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130 3 2011

JOURNAL OF

BIBLICAL LITERATURE FALL 2011

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JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

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VOLUME 130, NO. 3 Aaron and the Golden Calf in the Rhetoric of the Pentateuch James W. Watts

417–430

The Ambiguous Details in the Blasphemer Narrative: Sources and Redaction in Leviticus 24:10–23 Mark Leuchter

431–450

Homeric and Ancient Near Eastern Intertextuality in 1 Samuel 17 Serge Frolov and Allen Wright

451–471

Ezekiel’s Oracles against the Nations in Light of a Royal Ideology of Warfare C. L. Crouch

473–492

Historical-Allusional Dating and the Similitudes of Enoch Ted M. Erho

493–511

The Architriklinos at Cana David H. Sick

513–526

“Examined the Scriptures?” The Meaning of ἀνακρίνοντες τὰς γραφάς in Acts 17:11 Roy E. Ciampa

527–541

Peddling Scents: Merchandise and Meaning in 2 Corinthians 2:14–17 Tzvi Novick

543–549

How Typical a Roman Prostitute Is Revelation’s “Great Whore”? Jennifer A. Glancy and Stephen D. Moore

551–569

Eschatology and the Emotions in Early Christianity Stephen C. Barton

571–591

Gentile Christians, Exile, and Return in 5 Ezra 1:35–40 Theodore A. Bergren

593–612 US ISSN 0021-9231

incov revedit_incov.qxd 8/17/2011 7:56 AM Page 1

JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE

General Editor: JAMES C. VANDERKAM, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556

EDITORIAL BOARD

Term Expiring 2011: ELLEN B. AITKEN, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T5 Canada MICHAEL JOSEPH BROWN, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 JAIME CLARK-SOLES, Perkins School of Theology, So. Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275 STEVEN FRIESEN, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 JENNIFER GLANCY, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173 ROBERT HOLMSTEDT, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1C1 Canada ARCHIE C. C. LEE, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin New Territories, Hong Kong SAR MARGARET Y. MACDONALD, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS B2G 2W5 Canada SHELLY MATTHEWS, Furman University, Greenville, SC 29613 RICHARD D. NELSON, Perkins School of Theology, So. Methodist Univ., Dallas, TX 75275 DAVID L. PETERSEN, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 MARK REASONER, Marian University, Indianapolis, IN 46222 YVONNE SHERWOOD, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, G12 8QQ, United Kingdom LOREN T. STUCKENBRUCK, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ 08542 PATRICIA K. TULL, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY 40205 2012:

DAVID L. BARR, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435 COLLEEN CONWAY, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ 07079 MARY ROSE D’ANGELO, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556 THOMAS B. DOZEMAN, United Theological Seminary, Dayton, OH 45406 J. ALBERT HARRILL, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405 PAUL JOYCE, Oxford University, Oxford, OX1 3LD, United Kingdom ELIZABETH STRUTHERS MALBON, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0135 TURID KARLSEN SEIM, University of Oslo, N-0315 Oslo, Norway CAROLYN SHARP, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520 BENJAMIN D. SOMMER, The Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, NY 10027 LOUIS STULMAN, University of Findlay, Findlay, OH 45840 DAVID TSUMURA, Japan Bible Seminary, Tokyo 205-0017, Japan MICHAEL WHITE, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712

2013:

JO-ANN BRANT, Goshen College, Goshen, IN 46526 BRIAN BRITT, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0135 JOHN ENDRES, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94709 MICHAEL FOX, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706 STEVEN FRAADE, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8287 MATTHIAS HENZE, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251 STEPHEN MOORE, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940 LAURA NASRALLAH, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA 02138 EMERSON POWERY, Messiah College, Grantham, PA 17027 THOMAS RÖMER, Collège de France, Paris, and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland SIDNIE WHITE CRAWFORD, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0337 DAVID WRIGHT, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454 Editorial Assistants: Monica Brady and Sarah Schreiber, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556 President of the Society: Carol Newsom, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322; Vice President: John Dominic Crossan, DePaul University, Chicago, IL 60604; Chair, Research and Publications Committee: Adele Reinhartz, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5 Canada; Executive Director: John F. Kutsko, Society of Biblical Literature, 825 Houston Mill Road, Suite 350, Atlanta, GA 30329. The Journal of Biblical Literature (ISSN 0021–9231) is published quarterly by the Society of Biblical Literature, 825 Houston Mill Road, Suite 350, Atlanta, GA 30329. The annual subscription price is US$40.00 for members and US$180.00 for nonmembers. Institutional rates are also available. For information regarding subscriptions and membership, contact: Society of Biblical Literature, Customer Service Department, P.O. Box 133158, Atlanta, GA 30333. Phone: 866-727-9955 (toll free) or 404-727-9498. FAX: 404-727-2419. E-mail: [email protected]. For information concerning permission to quote, editorial and business matters, please see the Spring issue, p. 2. Periodical postage paid at Atlanta, Georgia, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Society of Biblical Literature, P.O. Box 133158, Atlanta, GA 30333. Copyright © 2011 by the Society of Biblical Literature. The Hebrew and Greek fonts used in JBL are SBL Hebrew and SBL Greek; they are available from www.sblsite.org/Resources/default.aspx. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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JBL 130, no. 3 (2011): 417–430

Aaron and the Golden Calf in the Rhetoric of the Pentateuch james w. watts [email protected] Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-1170

In the Pentateuch, the contrast between legal or instructional material, on the one hand, and stories, on the other, is nowhere more stark than in the relationship between the story of the golden calf (Exodus 32–34) and the instructions and narratives (Exodus 25–31; 35–40) that surround it. The story tells of ritual failure with disastrous consequences, while the ritual instructions and narratives around it recount fulfilling those divine instructions to the letter. The contrast becomes most excruciating in each section’s characterization of the high priest: the golden calf story seems to vilify Aaron by placing him at the center of the idolatrous event, while the ritual texts celebrate Aaron and his sons as divinely consecrated priests. Though source and redaction criticism have long since distinguished the authors of these accounts, the critics explain the intentions behind a literary juxtaposition that is too stark to be anything but intentional. Why did the Aaronide dynasties who controlled both the Second Temple and its Torah allow this negative depiction of Aaron to stand? Over the last decade, increasing numbers of scholars have dated part or all of Exodus 32 to the postexilic period, which makes the problem of an anti-Aaronide polemic in an otherwise pro-Aaronide Pentateuch even harder to explain. Thus, both synchronic and diachronic approaches have trouble explaining the depiction of Aaron in this story. Rhetorical analysis of the possible function of Exodus 32 in the Pentateuch of the Second Temple period provides new answers to these questions. An abbreviated version of this paper was read in a joint session of the Pentateuch and Biblical Law sections of the Society of Biblical Literature on the theme of Law and Narrativity at the annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, November 23, 2009. The article has been improved by the comments and suggestions of several audience members, including Diana Lipton, Roy Gane, and Reinhard Achenbach, as well as Ben Sommer, for which I am very grateful.

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Journal of Biblical Literature 130, no. 3 (2011)

I. Exodus 32 in Historical Criticism By “rhetorical analysis,” I mean the study of persuasion.1 Who is trying to persuade whom of what by recounting this story in this context? Because of the negative depiction of Aaron, historical criticism has traditionally identified the “who” as anti-priestly/anti-Aaronide but pro-Levite groups in various historical time periods. This claim finds its basis in the contrast between Aaron creating the calf (32:3) and the Levites killing its worshipers, for which they are rewarded with ordination (32:26–29). Critics also consider Exodus 32 to be a projection of Judean polemics against the northern kingdom of Israel, because the calf is greeted with the call “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (32:4), which echoes the story of Jeroboam’s golden calf in 1 Kgs 12:28.2 The appearance of both polemics together in this story has generated speculation about the Aaronides’ priestly roles in the temples of the northern kingdom, especially at Bethel.3 Thus, the story is often used as a mine where interpreters dig for information about the historical development of Israel’s priesthood as well as the politics of the two preexilic kingdoms. 1 For a survey and discussion of the history of rhetoric in terms of persuasion, see Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1950), 49–55, 61–62; for studies of the rhetorical practices of non–Greco-Roman cultures, see the essays in Rhetoric before and beyond the Greeks (ed. Roberta A. Binkley and Carol S. Lipson; Albany: SUNY Press, 2004); and Ancient Non-Greek Rhetorics (ed. Carol S. Lipson and Roberta A. Binkley; West Lafayette, IN: Parlor, 2009); for persuasive rhetoric in the Pentateuch, see Dale Patrick and Allen Scult, Rhetoric and Biblical Interpretation (JSOTSup 82; Bible and Literature 26; Sheffield: Almond, 1990); and James W. Watts, Reading Law: The Rhetorical Shaping of the Pentateuch (Biblical Seminar 59; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999). 2 W. M. L. de Wette, Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament (2 vols.; Halle: Schimmelpfennig, 1806, 1807), 247; Julius Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuch und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testament (4th ed.; Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1899), 91–92; for further literature and discussion, see Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 559-62; Cornelis Houtman, Exodus (3 vols.; Historical Commentary on the Old Testament; Leuven: Peeters, 1993–2000), 3:619–24; William H. C. Propp, Exodus 19–40: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 2A; New York: Doubleday, 2006), 567–78. 3 E.g., S. R. Driver, The Book of Exodus: In the Revised Version, with Introduction and Notes (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 348– 49; Antonius H. J. Gunneweg, Leviten und Priester: Hauptlinien der Traditionsbildung und Geschichte des israelitisch-jüdischen Kultpersonals (FRLANT 89; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965), 89–95; Moses Aberbach and Leivy Smolar, “Aaron, Jeroboam, and the Golden Calves,” JBL 86 (1967): 129–40; George W. Coats, Rebellion in the Wilderness: The Murmuring Motif in the Wilderness Traditions of the Old Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968), 189–91; Aelred Cody, A History of Old Testament Priesthood (AnBib 35; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969), 148; Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the

Watts: Aaron and the Golden Calf

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The Aaronides’ prominence in postexilic politics draws my attention in this essay to the priesthood. Some have argued that the original story valued Aaron’s bull/calf as a positive representation of YHWH. Only later editing turned it into a story of idolatry.4 Others argue that the references to Aaron, the Levites, or both were added to the original story in response to later conflicts between priesthoods.5 (Modern preachers have even picked up this theme to juxtapose Aaron to Moses as representing the “church of the world” versus the “church of the Word.”6) Much of the discussion that takes Exodus 32 as evidence for the history of the priesthood focuses on preexilic times. It ignores the literary context of the golden calf story within P’s tabernacle traditions (Exodus 25–40).7 It is, however, this context and its likely historical origins in the Persian period that pose the greatest difficulties for understanding Exodus 32 as an anti-Aaronide polemic. How did the story survive Priestly editing in a period when avowedly Aaronide priests controlled not only the Jerusalem temple and its Torah, but increasingly also wielded political power as representatives of the Jewish people? The issue of Priestly editing, or rather the lack of it, in Exodus 32 has been made even more pressing by recent redactional research that regards part or all of Exodus 32–34 as post-P additions.8 Eckart Otto, for example, argued that chs. 32– Religion of Israel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 198–200; Joachim Schaper, Priester und Leviten im achämenidischen Juda: Studien zur Kult- und Sozialgeschichte Israels in persischer Zeit (FAT 31; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 172–73, 275–76. 4 Hugo Gressmann, Mose und seine Zeit: Ein Kommentar zu den Mose-Sagen (FRLANT n.F. 1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1913), 205; Walter Beyerlin, Herkunft und Geschichte der ältesten Sinaitraditionen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1961), 144–47. The opposite view is maintained by Childs (Exodus, 561–62) and R. W. L. Moberly (At the Mountain of God: Story and Theology in Exodus 32–34 [JSOTSup 22; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1983], 167–71). 5 Martin Noth, Exodus: A Commentary (trans. John S. Bowden; London: SCM, 1962), 244– 45; Gunneweg, Leviten und Priester, 93-95. The nearly unanimous tendency to find the remains of priestly conflicts in the story has elicited rebuttals from Heinrich Valentin (Aaron: Eine Studie zur vor-priesterschriftlichen Aaron-Überlieferung [OBO 18; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978], 246) and Dany Nocquet (“Pourquoi Aaron n’a-t-il pas été châtié après la fabrication du taurillon d’or? Essai sur les mentions d’Aaron en Exode 32, 1–33, 6,” ETR 81 [2006]: 229–54). 6 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, sermon, 1936, in No Rusty Swords: Letters, Lectures, Notes, 1928– 1936 (ed. E. H. Robinson; New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 243–48; for similar uses, see Scott M. Langston, Exodus through the Centuries (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 246–48. 7 The contradiction between P’s celebration of Aaron and the critical depiction of him in Exodus 32 fueled theories that the Pentateuch was the product of a compromise between competing parties in the Persian period (e.g., Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch [BZAW 189; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1990], 333–34). 8 For a survey of critical approaches to the golden calf story through the end of the twentieth century, see Konrad Schmid, “Israel am Sinai: Etappen der Forschungsgeschichte zu Ex 32– 34 in seinen Kontexten,” in Gottes Volk am Sinai: Untersuchungen zu Ex 32-34 und Dtn 9-10 (ed. Matthias Köckert and Erhard Blum; Veröffentlichungen der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft für Theologie 18; Gütersloh: Kaiser, 2001), 9–40.

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34 were constructed by the final redactor of the Pentateuch in direct dependence on P’s tabernacle account in order to make the theological point that God will not abolish the covenant with Israel regardless of Israel’s sins (just as the Holiness Code of Leviticus 17–26 does).9 Jan Christian Gertz also argued for a post-P redaction that utilized preexisting P material.10 Yet the P context of Exodus 25–40 is unmitigatingly pro-Aaronide priests, clear evidence of their influence over the Torah’s postexilic shaping.11 Furthermore, this pro-priestly bias matches very well what little we know about the political situation in Persian-period Judea during which the Torah emerged as Scripture. In this milieu, how could an anti-Aaronide story survive in Exodus? This problem involves only direct attacks on priestly preeminence, such as in Numbers 16–18, which rejects them by divine fiat, and such as those presupposed by historians who see struggles for supremacy among Levites, Zadokites, and Aaronides in Exodus 32 and other stories. It does not apply to criticisms of priests for corruption and incompetence, which appear frequently in biblical and postbiblical literature (e.g., Lev 10:1–3; 1 Samuel 2–4; Malachi; MMT and other Qumran texts; Mark 14:53–65 and parallels; Josephus; and frequently in rabbinic literature) but which, by their nature, affirm the ideal of priesthood while criticizing current priests for failing to live up to it.12 Apart from the stories in Numbers, only in the NT does the critique actually rise to the level of challenging the ideal of Aaronide preeminence itself (so Hebrews, especially 7:12).13

9 Otto, “Kritik der Pentateuchkomposition” (1995), in idem, Die Tora: Studien zum Pentateuch. Gesammelte Schriften (Beihefte zur ZABR 9; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009), 154–55; idem, “Die nachpriesterschriftliche Pentateuchredaktion im Buch Exodus,” in Studies in the Book of Exodus: Redaction, Reception, Interpretation (ed. Marc Vervenne; BETL 126; Leuven: Peeters, 1996), 61–111. 10 Gertz, “Beobachtungen zu Komposition und Redaktion in Exodus 32–34,” in Köckert and Blum, Gottes Volk am Sinai, 88–106. A recent reexamination of Exodus 32–34 that defends a pre-P and preexilic kernel to the story, including Aaron’s role in it, can be found in Michael Konkel, Sünde und Vergebung: Eine Rekonstruktion der Redaktionsgeschichte der hinteren Sinaiperikope (Exodus 32–34) vor dem Hintergrund aktueller Pentateuchmodelle (FAT 58; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008). 11 See James W. Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus: From Sacrifice to Scripture (Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 142–72; reprinted as “The Torah as the Rhetoric of Priesthood,” in The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance (ed. Gary N. Knoppers and Bernard M. Levinson; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 319–31. 12 Konkel’s attempt (Sünde und Vergebung, 285–86) to find a context for a postexilic antiAaronide critique in Exodus 32 in criticisms of priestly marriage practices in Neh 13:28 confuses these very different rhetorical strategies. 13 See further James W. Watts, “Political and Legal Uses of Scripture,” in The New Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 1 (ed. J. Schaper and J. C. Paget; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).


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Because of political developments in Second Temple Judaism, attempts to find anti-priestly redactional layers in the Pentateuch become less and less credible the later they are dated. In this period of the Aaronides’ rising political as well as religious preeminence, we should instead wonder at the survival of stories like Exodus 32, or at least Aaron’s role in it. Why was he not edited out?

II. Exodus 32 in Ancient Interpretation Another way to get at this problem is to ask: Could the story have been read in such a way as to support the claims of the Aaronide dynasty, rather than undermining them? Its survival in this form suggests that, in Persian- and Hellenisticperiod Judea, it must have been read in a way that was not damaging to the preeminence of the Aaronides. So what value would the priestly dynasties have found in the story of the golden calf? Unfortunately, the history of interpretation does not preserve any such Aaronide interpretations.14 Only a few texts in the rest of the Hebrew Bible explicitly mention the golden calf story. Deuteronomy 9 narrates it and, unlike Exodus 32, says that God was angry with Aaron. Only Moses’ intercession saved him. Deuteronomy thus extends the theme of divine retribution forestalled or ameliorated by prophetic intercession, which is found also in Exodus 32, to include the high priest. Deuteronomy 33:8–11 seems to allude to the golden calf story to celebrate the Levites’ ordination, but makes no mention of Aaron. Psalm 106:19–23 omits Aaron entirely from its summary of the story, though just four verses earlier it calls Aaron “holy to YHWH” while narrating the rebellion of Dathan and Abiram (v. 16). Nehemiah 9:18 also omits Aaron in its allusion to the golden calf in a longer historical summary, though it quotes the crucial “these are your gods” line. The prayer of Nehemiah 9, unlike Psalm 106, makes no references at all to tabernacle, sacrifices, priests, or temple. Biblical literature then draws no consequences

14 The history of ancient interpretation of the golden calf story has been summarized and analyzed by Leivy Smoler and Moses Aberbach, “The Golden Calf Episode in Postbiblical Literature,” HUCA 39 (1968): 91–116; Childs, Exodus, 574–79; Christopher T. Begg, “The Golden Calf Episode according to Pseudo-Philo,” in Vervenne, Studies in the Book of Exodus, 577–94; James L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible As It Was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 712–41; Louis H. Feldman, Studies in Josephus’ Rewritten Bible (JSJSup 58; Leiden: Brill, 1998), 55–73; idem, “Philo’s Account of the Golden Calf Incident,” JJS 56 (2005): 245–64; Joseph T. Lienhard, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (ACCS, OT 3; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001), 139–56; Karla R. Suomala, Moses and God in Dialogue: Exodus 32–34 in Postbiblical Literature (Studies in Biblical Literature 61; New York: P. Lang, 2004); Langston, Exodus, 232–49; and Pekka Lindqvist, Sin at Sinai: Early Judaism Encounters Exodus 32 (Studies in Rewritten Bible 2; Turku: Åbo Akademi; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008).

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for either Aaron or the priesthood from the golden calf story, and only one text (Deut 9:8) bothers to provide an explanation for why not. Aside from these biblical references, no allusions to the golden calf story appear in Jewish literature until the first century c.e. Then Philo recounts the story (Moses 2.159–73) but, like Psalm 106 and Nehemiah 9, omits Aaron.15 He instead emphasizes heavily the piety of the Levites.16 Josephus omits the incident entirely, narrating only the Israelites’ fears during Moses’ protracted absence on the mountain (Ant. 3.95–101). The omission may have been motivated by Josephus’s desire to protect Moses’ reputation from accusations of impetuosity and failure of leadership by Gentile readers.17 Pseudo-Philo, on the other hand, retells the story in detail for a Jewish audience but contrasts a righteous Aaron who protests the people’s request for a calf with the idolatrous people who make the idol themselves (L.A.B. 12:2–7). Though addressed to different audiences in various situations, all three show a concern to idealize the leadership of Moses and Aaron.18 Rabbinic and Christian discussions of the story show the same tendencies. Stephen’s speech in Acts 7:40 mentions Aaron incidentally, but without evaluating him one way or the other. Patristic and later authors tend to present apologies for Aaron, often comparing him with Peter, who also maintained a place of preeminence in the tradition despite his act of betrayal.19 Christian exegesis was perhaps influenced by rabbinic examples that excuse Aaron.20 Rabbinic authorities also attempted to suppress the publication of certain troublesome biblical texts, including the “second” account of the golden calf (Aaron’s recital of events to Moses in Exod 32:21–25), which they ruled may be read but not translated.21 The attempt to suppress part of the story reveals considerable unease about how the calf was created and especially Aaron’s discredit for obscuring his own role in it.22 Aaron’s actions continued to be excused, explained away, or ignored in medieval Jewish commentaries.23 15 See also Philo, Moses 2.270–74; Spec. Laws 1.79; 3.124–27; his allegorical interpretation of the story can be found in Drunkenness 66–70; Sacrifices 128–30; Flight 90–92; for discussion, see Feldman, “Philo’s Account.” 16 Lindqvist, Sin at Sinai, 121–28. 17 Feldman, Josephus’ Rewritten Bible, 377, 437–42; Lindqvist, Sin at Sinai, 133–41. 18 Lindqvist, Sin at Sinai, 152–55. 19 Houtman, Exodus, 630. 20 Childs, Exodus, 575; Lindqvist, Sin at Sinai, 101. 21 M. Meg 4:10; t. Meg. 3:31–38; y. Meg. 75c; b. Meg. 25a–b. Though the lists of prohibited passages do not agree with each other on all points, the golden calf story appears with the same restriction in all of them. For a comparison of the lists, see Feldman, “Philo’s Account,” 245–46; and Lindqvist, Sin at Sinai, 168–69, who also points out that, while Targums Pseudo-Jonathan and Onqelos include the passage, Targum Neofiti seems to observe a variant form of the rabbinic prescription (pp. 178–80). 22 Lindqvist, Sin at Sinai, 183–90. 23 Langston, Exodus, 239.


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So Aaron does not just get off scot-free in Exodus 32–34; later interpreters also let him off, either omitting his role in the affair entirely or excusing his participation in one way or another. Even sources eager to use the golden calf episode to disparage Jews as a group (e.g., patristic writers) do not latch on to Aaron as a target of their polemics. Writers who criticized later high priests or even the priesthood and sacrificial system in general do not impugn the character of Aaron. He is at most depicted as second-best in the ranks of divinely ordained priests (so the NT letter to the Hebrews, but without reference to this story), but his integrity remains unimpeached. Of all the ancient reflections on the golden calf story, the most critical is also the earliest, Deuteronomy 9, but this account immediately mitigates God’s anger with Aaron through Moses’ successful mediation on his behalf, so that nothing follows from it. Deuteronomy 9 may be the only version of the golden calf story that does not reflect its position in Exodus within the Priestly tabernacle account.24 It may well be older than the setting of Exodus 32–34 within P’s tabernacle account and was therefore unhampered by the unconditional celebration of his eternal priesthood in Exodus 28–29, Leviticus 8–10, and Numbers 16–18. Yet even here, Aaron gets off as a result of Moses’ mediation. Deuteronomy does not seize the opportunity to disparage Aaron in comparison to the Levitical priests it celebrates. Aaron always gets off scot-free.

III. Exodus 32 in the Context of Exodus 25–40 Though later Jewish interpreters do not use Exodus 32 to attack the Aaronide dynasties, neither do they help us understand why the Aaronides preserved the story. We are left to reconstruct their readings inductively from the extant text as we have it. When viewed from the perspective of the Second Temple priesthood, the story actually provides much material that not only supports the standard Aaronide view of the priesthood but also presents an excuse for priestly participation in preexilic cult practices that were considered heterodox after Deuteronomic and Priestly reforms. In terms of the broad thematic development of the book of Exodus, the golden calf story plays an important role in its present location. It creates narrative suspense and intrigue between the giving of the tabernacle instructions (chs. 25–31)

24 It may not even reflect Exodus 32. Thomas B. Dozeman argues that Exodus 32 used both Deuteronomy 9 and 1 Kings 12 as sources and is therefore a Deuteronomistic, but pre-P, composition (“The Composition of Exodus 32 within the Context of the Enneateuch,” in Auf dem Weg zur Endgestalt von Genesis bis II Regum: Festschrift Hans-Christoph Schmitt zum 65. Geburtstag [BZAW 370; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2006], 175–89). Gertz thinks that a post-P Exodus 32 utilized materials from 1 Kings 12 (“Beobachtungen,” 93–95).

