 - 4 2 0 1 refers to Aristides in his w o n i c o s , Be Virh Illustr&us,

and

E~istle7Q, where he reports that Aristides was an Athenian philosopher, that he retained the philosopher s garb af ter he converted to Christianity, and that, like Quadratus, he presented a defence of the faith to the Emperor Hadrian. This defence, he maintains, was preserved in Jerome's own day, was composed in large part of the opinions of the philosophers, and was later imitated by Justin Martyr.

Most

scholars agree, however, given that Jerome adds little to the information provided by Eusebius and that there is "a want of literary faith in statements made by JeromeN, that his remarks are most likely "mese editorial expansions and colourings of what he found in the pages of Eusebiusu.5 Such was the information on Aristides until the nineteenth century, other than a letter, dated 1534, £rom Witzel to Beatus Rhenanus, which suggests that the Apology

was in print in Latin at that t h e . 6

Whether or not this

was the case, it was only in 1878 that this work came to the notice of scholars, when the monks of the ~azaristmonas tery in Venice--theMechitarists--puHisheda tenth-century God", Harvard Theoloaical Review, 51, 1958, p. 228, n. 6. 5

J. Rende1 Harris, "The Apology of Aristidesu, and S t u d i e s , Vol. 1, ed. J. A d t a g e Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893) , pp. 1-2; cf. Robert Lee Wolff , "The Apology of Aris tides- - A Re - examination", H C U X C d

Theolo-

R e v i e w , 30, 1937, p . 239.

Wolff, p. c i t . ,

manuscript of an Amenian t r a n s l a t i o n of i t s f i r s t two chaptzrs .7

Other d i s c o v e r i e s quickly followed.

J. Rende1

H a r r i s , i n t h e s p r i n g of 1889, discovered a Syriac manuscript of the whole Apology, probably £rom t h e seventh century, i n t h e l i b r a r y of the Convent of S t . Catharine on Mount S i n a i . a reasons.

T h i s v e r s i o n is i n v a l u a b l e f o r a number of

F i r s t , i t includes t h e complete t e x t of the

Apology; second, i t c o n t a i n s two a d d r e s s e s , one of them completely d i f f e r e n t £rom the one found i n t h e Amenian f r a m e n t ; t h i r d , i t provides a f u l l name f o r t h e author; and f ourth, i t

es tablishes beyond question t h e genuineness of

the Amenian fragment

.

9

I t was t h e discovery of t h i s S y r i a c v e r s i o n , moreover,

which l e d t o the f u r t h e r discovery by % A .

Robinson t h a t

A r i s t i d e s ' Apology i s incorporated i n t h e e a r l y C h r i s t i a n romance e n t i t l e d The Life of Barlaam and Josanhac.

Scholars

v a r i o u s l y a s c r i b e d t h i s Greek work t o S t . John of Damascus ( c . 676 - 7 4 9 )

, t o an anonymous author a l l e g e d t o have

f l o u r i s h e d a t the beginning oE the seventh c e n t u r y , and t o Euthymius (d. 1 0 2 8 ) , a n Athonite monk of t h e monastery of 7

Rev. D.M.

Kay, t r a n s . ,

f l I n t r o d u c t i o n " , The A ~ o l o g y

des, mte-Nicene Chrj s t i a n Library (Edinburgh: & T. Clark, 18971, Additional Volume, p. 260; see a l s o ,

T.

Johannes Quas t e n , p a t r o l o a v , Vol. 1 ( U t r e c h t -Antwerp: Spectrurn P u b l i s h e r s , 1 9 6 6 ) , 1 9 2 . When t h e t r a n s l a t i o n f r o m Greek t o Armenian was made has y e t t o b e detennined. 8

H a r r i s , on. c i t . , p. 3 . 9 Kay, V n t r o d u c t i o n f l , Ante-N-ne QD. c i t . , p . 260.

ChristiuraZY,

135

St. Athanasius.

They are now in agreement, however, that

the author was Euthymius, thanks to an article by Paul Peeters which demonstrates that mEuthymius Itranslated1 the story f rom the Georgiann.10

Indeed it was an extremely

popular romance and was translated into numerous languages in both the East and the West. 11

Aris tides l Apology

comprises chapters 26 and 27 of this novel, where it is represented as precisely what it is: Chris tianity .

The story runs thus :

a defence of

Prince Josaphat, the

young son of King Abenner, is converted to Christianity by the monk Barlaam. The king, in an effort to lure his son back to heathenism, engages Nachor, one of his sages, to impersonate Barlaam so badly in a public disputation that he is certain to lose the contest.