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and their fulfillment (chs. 35–40).25 The counter-story in chs. 32–34 greatly enhances the sense of closure conveyed by the later stories of the tabernacle’s completion and God’s inhabiting it (ch. 40) as well as the ordination of Aaron and his sons and their inauguration of cultic service (Leviticus 8–9). Inclusion of the golden calf story gives the P tabernacle story a creation (Exodus 25–31)/fall (Exodus 32– 33)/restoration (Exodus 34–40) plot that echoes themes elsewhere in the Pentateuch.26 The sense of satisfaction that these stories engender would be considerably lessened if they did not include the golden calf story. The story actually mentions Aaron only in 32:1–5, 21–25, while the narrator reemphasizes his involvement in v. 35. The rest of chs. 32–34 focuses on interactions among God, Moses, and the people. Even the first five verses depict the people taking the initiative; Aaron only responds. For this reason, Dany Nocquet agrees with ancient interpreters that the story depicts Aaron’s actions as involuntary.27 It is the people, then, who play the villain in contrast to the hero, Moses, and it is they who suffer the consequences. The characters with priestly identities are differentiated in an unusual manner: on the one hand, the word “priest” (‫ )כהן‬never appears in Exodus 32–34 and priests are represented only by the solitary figure of Aaron, not “Aaron and his sons,” as in the surrounding chapters. On the other hand, an undifferentiated group of Levites distinguish themselves as Moses’ zealous supporters (32:25-29). Mention of both Aaron and the Levites is restricted to small portions of a story that otherwise revolves around the conflict between Moses and the people.28 The story’s themes do not accord well with its usual reputation as depicting Israel’s sin of idolatry. Idolatry is mentioned explicitly only late in the story (32:31), and one has to wait until 34:17 for a general prohibition of this kind of behavior. The dominant theme in ch. 32 instead revolves around credit for the exodus. The refrain “who brought you/us/them out of the land of Egypt” appears nine times but with different speakers and subjects: in v. 1 the people credit Moses; in v. 4 they credit “your gods” represented by the calf; in v. 7 YHWH credits Moses; in v. 8

25 So Nahum M. Sarna, Exploring Exodus: The Heritage of Biblical Israel (New York: Schocken, 1986), 190–91, 215–20. Helmut Utzschneider (Das Heiligtum und das Gesetz: Studien zur Bedeutung der sinaitischen Heiligtumstexte [Ex 25–40; Lev 8–9] [OBO 77; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988], 85–88) details the close parallels between accounts of building the calf (Exod 32:1–6) and constructing the tabernacle (Exodus 35–36). 26 Peter J. Kearney, “Creation and Liturgy: the P Redaction of Ex 25–40,” ZAW 89 (1977): 375–87; Gertz, “Beobachtungen,” 89–90; Benjamin D. Sommer points out that stories of troubled beginnings can be found throughout the Hebrew Bible (“Expulsion as Initiation: Displacement, Divine Presence, and Divine Exile in the Torah,” in Beginning/Again: Toward a Hermeneutics of Jewish Texts [ed. Aryeh Cohen and Shaul Magid; New York: Seven Bridges, 2001], 23–48). 27 Nocquet, “Pourquoi Aaron,” 235. 28 That is why scholars have long suggested that one or both priestly parties may have been added secondarily to the story. See n. 5 above.


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YHWH quotes the people (v. 4) crediting “your gods”; in v. 11 Moses credits YHWH; in v. 12 Moses imaginatively quotes the Egyptians crediting YHWH; in v. 23 Aaron quotes the people (v. 1) crediting Moses; in 33:1 YHWH credits Moses; and in 34:18 YHWH uses an intransitive verb for Israel’s exodus (“you came out from Egypt”). Thus, YHWH never claims credit for the exodus from Egypt in chs. 32–34, unlike in 19:4. Nor does YHWH claim to have accompanied Israel from Egypt. Instead, God sends an angel to lead Israel to the land in place of God’s presence (33:2–3; cf. 32:34).29 That angel previously appeared in the pillar of cloud and fire that led and defended the Israelites on their wilderness journey (14:19; cf. 23:20, 23 for positive reference to the angel without invoking the cloud).30 YHWH does in the end concede that “my presence will go up” with Israel (Exod 33:14). If God’s presence is not represented by the pillar of cloud/fire that is linked to the angel, what concrete action does this concession represent? The other obvious symbol of God’s presence is the tabernacle/tent of meeting. The account of the function of the tent of meeting in 33:7–11 intrudes so obviously into the story that critical commentators almost unanimously regard it as a fragment from a different tradition. More recent interpreters who focus on its role in context note the emphasis on the tent’s position outside the camp in contrast to P’s tabernacle in the center of the camp, and take that as a judgment on Israel’s behavior.31 These interpreters, however, still limit their interpretive context to chs. 32–34. If one takes into account the larger P story, which culminates in God’s glory inhabiting the newly constructed tabernacle in the center of the camp (Exod 40:34–48) and then setting

29 YHWH’s attachment to the mountain stimulated Gressman’s theory (Mose, 218–20) that the original story depicted Sinai as God’s home and site of his presence; similarly, Gustav Westphal (Jahwes Wohnstätten nach den Anschauungen der alten Hebräer: Eine alttestamentliche Untersuchung [BZAW 15; Giessen: Töpelmann, 1908], 24, 46); see the summary and critique by Houtman (Exodus, 3:683–85). 30 Childs, Exodus, 588: “Nor does Ex. 33 indicate that the refusal of God to accompany Israel has any effect on the cloud and pillar of fire which had guided the people earlier.” 31 Childs, Exodus, 592; Houtman, Exodus, 3:685. A number of recent interpreters consider the fragment a post-P addition: A. H. J. Gunneweg, “Das Gesetz und die Propheten,” ZAW 102 (1990): 169–80, esp. 174–75; Christoph Levin, Der Jahwist (FRLANT 157; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 368; Otto, “Die nachpriesterschriftliche Pentateuchredaktion, 91–92; Reinhard Achenbach, “Grundlinien redaktioneller Arbeit in der Sinai-Perikope,” in Das Deuteronomium zwischen Pentateuch und deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerk (ed. Reinhard Achenbach and Eckart Otto; FRLANT 168; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 79–80. Konkel rightly criticizes these reconstructions for postulating an opposition between Torah, represented here by the tent of meeting, and the temple cult represented by P’s tabernacle, an opposition that corresponds neither to the overall perspective of the Pentateuch nor to the Persian-period situation in Judea (Sünde und Vergebung, 171–72). Konkel finds vv. 7–9 to be preP, perhaps pre-D, and considers v. 7 the oldest kernel of the tradition (pp. 172–73). One could, however, defend a postexilic date for this material without assuming that the story juxtaposes the temple with the Torah.


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off with that tabernacle for the journey to the land (Num 9:15–23; 10:35–36), the sequence in Exodus 33 makes more sense.32 Verses 7–11 depict the tent outside the camp until Moses protests YHWH’s refusal to go with Israel (vv. 12–16). Once YHWH relents (vv. 14, 17), Moses can see God’s “glory” on Mount Sinai just as Israel will later see that same “glory” descend in the cloud onto the new tabernacle (40:34) that will find its place in the middle of the camp (Numbers 2–3).33 Thus, even the description of the tent of meeting “outside the camp” works well in the larger P context to describe an interim situation later corrected by God’s agreement to accompany Israel, which in context means in the tabernacle.34 There is sufficient unevenness in vocabulary and plot to justify the critical judgment that the internal contents of Exodus 32–34, as well as their placement in the book, are the results of a great deal of editorial activity. But the point here is that the theme of God’s presence with Israel and its connection to the tent/tabernacle unify the golden calf story with its P context. In fact, the story as it stands in chs. 32–34 depends on its context in the narrative of the construction of the tabernacle to make sense of the theme of God’s presence with Israel. The account of the Levites “ordaining themselves” to temple guard service also plays a complementary role in this larger context. P’s unwavering attention on the Aaronides leaves the place of the Levites in doubt until the book of Numbers (8:5–26), where their status is explained by stories of conflict and rivalry (chs. 16– 18). The golden calf story fills this lacuna with a positive explanation for why the Levites gained their status as the guardians of the sanctuary. While concerns for God’s presence with Israel and for which leader gets credit for the exodus run throughout Exodus 32–34, the dialogue between Moses and Aaron focuses on control—or rather the lack of it (32:25) and reestablishing control (vv. 28–29)—which is where the Levites earn their credit.35 Verses 29–35 are full of priestly language used in unconventional ways. Moses, rather than Aaron, attempts to “atone” (‫ )כפר‬for the people (v. 30). God’s promise to “reckon” (‫)פקד‬

32

For Exod 33:7–11 in the context of chs. 25–40, see Otto, “Pentateuchredaktion,” 91. Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (trans. Israel Abrahams; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1967; Hebrew, 1951), 429–31; also already Ibn Ezra on 33:3, Rashi on 33:11. 34 “Presence” is literally “face” (‫ )פני‬in Hebrew, so the theme of God’s presence with Israel (33:14–15) echoes in Moses’ standing up to YHWH’s “face” (32:11), YHWH and Moses speaking “face to face” in the tent of meeting (33:11), YHWH’s refusal to allow Moses to see his face but only his back on Mount Horeb (33:20, 23), and Moses’ shining face, which must be veiled from the view of the Israelites at the end of the story (34:29–30, 33–35). See Friedhelm Hartenstein, “Das ‘Angesicht Gottes’ in Exodus 32–34,” in Köckert and Blum, Gottes Volk am Sinai, 157–83. 35 See George W. Coats (“The King’s Loyal Opposition,” in Canon and Authority: Essays in Old Testament Religion and Theology [ed. George W. Coats and Burke O. Long; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977], 91–109), who analyzes the story as a story of replacing leaders (revolution) and counter-revolution rather than idolatry. 33


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sins (v. 34) echoes the language of census taking in 30:12–14. Most relevant for our topic is the fact that the Levites are “ordained” (‫ )מלא יד‬by slaughtering their relatives (v. 29; cf. Phinehas in Num 25:6–13). Though older criticism has regularly seen pro-Levite and anti-priestly polemic in this depiction of the Levites as zealous defenders of the covenant over against Aaron’s idolatrous behavior, newer critics point out that v. 26 speaks of “all the Levites,” which in the context necessarily includes the Aaronides. The story, then, cannot reflect a Levite vs. priest conflict in its current setting.36 Instead, the story celebrates the Levites for showing their militaristic zeal for YHWH, which qualifies them to perform one of the duties delegated to the non-priestly Levitical clans, namely, guarding the sanctuary and its holy furnishings (Num 3:7–8; 18:1–5; 1 Chr 9:17–27; cf. 23:32; 26:1).

IV. Aaronide Rhetoric and Aaron’s Role Thus, the sole point of possible concern for Second Temple Aaronides in Exodus 32–34 is the depiction of Aaron himself.37 The above analysis has pointed out, however, that the story (1) never identifies Aaron with his dynasty by the typical P collocation, “Aaron and his sons,” but depicts him alone, (2) emphasizes the people as instigators of the problem, and (3) depicts Aaron as serving the people’s desires to the point of being criticized by Moses for losing control of them. Nor does the echo of the calf story in 1 Kings 12 necessarily point to a polemical association of the Aaronides with the temples of the northern kingdom, as critics have usually maintained. The protagonist in Exodus 32, who matches Jeroboam by initiating the calf cult, is not after all Aaron but the people as a whole: they ask Aaron to make gods for them. If Aaron later minimizes his involvement even more (vv. 23–24), the narrator nevertheless agrees with him that it was the people who started it (vv. 1–2). Aaron simply serves the people’s wishes, a detail of the story

36

Recent tradition- and redaction-critical studies have categorized vv. 26–29 as a postexilic, post-P insertion, which means that this story never reflected a preexilic situation, when Aaronides might have been categorized separately from the tribe of Levi. Thus, Konkel argues that vv. 26– 28 are a narrative explanation for why the Levites became privileged (Deut 33:8–11) despite Jacob’s curse on Levi (Gen 49:5–7, which is itself explicated narratively in Gen 34:25–26). He concludes that Exod 33:26–28 is therefore a post-P addition that reconciles not-P Genesis with P’s elevation of the Levites and the priests (Sünde und Vergebung, 164, 167–68). For previous post-P datings of these verses, see Ulrich Dahmen, Leviten und Priester im Deuteronomium: Literarkritische und redaktionsgeschichtliche Studien (BBB 110; Bodenheim: Philo, 1996), 79; Otto, “Pentateuchredaktion,” 90; and Achenbach, “Grundlinien,” 76–78. 37 I leave aside here issues of legal contradiction between Exodus 34 and the P code. On the question of how to understand legal contradictions in the Pentateuch, see Watts, Reading Law, 73–84.


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that later Jewish and Christian interpreters capitalized on to depict his compliance as coerced.38 Moses chastises Aaron for yielding to the people’s pressure (“what did this people do to you?” v. 21) and for letting them get out of control (v. 26). So comparison of the two golden calf stories shows a shift from blaming Israel’s and Judah’s kings to blaming the people themselves for heterodox religious practices. It reproduces the shift from the rhetoric of the Deuteronomistic History to the communal guilt emphasized by prophetic books and by the sanctions concluding both Deuteronomy (chs. 27–30) and Leviticus (ch. 26). In comparison with the version of the golden calf story in Deuteronomy 9, Exodus 32 also places greater emphasis on differentiating individual responsibility (vv. 20, 28), something Aaron escapes.39 The postexilic community in Jerusalem had internalized both corporate guilt and individual responsibility by accepting the prophetic judgment that the kingdoms’ disastrous histories were punishment for the people’s sins. Nehemiah 9 shows people and priests together recounting and repenting their preexilic sins (so also Ezra 9–10; Psalm 106). Exodus 32, then, portrays Aaron acting as priest at the people’s behest, but not as uniquely guilty of the sin. Here Aaron appears not as a type for Jeroboam, as critical scholarship has usually maintained,40 but quite the opposite, almost an anti-king. He represents and carries out the people’s desires rather than violently suppressing them.41 The role of enforcer is left to Moses. Reading Aaron’s role as “representative” may sound anachronistically liberal and modern. However, P gives the priests in general and the high priest in particular explicitly representational roles in the cult: they mediate the offerings of the individual Israelites (Leviticus 1–3; 4:27–5:19), they present offerings on behalf of the people as a whole (Lev 4:13–21; Numbers 28–29), and the high priest represents the whole people in the holy of holies on Yom Kippur (Lev 16:15–34). Leviticus highlights the equivalence between high priest and people by making his sin offering identical to that of the whole community (4:1–21), while prescribing a different ritual for secular leaders and individuals (4:22-35). The golden calf story emphasizes Aaron’s representational role in the cult as well, though this time in a situation of ritual misconduct. Thus, in its depiction of both Aaron and the undifferentiated Levites, Exodus 32 portrays them fulfilling their appropriate roles according to P’s conception of them. Though Aaron may be doing his job badly 38

Kugel, Traditions, 718–19. Dozeman finds a new emphasis on individual rather than corporate responsibility in the expansion of Deuteronomy 9 and 1 Kings 12 in Exodus 32 (“Composition,” 188). Aaron, however, does not seem to be held responsible in Exodus, in contrast to Deuteronomy. Dozeman thinks that Aaron’s appearance in the Deuteronomy story is a post-P addition (p. 182), as does Nocquet, “Pourquoi Aaron,” 252. 40 Nocquet (“Pourquoi Aaron,” 248) is an exception. 41 Nocquet interprets Aaron’s role in the story as emphasizing, in a postexilic milieu, the essential role of priestly mediation for YHWH’s presence in the midst of Israel (“Pourquoi Aaron,” 253–54). 39


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while the Levites do theirs well, according to the explicit judgment of Moses, their actions nevertheless conform to the model of the two-tier Second Temple priesthood. Exodus 32 can be read, then, not as an anti-Aaronide polemic but rather as a pro-Aaronide apologia for the priests’ complicity in preexilic heterodoxy. In the Second Temple period, when priests led the people to internalize the guilt of their ancestors, the story admits their role in preexilic calf cults. But it lays the principal blame for going astray not on the kings, as the Deuteronomistic History does, much less on the priests, but rather on the people. In other words, the message from Aaronide priests to people is: “Like you, we did wrong, but we were only doing what you wanted!”

V. The Rhetorical Limits on Guilt by Ancestral Association Did this negative depiction of Aaron cast his powerful, Second Temple–period descendants into disrepute? Contrary to the nearly unanimous consensus of two hundred years of critical scholarship, the answer is, “Probably not.” Comparisons with polemics from better-documented times and places show that there is no rhetorical payoff in attacking venerated cultural heroes. Some figures achieve such high status in subsequent culture that any criticism of them is more likely to boomerang against the critic’s cause than to advance it. The high cultural status of such heroes transcends their identification with any particular group of descendants, institutions, or parties. Though they may have well-known faults, those faults do not reflect negatively on their later followers and successors. Their status is too high and universal to allow use of them for a divisive purpose. Two contemporary examples can illustrate this rhetorical restriction. In American politics, Abraham Lincoln is such a figure. Though he was the first president from the Republican Party, which therefore celebrates itself as “the party of Lincoln,” the wider country regards Lincoln too positively for that identification to be exclusive. Thus, the current Democratic president, Barack Obama, repeatedly invoked the mantle of Lincoln during his campaign for office without any sense of irony. Nor did his Republican opponents, who did not waste other opportunities for attacking him, try to claim the heritage of Lincoln as exclusively their own. The fact that Lincoln plunged the country into civil war does not in the least diminish his glorification in subsequent American culture. Historians remember and discuss his faults and mistakes, but there can be no possible political advantage in attacking Lincoln today. Another example can be found in the great sarcasm, even glee, that the British take in telling the bloody history of their own monarchy. Depictions aimed at mass audiences, such as tours of the Tower of London, tend to emphasize the gorier, and hence more entertaining, parts of their history. This does not seem to undermine


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the present-day institution of the monarchy; it actually seems to contribute to its glamour and mystique. Though the marital difficulties of the current Prince of Wales have certainly fueled antimonarchic sentiment, the considerably more outrageous behavior of Henry VIII in the sixteenth century serves only to stimulate book sales, movie receipts, and of course tourism. Thus, the faults of venerated cultural heroes do not detract from their standing. They may even be recounted fondly by those in the tradition that celebrates them. In other words, time and prestige place a rhetorical statute of limitations on character assassination and guilt by association. So long as the biblical story of Aaron remains compelling for interpreters, whether in oral or scriptural form, Aaron’s role in the golden calf episode can be ignored or puzzled over, but the scriptural endorsement of his eternal priesthood stops any thought of using his actions to attack his successors.42 In the Second Temple period, there is every reason to think that Aaron’s prestige had already reached this level. His status and antiquity meant that his part in the golden calf story presented no risk to Persian-period high priests. His depiction as a representative who bows to the people’s will could even have been used to deflect attention from the Aaronides’ gradual accumulation of political power, which would eventually allow high priests of the Hasmonean dynasty to claim the title “king.”43 Of course, this statute of limitations does not apply to outsiders who have no stake in the cultural tradition or reason to defend the sacred text. But for such critics, both in antiquity and in modern times, the Bible offers many more tempting targets than Aaron. Nevertheless, the increasingly defensive and apologetic stance of later Jewish interpreters about Aaron’s role in the golden calf story shows their worries about external appearances before the gaze of hostile Hellenistic, Roman, and later Christian and Muslim readers.44 In the Second Temple period, however, the story of the golden calf posed no dangers to the growing force of Aaronide priestly ideology. Quite the contrary, it reinforced certain key priestly themes: God’s presence in the tabernacle/temple cult, the ordination of the Levites to separate, noncultic forms of temple services, and the high priest’s role representing Israel before God. Therefore, the critical habit of reading the story as a polemic against the Aaronide priesthood should not be accepted uncritically. 42

Perhaps David benefits from this same effect in the Deuteronomistic History. The first to do so was Alexander Jannaeus, who minted coins with the title; see James C. VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), 333–34. 44 See Smoler and Aberbach, “Golden Calf Episode,” 91–116; Feldman, “Philo’s Account,” 245–64; Lindqvist, Sin at Sinai, 152–55. 43

JBL 130, no. 3 (2011): 431–450

The Ambiguous Details in the Blasphemer Narrative: Sources and Redaction in Leviticus 24:10–23 mark leuchter [email protected] Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122

I. Leviticus 24:10–23 in the Context of the Holiness Code and Related Texts Leviticus 24:10–23 is the lone narrative in the otherwise exclusively legislative Holiness Code (H; Leviticus 17–26) about a man of mixed ancestry who engages in an act of blasphemy and receives punishment after Moses consults with YHWH regarding his blasphemous act.1 In many respects, the blasphemer narraI wish to thank my friends and colleagues Simeon Chavel and Jeremy Schipper for their insights during the formative stages of this essay. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers at JBL for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. All errors of course remain my own. 1 Virtually all modern research dealing with the formation of the Pentateuch distinguishes between H and P in and beyond the book of Leviticus, though there is a lack of agreement regarding the purpose and role of H in relation to other collections of pentateuchal law. On H as a later outgrowth of P, see Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (3 vols.; AB 3, 3A, 3B; New York: Doubleday, 1991–2001), 1:13–42; and Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), esp. 124–98. For the view that the H stratum in Leviticus is a temporal antecedent to the P stratum, see Baruch A. Levine, “Leviticus: Its Literary History and Location in Biblical Literature,” in The Book of Leviticus: Composition & Reception (ed. Rolf Rendtorff and Robert A. Kugler; VTSup 93; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003), 21–22. For H as a bridge between the laws of P and the book of Deuteronomy, see Eckart Otto, “Das Heiligkeitsgesetz Leviticus 17–26 in der Pentateuchredaktion,” in Altes Testament, Forschung und Wirkung: Festschrift für Henning Graf Reventlow (ed. Peter Mommer and Winfried Thiel; Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 1994), 65–80. For a detailed overview of the history of scholarship on the formation of H, see Jan Joosten, People and Land in the Holiness Code: An Exegetical Study of the Ideational Framework of the Law in Leviticus 17–26 (VTSup

431

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tive has much in common with the other Holiness school narratives set in the wilderness period (Num 9:1–14; 15:32–36; 27:1–11): the people approach Moses with a difficulty, and Moses ultimately returns with new laws that resolve the problem.2 Despite these similarities, none of these other cases incorporates a doxology of legal stipulations akin to the blasphemer narrative (Lev 24:[16]17–21). Moreover, these other cases fit well into the literary miasma of Numbers, which contains an admixture of narrative, poetry, genealogical lists, and legislation.3 By contrast, the blasphemer narrative stands alone within H. These features are clarified somewhat when the blasphemer narrative is viewed against the rhetorical nature of H as a legal collection self-consciously distinct from other collections of biblical law. As several scholars have noted, the laws cited in the blasphemer episode utilize lemmas abstracted from the Covenant Code (CC; Exodus 21–23),4 and take up the theme of talion using nearly identical formulations (compare Lev 24:17–21 to Exod 21:14–17, 23–25). The formal difference between narrative and law has led some to conclude that this legal material was secondarily introduced,5 but the author’s use of CC’s legal language is consistent with his compositional strategy elsewhere in H.6 Bernard M. Levinson and Jeffrey R. Stackert have each argued in separate studies that H eclipses older legal collections (including CC) by abstracting their literary lemmas and reworking them into a more comprehensive ideological system.7 Furthermore, H’s use of earlier

67; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 5–27. Throughout this article, I use the term “Priestly” to refer to texts of either P or H in a more general sense when a more specific distinction is not warranted. 2 The most thorough treatment of the relationship between these narratives is that of Simeon Chavel, “Law and Narrative in Four Oracular Novellae in the Pentateuch: Lev 24:10–23; Num 9:1–14; 15:32–36; 27:1–11” (in Hebrew; Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 2006); see also idem, “‘Oracular Novellae’ and Biblical Historiography: Through the Lens of Law and Narrative,” Clio 39 (2009): 1–29 (with bibliography cited there). 3 Indeed, the presence of these narratives in Numbers may derive from the ongoing redactional activity of the Holiness school in the postexilic period (see Knohl, Sanctuary of Silence, 103–6) and may be connected to the penultimate redaction of the Pentateuch itself. The insertion of H material in Numbers hermeneutically extends the authority of H beyond the book of Leviticus. See, however, Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (BZAW 189; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1990), 318–32, who observes that H is set within a P literary macrostructure and is thus subordinated to a P perspective. See also Saul M. Olyan, “Exodus 31:12–17: The Sabbath according to H, or the Sabbath according to P and H?” JBL 124 (2005): 201–9, who notes that a late redactional stratum in the Pentateuch appears to draw from both P and H. 4 On the inclusion of language from CC, see briefly Levine, “Leviticus,” 22. Milgrom discusses the use of this language, though he notes the manner in which it has been augmented with the H author’s own modes of expression (Leviticus, 3:2120–27). 5 Levine, “Leviticus,” 22. 6 The entire structure of the narrative, in fact, is dependent on the legislation at its center. See Chavel, “Law and Narrative,” 72. 7 Levinson, “Birth of the Lemma: The Restrictive Reinterpretation of the Covenant Code’s Manumission Law by the Holiness Code (Leviticus 25:44–46),” JBL 124 (2005): 617–39; idem,

Leuchter: Sources and Redaction in Leviticus 24:10–23

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material from CC is at home in the broader exegetical culture characterizing the composition of biblical law. The late-eighth- or early-seventh-century authors of CC took up and reworked Mesopotamian law codes,8 and the late-seventh-century authors of Deuteronomy did the same with CC and Neo-Assyrian treaty texts.9 If, as most researchers have argued, H was composed subsequent to CC and Deuteronomy,10 it stands to reason that the H author would exegetically develop the language from earlier legal collections as well. Both methodologically and ideologically, the blasphemer narrative is woven from yarns very much at home in H’s school of thought,11 which conceived of law for the purposes of theological discourse.12 Nevertheless, several ambiguities remain. While the invocation of CC is not uncharacteristic of H’s legal revisions, it remains unclear why the H author parades them here in the context of a narrative. In addition to this, we must question why this case, if it was meant to serve as a theoretical discourse, contains so much information about this ostensibly anonymous blasphemer’s ancestry (tribal affiliation, mother’s name, etc.) that serves no discernible purpose in the narrative. Finally, we are never informed in the narrative exactly what constituted the blas-

“The Manumission of Hermeneutics: The Slave Laws of the Pentateuch as a Challenge to Contemporary Pentateuchal Theory,” in Congress Volume: Leiden, 2004 (ed. André Lemaire; VTSup 109; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2006), 305–22; Stackert, “Rewriting the Torah: Literary Revision in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation” (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 2006), 149–219; Christophe Nihan, “The Holiness Code between D and P: Some Comments on the Function and Significance of Leviticus 17–26 in the Composition of the Torah,” in Deuteronomium zwischen Pentateuch und deuteronomistischem Geschichtswerk (ed. Eckart Otto and Reinhard Achenbach; FRLANT 206; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 82–98. 8 David P. Wright (Inventing God’s Law: How the Covenant Code in the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi [New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009], 343–44) has argued for the origination of CC in the reign of Hezekiah in response to the impact of Mesopotamian law on the intellectual culture of Jerusalem. Similar influence on Jerusalemite literature from this time is evident in Isaiah’s oracles; see Peter Machinist, “Assyria and Its Image in the First Isaiah,” JAOS 103 (1983): 719–37. 9 See Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); idem, “The Right Chorale”: Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation (FAT 54; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 93–193; idem, “The Neo-Assyrian Origin of the Canon Formula in Deuteronomy 13:1,” in Scriptural Exegesis: The Shape of Culture and the Religious Imagination. Essays in Honor of Michael Fishbane (ed. Deborah A. Green and Laura S. Lieber; New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 25–45. 10 With the notable exception of John Van Seters (A Law Book for the Diaspora: Revision in the Study of the Covenant Code [New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003], 272–325), most scholars see the composition of CC as predating that of Deuteronomy. There is ongoing disagreement, however, regarding H, as many follow Milgrom and Knohl in dating most of H to the late eighth century. The matter cannot be fully addressed here, but I hope to show by the end of this study that there are good reasons for seeing the current form of Lev 24:10–23 as composed during the exilic period. 11 Chavel, “Law and Narrative,” 44–47; Joosten, People and Land, 68–74. 12 Levinson, “Manumission of Hermeneutics,” 322.

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phemer’s actual transgression. We are told that he blasphemes, but we are not told how he engaged in this egregious act (the verb ‫ ויקלל‬in v. 11 is ambiguous in its present context).13 Addressing each of these problems will reveal a more complicated and subtle tradition inherited by the H author and underlying the current narrative’s unique characteristics.

II. Syntax and Lemmatic/Formulaic Abstraction in the Blasphemer Narrative A first step in identifying the character of the blasphemer narrative is to determine its stylistic/syntactical profile and what it tells us about the H author’s own social location. In a series of detailed essays, Frank H. Polak has demonstrated that a notable shift in narrative compositional style may be detected in texts generally viewed as pre-dating the late eighth century and those associated with or postdating the period of Israel’s encounter with Mesopotamian imperialism.14 According to Polak, the scribes of Jerusalem adopted a more complex or dense style of narrative composition in the wake of their interaction with the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian scribal chanceries. This view has certainly found support in the recent studies cited above regarding the formation of biblical law collections,15 as well as Peter Machinist’s important essay on Isaiah’s engagement of Assyrian literary tropes.16 It is clear that Mesopotamian literary culture left a deep impression in Jerusalem. The narrative verses Lev 24:10–13, 23 reflect the influence of the complex scribal style:17 13 Jacob Weingreen provides a useful analysis that clarifies the matter (From Bible to Mishna: The Continuity of Tradition [Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976], 89–92), but even his conclusions do not fully resolve what appears to be a deliberate ambiguity in the text. Chavel considers the terminology in light of legal hermeneutics and revision in H and places it in dialogue with the larger linguistic-ideological matrix of P (“Law and Narrative,” 44–62, 68–72). Within the narrative itself, however, the mechanism of the blasphemer’s transgression remains unspecified. 14 Frank H. Polak, “Style Is More than the Person: Sociolinguistics, Literary Culture, and the Distinction between Written and Oral Narrative,” in Biblical Hebrew: Studies in Chronology and Typology (ed. Ian M. Young; JSOTSup 369; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2003), 38–103, esp. 51– 55. The syntax of the passage lacks the increased complexity of narratives more firmly dated to the Persian period, thus suggesting a somewhat earlier period. 15 Levinson, “Right Chorale,” 93–193; idem, “Canon Formula,” 24–45; Wright, Inventing God’s Law, passim. 16 Machinist, “Assyria and Its Image,” 719–37. 17 Verse 14 is direct speech and is excerpted from narrative syntactical analysis (per Polak’s criteria), and vv. 15–22 are expressly legislative in form. In this sample, clauses are separated by slashes (/), dependent clauses are identified via square brackets ([x]), complex hypotaxes are identified by angled brackets (<x>) within square brackets, and noun strings are underlined.

Leuchter: Sources and Redaction in Leviticus 24:10–23

/[l)r#y ynb Kwtb ] tyl)r#y h#) Nb )cyw yl)r#yh #y)w tyl)r#yh Nb hnxmb wcnyw /h#m l) wt) w)ybyw /llqyw /[M#h t)] tyl)r#yh h#)h Nb bqyw Nd h+ml yrbd tb tyml# wm) M#w [ Mhl #rpl] rm#mb whxynyw [ h#m l)] hwhy rbdyw Cwxm> l)] llqmh t) w)ycwyw /[l)r#y ynb l)] h#m rbdyw [hwhy hwc r#)k] w#( l)r#y ynbw /Nb) wt) wmgryw /[ Latin triclinium, the classic Roman term for the dining room. As Katherine M. D. Dunbabin has shown, even the traditional sympotic custom of deciding on the proportion of wine to water would be moot in a Roman context, for, by the use of authepsae and miliaria (“water heaters”), Roman dinner guests could decide for themselves the strength of their potent potables.12 Furthermore, the prominence of Jesus’ mother in the story would be in keeping with the social situation of women in the Hellenistic or Roman period, who participated in convivial activities more generally than Greek women.13 The difficulty for the other perspective, that which views the architriklinos as a table servant and slave, comes from the text itself. This head-waiter, if he indeed is fulfilling such a role, is a surly one, for he chides, even if jokingly, the bridegroom for holding the best wine in reserve until the latter stages of the feast (see John 2:9–10).14

bridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), passim; Jonathan L. Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re-examination of the Evidence (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), esp. 100–169. 10 Note the qualifier “stereotypical.” Not all Greco-Roman feasts were characterized by decadence. See Smith’s discussion of philosophical banquets (From Symposium to Eucharist, 47–65). 11 This view of Jesus as mendicant has influenced some popular portrayals of the wedding. For example, Ronald D. Witherup writes: “Cana is a small, insignificant village not otherwise mentioned in the Bible. The presence of Jesus, Mary, and the disciples there might be an indication that the wedding was for a relative or family friend” (“The Wedding at Cana,” TBT 44 [2006]: 145–50, here 146). 12 See Dunbabin, “Wine and Water at the Roman Convivium,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 6 (1993): 116–41; and eadem, “Triclinium and Stibadium,” in Dining in a Classical Context (ed. William J. Slater; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 121–48. Among ancient sources, see Plutarch, Quaest. conv. 1.4; he implies that the position of symposiarch was antiquated in his day and that drinkers were given drinks of varying potency, according to their constitutions. 13 See Katherine M. D. Dunbabin, The Roman Banquet: Images of Conviviality (Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 18–35; Matthew Roller, “Horizontal Women: Posture and Sex in the Roman Convivium,” AJP 124 (2003): 377–422; Corley, Private Women, 24–79. 14 Derrett makes the point most vehemently: “In no oriental feast would a servant have

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Let us now confront directly the examples of the two compounds. Architriklinos occurs only in John, in texts derived from John, and in Heliodorus’s Aethiopica (7.27.7) from the third century c.e. Jerome chose to transliterate the term for the Vulgate, but unfortunately that evidence would seem to be inconclusive. Either the term was in use and was understood in Latin, or Jerome himself was uncertain of the exact meaning and declined to translate it.15 Trikliniarchēs is an equally rare term, found only in Petronius (22.6) and inscriptions. Indeed, it is found more in Latin contexts than in Greek ones. The use of the feminine ending in -ης is relatively rare for titles ending in -αρχ-, although we can be sure of that ending only in Petronius, as the terminations in the inscriptions are inconsistent. The conflation of the two compounds may not be a strictly legitimate strategy, but it is probably a necessary one, given the limited number of extant examples. An analogous case nonetheless exists in the compounds συµποσίαρχος and ἀρχιποσία from a similar lexical context.16 The structure of the compound ἀρχιτρίκλινος is somewhat irregular. Usually the prefix ἀρχι- is connected to a personal noun, more specifically a position or status that can be held by a human being, as in ἀρχιερεύς (“chief-priest”) or ἀρχιτέκτων (“master-builder”), two of the more common examples of its usage. Indeed, the prefix continues to be used in English in a similar way: the Joker is the arch-villain in the Batman saga. Architriklinos, however, contains an impersonal noun, a place over which the individual is in charge, as though a genitive were lost in the compounding. The individual is chief (of) the dining room. Such a formation is not impossible, however, and, according to LSJ, examples are found sporadically in various texts: ἀρχιθάλασσος (“chief of the sea”), ἀρχίθρονος (“presider, chief of the throne”), ἀρχικέραυνος (“chief of the thunder”), ἀρχισυνάγωγος (“chief of the synagogue”), ἀρχιταβλάριος (“chief of the records office”), ἀρχίφυλος (“chief of the tribe”), and ἀρχίχορος/ἀρχέχορος (“head of the chorus”). The fact that the verb ἄρχω (“rule, govern, command”) takes a genitive may have promoted these constructions, with ἀρχι- acting almost verbally rather than adjectivally. In essence, the ἀρχίχορος is commanding the chorus. A point made by Ernst Risch may help to explain the variation further: the officer with authority over a group need not necessarily be a member of that group. Risch provides the example of ἀρχίγαλλος. An made the comment alleged, whereas a professional or semiprofessional master of ceremonies might well do so” (Law in the New Testament, 237 n. 1). 15 The term ἀρχισυνάγωγος is similarly transliterated in the Vulgate, although in a few instances princeps synagogae is used as an equivalent of the Greek. All the instances from Mark (5:22, 35, 36, 38) as well as Luke 13:14 and Acts 18:8 are transliterated. The translation princeps synagogae is found in Luke 8:49; Acts 13:15; and 18:17. 16 Symposiarch is, of course, the more common term, with archiposia (“rules for drinking”) found only in Porphyrio’s commentary on Horace at Carm. 2.7.25 and Sat. 2.2.123. My claims in this section are based on a review of LSJ, TLG, Oxford Latin Dictionary, and TLL, as applicable.

Sick: The Architriklinos at Cana

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individual with that title from the first century c.e. was not a eunuch gallus but a Roman citizen who was charged with overseeing these priests.17 Tessa Rajak and David Noy have convincingly made a similar point with regard to ἀρχισυνάγωγος: someone who holds that title need not be a member of the synagogue or at least not assume real responsibilities of leadership. From inscriptions we find ἀρχισυνάγωγοι who were both women and children,18 and, as with all positions of status in the Roman world, this title was often awarded on account of patronage, with all the euergetism that the title of patron implies, not ability. The ἀρχισυνάγωγοι were not always the administrators of a congregation but sometimes simply patrons.19 Two of the compounds listed above show the application of Greek to nonGreek contexts. Tabularium is of course a Latin word, and ἀρχισυνάγωγος is certainly significant to our study. The presence of an architriklinos in Cana might offer another application of a title in ἀρχι- to a non-Greek or hellenized context. The use of ἀρχι- is common and well attested in the LXX; in fact, the prefix is active in Aramaic and Hebrew.20 Well-known or predictable terms such as ἀρχιµάγειρος (“chief cook”) and ἀρχιστράτηγος (“supreme general”) are first attested in the LXX.21 According to Risch, compounding with ἀρχι- increased significantly during the Hellenistic period and especially in the kingdom of the Ptolemies, where there was a need for titles and hierarchical organization. His claim would seem to find support even from the limited epigraphic evidence of the region around Galilee: an

17

Risch, “Griechische Determinativkomposita,” Indogermanische Forschungen 59 (1949): 245–94, esp. 281–83. One assumes that Risch makes this claim because some archigalli had rights limited to citizens. See chiefly CIL 6.2183 but also 3.2920, and 13.1752. 18 All extant instances of architriklinos and trikliniarchēs apply to adult males. 19 Rajak and Noy, “Archisynagogoi: Office, Title, and Social Status in the Greco-Jewish Synagogue,” JRS 83 (1993): 75–93. Some ἀρχισυνάγωγοι could act as administrators or leaders of the group; the claim here is that not all did. See also Bernadette J. Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues (BJS 36; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982), 15–33; G. H. R. Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, vol. 4, A Review of the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Published in 1979 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 214–17; and Lee I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (2nd ed.; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 412–53, for discussions of the function of the position. 20 Triclinium itself is found also in the Talmud and later Aramaic but apparently not as the compound of the two terms. See Samuel Krauss, Griechische und lateinische Lehnwörter im Talmud, Midrasch und Targum (2 vols.; Berlin: S. Calvary, 1898, 1899; repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1964), 2:130–31; Jastrow, 1:121–22, s.v. Nwykr); 554, s.v. Nwlqyr+; Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period (Dictionaries of Talmud, Midrash, and Targum 2; Ramat-Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1990), 75–76, 231. I wish to thank Professor Steven McKenzie of the Department of Religious Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, for his assistance in reviewing the evidence from Hebrew and Aramaic. The conclusions and any faults are my own. 21 ἀρχιµάγειρος (Dan 2:14; etc.); ἀρχιστράτηγος (Josh 5:15; etc.).

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inscription found near Ptolemais records a dedication to Antiochus VII Sidetes (138–129 b.c.e.) offered by an ἀρχιγραµµατεύς,22 and another found northwest of ancient Scythopolis publishes several decrees of Antiochus III, to be enforced by the local strategos and ἀρχιερεύς.23 It is predictable that non-native speakers of Greek would have formed words in unusual ways, and, in fact, some have suggested that the unusual morphology of the term ἀρχισυνάγωγος is the result of a Hebraism. These proposals nonetheless ignore the similar structure of ἀρχι- + place/group in other Greek compounds, such as those given above.24 So, to return to our term, if one accepts my evaluation of the comparative lexical evidence, one may conclude that the architriklinos at Cana need not be a member of the dining room but might be its patron, or he could be both patron and member. Those statements, from the perspective of the twenty-first century, may seem odd. How does one become a member or patron of a dining room? The latter formulation is more easily comprehensible: the patron is the one who endows or finances the dining room, but what of membership? A triclinium might have members if it is not solely a place to dine but has a social and/or ritual function; and, what is more, such a function would make the space more attractive to potential patrons. Patrons endow temples and baths more readily than latrines and battlements. In Stobi in Macedonia, for example, one Tiberius Polycharmos, who designates himself as “father of the synagogue,” not only built the buildings for the congregation but also, he notes, provided a triclinium with a four-sided portico.25 A ritual function for the position of trikliniarch is confirmed by two commemorative inscriptions found in Caria at Stratonicea at the sanctuary of Zeus Panamaros. Priests and priestesses of Zeus there recorded their contributions to the cult, first in their role as gymnasiarchs and, second, in the contributions of food and wine they made for the worshipers “according to the rules of the dining room [τρικλειναρχία].”26 The priests do not claim that they themselves are trikliniarchs, 22 Y. H. Landau, “A Greek Inscription from Acre,” IEJ 11 (1961): 118–26; J. Schwartz, “Note complémentaire (à propos d’une inscription grecque de St. Jean d’Acre),” IEJ 12 (1962): 135–36. 23 Y. H. Landau, “A Greek Inscription Found Near Hefzibah,” IEJ 16 (1966): 54–70. 24 Brooten, Women Leaders, 5, 17–19. 25 CII 694: . . . Τιβέριος Πολύχαρµος, ὃ καὶ Ἀχύριος, ὁ πατὴρ τῆς ἐν Στόβοις συναγωγῆς ὃς πολειτευσάµενος πᾶσαν πολειτείαν κατὰ τὸν ἰουδαϊσµὸν εὐχῆς ἕνεκεν τοὺς µὲν οἴκους τῷ ἁγίῳ τόπῳ καὶ τὸ τρίκλεινον σύν τῷ τετραστόῳ. For a discussion, see A. Thomas Kraabel, “The Diaspora Synagogue: Archaeological and Epigraphic Evidence since Sukenik,” ANRW 2.19.1 (1979): 477– 510, esp. 494–97. Several non-Jewish patrons of triclinia are noted in commemorative inscriptions. These are individuals who either sponsored a banquet for the public in a triclinium or actually endowed such a room itself: CIL 3.9796, 9.1503, 9.4971, 14.375, and 14.2793. 26 For these inscriptions, see Gaston Deschamps and Georges Cousin, “Inscriptions de Temple de Zeus Panamaros,” BCH 11 (1887): 373–91, esp. 383–87; 15 (1891): 169–209, esp. 187–89. The phrase δεῖπνα παρέσχον κατὰ τρικλειναρχίας (11 [1887]: 385) argues against Hengel (Studies in Early Christology, 321 n. 5) that τρικλειναρχία means simply “feast” and not “rules of the feast.”


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but the existence of an abstract noun τρικλειναρχία implies a complex organization with some individual or group in charge of dining at the sanctuary. We should further note that both inscriptions from Stratonicea imply that wine is to be distributed by social rank. The inscription of Marcus Aurelius Errianos states that he gave wine for those of “each age group, fortune, and the resident aliens in assembly.”27 Such a social hierarchy for the distribution of wine is a recurrent feature of banquets across the Mediterranean in the first century, the famous wedding feast at Cana included. Both Pliny and Martial complain of dinners where the host served higher quality food and wine to those of higher status.28 Pliny describes the unsatisfactory arrangement of a recent dinner party in a letter to his young friend Junius Avitus: He had also divided the wine into three sorts by small flagons, not for the sake of freedom of choice but to prohibit a right of refusal. There was one kind for myself and the host, another for his lesser friends (for he has friends in rank), and another for his and our freedmen. (Ep. 2.6.2)29

As the quality of wine was a social marker, naturally there would have been contention over its distribution to the guests by the host and servants at any banquet, and thus any competent trikliniarch, or architriklinos for that matter, would need to be aware of this frequent first-century concern. In John’s account of the wedding at Cana, however, Jesus uses the hierarchy of wine as well as the office of architriklinos to invert the social if not religious order. By turning a superabundant quantity of water into a wine of heavenly quality and reserving it until the end of the banquet, Jesus undermines the system. After the transformation, there would have been sufficient wine for all; moreover, if this wine is served after the initial supply was exhausted, the guests would not normally be able to appreciate its quality. Thus, the social hierarchy dictated by the quality of wine cannot be maintained, and, consequently, the architriklinos, unaware of the miraculous vintage, berates the bridegroom for keeping it in reserve: “Everyone serves the good wine first and when they become drunk, they serve the lesser. You have kept the good wine until just now” (2:10).30 We should expect this reaction Deschamps and Cousin, BCH 15 (1891): 188: . . . πάσῃ τύχῃ καὶ ἡλικίᾳ καὶ τοῖς] ἐπιδηµήσασιν τῇ πανηγύρι ξένοις . . . ; BCH 11 (1887): 385 also implies a hierarchy: . . . τὸν οἶνον ἔδοσαν ἀφθόνως πολείταις, ξένοις, δούλοις, ταῖς γυναιξί, “. . . they gave wine freely to the citizens, visitors, slaves, and women.” 28 See Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 45; and Klinghardt, Gemeinschaftsmahl, 139– 43. 29 Vinum etiam parvolis lagunculis in tria genera discripserat, non potestas eligendi, sed ne ius esset recusandi, aliud sibi et nobis, aliud minoribus amicis (nam gradatim amicos habet), aliud suis nostrisque libertis. Translations of Greek and Latin in this study are my own. 30 Πᾶς ἄνθρωπος πρῶτον τὸν καλὸν οἶνον τίθησιν καὶ ὅταν µεθυσθῶσιν τὸν ἐλάσσω· σὺ τετήρηκας τὸν καλὸν οἶνον ἕως ἄρτι. 27

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from one whose duties would include the proper distribution of wine. In contrast, such hospitable treatment for even those who arrive late at the feast would be in keeping with Jesus’ banqueting parables in the Synoptics, such as those found in Matthew 22 or Luke 14. No one can be worthy of the heavenly wine, so all receive it freely. John’s account would thus seem to imply that the architriklinos at Cana faced some of the same social concerns that his colleagues at Greco-Roman banquets faced. That context will be important to our fundamental claim regarding his status, because his status would, of course, affect his ability to negotiate social hierarchies. Is he a slave, freed slave, or freeborn? In truth, we cannot answer that question definitively from the evidence in the second chapter of John, but we can use the extant examples of the compounds to make a comparative argument that the architriklinos is both slave (or at least freed slave) and honored guest, and that it is through this contradictory status that his words and actions are best interpreted.31 The four trikliniarchs attested in epigraphy seem to be slaves freed from the imperial family or at least descendants of such slaves.32 They carry praenomina and nomina from the families of the emperors, and two of them held the title among other procuratorial positions. The first example was found at Caere in Etruria; the name of the trikliniarch Tiberius Claudius Bucolas would indicate a date of manumission in the Julio-Claudian period, although his career extends into the Flavian period.33 In addition to his position as trikliniarch, the freedman claims the titles of pre-taster, procurator for games, procurator of waters, and financial supervisor (procurator castrensis). The list indicates a sort of cursus honorum for freed slaves in the imperial household, with the procurator castrensis as the highest position attainable for freedmen in the domestic sphere of the Caesars.34 Marcus Ulpius 31 Three of the more thorough treatments of the supposed dichotomy of slave and guest are Derrett, Law in the New Testament, 236–38; Olsson, Structure and Meaning, 54–56; Hengel, Studies in Early Christology, 320–22. 32 Many of the priests in the inscriptions from the Temple of Zeus Panamaros mentioned above also have names derived from the imperial family, such as Marcus Aurelius Errianos, but, as we pointed out, they are not trikliniarchs themselves. 33 CIL 11.3612: Ti(berius) Claudius Aug(usti) l(ibertus) Bucolas praegustator, triclin(i)arch(es) | proc(urator) a munerib(us), proc(urator) aquar(um), proc(urator) castrensis, cum Q(uinto) Claudio | Flaviano filio et Sulpicia Cantabra matre d(edit). See P. R. C. Weaver, Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 274, for a discussion of Bucolas. 34 See the classic work by Samuel L. Mohler, “Slave Education in the Roman Empire,” TAPA 71 (1940): 262–80; as well as P. R. C. Weaver, “The Slave and Freedman Cursus in the Imperial Administration,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society,” 10 (1964): 76–92. Weaver (“Social Mobility in the Early Empire: The Evidence of Freedman and Slaves,” Historia 37 [1967]: 3–20) provides examples of career advancement within the imperial household.