God, however, enters into

Nachor, and instead of delivering an unwieldy, tedious oration, he launches into a lively and inspired defence of the Christian f aith, v i z . the Apology of

-Pr

ris tides .12

of the Greek or Svriac Versions? There has been considerable debate as to which of the

two complete versions of Aristides' Apology more closely approximates the author's actual words .

According to R.

'O Wolff, OD. cit., p. 234, n. 2; cf, G.C. O'Ceallaigh, QD. cit., p. 227, n. 4. 11 Kay, nIntroductionm,AnteNicene ~ a t h e r s ,Dr>. ~ p. 260.

Wolff,

OD.

~lt.,

j t ,.

Seeberg and E . J .

Goodspeed, the Syriac version is more

representative of the original- - the Greek version, in Seebergfsview, being simply a compression and reworking of the original Apology .13

J. Rende1 Harris, however,

maintains that the Syriac version, where it is possible to compare it with the Greek and Armenian texts. reveals added explanatory clauses and a considerable and unnecessary repetition of pronouns,14 and Otto has gone so far as to state that "the Syriac translator has so altered and amplified his original as almost to have produced a new workl'.1s

It was not until the 1930 ' s , however, that an

article by Robert Lee Wolff

entitled "The Apology of

Aris tides - -A Re - E~amination~~ , tipped the scales in f avour of the view that the Greek t e x t , found in The Life of Barlaam

and ~ o s a ~ h a tmore , faithfully represents the actual words of Aris tides .16 In this article, Wolff endeavouss to demonstrate that Euthymius made use of the actual Apology of Aristides as

opposed to some hagiographical version.

He begins by

pointing out that such a version is purely "hypothetical",

"

As

cited by Wolff,

QD.

c i t . , p. 241.

15

As paraphrased by J.A. Robinson, "The Original Greek of the Apology of ~ristides",Texts and Stydies, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 73, . . O ~ e18931, referring to a passage in Otto. Justin1 r ,à tom. 2 . p . xxix. l6

Wolff,

QR.cit., pp.

233-247.

137

for other than the text in The Life of Barlaam and Joswhat, no document has corne d o m to us which contains even a fragment of the original Apology. 17

What is more, such a

version would be "difficult to imagine", since the hagiographical technique which a later writer commonly used when borrowing £rom the work of an earlier one was at best unsystematic.lB In fact, Euthymius himself provides two good examples of this rather free and undisciplined technique, for in his Life of Barlaam and Josaphat, he borrows £rom at least two other earlier works, v i z . a 'lifel of St. Catherine of Alexandria found in a collection of the lives of saints compiled by Simeon Metaphrastes in the tenth

century, and the so-called &rror

o f the Prince, written in

the sixth century by Agapetos for the Emperor Justinian.19

In both these cases, Wolff states, the hagiographical method which Euthymius employs is the Nusualw one, i. e L . "he uses [the works] freely, scattering bits, long and short, throughout his narrative wherever he feels they add to the effect; he never uses a work entire; he reworks sentences to suit himself, dropping words and phrases, or inserting them with equal freedom.

In short he borrows here and there, as

he pleases; his use is partial and indirectt1. 'O That this l7

Diil., p. 241.

la

Ibid.

l9

Ibid,, p . 2 4 2 .

20

Ibid,

13 8

is t h e mos t conmon technique, moreover, i s evidenced by the

borrowings from John Malalas i n t h e @ l i f e of l S t . Catherine of Alexandria, the work f rom which Euthymius was l a t e r t o borrow; i n t h e borrowings £rom Theodoret i n t h e martyrdom of Trophimus; and i n the borrowings £rom Clement of Alexandria by t h e a u t h o r of the Passion of St. P h i l i p of Heraclea. 2 1

Yet t h e supposed hagiographical method which Euthymius used when he borrowed from A r i s t i d e s l Apology i s i n g l a r i n g c o n t r a s t not only t o t h a t u s u a l l y employed by a u t h o r s , but t o t h a t employed b y Euthymius himself i n the same work. That i s , "he took t h e whole of i t ; t h e r e i s l i t t l e i f any reworking ( t h i s w e know f r o m t h e S y r i a c ) ; his use of i t i s d i r e c t and completeu.22

I t i s thus u n l i k e l y , Wolff a t t e s t s ,

t h a t Euthymius would have taken h i s m a t e r i a l £rom a h a g i o g r a p h i c a l s o u r c e - - i t s e l f h y p o t h e t i c a b - w h i c h used t h e m a t e r i a l i n t h i s same--unusual--way.23 What is more, t h a t a manuscript of A r i s t i d e & Apology would have been i n e x i s t e n c e as l a t e as t h e 1 0 t h century and t h a t w r i t e r s would have made f r e e use of i t without

acknowledging its existence i s not unique. evidenced by t h e Codex paris= . .