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Phaedimus, a trikliniarch, or near-trikliniarch, under Trajan, also held several positions in the household and was important enough to travel in the emperor’s retinue on his last trip to Cilicia. Phaedimus died young at the age of twenty-eight a few days after the princeps himself in Selinus.35 His relatively early death would indicate that he advanced quickly up the cursus. Another trikliniarch and freedman of the Julio-Claudians, Tiberius Claudius Hyllus, put up an epitaph in Rome for his infant son of the same name.36 One wonders whether the cognomen indicates anything about the appearance of Hyllus, given the mythological associations. Handsome banquet attendants were symbols of status and hence in demand in Rome.37 Later, from the Severan period, a certain Theoprepes, who at one time had held the rank of trikliniarch, finished his career as the freed procurator of the province of Achaia, Epirus, and Thessaly. His commemoration was decreed by a vote of the senate in Corinth.38 The use of architriklinos by the author Heliodorus in the third century c.e. further demonstrates that the position was generally assigned to one of servile or freed status but at a high rank in the household, and, if the individual was from an influential household, he could attain a high rank in society generally. In the Aethiopica, an architriklinos complains bitterly when a new arrival on the staff seems to supplant him: This young stranger . . . has been chosen over us, and, in the last day, having slipped in, he has been entrusted to pour the wine, and, having ordered us long35 M(arco) Ulpio Aug(usti) Lib(erti) Phaedimo | Divi Traiani Aug(usti) a potione | a laguna | et tricliniarch(e) | lictori proximo et a comment(ario) | beneficiorum. vixit ann(os) XXVIII. | abscessit Selinunte pri(die) Idus Augus(tales) | Nigro et Aproniano consulibus. | reliquiae traiectae eius | III Nonas Febr(uarias) ex permissu | Collegii Pontificum piaculo facto | Catullino et Apro consulibus. | dulcissimae memoriae eius | Valens Aug(usti) Lib(erti) Phaedimianus | a veste ben(e) mer(enti) fecit. (CIL 6.1884) The phrase “tricliniarch(e) lictori proximo” would seem to indicate that he was the official next in line to the trikliniarch; nonetheless, he held other offices in the dining room. 36 Ti(berius) Claudius Hyllus | vixit anno uno, | mensibus IIII diebus XII.| Ti(berius) Claudius Aug(usti) libert(us) Hyllus | tricliniarchus | piissimo filio fecit (CIL 6.9083). 37 Hyllus was the son of Hercules and Deianira. See Martial 9.25 for a handsome wine pourer named Hyllus equated with Hercules’ beloved Hylas; note also the complaints of Juvenal (5.52– 62 and 11.146–60) about beautiful yet effeminate dining room attendants. 38 CIL 3.536: Theoprepem | August(i) libertum procuratorem | Domini n(omine) M(arci) Aureli | Severi Alexandri | Pii Felicis Augusti | provinciae Achaiae | et Epiri et Thessaliae | (a) rat(ionibus) purpurarum | proc(uratorem) ab ephemeride | proc(uratorem) a mandatis proc(uratorem) | at praedia Galliana | proc(uratorem) saltus Domitiani | tricliniarcham prae- | positum a filiis | a crystallinis | hominem | incomparabilem | Lysander Aug(usti) lib(ertus) offici- | alis. | ψ(ηφίσµατι) β(ουλῆϛ). P. R. C. Weaver (“Freedmen Procurators in the Imperial Administration,” Historia 14 [1965]: 460–69) argues that the freed procurator was an assistant to the equestrian procurators in imperial administration from the second century onward.

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Journal of Biblical Literature 130, no. 3 (2011) serving architriklinoi and archioinochoi (chief wine pourers) to say our goodbyes, he offers the cup himself and stands ready, next to the royal person. He has superseded our reputation until we have only a title left. That this man has been deemed worthy to participate in the more important matters and to share in the more confidential ones. . . . (7.27.7–8)39

We see here an example of how personal service to a member of an important family can lead to a special relationship beyond the dining room. The slave assumes that by providing individual service to the head of the family one will acquire useful information. This is no average household either but that of the satrap of Egypt during the Persian period, according to the story. The new arrival becomes a close associate of the satrap’s wife, as the architriklinos had been. The latter was in fact using his position to advance his status; he had designs on marriage with a freeborn woman, the heroine of the novel. The circumstances from the Aethiopica may further help to explain the awkward social situation at Cana. For although the architriklinos Achaemenes is given numerous privileges within the household, he is reminded of his servile status by Theagenes, the new arrival and hero of the novel. The freeborn Theagenes, relegated to the role of a servant because of dire circumstances, will accept no advice from the well-established architriklinos concerning the best methods for attending at table. The hero, in rejecting the offered assistance, insults Achaemenes: I need no teacher, but self-taught I will serve our mistress, not putting on airs with regard to such easy tasks. Fortune forces you, my good sir, to know such things, but nature and the occasion dictate to me what must be done. (7.27.2)40

The prejudice against slaves or freed slaves who have accumulated economic or social capital is documented widely in first-century sources. There would have been a natural point of social tension, since slaves in the Roman system were allowed to advance but freeborn status and well-established ancestry were advantageous.41 In τὸ ξένον µειράκιον . . . προτετίµηται ἡµῶν, καὶ χθὲς καὶ τήµερον παρεισδεδυκὸς οἰνοχοεῖν ἐπιτέτραπται καὶ τοῖς ἀρχιτρικλίνοις ἡµῖν καὶ ἀρχιοινοχόοις πολλὰ χαίρειν φράσαν ὀρέγει φιάλην καὶ παρίσταται πλησίον βασιλικοῦ σώµατος τὸ µέχρις ὀνόµατος ἡµῶν ἀξίωµα παραγκωνισάµενον. καὶ τὸ µὲν τοῦτον τιµᾶσθαι µετέχοντα καὶ τῶν µειζόνων καὶ κοινωνοῦντα καὶ τῶν ἀπορρητοτέρων. . . . 40 οὐδεν . . . δέοµαι διδασκάλων, ἀλλ’ αὐτοδίδακτος ὑπουργήσω τῇ δεσποίνῃ τὰ οὕτω ῥᾷστα µὴ θρυπτόµενος· σὲ µὲν γάρ, ὦ βέλτιστε, ἡ τύχη εἰδέναι τὰ τοιαῦτα καταναγκάζει, ἐµοὶ δὲ ἡ φύσις τὰ πρακτέα καὶ ὁ καιρὸς ὑπαγορεύει. 41 See David H. Sick, “Ummidia Quadratilla: Cagey Businesswoman or Lazy Pantomime Watcher?” Classical Antiquity 18 (1999): 330–48, for a case study in slave training, advancement, and social prejudice. Thomas E. J. Wiedemann (Greek and Roman Slavery [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981], 61–77) collects loci that express a similar attitude toward the moral character of slaves. A. M. Duff (Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire [Oxford: Clarendon, 1928], 50–70, 89–128), although dated in interpretation, collects many of the primary sources that express prejudice against freedmen. 39


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John, we never hear the bridegroom’s response to the complaint of the architriklinos about hording the best wine, but we might imagine, if the bridegroom were irascible, he might demean the lineage of the architriklinos, as Theagenes in the Aethiopica: “What advice do I need from one such as you about keeping the best wine until last?” Inversely, we would expect that only an architriklinos of some status would dare to correct a bridegroom at his own wedding; such a scenario, we suggest, occurred at Cana. These loci thus provide examples of men of rank, despite their servile origins or status. To propose, however, that an imperial official attended the wedding at Cana might be considered wild speculation, but any state with an association with the Roman government was likely to depend on officials and administrators who were freed slaves from the imperial family. Moreover, any Roman territory that had imperial holdings or estates would require slaves or freed slaves to run those operations.42 The most famous of the freed officials in Palestine must have been M. Antonius (?) Felix, procurator of Judea appointed by Claudius in 52 and brother of one of the most trusted of the emperor’s advisers, M. Antonius Pallas. Felix, although a freed slave, married the sister of King Agrippa II, Drusilla, according to Acts; in fact, according to Suetonius, he married two other queens prior to Drusilla.43 Yet, in the account of Josephus at A.J. 20.142, he still displays a superstitious devotion to magic, such as is attributed to slaves by their detractors.44 Such is the struggle between character and stereotype for Roman slaves and freed slaves. The banquet at Cana was certainly no small affair, and we might expect it to attract the attention of the local government, at least. If Jesus changed all the water of the six urns into wine (2:6), there would have been between 470 and 710 liters of wine, and that quantity replenished the initial supply of the hosts. If we assume, conservatively, that the wine was mixed with water at a ratio of one to one, Jesus would have provided about two liters of mixed wine for up to five hundred people.45 Certainly this was a major event that would have required an architriklinos of some sort. Indeed, when Jesus returns to Cana, according to the itinerary of John, he meets a royal official (τις βασιλικός) there, whose son is ill in Capernaum (4:46, 42

See Weaver, “Freedmen Procurators,” 467–68. There is some confusion over the praenomen and nomen. He is Antonius Felix in Tacitus (Hist. 5.9) and in CIL 5.34, presumably taking the name from the mother of the Emperor Claudius, Antonia, the daughter of Mark Antony. He is Ti. Claudius Felix in Josephus, in which case he gained his freedom from the emperor himself. See Colin Hemer, “The Name of Felix Again,” JSNT 31 (1987): 45–49; Josephus, B.J. 2.252–70; A.J. 20.137–44, 160–81; Suetonius, Claud. 28; and Acts 23–24. See Weaver, “Freedmen Procurators,” 468–69, for other freed procurators from the first century. 44 See, e.g., the tales of the occult presented by freedmen in Petronius’s Satyricon in chs. 61–64. 45 See Olsson, Structure and Meaning, 50–53, for the quantities. 43

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49).46 In reflexes of the same episode in Luke (7:2) and Matthew (8:5), the official is termed a centurion (ἑκατόνταρχος), and in Luke the individual is even credited with the building of a synagogue (7:5). Both Mark Chancey and Jonathan Reed suggest that, if the account is historically accurate, the official is likely to have been associated with the government of Herod Antipas, since there was not a permanent Roman military presence in Galilee during the lifetime of Jesus.47 The presence of one of Antipas’s officials at Cana at least increases the probability that another, such as his architriklinos, might be found there as well. The interest of the Herodian dynasts in dining is well attested,48 and thus it is not far-fetched that Antipas maintained an architriklinos in his household in imitation of the Caesars. There is an obvious social tension in the account at Cana: the bridegroom and the architriklinos argue, as do Jesus and his mother (2:4). This tension seems to be present in other banquets where the quality and distribution of wine are in dispute, and such tension would be exacerbated by the presence of an official from the tetrarchy, even a slave or freed slave. It is not necessary to historicize these events, however, in order to accept this reading. There is certainly a possibility that the author of John projected into the narrative contemporary (late first or early second century) ideas about the role of an architriklinos. Recent studies on hellenization in Galilee suggest that the hellenization and romanization increased in the decades after Jesus’ death as Rome assumed direct control. The famous triclinium from the House of Dionysus in Sepphoris, for example, with its exquisite mosaics in celebration of wine, would have been just the sort of space that needed an architriklinos, but that house was not built until the late second century c.e. at the earliest.49 Finally, there is one example that does not fit neatly with the meaning and role we posit for the architriklinos at Cana. In ch. 22 of Petronius’s Satyricon, in the context of a cena distinct from the more famous banquet of the freed slave and nouveau riche host Trimalchio, an anonymous trikliniarch fills the lamps in a room designated as a triclinium. At first reading, this seems to be a simple, menial task. Nonetheless, it is important to note that the act signals the continuation of the banquet, and this new stage of the event is described using vocabulary from the Roman 46

See Peter Richardson, “What Has Cana to Do with Capernaum,” NTS 48 (2002): 314–33, for a discussion of the status of Cana in Galilee. It was a base of operations for Josephus during the First Jewish War (Vita 86). 47 Chancey, Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus, 50–56; Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus, 161–63. 48 Ehud Netzer, “The Herodian Triclinia—A Protoype for the ‘Galilean-Type’ Synagogue,” in Ancient Synagogues Revealed (ed. Lee I. Levine; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1981), 49–51. 49 See R. Talgam and Z. Weiss, The Mosaics of the House of Dionysos at Sepphoris (Qedem 44; Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University, 2004), esp. 17.


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wedding. The language is perhaps surprising, given the sexual promiscuity throughout the novel and at this banquet in particular. The text is highly fragmentary, and the real interest would seem to be sexual rather than connubial, but the terminology is there: a girl puts on her red veil (flammeum) and the room becomes a bridal chamber (thalamus).50 It is the act of the trikliniarch that signals the beginning of this transformation from banquet to wedding and thus provides an unexpected link to the festivities at Cana. Even if the role and status of trikliniarch in Petronius differ from the other instances, there is an underlying issue that connects that novel to the wedding at Cana: the tension between the social and economic position of slaves in the first century c.e. Petronius’s novel sets out neatly the attitude toward slaves and freed slaves who advanced economically or socially in the first century, and these attitudes must be in the background assumed for the audience of the second chapter of John’s Gospel. 51 Trimalchio’s case itself demonstrates how far a freed slave might advance economically yet still stumble socially. In sections 75–77 of the novel, the host describes how he was able to advance to a point where he began to have “more (money) than the entire country” (76.9),52 and, although he was once in a financial state similar to his guests, he came to his present wealth “by his own virtue” (75.8).53 It is an amazing tale that cannot be reviewed fully here, but suffice it to say that Trimalchio’s “virtue” consisted of sex with his master and mistress as well as dumb luck. The conflict between wealth and character is a central issue for satire, and Petronius’s masterpiece undermines any claim a slave might have for agency in regard to his own accomplishments.54 At Cana, although the architriklinos misinterprets the situation, it is another group of slaves who are cited as witnesses for the truth of Jesus’ miracle. The ser50 See sections 25–26 for these events: Sine dubio non repugnaverat puer, ac ne puella quidem tristis expaverat nuptiarum nomen. Itaque cum inclusi iacerent, consedimus ante limen thalami. “Of course the boy did not resist, and not even the girl feared the name of a wedding, and so, when they were lying enclosed within, we sat on the threshold of the wedding chamber” (26.3–4). 51 For an interesting survey of the connections between Petronius and the NT, see Richard I. Pervo, “Wisdom and Power: Petronius’ Satyricon and the Social World of Early Christianity,” AThR 67 (1985): 307–25. On the larger question of the relationship between the ancient novel and contemporary religious movements, see Roger Beck, “Mystery Religions, Aretalogy and the Ancient Novel,” in The Novel in the Ancient World (ed. Gareth Schmeling; Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava, Supplementum 159; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 131–50; and in the same volume, Richard I. Pervo, “The Ancient Novel Becomes Christian,” 685–709. 52 Postquam coepi plus habere, quam tota patria mea habet . . . . 53 Nam ego quoque tam fui quam vos estis, sed virtute mea ad hoc perveni. 54 For a review of the character of Trimalchio, begin with Niall Slater, Reading Petronius (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1990), 50–86, and the introduction to P. G. Walsh’s translation of the Satyricon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 27–32.

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vants, or διάκονοι, control the wine; it is they who carry out Jesus’ instructions and know the source of the incredible vintage (2:9), while other guests remain ignorant.55 They refute the stereotype that slaves are incompetent and undeserving; in fact, Jesus’ first sign depends on these slaves. One cannot help but notice that the concluding sentence of the pericope, that which marks out the first sign (2:11), also denotes rule and authority: Ταύτην ἐποίησεν ἀρχὴν τῶν σηµείων ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐν Κανὰ τῆς Γαλιλαίας. Jesus not only made a beginning of signs at Cana of Galilee, but he also made a rule of signs, according to the two meanings of ἀρχή, and this rule of signs displaced the rule of wines, if you will forgive the play on words.56 For Jesus, and for Trimalchio for that matter, the hierarchies established by the quality of wine are in tension with contradictions in the Greco-Roman system of slavery. The quality of wine one receives is a marker of status, but it is the slaves who distribute that wine. As one of Trimalchio’s slaves put its, Vinum dominicum ministratoris gratia est, “The lord’s wine is a gift of the servant” (31.3). In such terms, the statement sounds like something Jesus himself might say. 57 In John’s account of the wedding at Cana, however, Jesus credits the slaves for their role, and he nullifies the hierarchy with his sign. The two conventional options for the status of the architriklinos at Cana need not be accepted. In fact, if we posit an architriklinos who is both servile and socially if not politically important, in keeping with others who held that title or a similar one, we can read the second chapter of John as a commentary on status, among its other rich themes. If we put Jesus, his mother, and his disciples at a banquet of the elite, one that would be fitting for an architriklinos who is perhaps associated with household of a tetrarch, Jesus may comment on one of the greatest social hypocrisies of his day more pointedly. John 2:9: οἱ δὲ διάκονοι ᾔδεισαν οἱ ἠντληκότες τὸ ὕδωρ. The two meanings of ἀρχή are also valid in the prologue to the Gospel. The connotations have been noted from antiquity. See Morris, John, 65, and Tertullian, Herm. 19. 57 See Luke 22:27–30, for example. 55

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“Examined the Scriptures”? The Meaning of ἀνακρίνοντες τὰς γραφάς in Acts 17:11 roy e. ciampa [email protected] Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, MA 01982

Discussions about Paul’s use of Scripture have focused significant attention on the question of literacy rates and access to scrolls and other manuscripts in ancient synagogues and the early church.1 If most of the people in Paul’s churches could not read and those who could had little if any access to biblical texts, they could not be expected to have an accurate knowledge of the biblical passages cited or alluded to in his letters and would not have been able to look them up to check on the accuracy of his interpretations. Based on the standard translations of Acts 17:11, modern readers may be tempted to imagine a setting in which most or many members of a community (or at least several people) had access to a copy of a Bible that they could use to consult the relevant texts. As traditionally translated, the text

I would like to thank two of my former research assistants, Haley Goranson and Peter Riefstahl, as well as the anonymous reviewers at JBL, for reading an earlier version of this paper and for their helpful suggestions. 1 See the discussions in Christopher D. Stanley, Arguing with Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of Paul (New York: T&T Clark International, 2004); idem, “‘Pearls before Swine’: Did Paul’s Audiences Understand His Biblical Quotations?” NovT 41 (1999): 124–44; idem, “Paul’s ‘Use’ of Scripture: Why the Audience Matters,” in As It Is Written: Studying Paul’s Use of Scripture (ed. Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Stanley; SBLSymS 50; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 125–55; J. Brian Abasciano, “Diamonds in the Rough: A Reply to Christopher Stanley Concerning the Reader Competency of Paul’s Original Audiences,” NovT 49 (2007): 153– 83; Stanley E. Porter, “Paul and His Bible: His Education and Access to the Scriptures of Israel,” in Porter and Stanley, As It Is Written, 97–124; and in the same volume Bruce N. Fisk, “Synagogue Influence and Scriptural Knowledge among the Christians of Rome,” 157–86. For an earlier work that did not address recent studies of literacy, see Roy E. Ciampa, The Presence and Function of Scripture in Galatians 1 and 2 (WUNT 2/102; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 256–70.

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suggests that members of an ancient synagogue would indeed be able to examine the Scriptures to see if Paul’s interpretations were credible. Given the realities of ancient employment of biblical texts, such a scenario seems extremely unlikely. Still, Acts 17:11 would seem to be an important datum for understanding how Scripture was engaged in the ancient synagogue since, issues of historical accuracy aside, the depiction of events in Beroea presumably reflects a realistic scenario. One would think that further evidence of ancient approaches to the study of Scripture might be found by looking for other places where the verb ἀνακρίνω is used for the examination of ancient texts. But there do not seem to be any other such instances, and it turns out, as shall be argued below, that although this text would seem (based on its traditional translation) to provide positive evidence regarding the direct handling and study of the Scriptures in ancient synagogues, it does not actually provide such evidence. The evidence to be analyzed below suggests that the word ἀνακρίνω is never used of the examination or study of texts or artifacts. When used with an impersonal object in a nonjudicial setting (as in Acts 17:11), the verb means to ask [someone] questions about the direct object. The meanings of the verb that are found in the NT may be more fully outlined as follows. In nonjudicial contexts it is usually used with personal objects but is sometimes used with impersonal objects and sometimes with both personal and impersonal objects. When a personal object is used, it usually means to ask [the object] a question [about something]. The context may make it clear, however, that the person named or referenced as the object is not the one being questioned but the one about whom someone else (identified in the context) is questioned (see the example below from Antiphon, Speeches 2.3.2). When there is both a personal and an impersonal object, the personal object refers to the person who is asked the question(s) and the impersonal object identifies the topic about which the subject inquires. In cases where there is an impersonal object but no personal object, the impersonal object identifies the topic about which the subject asks another person questions and the personal object is omitted because it (the person who is asked the questions) has already been identified in the near context. When the word is used in judicial contexts, personal objects identify those who are questioned (or “examined” in the courtroom sense) during a legal proceeding (usually a preliminary hearing), and impersonal objects identify the charges or issues regarding which a legal hearing (usually a preliminary hearing) is held. No evidence has been found, in either judicial or nonjudicial contexts, of a case where the verb refers to the study or examination of a text or document, despite the standard understanding of Acts 17:11 over many centuries. The lexical evidence suggests that the Beroeans are portrayed as asking Paul questions about the Scriptures every day (in order to decide if his teaching was consistent with what the Scriptures said). This essay will attempt to explain both the lexical evidence and how it has been neglected in the history of interpretation.

Ciampa: “Examined the Scriptures” in Acts 17:11

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I. The Use of ἀνακρίνω with Impersonal Objects Putting together as many examples as we can find of ἀνακρίνω being used with impersonal objects (with special attention to nonjudicial contexts such as in Acts 17:11), we discover a pattern suggesting that the standard meaning of the verb in such usages was “to inquire into,” that is, “to ask [someone]2 questions about [the object].”3

Nonjudicial Contexts4

·

Pindar (Pyth. 4.62–63) describes the context in which the Delphic priestess revealed to Battos that he was to be the king of Kyrene. He was “asking what requital would come from the gods for [his] stammering voice” (δυσθρόου φωνᾶς ἀνακρινόµενον ποινὰ τίς ἔσται πρὸς θεῶν).5 From the context it is quite clear that the verb refers to an inquiry.

·

In Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens (Ath. pol. 11.1) we are told that people kept going to Solon, bothering him about various provisions in his laws. They were “criticizing some points and asking [him] questions about others” (τὰ µὲν ἐπιτιµῶντες τὰ δὲ ἀνακρίνοντες). Here the two occurrences of τά are the objects of the two different verbs, with µέν and δέ pointing to the two alternative ways of responding to different legal provisions. In context the people who are criticizing some laws are clearly not “examining” the others but are asking Solon questions about them, perhaps seeking clarifications about them or justifications for them.

2

Here and in the following interpretations of the relevant texts, the personal object implied in the context is referenced within brackets because it seems the reader is to make this inference from the context. The brackets are meant to suggest that, although inferred, the personal object may well be omitted from a translation of the text. 3 Even when used with personal objects the verb may have that meaning. This is particularly the case when it is understood from the context that the person referenced in the object was not present to be “examined” (i.e., questioned). The first example given in LSJ is of this type: According to Antiphon, Speeches 2.3.2, people coming upon a dying victim of violent crime would have inquired into (asked him about) the perpetrators of the crime: ἀνακρίναντες τοὺς ἐργασαµένους ἤγγειλαν ἂν ἡµῖν (“having asked about the perpetrators they would have informed us”). In this case it is not the one who is asked the questions (the victim) who is referred to in the object, but the perpetrators (who are not present). 4 I have been unable to locate any occurrence of ἀνακρίνω in Philodemus, On Poems 994 frg. 21, which, according to LSJ, also has an example with τὴν [αἰτίαν] as its object (presumably similar or identical to the examples given here). 5 The translation is that of William H. Race, ed., Pindar (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 269.

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• In one fragment of Callimachus’s Iambi (Fr. 203.54–55), the topic seems to be “bickering among contemporary poets.” What we have reads, “a poet with rage in his horns . . . spiting a fellow poet . . . asks questions about his background and calls him a slave, a used one at that” (τὴν γενὴν ἀνακρίνει κα[ὶ] δοῦλον εἶναί φησι καὶ παλίµπρητον).6 This is not a matter of studying or examining written documents, but of asking questions about (in English we would probably say, “raising questions about”) a competing poet’s family background in order to slander him. • In Nymphodorus of Syracuse’s Fragmenta (12.29), the author recounts how the slave Drimacus made a treaty with the Chians that included stipulations regarding fugitive slaves: “I will ask the slaves who desert you about the reason for their action” (Τοὺς δ’ ἀποδιδράσκοντας ὑµῶν δούλους ἀνακρίνας τὴν αἰτίαν).7 This is a clear instance of the common use of a double accusative with verbs of asking or inquiring (see BDF §155), with the accusative of the person who is asked the questions followed by the accusative of the content/nature of the question(s) asked. • In Jewish Antiquities (Ant. 4.105), Josephus relates that Balaam received Midianite ambassadors, treated them kindly, and then, “after dining, he inquired into (asked [God] about) God’s will” (καὶ δειπνίσας ἀνέκρινε τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ διάνοιαν). The will of God was not something that Balaam could “examine” but, as a prophet, he would be expected to enter into contact with God and inquire into his will regarding the proposal made to him by the Midianites. • In Ant. 7.177, Josephus reports that when David was told that Absalom had killed all his brothers “he neither inquired into (asked [the messenger] about) the reason [οὔτε τὴν αἰτίαν ἀνέκρινεν] nor stayed to hear anything else. . . .” The cause of or reason for Absalom’s killing spree was not something that David could have examined for himself. In context, he could have “searched it out” only in the sense of asking the messenger what he knew about it. The meaning “inquire into,” that is, “ask questions about,” is clearly required here. • In Ant. 9.91, Josephus tells of when King Benhadad was sick and sent Hazael to the prophet Elisha to find out if he would recover. Josephus reports that Elisha broke down in tears at the thought of the sufferings the Israelites would experience as a result of the death of Benhadad, and “Hazael asked him about the reason for his disturbance” (ἀνακρίναντος δ᾽ αὐτὸν Ἀζαήλου τὴν αἰτίαν τῆς συγχύσεως). Here again we see the double accusative used in the same way as in the text above from 6

Translation slightly modified from that of Frank J. Nisetich (The Poems of Callimachus [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001], 121), whose translation reads “looks into his background.” It could be that the meaning is “inquires into,” but it seems more likely that the questions are asked (accusingly) of the insulted poet (as a prelude to, or justification for, calling him a slave) than that we are dealing with inquiries made of other people since, among other things, there is no suggestion that the accusation that the poet is “a used slave” has any basis in fact. 7 Nymphodorus’s account is preserved in Athenaeus, Deipn. 6.89.8.


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Nymphodorus of Syracuse (with the personal object used for the person to whom the questions are addressed and the impersonal object for the topic about which the person is questioned). • In 1 Cor 2:15, Paul says, “the spiritual person inquires into (asks [God/the Spirit] about) all things” (ὁ δὲ πνευµατικὸς ἀνακρίνει [τὰ] πάντα), “but he is not questioned [subject to questioning] by anyone” (αὐτὸς δὲ ὑπ᾽ οὐδενὸς ἀνακρίνεται). This is a difficult text to interpret and translate. The context (2:9–16) speaks of people’s ability (or lack of ability) to understand, comprehend, or know God’s thoughts (repeatedly using forms of οἶδα and γινώσκω). In 2:10 Paul says that the Spirit “makes a careful or thorough effort to learn”8 all things, even the depths of God. It is the Spirit who knows God’s thoughts (v. 11) and who was given to believers so that they might know the things God has freely given them (v. 12), things that can be known only by those who have the mind of Christ (v. 16). In light of the context and the other examples of ἀνακρίνω used with impersonal objects, it seems that Paul’s idea is that the Spirit serves as a special resource to believers, to respond to their questions about the mind of God/Christ. It seems best to take the verb here as indicating that through the Spirit the “spiritual person” is in a position to inquire into all things (and find prophetic insight from God).9 • Papias (2.4 [Hist. eccl. 3.39.4]) says that whenever he met anyone who had been a disciple of the elders he “used to inquire into (ask [them] about) the sayings of the elders” (τοὺς τῶν πρεσβυτέρων ἀνέκρινον λόγους).10 There was nothing to examine or search, and the object of the verb is “the sayings of the elders,” not the one who knew them. The meaning “ask about” or “inquire into” is required by the context.

Judicial Contexts • In Ath. pol. 56.6, Aristotle refers to “criminal and civil complaints . . . which he brings before the jury-court after having held a preliminary inquiry regarding them” (γραφαὶ δὲ καὶ δίκαι . . . ἃς ἀνακρίνας εἰς τὸ δικαστήριον εἰσάγει). Here γραφαί and δίκαι are not documents that are studied and examined, but different kinds of (written up) charges that must be investigated by way of formal inquiries. • In his speech Against Meidias (Mid. 103), Demosthenes refers to a certain Euctemon who “never held an inquiry into this charge” (οὔτ’ ἀνεκρίνατο ταύτην [γραφήν]) that had been made against Demosthenes. Again, this is not about examBDAG, s.v. ἐραυνάω. As in the example of Balaam in Ant. 4.105, cited above. The second use of the verb in the verse, with the personal object (namely, the spiritual person) may well have a judicial sense: they are not subject to formal examination (for the sake of judgment) by others. 10 Surely it is remarkable that Papias 2.4 is the only other example (besides Acts 17:11) given in BDAG that entails an impersonal object. 8 9

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ining or studying a γραφή as a document or artifact, but about investigating the charge that has been entered. The evidence surveyed suggests that when ἀνακρίνω has an impersonal object in a nonjudicial context the object is the topic about which questions are asked of someone who has been identified in the near context (or who is explicitly identified by providing a personal object as well). In judicial contexts, an impersonal object is used for the charges regarding which the judicial hearing is held. In general, the verb means to seek information by asking a question or questions (whether in informal or in judicial settings). In nonjudicial contexts natural English glosses would include ask [someone something], inquire into [something], or ask questions about [something]. In judicial contexts natural English glosses would include question, interrogate, examine [someone]; or conduct a judicial hearing [into a charge or a matter]. Applying this understanding to Acts 17:11 would result in a translation to the effect that the Beroeans were “asking Paul questions about the Scriptures every day” (with the impersonal object indicating the topic of the questions and no personal object provided because in the near context it is clear that Paul would be the one to whom the questions would be addressed). If this is the case, how is it that we have had a strong consensus in the history of interpretation that the verb meant “to search” or “to examine”? The history of the verb’s interpretation may help us understand how we arrived where we are today. Although it will not be possible to provide a complete history of the interpretation of Acts 17:11 in the following section, enough of the historical evidence will be given to indicate how a largely unexamined interpretive tradition has survived to this day.

II. The History of the Interpretation of ἀνακρίνω in Acts 17:11 As John H. Hayes and Jürgen Roloff point out, “Very little quotation of and commentary on Acts from the first five centuries survives, much of it extant only in catenae.”11 The most important influences in the history of the interpretation of 11 Hayes and Roloff, “Acts of the Apostles, Book of the,” in Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (ed. John H. Hayes; 2 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 1:4. Ephraem’s early commentary on Acts does not clearly suggest that the Beroeans consulted the Scriptures directly, but it is somewhat vague: “Et docebat in synagoga Iudaeorum, et interpretabantur scripturas in aures audientium suorum, ut certiores faciant tanquam e scripturis verum esse quod docuit Paulus” (see The Beginnings of Christianity, part 1, The Acts of the Apostles [ed. F. J. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake; 5 vols.; London: Macmillan, 1920–42], vol. 3, The Text of Acts, by J. H. Ropes, 432).


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ἀνακρίνω in Acts 17:11 would seem to be those of Chrysostom and the Vulgate. It seems that, for the most part, lexicographers, translators, and commentators have simply followed an interpretive tradition that goes back at least to Chrysostom. His relevant comment on Acts 17:11 reads, µετὰ ἀκριβείας ἀνηρεύνων τὰς Γραφὰς (τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι τὸ, Ἀνέκρινον), “they searched the Scriptures with exactness (for this is the meaning of ἀνέκρινον)” (Hom. Acts 37).12 The verb that Chrysostom uses here in place of ἀνακρίνω, ἀνερευνάω, does mean “to search” or “investigate [something]” (personally/directly) rather than “to inquire into [something],” that is, to ask questions about or hold a legal hearing to investigate something. The fact that Chrysostom felt the need to explain the meaning of ἀνακρίνω in this context for his Greek-speaking audience (by replacing it with another expression) suggests that Luke’s usage was considered unusual and its meaning was less than transparent to Chrysostom and his readers (quite possibly because the particular construction used had fallen into disuse). The Vulgate’s rendering, “cotidie scrutantes scripturas,” has clearly also had an important role in the establishment of the traditional interpretation. The verb employed, scrutor, has a fairly broad range of meaning: “to search carefully, examine thoroughly, explore a thing; to search, examine a person,” and it is used literally of searching places, people, or things, and by metaphorical extension (trope) “to examine thoroughly; to explore, investigate” or “to search into; to search out, find out.”13 Like ἀνακρίνω, it is used for the examination of people, but also for investigating or looking into a subject. Scrutor may also be used for searching/examining things/artifacts and could easily lead to the interpretation of the text reflected in Chrysostom’s homily, cited above, or in the translations and lexicons that suggest that ἀνακρίνω means “to examine” even when it has an impersonal object, as in Acts 17:11. From the fifth century on, the influence of the views reflected in Chrysostom and/or the Vulgate may be felt throughout the tradition.14 The history of NT lexicography and the translation of the text reflect a tendency to do one of two things with this verse: to translate the verse as if the word Luke used were indeed ἀνερευνάω (or a Greek synonym for the Latin scrutantes, which may have that meaning) rather than ἀνακρίνω, thus rendering the verb as “searched/sought”;15 or to render it “examined” despite the fact that ἀνακρίνω does not refer to an examination of some document or artifact to interpret it cor12

NPNF 11:228 n. 2; PG 60:263.47. C. T. Lewis and C. Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1879), s.v. scrutor (emphasis original). 14 See below on the Vulgate’s translation (cf., e.g., Bede’s comment that the nobility of the Beroeans “Animae nobilitatem dicit qua uerba audiendo scrutandoque institerunt” (“refers to nobility of soul, by which they applied themselves to hearing and examining/scrutinizing the words”) (CCSL 121 [1983], 71). 15 In German: sucheten in, or forscheten. 13

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rectly,16 as one would imagine when the word “examine” is used in English with an impersonal object.17

“Searching the Scriptures” The first tendency mentioned above (that of treating ἀνακρίνω as if it were ἀνερευνάω or as if it meant “search/seek”) may be reflected in Luther’s 1545 translation of the key clause “forscheten täglich in der Schrift.”18 It is reflected also in the earliest English translations. Tyndale’s 1534 translation renders the relevant text “searched the scriptures dayly.” The Bishop’s Bible of 1595, the Geneva Bible of 16

The verb may mean “examine” in the sense of interrogating or questioning a person (as in “cross-examining a witness”) in a judicial setting. It is important to distinguish between what we mean by the “examination of people” (questioning them in a legal context) and what would be meant by the examination of texts (direct consultation and study of their contents). The facts that the Greek word ἀνακρίνω often refers to the former and the English word “examine” may be applied to both activities does not mean that the Greek word functions with impersonal objects in a way similar to the English word. As already stated, there is no evidence to support such a meaning for ἀνακρίνω. 17 Both tendencies are discernible already in the second and third glosses provided in the entry for ἀνακρίνω in the Greek–Latin glossary of the Complutensian Polyglot (1522), which reads, “interrogo, exquiro, probo, experior, iudico.” They are reflected also in the entry in Edward Leigh’s Critica sacra of 1639: “Quaestionem habeo, Scrutor, Dijudico, Enquire, Examine, Condemne” (Critica sacra: or, Philologicall and theologicall observations, upon all the Greek words of the New Testament, in order alphabeticall: wherein usually the etymon of the word is given, its force and emphasis observed, and the severall acceptions of it in scripture, and versions by expositors are set down [London: Robert Young, 1639], 45). Acts 17:11 is not specifically treated but is included in a list of references where the verb also appears. In a side note Leigh comments, “Est verbum ambiguum quod significat tum Interrogo, tum Excutio” (“It is an ambiguous word which at times means ‘to question/interrogate’ and at other times means ‘to search/examine’” [my translation]), with the second gloss again promoting the idea that the verb might mean “to search.” George Pasor’s Lexicon Graeco-Latinum in Novum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Testamentum (London: Excudebat Jacobus Junius, impensis Richardi Whittakeri, 1644) explicitly indicates that the verb means “scrutor” in Acts 17:11 (although it provides no indication of evidence for that meaning anywhere else): “ἀνακρίνω, quaestionem habeo, Luc. 23. v. 14. Act. 12. ver. 19. Dijudico, 1 Corinth. 2. 15. Scrutor, Act. 17.11. Inquiro, 1 Cor. 9.3. τοῖς ἐµὲ ἀνακρίνουσιν, qui me inquirunt. Haesito, 1 Corin. 10. 25. µηδὲν ἀνακρίνοντες, nihil haesitantes. ἀνακρίνοµαι, dijudicor, 1 Corin. 14. ver. 24” (p. 416). Cf. Christian Abraham Wahl, Clavis Novi Testamenti (Leipzig: Barth, 1843), 27; Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider, Lexicon Manuale Graeco-Latinum in libros Novi Testamenti (Leipzig: Sumptibus Jo. Ambros. Barthii, 1829), 1:78. 18 It is similarly reflected in later revisions of Luther’s translation and other German versions (e.g., the Schlachter version [1951, 2000] and the Zürcher Bibel [2007]). A notable exception is the Münchener Neues Testament (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1998), which renders the key expression “täglich befragend die Schriften,” which comes closer to a normal understanding of the verb (at least when used with personal objects) but lacks clarity and the recognition that the Scriptures are not the things that were questioned but the topic regarding which the questions were being asked (see below).


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1599, and the King James Version of 1611 render it in exactly the same manner.19 The treatment of this verse in the entry for ἀνακρίνω in Preuschen’s lexicon (1910) could be understood merely to pass on the meaning proposed by Chrysostom (“to search”) as though it had some independent lexical basis: “1. Befragen, ausfragen, untersuchen ἀ. τὰς γραφάς; d. hl. Schrift befragen = darin suchen AG 17, 11.”20 It is an interesting entry in that it seems to indicate that the literal expression would be translated “to question the Scriptures,” but that it should be understood as being the equivalent of (or a metaphor for) “searching in the Scriptures.” Quite remarkably, this is the source of the entry found in the various editions of Bauer’s lexicon (right up through the sixth edition of 1988), which include the exact wording quoted above (albeit with references found between “untersuchen” and “ἀ. τὰς γραφάς”). However, as we shall see, scholars eventually came to recognize that the verb did not actually mean “to search,” and that translation was discarded in favor of “to examine,” which has been popular ever since.

“Inquire into” as a Meaning of ἀνακρίνω The important reintroduction of the meaning “inquire into” to modern lexicons seems to go back to Robinson’s lexicon (1850);21 but there we also find a tendency to mix it together with various glosses or meanings from which it should be distinguished. Robinson places all the occurrences in the NT under two definitions: “1. to examine well, to search carefully, to inquire into, e.g. a) Genr. c. acc. Acts 17,11 τὰς γραφάς” and “b) In a forensic sense, to examine, as a judge”; and then, “2. to judge of, to estimate, to understand and appreciate.” In the second part of the entry Robinson rightly points out that a special forensic sense can and should be distinguished from other usages. The first part, however, in putting “to inquire into” together with “to examine well” and “to search carefully”22 fails to distinguish significantly different ideas, since “to inquire into” is to ask questions about someone/something, which is rather different from searching or examining something or someone. And it remains unclear which meaning is thought to apply to Acts 17:11. While “examine well” and “search carefully” fit the traditional interpretation of the verse, “to inquire into” would point in a significantly different direction. 19 So also the NKJV (1982) and, perhaps more remarkably, the NLT (New Living Translation, 2004). 20 Erwin Preuschen, Vollständiges griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der übrigen urchristlichen Literatur (Giessen: Töpelmann, 1910), 85. 21 Edward Robinson, A Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1850), 47. 22 The suggestion that the verb could mean “to search carefully” is probably based on nothing more than the centuries-old tradition of interpreting Acts 17:11 as thought it were ἀνερευνάω. Such a meaning is no longer found in more recent lexicons such as LSJ, BDAG, or the DGE (Diccionario Griego-Español [ed. Francisco R. Adrados et al.; Madrid: Consejos Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto “Antonio de Nebrija,” 1980–]).

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Although Thayer’s lexicon (1889)23 is based on Grimm’s Wilke’s Clavis Novi Testamenti, it actually makes a significant improvement over the Clavis. While the earlier work suggests that ἀνακρίνω means “investigo, examino, exploro, perscrutor, sciscitor,” Thayer’s version makes a significant change, listing the first set of meanings as “to investigate, examine, inquire into, scrutinize, sift, question.” Thayer’s “inquire into” shows up in place of “exploro,” perhaps recognizing the validity of the meaning found in Robinson’s lexicon, and being one of the first to see that “searching” is not actually a valid meaning of ἀνακρίνω. Still, as in Robinson’s lexicon, “inquire into” finds itself sitting in the middle of a series of glosses with quite different meanings, and the possible implications of that meaning are not considered or explored. Very interesting and ultimately important developments may be observed in the lexicons edited by Liddell and Scott. In the 1846 edition of Liddell and Scott’s revision of Francis Passow’s work,24 Acts 17:11 is not cited, but the definitions given include “to examine well, to search out, to prove.” The entry “inquire into” does not appear here or in the identical entry in the edition of 1870;25 and those editions support the idea that the word has to do with searching (or “searching out”). But by the seventh revised and augmented edition of 1889 the idea of “searching” has been dropped from the entry so that the first entry offers the meaning, “to examine closely, to question, interrogate, esp. judicially,” and the second meaning given for the word is “to inquire into a fact” with the example given from Antiphon’s Speeches 2.3.2, as is found in all subsequent editions of the lexicon.26 The 1996 edition of LSJ differs only slightly from the edition of 1889, despite 107 intervening years. In the latest edition the words “to question” have dropped out and more evidence for the meaning “inquire into” is provided.27

“Examining the Scriptures” The vast majority of modern English translations render the verb as “examined [the Scriptures].”28 While most modern Greek lexicons correctly indicate that the 23 Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament, Being Grimm's Wilke's Clavis Novi Testamenti (New York: Harper & Bros., 1889), 39. 24 Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Franz Passow, and Henry Drisler, A Greek–English Lexicon, Based on the German Work of Francis Passow (New York: Harper & Bros., 1846), 107. 25 Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, and Henry Drisler, A Greek–English Lexicon, Based on the German Work of Francis Passow (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1870), 107. 26 Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott and Henry Drisler, A Greek–English Lexicon, Seventh Edition, Revised and Augmented (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1889), 101. There are other meanings given that are not relevant to our issue (mainly related to examining people—i.e., questioning them in a legal context). We will deal with the full entry in the latest edition of LSJ below. 27 Henry George Liddell et al., A Greek–English Lexicon (“With a revised supplement, 1996”; Rev. and augm. throughout; Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 109. 28 Including the ERV (English Revised Version, 1885), ASV (1901), RSV (1952), NIV (1973), NASB (1977, 1995), NRSV (1989), NAB (1991), HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible, 1999),


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verb may mean “examine,” this information underscores the danger of using mere glosses rather than definitions in lexical work. The Greek texts that support the gloss “examine” do so with the meaning “to determine the qualifications, aptitude, or skills [of a person] by means of questions or exercises” or “to question formally/judicially to elicit facts or information; interrogate,” not with the meaning “to observe carefully or critically; inspect” (or “to study or analyze”). Unfortunately, it is the latter meaning that is communicated by the contemporary English rendering “they examined the Scriptures daily.” Although the texts referenced in the lexicons in support of the meaning “examine” (with the occasional exception of references to Acts 17:11) reveal that it has to do with the legal questioning of witnesses or candidates for official positions, the lexical entries themselves often muddy the waters by providing the simple gloss “examine” and by placing Acts 17:11 under that meaning. Both BAG (1957) and BAGD (1979), building on the fourth and sixth editions of the Bauer lexicon, list Acts 17:11 under an entry that reads as follows: “1. question, examine, of general questions (. . . Epict. 1, 1, 20; 2, 20, 27 τὴν Πυθίαν; 1 Km 20:12; Sus 13; Jos., Ant. 5, 329) ἀ. τὰς γραφάς examine the Scriptures Ac 17:11 (ἀ. εἰ as Jos., Ant. 8, 267; 12, 197). µηδὲν ἀνακρίνοντες without asking questions 1 Cor 10:25, 27; ἀ. τοὺς λόγους inquire about the words Papias 2:4.” There are a couple notable developments here. First, in the English editions we lose the suggestion, explicit in Preuschen and in all the German editions of Bauer, that ἀνακρίνειν τὰς γραφάς would first mean “to question the Scriptures” and that that was thought to mean “to search in the Scriptures.” According to the English editions, “examine the Scriptures” is now the straightforward meaning. The suggestion that ἀνακρίνω means “to search or to seek” has also been completely (and appropriately) removed from the English editions. But we also find a reference to Papias 2.4 that was lacking in Bauer’s fourth edition, on which BAG was primarily based. There the verb is used with an impersonal object, and the clear meaning is to “inquire into” (as indicated in BAG, BAGD and BDAG, as well as in the sixth edition of the Bauer lexicon, where we also find the citation of that text). Although an example is given of an instance where the meaning is “inquire into,” it does not seem to be treated as one of the potential meanings of the word (which are given in bold type), but is buried within the entry in a haphazard manner.29 NET (New English Translation, 2004), TNIV (Today’s New International Version, 2005). It is also reflected in the Elberfelder Bibel (1993). 29 The same situation applies to BDAG, where there is little updating beyond the addition of a definition: “1. to engage in careful study of a question, question, examine, of general questions (s. ἀνάκρισις; Epict. 1, 1, 20; 2, 20, 27 τὴν Πυθίαν; 1 Km 20:12; Sus 13; Jos., Ant. 5, 329) ἀ. τὰς γραφάς examine the Scriptures Ac 17:11 (ἀ. εἰ as Jos., Ant. 8, 267; 12, 197). ἀ. τοὺς λόγους inquire about the words (of the elders) Papias (2:4) (expiscabar Rufin.). µηδὲν ἀνακρίνοντες without asking questions 1 Cor 10:25, 27; Ac 11:12 v.l. (for διακρίνω)” (emphases original). The use of the word “study” in the BDAG definition seems to be another example of a case where the lexicogra-