T h i s is

4 5 1 , w r i t t e n i n 914, which

has been t h e only source of t h e t e x t s of nearly al1 t h e

e a r l y C h r i s t i a n Apologis ts "

Ibid.,

pp. 2 4 2 - 3 .

"

Ibid.,

p. 2 4 3 .

.

As

Wolff thus asks :

Vhy

has been the only source of the texts of nearly a l 1 ~ h e early Christian Apologists.

As Wolff t h u s asks:

"WY

should not the story of the hypothetical manuscript i~hich contained Aristides, and which Euthymius presumably Wedt have been similar?""

The manuscript Bistory of The

Didache is even more to the point.

Until the nineteenth

century, this work was known only through brief refegences in Eusebius, Athanasius, and some other early ~hristian

In 1875, however, Bryennios, Archbishop of Lere*t

writers.

discovered it in its entirety in a monastery at C~nstantinople.'~ Indeed this manuscript was clearly in existence in the east long after Euthymiusf t i m e , whj-ch confirms the possibility that a manuscript of Aristides' Apology was available to Euthymius in the tenth centWYAs Wolff concludes, therefore, it is certainly possible, and indeed %ot

improbablett,that EuthymiuS made

use of an actual text of Aristidesr Apology."

In fahat, Euthymius used t h e Apology of

A r i s t i d e s a s v e r b a l m u n i t i o n a g a i n s t t h e d e r i s i o n s and rebukes of King Abenner and h i s court.

In his F i r s t

Apology, moreover, J u s t i n not only i n d u l g e s f r e e l y i n O l d Testament i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , b u t he a l s o f o c u s s e s p r i m a r i l y on t h e f u l f i l l m e n t by Jesus of Old Testament prophecy (23), one of the primary arguments of early C h r i s t i a n s i n t h e i r con£r o n t a t i o n s w i t h pagans .

Athenagoras , i n l i k e manner,

devotes over t w o - t h i r d s of h i s J , e a a t i ~t o a r e b u t t a l of the charge of atheism, probably t h e foremost c r i t i c i s m of t h e

pagans a g a i n s t t h i s new-fangled r e l i g i o n .

Indeed t h e s e

Apologies would no doubt have g r e a t l y a i d e d and a b e t t e d the 87

Aland, W. c i t , , p . 3 2 .

277

C h r i s t i a n c o u n t e r - a t t a c k a g a i n s t pagan r i d i c u l e and abuse, providing C h r i s t i a n s , both new and o l d , learned and unlearned, w i t h a b a t t e r y of arguments by which they could v e r b a l l y r e f u t e t h e i r pagan opponents. While i t i s obviously impossible t o s t a t e f o r c e r t a i n t h e p r e c i s e p u r p o s e - - i f indeed t h e r e w a s o n e - - f o r which the apologis t s composed their def ences, t h e s e three suggestions a r e both reasonable and credible.

The e a r l y C h r i s t i a n s were

unquestionably tempted to r e v e r t t o t h e i r former b e l i e f s i n t h e f a c e of r i d i c u l e and denunciation, and t h e r e f o r e r e q u i r e d admoni t i o n agains t the fa l s i t y and p e r v e t s i t y of paganism and af f i n n a t i o n t h a t Chris t i a n i t y held t h e t r u t h s f o r which they were searching.

They were a l s o i n need of

both i n s t r u c t i o n i n t h e f a i t h and m u n i t i o n agains t t h e v e r b a l abuse with which they were r e g u l a r l y bombarded, and t h e s e works would c l e a r l y have supplied both the knowledge

and t h e confidence which they required.

Indeed, w h i l e t h e

Apologies were o s t e n s i b l y pleas t o t h e h i p e r o r t o bring t o

an end t h e u n j u s t denunciations and t r i a l s of C h r i s t i a n s , i n r e a l i t y they were moral, s p i r i t u a l , and educational supports intended t o h e l p C h r i s t i a n s understand t h e complexities of t h e i r f a i t h and t h u s t o repel these pagan a s s a u l t s .

CONCLUSION

No twithstanding Edward Gibbon s eloquent words , the l

second-century was not a particularly "happy periodN for the vast majority of Christians

.

Indeed it was in this century

that the need for Christian Apology first arose. and Aristides, Justin Martyr, and Athenagoras, three authors q philosophers, were among those who defended the faith against i t s two major opponents:

t h e imperial court and the

pagan populace. In the case of the fonner, the reaction to Christianity

was swift and harsh. Although generally accepting of new cults and unperturbed by the addition of new gods to her pantheon, Rome quickly pronounced this new superstition a

. .

. .

l a i o U l c i ta.

Af ter all, Christians held clandestine

meetings in t h e dead of night, seldom disclosing the nature

of their activities. and they distanced themselves £rom the rest of society, never participating in pagan rites.