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Although the past forty years30 have provided us with a wealth of commentary on Acts, it seems there is an established tradition of omitting any special comment on the meaning of ἀνακρίνω in Acts 17:11. Virtually all modern commentators simply assume the meaning “examined” (with reading of the Scriptures implied as part of the meaning).31 A notable exception to this lack of attention is found in C. K. Barrett’s ICC commentary of 1998. He comments as follows: “ἀνακρίνειν is nowhere else in the NT used of the study of Scripture; it suggests rather the legal examination of witnesses (or of an accused person)—see Acts 4:9; 12:19; 24:8; 28:18—and this is in fact the sense in which it is used here. Paul has set up the Scriptures as witnesses: does their testimony, when tested, prove his case?”32 In response, it should phy is based on the presupposed interpretation of Acts 17:11. The other examples do not really support the idea that “studying” (at least as we normally use the word) is involved. 30 For earlier interpretations, compare the commentaries of, e.g., John Calvin, John Wesley, and Matthew Henry. Henry shows the greatest tendency for an anachronistic interpretation: “they had recourse to their Bibles, turned to the places to which he referred them, read the context, considered the scope and drift of them, compared them with other places of scripture, examined whether Paul’s inferences from them were natural and genuine and his arguments upon them cogent, and determined accordingly.” H. A. W. Meyer says that the key expression means “die Schriften erforschend,” referencing John 5:39 as a parallel, as do others (Kritisch exegetisches Handbuch über die Apostelgeschichte [KEK 3; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1870], 377). Horatio B. Hackett comments on εὐγενέστεροι, πάσης, τὸ [sic] καθ᾽ ἡµέραν, and εἰ ἔχοι ταῦτα οὕτως, but not on ἀνακρίνοντες τὰς γραφὰς (A Commentary on the Original Text of the Acts of the Apostles [Boston: Gould & Lincoln, 1872], 275). William Denton’s entire discussion on the verse focuses on the meaning of εὐγενέστεροι (A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles [2 vols.; London: George Bell & Sons, 1874], 2:119–20). Theodor Zahn also fails to give the verb any attention (Die Apostelgeschichte des Lucas [2 vols.; Kommentar zum Neuen Testament 5.1–2; Leipzig: A. Deichert Werner Scholl, 1921], 2:593). The translation and commentary of Kirsopp Lake and Henry J. Cadbury translates the text as “examining the scriptures” and comments only on the term εὐγενής (The Beginnings of Christianity, part 1, The Acts of the Apostles [ed. F. J. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake; 5 vols.; London: Macmillan, 1920–42], vol. 4, English Translation and Commentary, by Kirsopp Lake and H. J. Cadbury, 206–7). 31 See Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 508; Gerhard Schneider, Die Apostelgeschichte (HTKNT 5; Freiburg: Herder, 1980–), 2:226; Rudolf Pesch, Die Apostelgeschichte (2 vols.; EKK 5; Zürich: Benziger, 1986), 2:124; Hans Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (trans. James Limburg et al.; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 136; F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary (3rd rev. and enl. ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 373; idem, The Book of the Acts (rev. ed.; NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 327; Martin M. Culy and Mikeal C. Parsons, Acts: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2003), 328–29; I. Howard Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles: An Introduction and Commentary (TNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 280; Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles (SP 5; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992), 308; John B. Polhill, Acts (NAC 26; Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1992), 363; Richard I. Pervo, Acts: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), 416, 421. 32 C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, vol. 2 (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 818.


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be noted that there is no sound basis for Barrett’s assumption that Luke is using the verb in a judicial sense, and while it is true that the word “is nowhere else in the NT used of the study of Scripture,” to be more precise, there is no known evidence that it was ever used by any ancient Greek for the study or direct examination of a text or document.33

Distinguishing between Personal and Impersonal Objects The fullest and in some ways most helpful lexical examination of ἀνακρίνω is that found in the Diccionario Griego-Español (DGE), the second volume of which (with the relevant entry) was published in 1986. The meanings it suggests are not especially helpful,34 but the manner in which it structures the entry provides the most important step forward. It divides the examples into those related to the meaning “interrogar” (A.) first with personal objects (A. I) and then with impersonal objects (A. II), and then those that appear in the middle/passive voice with the meaning “diferir, posponer.” The highlighting of the distinction between uses with personal objects and with impersonal objects (“c. compl. de pers.” and “c. compl. de cosas”) was new and crucial. A comparison of the evidence provided in DGE with that found in LSJ and BDAG points toward the interpretation of Acts 17:11 proposed here. Focusing our attention on examples where ἀνακρίνω is used with impersonal objects, we notice that the first example given in DGE, Call. fr. 203.54, is found in LSJ under the meaning “inquire into.” The second example from that section of DGE is Papias 2.4, which does not appear in LSJ but does appear in BDAG (as well as BAG and BAGD), with the same gloss: “inquire into.”35 The final

33 Barrett’s approach has been followed by two other recent commentators. According to Darrell L. Bock, “The expression for ‘examining’ (anakrinō) is graphic, for it refers to a legal process, such as a trial” (Acts [Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007], 556). David G. Peterson suggests that the Beroeans “needed to ‘test’ or ‘cross examine’ (anakrinontes is used in a legal sense, as in 4:9; 12:19; 24:8; 28:18) the Scriptures to see if Paul’s case proved true” (The Acts of the Apostles [Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009], 484). Again, this is to take a special “marked meaning” for the word (applied in judicial contexts) and apply it where the needed marking is not found. 34 They include, “interrogar, hacer un interrogatorio esp. en sent. jur.”; “juzgar en v. pas.”; “examinar, probar a un magistrado para conocer su idoneidad . . . , sobre cualquier tipo de conocimiento . . . ; examinar a esclavos antes de la venta”; “examinar, preguntar en gener.”; “examinar en sent. jur.”; “diferir, posponer” (DGE 2:246). 35 The third entry in DGE seems to be an error. It cites Philodemus, De libertate dicendi, p. 21; οὐδ᾿ ἀνακρίνοντος τοῦ καθηγουµένου (without the teacher examining [the student]). Here the verb has only an implied object, but this implied object is one of a personal nature—the teacher’s students. See the text in Philodemi ΠΕΡΙ ΠΑΡΡΗΣΙΑΣ Libellus (ed. Alexander Olivieri; Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana; Leipzig: Teubner, 1914), 21; and cf. John T. Fitzgerald, Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of Speech: Studies on Friendship in the New Testament World (NovTSup 82; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 50.

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nonjudicial example given is Acts 17:11.36 Once the importance of distinguishing personal and impersonal objects is recognized, it becomes a relatively simple task to confirm, as we did in the first part of this essay, that when ἀνακρίνω is used with impersonal objects in nonjudicial settings it means to “inquire into,” that is, “ask questions about” the object of the verb.

IV. Conclusion If we apply these findings to Acts 17:11, they lead us to a translation that indicates that the Beroeans were “asking [Paul] questions about the Scriptures every day to see if these things were true.” This gives us a picture of a community that treated Paul as a highly respected rabbi or teacher of Scripture and suggests that the Beroeans were thought to have (or are portrayed as having) evaluated his teaching based on his answers to the questions they put to him in light of their own prior knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures. Of course, asking a Jewish teacher or rabbi questions about the Bible or its teaching was an extremely common approach to learning.37 The NT gives many examples of people asking John the Baptist or Jesus questions about the interpretation and teachings of the Scriptures (see, e.g., Matt 12:10; 17:10; 22:23, 35, 41; Mark 7:5; 9:11; 10:2, 10, 17; 12:18, 28; 13:3; Luke 3:10, 14; 17:20; 18:18; 20:21, 28; 21:7; John 9:2).38 The Beroeans are portrayed as having demonstrated a receptive and open-minded approach. Rather than refusing to consider Paul’s message, they are depicted as having treated it seriously and having given Paul the opportunity to clarify how his teaching related to their prior understanding of the Scriptures. They are depicted as going back to Paul with new questions every day about the Scriptures and their relationship to the claims made in his teaching and preaching. We are probably to imagine something along the lines of what is depicted as having taken place later in Ephesus, with Paul having discussions (or arguing) with his disciples every day (καθ᾽ ἡµέραν, as in 17:11)

36 Under the separate category of juridical examples with impersonal objects DGE cites (with the proposed meaning, “examinar en sent[ido] jur[ídico]”), Aristotle, Ath. pol. 56.6: γραφαὶ δὲ καὶ δίκαι . . . ἃς ἀνακρίνας εἰς τὸ δικαστήριον εἰσάγει (“criminal and civil complaints . . . which he brings before the jury-court after having held preliminary hearings/inquests regarding them”). Here, as noted above, the “examination” of γραφαὶ . . . καὶ δίκαι (“criminal and civil complaints”) entails not the study or examination of written texts or documents but the holding of legal hearings (i.e., the questioning of witnesses, etc.) to determine whether the (written-up) charges were credible. 37 Of course, in the Greco-Roman context people also engaged teachers, philosophers, and prophets by posing questions to them. 38 In these texts there is no suggestion that John, Jesus, or those asking the questions had biblical texts in their possession at the time, but it was expected that scriptural teaching could be expounded from memory based on the leader’s knowledge of the subject.


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in Tyrannus’s lecture hall. In fact, Acts 17:11 has a particularly close relationship with Acts 17:2–3. The reference to “these things” (ταῦτα) which the Beroeans wanted to confirm via the Scriptures in v. 17 must refer back to Paul’s argument, mentioned in v. 3, that it was necessary for the Christ/Messiah to suffer and rise from the dead. And v. 2 tells us that Paul made that case on three Sabbath days as he engaged in discussion with the Thessalonians. As portrayed in Acts 17, Paul’s ministry in Beroea “continued the pattern laid down in Thessalonica” and the superiority of the Beroeans over the Thessalonians “is manifested in their encounters day after day (compared with the three weekly ones in Thessalonica).”39 Acts 17:11 does not suggest a different type of engagement with Paul’s interpretation of Scripture (textual investigation versus oral discussion), but a more frequent engagement with Paul and a more positive response to his message. What are the implications of this study for the issue raised in the opening paragraph—Acts 17:11 as evidence regarding the study of Scripture in ancient synagogues and the early church?40 Acts 17:11 does not say or indicate that the Beroeans were studying scriptural texts on a daily basis but that they were asking Paul questions about the Scriptures and how his teaching cohered with what they knew about them. If the synagogue or some socially elite members of the synagogue had a large collection of biblical scrolls (and members capable of reading and studying them), they may have studied them in light of what Paul was saying and formulated their questions to Paul in a way that was more directly informed by their study of Scripture. However, the way Luke depicts the Beroeans’ behavior would also be perfectly consistent with a scenario according to which they were mainly illiterate and had little direct access to the Scriptures. In that case the ancient reader of Acts would understand that they were simply asking Paul questions about the Scriptures based on the knowledge they had gained through their exposure to previous preachers and teachers and synagogue readings.41 39 Josep Rius-Camps and Jenny Read-Heimerdinger, The Message of Acts in Codex Bezae: A Comparison with the Alexandrian Tradition, vol. 3, Acts 13.1–18.2: The Ends of the Earth, First and Second Phases of the Mission to the Gentiles (Library of New Testament Studies 365; London: T&T Clark, 2007), 322. 40 The question of the historicity of the passage need not detain us. All that is required for the argument in this paragraph is historical verisimilitude—that the description given in Acts would be recognized by the original readers as a believable description of activity that might have taken place in a first-century synagogue. 41 This text may make a minor contribution to ongoing conversations regarding orality and textuality in early Christian communities, not because it provides evidence of a purely oral environment (we do not know whether texts were present or consulted), but because it portrays a situation of learning primarily (at least) via oral engagement.

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JBL 130, no. 3 (2011): 543–549

Peddling Scents: Merchandise and Meaning in 2 Corinthians 2:14–17 tzvi novick [email protected] University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556

Scholars have long puzzled over the diction and imagery that Paul employs in 2 Cor 2:14–17, where, from an attempt to account for his prior travels, he shifts abruptly into a prayer of thanksgiving. 14But

thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? 17For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word; but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.1

Most exegetes concentrate their attention on the word θριαµβεύοντι in 2:14, rendered above as “leads . . . in triumph,” and on the relationship, if any, between this word and the odor imagery that pervades vv. 15–16. Comparatively little attention has been lavished on the peddlers (καπηλεύοντες) of v. 17, and almost none on what role the image of the peddler might play in connection with the scene detailed in the preceding verses.2 I thank Michael Cover and Michael Peppard for their comments on an earlier draft of this note. 1

All quotations from the NT in this essay follow the RSV. Roger David Aus is more explicit than most, but otherwise representative, when he observes at the outset of his book on this passage (Imagery of Triumph and Rebellion in 2 Corinthians 2:14–17 and Elsewhere in the Epistle: An Example of the Combination of Greco-Roman and Judaic Traditions in the Apostle Paul [Studies in Judaism; Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2005], ix n. 2), “My analysis does not deal as extensively with v 17, yet it belongs to this unit.” Aus’s explanation of the other parts of the passage is ingenious but speculative. 2

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Harold W. Attridge’s article on the passage offers both a generally persuasive explanation of 2:14–16 and a rare if very cursory attempt to integrate v. 17.3 According to Attridge, building especially on the work of Paul Brooks Duff, v. 14 references not the military triumph but religious processions partly modeled on the triumph and undertaken in veneration of the likes of Isis and Dionysius.4 Incense and unguents figured importantly in such processions as means of honoring or making manifest the deity. Paul thus imagines himself as “a slave to the triumphing deity, but a slave in his ongoing service, heralding the deity’s approach” by strewing incense, or possibly even as “the vessel in which the fragrant ointment is contained.”5 And what of the peddlers? In the article’s final footnote, Attridge ventures that Paul means to underline that “he is part of the procession itself, not on the sidelines working, as a κάπελος [sic], for gain.”6 While not discounting the latter possibility, I argue in this note for a different understanding of the relationship between 2:14-16 and 2:17. Paul’s reference to peddlers in v. 17 depends, I suggest, on the prominence of spices in the inventory of goods furnished by peddlers. To illustrate their prominence, I draw on evidence from rabbinic literature, which paints a vivid portrait of small-scale commerce that is, to all appearances, typical of the Mediterranean world in which Paul operated. Greek κάπηλος enters into rabbinic literature as the yylypq, a shopkeeper or tavern keeper.7 But it and the related verbal form καπηλεύοντες cover a wide range of mercantile activities, indeed, most anything short of wholesale trade. The itinerant peddler falls within this range.8 Thus, nothing precludes us from supposing

3

Attridge, “Making Scents of Paul: The Background and Sense of 2 Cor 2:14–17,” in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe (ed. John T. Fitzgerald; NovTSup 110; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 71–88. Susan Ashbrook Harvey’s definitive study of olfaction in early Christianity (Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination [Transformation of the Classical Heritage 42; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006], 247 n. 39) cites Attridge’s analysis with approval. 4 See Duff, “Metaphor, Motif, and Meaning: The Rhetorical Strategy behind the Image ‘Led in Triumph’ in 2 Corinthians 2:14,” CBQ 53 (1991): 79–92. 5 Attridge, “Making Scents,” 83. 6 Ibid., 88 n. 63. 7 See Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period (2nd ed.; Dictionaries of Talmud, Midrash, and Targum 2; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2002), 500, s.v. yylypq. On the storekeeper, see BenZion Rosenfeld and Joseph Menirav, Markets and Marketing in Roman Palestine (trans. Chava Cassel; JSJSup 99; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 74-88. According to the online Historical Dictionary of the Hebrew Language (Maagarim) (accessed 3.8.2011), the word is attested only once in tannaitic literature, in t. B. Mesii va 11:30, and then only in ms Erfurt, which often reflects the influence of post-tannaitic literature. 8 See, e.g., Plato, Pol. 289e–290a (trans. Fowler, LCL): “How about those free men who put themselves voluntarily in the position of servants of those whom we mentioned before? I mean the men who carry about and distribute among one another the productions of husbandry and the other arts, whether in the domestic marketplaces or by travelling from city to city by land or

Novick: Peddling Scents

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that Paul has in mind specifically the peddler. The positive evidence for this possibility lies in the close connection between the peddler (lkwr) and aromatics in rabbinic literature.9 Let us consider two illustrative texts, in both of which aromatics serve, as in 2 Cor 2:14–17, as a metaphor for knowledge. The first comes from Abot R. Nat. A, ch. 18 (ed. Schechter, 34a). [R. Judah the Patriarch] called R. Eleazar b. Azarya a peddler’s bundle. And to what was R. Eleazar comparable? To a peddler who took up his bundle and entered a town, and the people of the town came and said to him: Have you fine oil? Have you spikenard oil [Ny+yylwp]?10 Have you balsam [Nwmsrp)]? And they found everything on him. So was R. Eleazar b. Azarya. When the students of the sages would enter beside him, one would ask him about Scripture and he would tell him, about mishnah and he would tell him, about midrash and he would tell him, about legal traditions and he would tell him, about homiletics and he would tell him. Thus when he left him, he would be full of blessed good.11

sea, exchanging money for wares or money for money, the men whom we call brokers, merchants, shipmasters, and peddlers [καπήλους]; do they lay any claim to statesmanship?”; idem, Prot. 313c– d (trans. Lamb, LCL): “And we must take care, my good friend, that the sophist, in commending his wares, does not deceive us, as both merchant and dealer [κάπηλος] do in the case of our bodily food. . . . [T]hose who take their doctrines the round of our cities, hawking [καπηλεύοντες] them about to any odd purchaser who desires them, commend everything that they sell.” The latter text is regularly invoked by proponents of the view that Paul means to characterize his opponents as sophists. For a recent articulation of this position, on which the current note incidentally bears, see George H. van Kooten, “Why Did Paul Include an Exegesis of Moses’ Shining Face (Exod 34) in 2 Cor 3? Moses’ Strength, Well-Being, and (Transitory) Glory, According to Philo, Josephus, Paul, and the Corinthian Sophists,” in The Significance of Sinai: Traditions about Sinai and Divine Revelation in Judaism and Christianity (ed. George J. Brooke et al.; Themes in Biblical Narrative 12; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 149–81, esp. 154–55. 9 If, alternatively, there is sufficient evidence for the salience of spices in commercial inventory even outside the context of the peddler, then the general approach of this essay can be adopted without so circumscribing the intended reference of καπηλεύοντες. I am not confident that such evidence exists, but see, e.g., Persius, Sat. 1.41–43: “Is there anyone who would disown the desire to earn the praise of the people—or, when he’s produced compositions good enough for cedar oil, to leave behind him poetry which has nothing to fear from mackerels and incense?” The translation is from Juvenal and Persius (trans. Susanna Morton Braund; LCL 91), 53. As the editor notes, Persius refers to the practice of preserving worthy books with cedar oil and relegating bad poetry to the shop for use in wrapping purchases, in this case, fish and incense. Persius thus imagines incense as a characteristic product of the shopkeeper. 10 Mishnah Šabb. 6:3 takes up the case of women who bear plates with spikenard oil when they walk in the public domain. From t. Sotiah 15:9 it appears that brides would customarily perfume themselves with such oil. 11 This and the other translations from rabbinic literature in this essay are my own. “Blessed good” (hkrbw bw=+, which I take to be a hendiadys) recurs in a similar curricular context earlier in the same chapter, and in Abot R. Nat. A ch. 8 (ed. Schechter, 18a–b). See the discussion of this passage in Deborah A. Green, The Aroma of Righteousness: Scent and Seduction in Rabbinic Life and Literature (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), 34–36.

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The merchandise that the townspeople seek from the peddler is exclusively aromatic. Of course, insofar as the peddler’s wares stand for the various corpora of the rabbinic curriculum, the parable naturally highlights the more attractive of his bundle’s contents. Nevertheless, we may reasonably suppose that the scene that the parable imagines was plausible, even commonplace, to its audience. That peddlers would have favored perfumes and related aromatics indeed stands to reason: “As the peddler’s load was relatively heavy, we can deduce that most of the products he carried around with him were expensive, but light in weight—mainly perfumes, cosmetics for women, sewing and weaving implements, or expensive cloth.”12 A portrait of the lkwr that is particularly relevant for our passage occurs in Lev. Rab. 16:2 (ed. Margulies, 349–51).13 A story: A peddler was circulating among the villages on the outskirts of Sepphoris, calling out: One who wishes to purchase an elixir of life [Myyx Ms], let him come and take. He entered Akbara, and approached near the house of R. Yannai. The latter was sitting and expounding in his dining room, and heard him calling out: One who wishes to purchase an elixir of life, etc. R. Yannai looked out upon him and said to him: Come up here and sell it to me. He said to him: You have no need of it, neither you nor your kind. But he pestered him about it, so he came up to him and took out a book of Psalms and showed him the verse: “Who is the person who desires life, who wishes to see days of good?” (Ps 34:13). And what is written after it? “Guard your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking treachery. Turn from evil and do good. Seek peace, and pursue it” (Ps 34:14). Said R. Yannai: All my days I have read this passage, but did not know how to expound it, until this peddler came and made it known.

This brief but rich story sets the peddler, hawking popular piety, against R. Yannai, a representative of the rabbinic world (“your kind”). These two circles share a text, but each employs it differently. For the peddler, Scripture, like Proverbs’ wisdom, is a guide for successful living, whereas R. Yannai, expounding in his home, approaches it as a set of textual knots to be solved. The story teaches that the distance between these two perspectives is smaller than some—perhaps some in the rabbinic world specifically—might think. The peddler’s exegesis, though of the simplest, moralizing sort—or rather, precisely because it is of this sort—had eluded R. Yannai. There is a subtle humor, too, in the content of the peddler’s lesson. He warns against speaking evil, or what rabbinic literature elsewhere, on the basis of Ps 34:14 itself, characterizes as (rh Nw#l, “the evil tongue.” But the figure elsewhere

12 Rosenfeld and Menirav, Markets and Marketing, 118–19. While biblical literature (Song 3:6) itself associates the lkwr with spices, there is no basis for supposing that the same association in the rabbinic context is an artificial reflection of the influence of the biblical verse rather than a window onto the economy of Roman Palestine (and the Mediterranean economy more broadly). 13 A rough parallel occurs in b. vAbod. Zar. 19b.


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employed as a symbol of this vice is precisely the peddler, as in the following source (y. Pe 'ah 1:1 [16a]). Said R. Ishmael: “You shall not deal basely [lykr] among your people.” This is slander [twlykr] of the evil tongue. Taught R. Nehiemiah: [the verse instructs] that one should not be like the peddler [lkwr], bearing this one’s words to that one, and that one’s words to this one.

The similarity between the word lykr (rendered here, with the NJPS translation, as “deal basely”) and the word lkwr (“peddler”) encourages R. Nehiemiah, and others elsewhere, to imagine the tale bearer as a peddler, circulating slander among the populace.14 It is therefore appropriate and ironic that R. Yannai’s peddler should fasten precisely on the slanderous tongue.15 What the peddler claims to sell is a Myyx Ms, an elixir or drug of life. This phrase has already entered the scholarship on 2 Cor 2:14–17 in connection with the dual character of the odor in 2 Cor 2:15–16. The aroma of Christ, at once death to the perishing and life to the saved, has been compared to Torah, characterized in various passages in rabbinic literature as a life-giving drug to some (the obedient, or Jews) and poison to others (the disobedient, or Gentiles).16 Some object to this comparison on the ground that, while the word Ms can indicate perfume, in the relevant contexts it refers to a drug.17 While apt, this objection loses much of its force in light of the thorough imbrication of aromas and medicine in antiquity (a phenomenon to which the range of the word Ms itself attests). Aromatic substances 14 This connection may shed light on the origin of the rabbinic usage of qb) (“dust”) in legal contexts in the sense of the extension of a prohibition. Tosefta vAbod. Zar. 1:10 knows of four kinds of “dust”: the dust of usury, of the seventh year, of idolatry, and of the evil tongue. Thus, for example, for an Israelite to transact with a pagan on the day of the latter’s festival is “the dust of idolatry,” that is, indirect support of idol worship (perhaps because the pagan, pleased at the transaction, will more effusively thank his god), and hence forbidden. I tentatively venture that this metaphorical usage of dust originates in connection with the evil tongue specifically: against the background of the wordplay between lkwr and lykr, the reference to lkwr tqb) (“the powder of the merchant”) in Song 3:6 would have suggested twlykr tqb) (“the dust of slander”). 15 The peddler’s suggestion that R. Yannai, expounding Scripture, has no need of the peddler’s lesson, may reflect the opposition between Torah study and the evil tongue preserved in, e.g., t. Pe'ah 1:1–2 (on which see Marc Hirshman, The Stabilization of Rabbinic Culture, 100 C.E.–350 C.E.: Texts on Education and Their Late Antique Context [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009], 21), and in the metaphorical range of Ms, on which see below. The student of Torah knows how to use his tongue for good rather than for evil. 16 See T. W. Manson, “2 Cor 214-17: Suggestions Toward an Exegesis,” in Studia Paulina: In Honorem Johannis de Zwaan Septuagenarii (ed. J. N. Sevenster and W. C. van Unnik; Haarlem: De Ervem F. Bohn; 1953), 155–62. 17 See, e.g., Margaret E. Thrall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, vol. 1, Introduction and Commentary on II Corinthians I–VII (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 206 n. 126; Attridge, “Making Scents,” 75 (noting that Ms is “not exactly a fragrance”).

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figured in almost every drug recipe, and aromas themselves were understood to have a therapeutic effect. Thus, for example, Herodian explains the appeal of the town of Laurentium during a time of plague in Rome as follows. The doctors thought this place was safe because it was reputed to be immune from infectious diseases in the atmosphere by virtue of the redolent fragrances of the laurels and the pleasant shade of the trees. . . . Some said that if sweetsmelling scent filled the sensory passages first, it stopped them from inhaling the polluted air. If an infection were to get in, they said, the scent drove it out by its greater potency.18

It is no coincidence, then, that the rabbinic lkwr peddles both spices and medicines, for spices are themselves medical products. The link between the aromas of 2 Cor 2:15–16 and the peddling of 2:17, and thus the presence of a commercial element in the entire passage, reinforces the connection between this passage and others in the first chapters of the letter.19 In denying in 2:17 that he peddles the word of God, Paul asserts that he acts with sincerity (εἰλικρινείας). The same claim recurs in 1:12, where Paul says that he has behaved “with godly sincerity [εἰλικρινείᾳ], not by earthly [σαρκικῇ] wisdom but by the grace of God.” In tandem, these two verses identify peddling with earthly or fleshly wisdom. Further along in the same context (1:17), Paul again denies that he is motivated by earthly considerations: “Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make plans like a worldly man [κατὰ σάρκα], ready to say Yes and No at once?” There is a structural parallel between the vacillation here and the dual quality of the odor of 2:15–16. This parallel explains why Paul contrasts himself to the peddlers of God’s word in 2:17: though he hawks a product that is, as it were, both Yes and

18 I cite from Béatrice Caseau, “εὐωδία: The Use and Meaning of Fragrances in the Ancient World and Their Christianization (100–900 AD)” (Ph.D. thesis; Princeton University, 1994), 205, which in turn draws on C. R. Whittaker’s translation. Caseau devotes many pages (esp. 194–218) to the relationship between aromas and medicine and notes in her preface (p. ii) that she “chased perfumes from bedrooms to temples, from market-places to closets, in veterinarian [sic] treatises as well as in love poems. The lion’s share, however, was given to medical works. . . . It came as a surprise to me that medicines were fragrant not because the ingredients had an odor that could not be reduced, but because their power to cure was precisely granted to their odor.” The first chapter of J. Innes Miller, The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire: 29 B.C. to A.D. 641 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), also includes much information on the use of spices in medical practice. We may take particular note of Philo’s response (Prov. 71 [trans. Colson, LCL]) to the charge that nature, by producing flowers, tempts to sensuality. Flowers, he contends, “were made to give health, not pleasure. For their properties are infinite; they are beneficial in themselves by their scents, impregnating all with their fragrance, and far more beneficial when used by physicians for compounding drugs.” For Philo, flowers, properly used, are nothing other than medicine. 19 The argument that follows presupposes and supports the unity of the letter’s first seven chapters. On the various positions on this issue, with references to the literature, see Attridge, “Making Scents,” 71 n. 1.


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No, he is no worldly man. Later, in 4:2–3, Paul again returns to the phenomenon of simultaneous, contrastive effect. 2We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cun-

ning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. 3And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing.

Paul, presumably fighting off the accusation that his gospel is obscure or misleading, first insists on its patency and authenticity: he neither schemes nor tampers with (δολοῦντες) God’s word. Ιn short, he does not act the merchant.20 But then he concedes that the word of God is opaque, albeit only to those who are perishing. As in 2:15, Paul distinguishes between the saved and the perishing—the phrase ἐν τοῖς ἀπολλυµένοις occurs in both contexts—and insists that these groups experience the same word differently.21 In all, Paul reflects on the motifs of dual effect and earthly commerce together in 1:17; 2:14–17; and 4:2–3. While the odor imagery of 2 Cor 2:15–16 undoubtedly develops the reference to the triumph in 2:14, this imagery also looks forward to the peddler of 2:17. In light of this link, 2 Cor 2:14–17 emerges as an integrated unit wherein, as twice elsewhere in the first chapters of the epistle, Paul uses a figure of commerce, in this case the peddler, to reflect on the notion of simultaneous contrastive effect. He is no peddler, no worldly man, but, he concedes, there is a kind of double-dealing in his ministry: he proffers, through the same wares, clarity and life to some, obscurity and death to others.

20 It is worth noting that, as one can tamper with or adulterate wine, one can do the same to spices. Caseau (“εὐωδία,” 42–43) observes, “As in contemporary spice markets, spices were often adulterated and mixed with flour or wood dust. Numerous ways to cheat the customers are mentioned in these texts, along with the appropriate tests to check the purity of the products.” See also Sifra Hi ova 13:1 (ed. Weiss, 28a), which includes in a list of commercial frauds not only adulteration of wine with water but also “mingling . . . ass milk in balsam, sand in beans (?), gum in myrrh, grape leaves in folium.” The verb for tampering that Paul employs in 4:2 (and again in 11:13 and 12:16) occurs in Lev 19:16 LXX as the equivalent of lykr, a word that, as noted above, rabbinic literature closely associates with the lkwr. 21 The very first reference to the contrast between sincerity and worldliness in the letter, in 1:12 (noted above), responds to the same complaint addressed in 4:2–3 about the obscurity of the gospel. Thus Paul continues in 1:13–14: “For we write to you nothing but what you can read and understand; I hope you will understand fully, as you have understood in part.” Here, too, Paul concedes that his teaching remains partially veiled, but in this case he distinguishes not between the damned and the saved, but between the present (partial understanding) and the future (full understanding).

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JBL 130, no. 3 (2011): 551–569

How Typical a Roman Prostitute Is Revelation’s “Great Whore”? jennifer a. glancy [email protected] Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY 13214

stephen d. moore [email protected] The Theological School, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940

John of Revelation famously introduces the woman Babylon as a πόρνη (“Come, I will show you the judgment of the great πόρνη,” 17:2; cf. 17:5, 15–16; 19:2). But would early readers or hearers of Revelation have tended to see Babylon, based on John’s description of her, as a typical Roman πόρνη? What were the typical, or stereotypical, traits of a πόρνη by the latter half of the first century c.e.? And how well does Babylon fit the profile? These are the principal questions that animate this article. In pursuing them, we argue that John’s representation of Babylon as a prostitute mimics a pattern of gender-based derision characteristic of coeval Roman writings, a pattern contingent on features of ancient prostitution that we elucidate. Imagining Rome as a prostitute who declares herself empress, John relies on the same logic that informs Roman authors who characterize imperial figures as pimps and whores. In Revelation, however, it is not the empress who is characterized as a prostitute but the empire itself. Ancient Mediterranean sex workers came in two principal types: the πόρνη and the ἑταίρα. The first term might be translated “brothel worker,” “brothel slave,” or, more colloquially, “streetwalker,” depending on the context. The second term is best translated “courtesan.” Although John terms Babylon a πόρνη, scholars have tended to treat her as a ἑταίρα.1 By the beginning of the Common Era, however, the 1

Prominent and typical examples include David E. Aune, Revelation 17–22 (WBC 52C; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 935; Barbara R. Rossing, The Choice between Two Cities: Whore, Bride, and Empire in the Apocalypse (HTS 48; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999), 77–82.

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ἑταίρα was largely a literary construct—“not a historical entity, but a cultural sign,” as classicist Laura K. McClure puts it.2 Even more typical of the scholarly approach to the πόρνη Babylon is recourse to the topos of the harlot in the Hebrew Bible. A parade example is G. K. Beale’s fourteen-page treatment of Rev 17:1–16, which is dense with textual references to OT harlots and their attributes.3 Our point is not that Jewish Scripture is irrelevant to the depiction of the woman Babylon in Revelation, or even that the courtesan topos is irrelevant to it. Our point is rather that the scholarly approach to Babylon has been excessively “bookish.” Reading the myriad commentaries, monographs, and articles on Revelation, one might be forgiven for supposing that the primary, indeed only, knowledge (cultural, if not carnal) that John’s original audiences had of prostitutes was derived either from elite Greek or Latin literary texts or from Jewish Scripture.4 By and large, the social realities of prostitution in the Roman world have not been adduced by such scholars to reconstruct the immediate connotations of the word πόρνη for such audiences—connotations far from the scriptorium or the symposium, as we shall see, and much closer to the πορνεῖον or brothel.5 2 McClure, Courtesans at Table: Gender and Greek Literary Culture in Athenaeus (London/ New York: Routledge, 2003), 5; cf. 169: “[T]he Greek hetaera had become a kind of historical relic, a literary figure associated with . . . bygone literary genres and vanished monuments.” See further Leslie Kurke, Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 178–87, a section entitled “Inventing the Hetaira.” 3 Beale, The Book of Revelation (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 847–61. Apart from a passing reference to Seneca, Beale appeals only to the Hebrew Bible/LXX and ancient extrabiblical Jewish sources in these pages. 4 We agree with Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza that “the rhetorical-symbolic discourse of Revelation clearly understands [Babylon] as an imperial city and not an actual woman” (The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment [2nd ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998], 219). But we suspect that she imputes an overly cerebral experience of the πόρνη metaphor to the original audiences, who coolly process it as a “figure of speech” principally drawn from “the prophetic language of the Hebrew Bible” (ibid., 220). Drawing on conceptual metaphor theory, Lynn R. Huber has insisted with regard both to the imagery of the bride and to the 144,000 male virgins that adequate engagement with Revelation’s metaphoric language necessitates giving full weight to the associations evoked by the “source domain”—which, in this case, would be the familiar figure of the brothel worker or streetwalker. See Huber, Like a Bride Adorned: Reading Metaphor in John’s Apocalypse (Emory Studies in Early Christianity 12; New York: T&T Clark International, 2007); eadem, “Sexually Explicit? Re-reading Revelation’s 144,000 Virgins as a Response to Roman Discourses,” Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality 2 (2008): 3–28. 5 Caroline Vander Stichele does have recourse to real sex workers to interpret the figure of Babylon—those of the famed red-light district of Amsterdam (“Remembering the Whore: The Fate of Babylon According to Revelation 17.16,” in A Feminist Companion to the Apocalypse of John [ed. Amy-Jill Levine; Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings 13; New York: T&T Clark International, 2009], 117–20). Avaren Ipsen similarly relates Revelation 17 to the violence experienced by contemporary sex workers (Sex Working and the Bible [BibleWorld; London: Equinox, 2009], ch. 6), while Jean K. Kim relates it to the Korean “comfort women” forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army (“‘Uncovering Her Wickedness’:

Glancy and Moore: Revelation’s “Great Whore”

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This neglect is, however, understandable. It is only in recent years that the study of prostitution in the ancient Mediterranean world has fully taken off, finally becoming “[more than] a footnote to scholarship on ancient sexuality and gender.”6 The present article is thus an attempt to recontextualize and reread the fraught figure of Babylon, ἡ πόρνη ἡ µεγάλη, in light of the burgeoning body of work on ancient Greek and Roman prostitution. Recognition of the difference between a πόρνη and a courtesan is essential for appreciating the bite of ancient Roman invective. We shall find the woman Babylon’s closest analogue in an altogether unlikely place, the Annals of Tacitus, which will help us comprehend the political valence of John’s reliance on the trope of prostitution.

I. Between the Symposium and the Brothel: Locating Babylon’s Πορνεία Why Babylon Is Not a True Courtesan By the late fourth century b.c.e., the ἑταίρα had become a readily recognizable type in Athenian comic drama in particular, “one that traveled well to nonAthenian theaters scattered throughout the ancient Mediterranean world” and survived into the Roman era to become a fixture in the comedies of Plautus and Terence and the literary symposia of the Second Sophistic authors.7 Classically, such women are celebrated figures, even celebrated wits, who consort with illustrious men and are “distinguished by a famous name.”8 Classically, too, as McClure observes, the ἑταίρα is “maintained by one man in exchange for his exclusive sexual access to her. . . . Alternately seductive and persuasive, providing her services in exchange for gifts, the hetaira perpetually left open the possibility that she might refuse her favors.”9 More specifically, the ἑταίρα, “by definition an unmarriageable woman not under the control of a father, husband or pimp,” made her way in the world “by sexually attracting propertied men. Because of her social and economic independence, her affections had to be won by a prospective lover and could not be permanently controlled.”10 An Inter(con)textual Reading of Revelation 17 from a Postcolonial Feminist Perspective,” JSNT 21 [1999]: 61–81). 6 Laura K. McClure, “Introduction,” in Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World (ed. Christopher A. Faraone and Laura K. McClure; Wisconsin Studies in Classics; Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), 3. 7 McClure, “Introduction,” 15. Further on the role of courtesans in the Second Sophistic symposium, see Graham Anderson, The Second Sophistic: A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman Empire (London/New York: Routledge, 1993), 183–85. 8 McClure, Courtesans at Table, 12; see also eadem, “Introduction,” 7. 9 McClure, “Introduction,” 7; see also eadem, Courtesans at Table, 11. 10 McClure, “Introduction,” 11; see further Sharon L. James, “A Courtesan’s Choreography:

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Already in the classicical period, there is frequent slippage between the terms ἑταίρα and πόρνη, as Leslie Kurke and others have noted,11 a slippage with which we later find certain of Athenaeus’s archaic Athenians wrestling—when they are not gleefully exploiting it: “And so in this instance, you happen to be in love not with a πόρνη, as you say, but a ἑταίρα. But is she really so simple?” (Athenaeus, Deipn. 572b).12 Edward E. Cohen styles the terms πόρνη and ἑταίρα a “complementary antithesis,”13 an elegant formulation that, however, risks eliding the contempt in which the πόρνη was held. As James Davidson observes, the term πόρνη connoted the depersonification, reification, and commodification of women, “their bodies, their time and their services.” The cultural discourse in which the term is enmeshed “is primarily a discourse of contempt.”14 If the ἑταίρα belonged to the symposium, the πόρνη “belonged to the streets: she was the hetaira’s nameless, faceless brothel counterpart, and participated in a type of commodity exchange that continually depersonified and reified.”15 Athenaeus vividly evokes the brutal reality of the πόρνη’s starkly commodified existence: “The women stand naked that you be not deceived. Look at everything. . . . The door is open. One obol. Hop in. There is no coyness, no idle talk, nor does she snatch herself away. But straight away, as you wish, in whatever way you wish. You come out. Tell her to go to hell. She is a stranger to you” (Deipn. 569e–f). It was not only the type of sexual relationship, however, that dis-

Female Liberty and Male Anxiety at the Roman Dinner Party,” in Faraone and McClure, Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World, 224–51; James N. Davidson, Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 109–36 passim. 11 Kurke, Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold, 178; see also K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality: Updated and with a New Postscript (2nd ed.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 21; McClure, Courtesans at Table, 18; and, most recently, Allison Glazebrook and Madeleine M. Henry, “Introduction: Why Prostitutes? Why Greek? Why Now?” in Greek Prostitutes in the Ancient Mediterranean, 800 BCE–200 CE (ed. Allison Glazebrook and Madeleine M. Henry; Wisconsin Studies in Classics; Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2011), 4–8, a section titled “Hetaira versus Pornē.” Unfortunately, this valuable collection appeared too late to allow our article to benefit from it. 12 The translation of Athenaeus’s Deipnosophistae used here and throughout is McClure’s in Courtesans at Table, unless noted otherwise. The Deipnosophistae (late second or early third century c.e.) is an extensive compendium of Greek literary sources unified around the theme of the symposium. 13 Cohen, “Free and Unfree Sexual Work: An Economic Analysis of Athenian Prostitution,” in Faraone and McClure, Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World, 96–97. 14 Davidson, “Consuming Passions: Appetites, Addiction and Spending in Classical Athens” (Ph.D. diss., Trinity College, Oxford University, 1994), 142, quoted in Kurke, Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold, 180. 15 McClure, “Introduction,” 7; see further Davidson, Courtesans and Fishcakes, 118–19. The ἑταίρα, in contrast, participated in an economy of gift exchange, according to Davidson.


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tinguished the ἑταίρα from the πόρνη; it was the number of relationships in addition. As McClure phrases it, the ἑταίρα “expected relative permanence in her liaisons with men and professed fidelity,” whereas the πόρνη was distinguished by the anonymity and sheer number of her sexual partners.16 And this is the primary reason why the woman Babylon in Revelation 17 is not a ἑταίρα in any simple, straightforward sense. John provides no details of her sexual liaisons. He does, however, emphasize that her sexual partners are many. The very first mention of Babylon in Revelation, in which the city is already personified as female, declaims her spectacular promiscuity, even though the epithet πόρνη is not yet applied to her: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all the nations drink from the wine that induces lust for her prostitution/fornication [ἣ ἐκ τοῦ οἴνου τοῦ θυµοῦ τῆς πορνείας αὐτῆς πεπότικεν πάντα τὰ ἔθνη]” (14:8).17 When next she is displayed she is labeled ἡ πόρνη ἡ µεγάλη “with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication [ἐπόρνευσαν], and with whose wine that induces prostitution/fornication [ἐκ τοῦ οἴνου τῆς πορνείας αὐτῆς] the inhabitants of the earth have become drunk” (17:2). Even when the woman subsequently transforms into a city, the image of her promiscuity persists: “because all the nations have drunk her wine that induces prostitution/fornication [πορνείας], and the kings of the earth have committed fornication [ἐπόρνευσαν] with her” (18:3); “And the kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived sensuously with her [οἱ µετ᾽αὐτῆς πορνεύσαντες καὶ στρηνιάσαντες] will weep and wail over her” (18:9). The note of spectacular, earth-encompassing promiscuity is sounded also in the final mention of Babylon in Revelation: “. . . he judged the great πόρνη who corrupted the earth with her prostitution [ἥτις ἔφθειρεν τὴν γῆν ἐν τῇ πορνείᾳ αὐτῆς]” (19:2). In short, and in a fashion that is thoroughly circular, John constructs the sexual activity of Babylon in such a way that the epithet πόρνη will be seen to stick to her. She is a πόρνη, in John’s discourse of contempt, because she has had many sexual partners, and she has had many sexual partners because she is a πόρνη.

Into the Streets A significant feature of Roman prostitution was its high visibility. “What is striking about the topography of Roman prostitution,” notes Thomas McGinn, “is the complete absence of any evidence for . . . moral zoning.”18 Apparent instead is 16 McClure, Courtesans at Table, 14–15; see further Davidson, Courtesans and Fishcakes, 125, 132–33. 17 All translations of Revelation are ours. We are, however, following BDAG (p. 365, s.v. θυµός) and Beale (Book of Revelation, 755) in reading τοῦ θυµοῦ and τῆς πορνείας as genitives of cause, purpose, or result. Rossing translates πορνεία consistently as “prostitution,” the first definition of the term given by LSJ, as she notes (Choice between Two Cities, 65 n. 11), which seems a sound principle to us, maintaining as it does the etymological link between πόρνη and πορνεία. 18 McGinn, “Zoning Shame in the Roman City,” in Faraone and McClure, Prostitutes and

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a wide pattern of both public solicitation and nonbrothel prostitution in places of public entertainment ranging from circuses, theaters, amphitheaters, and other public buildings such as temples and baths, to markets, fairs, festivals, and public spectacles of every kind, and to military encampments and even circuit courts.19 Other common nonbrothel venues for prostitution included inns, taverns, lodging houses, and eating and drinking establishments of every kind, many of them containing dedicated cellae meretriciae, one-room venues for commercial sex.20 Brothels themselves, meanwhile, tended to be freely distributed throughout the Roman city.21 Concomitant with the unrestricted distribution of prostitution in the Roman city was the sheer profusion of prostitutes within it.22 McGinn’s analysis of the material evidence for prostitution across the Roman world turns up far more in the way of recurrent sameness than of regional difference, suggesting a common culture of Roman prostitution, at least in urban locations.23 There is no reason to suppose that sex workers were significantly fewer on the ground in the cities of Asia where the intended audiences of Revelation were located, or that they were less distributed and hence less visible. John’s contemporary Dio Chrysostom, himself a native of the neighboring province of Bithynia, laments the profusion of prostitutes “in dirty booths which are flaunted before the eyes in every part of the city, at the doors of the houses of magistrates and in market-places, near government buildings and temples, in the midst of all that is holiest” (Or. 7.133–34).24 Inscriptions from the Roman era designating or mentioning brothels are rare, yet one such inscription has apparently been found in Roman Ephesus.25 Given the profusion and distribution of sex workers in Roman

Courtesans in the Ancient World, 162. An alternative version of this essay appears as ch. 3 in McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World: A Study of Social History and the Brothel (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998). 19 McGinn, “Zoning Shame in the Roman City,” 162; idem, Prostitution in the Roman World, 22–28. 20 McGinn, “Zoning Shame in the Roman City,” 163; idem, Prostitution in the Roman World, 15–20. 21 McGinn, “Zoning Shame in the Roman City,” 163; cf. idem, Prostitution in the Roman World, 20. 22 This is suggested by the material evidence. See McGinn, Prostitution in the Roman World, 167–219 passim; also McClure, “Introduction,” 18; John R. Clarke, Roman Sex 100 B.C.—A.D. 250 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003), 63–64. 23 McGinn, Prostitution in the Roman World, 220–39. Rebecca Flemming notes that, while prostitutes and brothels were common throughout the empire, significant archaeological evidence for brothels is limited to Italy. We can safely assert that Ephesus, say, had its share of brothels, but we do not know whether they were constructed along lines similar to those of Pompeiian brothels (“Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit: The Sexual Economy of Female Prostitution in the Roman Empire,” JRS 89 [1999]: 43). 24 Trans. J. W. Cohoon, LCL. 25 Carved on an architrave, this fragmentary inscription “mentions a latrine, in connection


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cities, it seems reasonable to us to suppose that the term πόρνη would have conjured up first and foremost in the minds of the urban Christians addressed in Revelation a certain category of flesh-and-blood person that one encountered with considerable frequency in the streets, a fixture of the urban landscape, as opposed to a figure of high literature, or a literary or philosophical topos, or a scriptural type. In other words, the term πόρνη would have evoked a brothel worker in the first instance, not a courtesan or ἑταίρα. But what further and more specific associations might have accompanied that identification? A second significant feature of Roman prostitution is that it was an activity almost universally associated with slaves or other persons on the bottommost rungs of the social ladder. The glamour attaching to certain courtesans in some of the literary sources should not blind us to the fact the typical location of prostitutes on the Roman socioeconomic scale was exceedingly low.26 In common with many other classicists, Cohen contends that, throughout antiquity, the term πόρνη was, for all intents and purposes, a virtual synonym of δούλη, “[female] slave.”27 Roman prostitutes catered to clients who themselves were typically of low status.28 Roman males with sufficient economic means to own slaves “had little reason to frequent brothels,” as John Clarke remarks. “They purchased slaves to fulfill their sexual desires.”29 With regard to the numerous graffiti advertising prostitutes that have been found at Pompeii, Clarke observes: “Analysis of the names of the prostitutes reveals that they were all slaves (both male and female). And their owners were usually ex-slaves.”30 Such appears to have been the case throughout the empire.31 The servile associations of prostitution are crucial to Roman barbs indicting the imperial family for involvement in prostitution, as we shall see. They are also crucial, we will argue, for appreciating the full force of John’s ironic portrayal of Babylon as a πόρνη who services the kings of the earth.

with paidiskēia (scil. ‘brothel facilities’)” (McGinn, Prostitution in the Roman World, 209; cf. 225). See further Werner Jobst, “Das ‘öffentliche Freudenhaus’ in Ephesos,” Jahreshefte des Ősterreichischen archäologischen Institutes in Wien 51 (1976–77): 61–84. The inscription probably dates from the late first century c.e. (Jobst, 65). 26 Flemming, “Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit,” passim; McGinn, Prostitution in the Roman World, 71. 27 Cohen, “Free and Unfree Sexual Work,” 103–8; cf. Kurke, Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold, 178: “The pornē . . . derives her name from the verb pernēmi, ‘to sell’ (especially slaves)”; McClure, Courtesans at Table, 15: “The term pornē originally denoted a brothel slave”; McGinn, Prostitution in the Roman World, 59: “When the ancient evidence registers the status of a prostitute, more often than not she is a slave.” 28 Flemming, “Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit,” 45. 29 Clarke, Roman Sex, 63. 30 Ibid., 64. 31 McGinn, Prostitution in the Roman World, 60; cf. Flemming, “Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit,” 43.