Surely

the Bacchanalian debacle of 186 B.C.E. and the more recent encounter with the Druids had provided su££icient proof that

subversive cults whose members met secretly after dark were inherently evil!

Rome thus strove to combat this pernicious

superstition by legislating punishment for the Name aloneand that punishment was execution.

Yet the legal response of the Roman State was not the only adverse reaction to the new religion. Both the upper

279

and lower echelons of pagan society took aim, each in its own way, against this latest threat to peace and security. Indeed respected and prominent members of the pagan intelligentsia attacked Christianity in their learned works --usuallydepending, for literary ammunition, upon pagan gossip and hearsay.

The lower segments of society were no

less antagonistic; in f act, they were more menacing because they were more subtle and crafty.

After all, denouncing to

the authorities as Christian a neighbour, relative, or colleague against wham one harboured a grudge was an ingenious--andfoolproof--meansof settling an old score. Written defences of Christianity were thus required by the Church to address this threefold opposition, and the literary fo m which the Apologis ts chose was the official imperial petition or oration.

In other words, they wrote

Apologies, addressed to the Roman Emperor, which ostensibly urged him to cease the hostilities towards the Christians. No twithstanding the traditional scholarly view that this literary fo m originated f rom Hellenistic - Jewish apology, or the less prevalent ideas that it was an extension of various New Testament writings or of Aris totle's J?rotrmtic11s0 the Christian Apologists, in composing their works, cleatly followed Platols lead.

Indeed they porttay themselves in

their defences in the same way as Plato, in his famous W a v , portrays the philosopher Socrates, i - e m O as

defending unpopular ideas and idealç before the one body

280

which could end the injustice being perpetrated both against him and, by extension, against those who supported his

teachings. In reality, however, the Christian defences, like Platols&oloav,

are literary fiction.

Indeed, if they had

been written as actual imperial supplications, they would have included at least four fundamental prerequisites:

1)

accurate and formal imperial titulature; 2 ) a brief description of the particular grievance being addressed, viz. arbitrary denunciations by pagans and unjust trials by

Roman governors;' 3) clear and deferential arguments in favour of the Christian position, probably including a staternent of the law; and 4 ) a straightforward and specific request for the desired ruling, viz. that Christianity be deemed a legitimate religion and that Christians be afforded the same rights and privileges as the pagans and Jews enjoyed.

Clearly the Christian defences were too long, too

unfocussed, and too offensive to have ever been intended,

pace traditional scholarly opinion, as official petitions to

the Roman higeror to obtain relief from persecution.

The

setting of these four Apologies is purely imaginary. Nor were these wosks intended, as some scholars have suggested, as a proselytizing tool among the pagans.

Indeed

the pagan masses could only have been angered by the 1

Justin's lengthy and condemnatory narration of the Roman woman's marital difficulties and their consequences was hardly appropriate as an imperial petition.

derogatory nature of the Christians' arguments, and the pagan intelligentsia unimpressed by the literary quality of the works

.

More importantly, moreover, the second-century

system of book publication and distribution, as H a r r y Y. Gamble confim. would have prevented the infiltration of these works into Graeco-Roman society. Nat only was the circulation of a text, be it Christian or pagan, painfully slow and haphazard, but it was also beyond its authorts control.

For an author to compose a work for circulation

within a specific sector of society, therefore, and particularly one in which he himself had no roots, was both

an absurd and a futile endeavour. Clearly only those pagans, like Celsus, with an axe to grind against the Christians and thus a motive for acquiring Christian texts would have been aware of, let alone interested in, the Christian Apologies. The only reasonable option, therefore, is that the Apologies were composed for the Christians theruelves.

As

Gamble points out, by far the majority of second-century t e x t s was distributed along interna1 social networks, and in

the case of the Apologies, that network was the Christian comunity.

These works, moreover, would clearly have

fulfilled some pressing social, spiritual, and educational

needs within the Church at that the. They would have provided, first of all, an excellent means not only of

warning Christians against the evils and errors of

282

polytheisrn, but also of instilling into wavering converts the truth and superiority of Christianity.

On a more

concrete level, they would also have served as tools with which the clergy and other learned Chxistians could instmct the wide mass of converts, who in turn could instruct their

relatives and friends. Indeed the Apologies, with their repeated attacks upon the perversities of the gods, would

have amply armed Christians with the appropriate knowledge and awareness to withstand and even to refute the verbal

assaults of their opponents.

Yet even more importantly,

these Christian defences, with their frequent attestations of the love of Christ and their promises of eternal salvation, would have furnished many confused and frightened Christians, in the face of delation and execution, with the

assurance that they were following the path, not of death, but of life.

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