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What can be known of the living conditions of such prostitutes? “Slave prostitutes seem to have been fairly tightly controlled,” writes McGinn, “and the sources often suggest an environment of coercion. It is clear that these prostitutes were expected to live and eat in the brothel and were perhaps permitted to leave only rarely.”32 The prostitute ordinarily worked in a booth or small room (cella) within the brothel.33 Above or next to the cella’s entrance, a small sign (titulus) advertising her price was sometimes placed.34 The prostitute inside the cella was either nude or scantily clad.35 Kelly Olson remarks: “Nudity was the marker of the lowest whore, a woman who was said to be ready for every kind of lust. The whores in a squalid brothel would also be naked, and Juvenal describes this sort of harlot as ‘the whore that stands naked in a reeking archway.’”36 The literary sources describe the brothels as filthy places, although whether the reference is to moral or material filth is sometimes hard to determine.37 Most indicative, however, of the low status of the clients to which such brothels catered were the prices paid for the use of their inmates. Of the sixty-six known examples of such pricing, thirty-eight name prices that are 2.5 asses or lower, with 2 asses (twenty-five examples) being far and away the most typical price.38 To set these sums in context, 2 asses was approximately the price of a loaf of bread, or one-sixth of the daily wage of a male laborer, or slightly more than half of the daily discretionary income of a legionary soldier.39 These, then, would have been some of the principal associations, or cultural connotations, conjured up by the term πόρνη in Rev 17:1–18. To put it mildly, the term would not, in and of itself, have automatically evoked a courtesan in the classical mold, a ἑταίρα. The term would instead have summoned up a denizen of a far more squalid, far more sordid reality—a grimy, street-soiled social reality. But it is not the term alone that would have conjured up that domain. At least one highly prominent feature of Babylon’s description comports with her being labeled a πόρνη, a “brothel worker,” or, better in this instance, “brothel 32

McGinn, Prostitution in the Roman World, 37; cf. 236–37. Ibid., 39; cf. Clarke, Roman Sex, 63. 34 McGinn, Prostitution in the Roman World, 39. 35 Ibid., 40. 36 Kelly Olson, “Matrona and Whore: Clothing and Definition in Roman Antiquity,” in Faraone and McClure, Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World, 195. 37 McGinn, Prostitution in the Roman World, 40. Certain of the sources seem to allow for little ambiguity; Horace, for instance, refers to the “evil-smelling cell” of the brothel (Sat. 1.2.30). Arguably, however, to view the brothel worker’s world as fetid and degraded is to adopt the perspective of our elite sources. Flemming makes the point that we do not know how prostitutes and their customary clients viewed that world (“Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit,” 45–46). 38 McGinn, Prostitution in the Roman World, 42. See further idem, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 267–68, 278–81; Flemming, “Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit,” 48. 39 McGinn, Prostitution in the Roman World, 47, 54. 33


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slave.” On her forehead,40 John tells us, a mysterious name has been inscribed: “Babylon the great, mother of πόρναι and earth’s obscenities [καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ µέτωπον αὐτῆς ὄνοµα γεγραµµένον, µυστήριον, Βαβυλὼν ἡ µεγάλη, ἡ µήτηρ τῶν πορνῶν καὶ τῶν βδελυγµάτων τῆς γῆς]” (17:5).41 Classicist C. P. Jones suggested more than two decades ago that “the author [of Revelation] perhaps imagines the Woman not only as a whore, but as a whore of the most degraded kind, a tattooed slave.”42 He ventures the suggestion in the course of a celebrated article that, among other things, argues convincingly that human branding was virtually unknown in the Roman world but tattooing was far more common than hitherto suspected. In Roman culture, a tattoo was ordinarily “a sign of degradation.”43 Slaves were a class of persons with whom tattoos were especially associated. The forehead is one of the body parts most frequently mentioned in connection with tattoos in the ancient Greek and Latin sources.44 Tattoed inscription could at times be extensive, as in the description of the freedman “who had, not a face, but a narrative on his face, the mark of his master’s harshness” (Diogenes Laertius, Lives 4.46). So established is the practice of punitive facial inscription by the late first century c.e. that Martial can mine it for a vivid metaphor with little fear of being misunderstood: “whatever the heat of my anger brands [inusserit] on you will remain forever and be read throughout the world” (6.26)—words that might aptly be addressed to Babylon in Revelation. Given the profusion of evidence presented by Jones for tattooing in the ancient Mediterranean world, and the close associations with slavery and general degradation entailed in the practice, his suggestion that the πόρνη of Revelation 17 is to be regarded “as a whore of the most degraded kind, a tattooed slave” seems compelling, at least to us.45 McGinn, furthermore, and apparently independently of 40 Ezekiel 9:4–6 is regularly adduced as the major source for this motif. John M. Court, however, sees the reference to the “forehead of a whore” in Jer 3:3 as lying behind it (Myth and History in the Book of Revelation [Atlanta: John Knox, 1979], 141). 41 LSJ lists as among the primary meanings of βδέλυγµα “filth, nastiness.” Cf. BDAG: “gener. someth. that causes revulsion or extreme disgust, a ‘loathsome, detestable thing.’ ” Werner Foerster adds: “. . . a shameless attitude” (“βδελύσσοµαι κτλ.,” TDNT 1:598). All of this we have attempted to evoke with our translation of βδελύγµατα as “obscenities.” 42 C. P. Jones, “Stigma: Tattooing and Branding in Graeco-Roman Antiquity,” JRS 77 (1987): 151. 43 Ibid., 143. 44 Ibid., 142–43. 45 The “headband” hypothesis, however, is not persuasive. R. H. Charles’s assertion in his standard-setting commentary that “Roman harlots wore a label with their names on their brow” (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John [2 vols.; ICC; New York: Scribner, 1920], 2:65; cf. Friedrich Hauck and Siegfried Schulz, “πόρνη κτλ.,” TDNT 6:594: “Like the city harlots of the day, [Babylon] bears its name on a golden head-band”) has been faithfully recycled by commentators ever since in explicating Rev 17:5 (for a recent example, see Ben Witherington III, Revelation [New Cambridge Bible Commentary; Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-

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Jones, takes for granted the fact that facial tattooing (and even branding) would have been part and parcel of the brutal reality of slave prostitution in the Roman world, so that a brothel slave with a punitive facial tattoo would not have been anomalous.46

A Paradoxical πόρνη It might, however, be objected that other facets of Babylon’s description seem nonetheless to justify the traditional preoccupation of commentators with the courtesan topos in identifying her. First and most obvious is her dress: “The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and bedecked with gold and jewels and pearls” (17:4). Babylon lacks the garment that, rightly or wrongly, is often seen as the distinguishing dress not of the ἑταίρα but of the common Roman brothel worker or streetwalker. Certain Roman authors (Horace, Martial, Juvenal, Cicero, Tibullus, Acro, and Titinius) state or, more generally, imply that prostitutes, together with condemned adulteresses, wear the toga.47 And there is nothing to suggest that Babylon is togata. Olson, however, an authority on Roman costume and sumptuary norms, argues that the toga was not the standard dress of such women but only one of many types of dress that they could adopt. Roman prostitutes, indeed, could “appear in everything from expensive clothing down to little (or no) clothing at all.”48 A character in Plautus’s Epidicus enthuses over a certain meretrix who happens to be dressed rather similarly to the πόρνη Babylon: “But the way she was dressed, bejeweled, bedecked, sir—so charmingly, so tastefully, so stylishly!” (191–92).49 This

versity Press, 2003], 219), despite doubts that such a practice ever existed having been voiced even within Revelation scholarship itself (see, e.g., J. Massyngberde Ford, Revelation: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary [AB 38; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975], 279). 46 McGinn, Prostitution in the Roman World, 37 n. 159. Alone among recent commentators, so far as we can discover, Aune quotes Jones’s proposal that Babylon’s forehead inscription signifies that she is to be regarded as a tattooed slave (Revelation 17–22, 936), but he does so only in passing, possibly because his research has not adequately prepared him to hear the term πόρνη as already implying slavery, so that the facial tattoo merely makes explicit what is already implicit in the epithet. 47 In the case of prostitutes, the toga would probably suggest that their bodies, like those of men (although on different grounds), are located in the public domain; so, e.g., Eve D’Ambra, Roman Women (Cambridge Introduction to Roman Civilization; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 4; Anne Duncan, “Infamous Performers: Comic Actors and Female Prostitutes in Rome,” in Faraone and McClure, Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World, 270. 48 Olson, “Matrona and Whore,” 194; see further her Dress and the Roman Woman: SelfPresentation and Society (London/New York: Routledge, 2008), 47–51. 49 Cited in ibid., 194.


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meretrix, however, is plying her trade at the city gate,50 a locale more suggestive of the common prostitute than the classic courtesan. Lavish female dress was not only compatible with slave status; such attire was among the tricks of the sex trade. In the Ephesian Tale of Xenophon of Ephesus, for instance, the heroine Anthia, sold into slavery, is compelled to exhibit herself in front of the brothel decked out in beautiful clothes and weighed down with jewelry (5.7). In short, Babylon’s lavish dress does not cancel out the servile connotations of the term πόρνη or the (tattooed?) inscription on her forehead. What of Babylon’s cup? “The woman . . . was holding in her hand a golden cup [ποτήριον]” (17:4; cf. 18:6). Somewhat surprisingly, the scholars who have recourse to the courtesan topos to explicate the details of Babylon’s portrayal do not tend to highlight the cup as contributing to it.51 Yet what could be more emblematic of the symposium, the drinking party, and hence, by extension, of the courtesan? But the courtesan topos called for the ἑταίρα to be a model of decorum at table, at least as far as table manners, including moderation, were concerned.52 Babylon does not typify a courtesan in her relationship to the cup, however (even aside from the cup’s singularly unappetizing contents), for that relationship is marked by drunkenness: “And I saw the woman drunk [µεθύουσαν]” (17:6). Of course, it is not as ἑταίρα but as πόρνη that Babylon is labeled in the text. What might the cup connote in relation to the latter term? Πόρναι in the Roman world were hardly strangers to situations in which alcohol flowed freely and drunkenness reigned—and not only because taverns and other drinking establishments were places where πόρναι regularly plied their trade. Ἑταίραι may have been regular fixtures at dinner parties in literary and philosophical works, but πόρναι/scorta contributed to the edgy, sexually charged atmosphere of many actual Roman dinner parties.53 Vulgar Babylon, emblazoned with her degrading tattoo permanently proclaiming her availability to service all and sundry for a price, and drunkenly clutching her wine cup, would be a better fit with such a rowdy dinner party than with the more refined dinner parties staged in the elite literary sources. Yet discrepancies remain. In the final analysis, the figure of Babylon is not simply reducible to the lowest-status Roman sex worker, the tattooed brothel slave. Even apart from the fact that her clientele includes “the kings of the earth,” there is 50

“When I come to the gate I—yes, sir—I see her waiting there, and four flute girls [tibicinae] along with her” (Epid. 217). The flute girl is regularly a type of prostitute in both Greek and Latin comedy; see further McClure, Courtesans at Table, 21–22. 51 Rossing comes closest, as far as we know; see her Choice between Two Cities, 77–80 passim. 52 So James, “Courtesan’s Choreography,” 241. McClure would concur (Courtesans at Table, 119). 53 McGinn, Prostitution in the Roman World, 27.

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the line—the one line—attributed to her, which must also be factored into any elucidation of her portrait: “I sit as a queen/empress [κάθηµι βασίλισσα], and I am not a widow, and I shall never see mourning” (18:7; cf. Isa 47:8). Not only does she sit, indeed, but she is enthroned. Barbara Rossing notes, “ ‘The one seated’ or ‘enthroned’ (ἡ καθηµένη, Rev 17:1, 3, 9, 15) is the most frequent label for Babylon in Revelation 17–18, culminating in Babylon’s audacious boast that ‘I sit as a queen.’”54 Revelation 17–18 presents us, then, with the paradox of an enthroned πόρνη. And it is precisely the combination of lowly and exalted elements in that paradoxical portrait that any adequate construal of it must ultimately hold in tension. This brings us to the final section of our study.

II. Imperial Whore, Savage Whore: Babylon and Messalina What the paradoxical figure of Babylon would have evoked for first-century audiences, we would argue, is not the social type of the brothel slave, pure and simple, not yet the literary topos of the courtesan, pure and simple—although in contrast to most previous scholarship we would see her as closer to the former than to the latter. Rather, we have come to understand the fraught figure of Babylon as something more akin to the Roman empress Messalina as refracted through the prurient popular imagination and its literary distillations and elaborations. Juvenal, for instance, labels Messalina meretrix augusta, “whore-empress,” as we shall see, an epithet no less applicable to the complex amalgam of exalted and abject elements that is the βασίλισσα/πόρνη of Revelation 17–18. “To adapt a conceit familiar from anthropology,” Roman authors as different as Juvenal, Tacitus, and John of Revelation “found prostitutes convenient to think with,”55 and to think about empire in particular. To appreciate the impact of associating an empress—or emperor—with prostitution requires us once again to recognize that in the Roman world prostitutes were primarily associated not with the rarefied world of the ἑταίρα but with the commodified sale of sex. Although representations of Messalina offer the most vivid and direct analogues to John’s Babylon, such representations acquire resonance from their locaRossing, Choice between Two Cities, 66. The verb κάθηµι is a theologically and politically pregnant one in Revelation, God preeminently and paradigmatically being “the one seated [ὁ καθήµενος] on the throne” (Rev 4:2, 9–10; 5:1, 7, 13; 6:16; 7:10, 15; 19:4; 20:11; 21:5). Rossing thus suggests that “the portrait of the enthroned prostitute in Rev 17:1–4 is structured as a deliberate contrast to God’s great throne room scene in Revelation 4” (ibid., 67). 55 The quoted phrases are from McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law, 348. McGinn himself, however, is referring not to Roman authors but to Roman legislators. 54


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tion in a wider pattern of Roman discourse associating the emperors and their families with prostitution. The younger Seneca, for instance, claims that Augustus’s daughter Julia was so promiscuous that the emperor, famously the initiator of family-values legislation, had her categorized as a prostitute (Ben. 6.32.1). Seneca salaciously claims that Julia met men for anonymous sex in the very Forum where Augustus had proposed his strict legislation on adultery. Sexual invective is standard fare in Roman political discourse.56 Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars reads at times like a catalogue of depravity. Concerning Caligula, Suetonius writes, “The story so far has been of Caligula the emperor, the rest must be of Caligula the monster” (Cal. 22).57 Tales of Caligula’s pleasure in sexual humiliation run parallel to tales of his pleasure in cruelty. Suetonius’s claim that Caligula profited from prostitution, however, occurs not in the context of Caligula’s manifold sexual excesses but in the context of his manifold schemes to swell his coffers, schemes ranging from outright robbery to a tax on prostitution (Cal. 38–42). But according to Suetonius, Caligula did not stop there. Thinking to turn a tidy profit, Caligula established a brothel (lupanar) in the imperial palace on the Palatine (Cal. 41).58 Respectable women and young men offered their services, supposedly, or were coerced to do so, in the brothel’s wellappointed cubicles.59 Through this lurid description, Suetonius effectively characterizes the emperor as a pimp. We are not concerned here with the question of whether the report reflects historical events.60 For purposes of our argument, what is significant is Suetonius’s reliance on the degrading associations of the sex trade in his litany of Caligula’s acts in an orgy of greed—greed that tellingly assumes an erotic sheen: “Finally, seized with a passion for handling money, he [Caligula] would often walk with bare feet on the huge heaps of gold pieces he had piled up in the most public places and sometimes he would even roll about in them with his whole body” (Cal. 42). Suetonius’s characterization of Caligula as Pimp of pimps emerges seamlessly from his critique of the monster-emperor who has reduced the respectable citizens

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For a broad introduction to the topic, see Jennifer Wright Knust’s essential Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity (Gender, Theory, and Religion; New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), esp. ch. 1. 57 Translation from Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars (trans. Catharine Edwards; Oxford World’s Classics; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 58 For an analysis of Suetonius’s narrative of the brothel and other ancient references to it, see Thomas McGinn, “Caligula’s Brothel on the Palatine,” EMC 42 n.s. 17 (1998): 95–107. 59 McGinn writes: “Dio elaborates on the particular about the matronae ingenuique, describing them as ‘the wives of the leading citizens and the children of upper-class men’ and adding a spicy detail: some were willing, some not” (“Caligula’s Brothel,” 95). 60 McGinn is more inclined than we are to accept the tale of Caligula’s brothel as historical fact.

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of Rome to the status of slaves and even of brothel slaves, to be used and abused at his pleasure. John’s characterization of Babylon as πόρνη both participates in and disrupts this pattern of discourse, as we shall see. Even more memorable than the pimp-emperor is the whore-empress. In an elegant and incisive essay, classicist Sandra Joshel traces the process whereby “[t]he name of a particular woman, Valeria Messalina, becomes the proper name for uncontrolled female sexuality” in ancient Roman literature, above all that of Tacitus and Juvenal.61 Uncovering the “historical” Messalina is not Joshel’s aim, however, even if that were possible; rather, it is “the politics of a particular intersection of gender and empire” that intrigues her (and us).62 This “whore-empress” (meretrix augusta), declaims Juvenal, speaking transparently of Messalina, would leave her husband Claudius snoring unsuspectingly in the marital bed while she stole forth stealthily from the palace by night: Like that, with a blonde wig hiding her black hair, she went inside a brothel [lupanar] reeking of ancient blankets to an empty cubicle—her very own. Then she stood there, naked and for sale, with her nipples gilded, under the trade name of “She-Wolf ” [tunc nuda papillis/prostitit auratis titulum mentita Lyciscae], putting on display the belly you came from, noble-born Britannicus. She welcomed her customers seductively as they came in and asked for their money. Later, when the pimp [leno] was already dismissing his girls, she left reluctantly, waiting till the last possible moment to shut her cubicle, still burning with her clitoris inflamed and stiff [adhuc ardens rigidae tentigine vulvae]. She went away, exhausted by the men but not yet satisfied, and a disgusting creature, she took back to the emperor’s couch the stench of the brothel. (Sat. 6.116–35)63

Note the details of a rank-and-file Roman sex worker’s circumstances evoked by Juvenal: the cubicle, the sign (titulus) announcing the brothel worker’s name (or at least her nom de guerre), her displayed nudity, and the presence of her pimp (leno). Joshel argues that although Juvenal’s Messalina appears as the climax to a catalogue “of women’s flaws,” the poet nonetheless “projects elements of an imperial discourse onto her.”64 In other words, he stages a pornographic display of a politicized female body. The insatiable lust for power and territory endemic to empire is figured in the 61

Sandra R. Joshel, “Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire: Tacitus’s Messalina,” in Roman Sexualities (ed. Judith P. Hallett and Marilyn B. Skinner; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 222. As the title of the essay suggests, it is Tacitus’s rather than Juvenal’s Messalina that is its principal subject, although Juvenal’s also plays an important role in it. Specifically, her primary focus is Tacitus, Ann. 11.1–4, 12, 26–38, written more than half a century after Messalina’s death. 62 Joshel, “Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire,” 222. 63 LCL translation, modified (Juvenal and Persius, ed. and trans. Susanna Morton Braund [LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004]). 64 Joshel, “Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire,” 248.


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transgressive body of a “whore-empress” who turns tricks not in order to survive but only to feed her voracious lust. The political critique implicit in Tacitus’s representation of Messalina is still more sharply honed. The signal feature of his Messalina is that she is a figure of excess.65 Bored by adultery, which she finds all too unchallenging, Messalina is, in Tacitus’s terms, “flowing out into untried lusts [ad incognitas libidines profluebat]” (11.26.1). Ultimately, says Tacitus, she desires “the magnitude of the infamia that is the last source of pleasure for the licentious” (11.26.6). In short, although empress, she burns to embrace the social status of the scortum or prostibula, and to wallow shamelessly in it.66 As such, her desire is also chaotic, in accordance with “a commonplace of Roman moral rhetoric that associates uncontrolled female sexuality with chaos.”67 Such chaotic excess connotes a collapse of social hierarchy. In this case, the topmost reaches of the social order have toppled into the gutter.68 Messalina’s desire is also a violent desire, on Tacitus’s construction. A Tacitan mouthpiece, “one of those typically unnamed Tacitan speakers,” epitomizes this characterization in labeling her a “savage whore” (saevienti impudicae, 13.43.5).69 Tacitus’s representation of Messalina is of a hyper-promiscuous woman whose sexual voracity veers over into outright savagery: another index of the excessiveness of her desire. Her former lover, Mnester, bears the scars of floggings apparently administered by the empress herself (11.36.1–2). Men and even women “lose their lives to her lust for bodies and things.”70 “Many murders [are] perpetrated at Messalina’s orders [multasque mortis iussu Messalinae patratas]” (Ann. 11.26.4). In terms of genre, the Annals of Tacitus is, of course, cultural worlds apart from the Revelation to John—and that is not all that divides them. However critical Tacitus may be of individual Roman emperors and even of the principate itself, he is devoted to Rome and its glory, while John, to put it mildly, is not. Where the two works intersect, however, is in their respective treatments of sex and gender as they relate to empire. Notwithstanding the opaque apocalyptic genre in which it is enmeshed, Revelation’s treatment of these themes is, paradoxically, more transparent than that of the Annals. What is embedded in Tacitus’s historical narrative, 65

See ibid., 230. This is a role that Messalina plays also in Pliny, Nat. 10.172; Juvenal, Sat. 6.115–32; and Dio Cassius, Hist. Rom. 61.31.1, as Joshel notes (“Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire,” 231). On Roman prostitutes as infames, “without reputation,” see Catharine Edwards, “Unspeakable Professions: Public Performance and Prostitution in Ancient Rome,” in Hallett and Skinner, Roman Sexualities, 66–95; as well as Duncan, “Infamous Performers.” 67 Joshel, “Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire,” 231. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid., 232. 70 Ibid. Further on the savagery of Messalina, see Ann. 11.28.2; 11.32.6; cf. Dio Cassius, Hist. Rom. 14.3; 15.5, 18; 22.4–5; 60.8.5. 66

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requiring a skillful critic such as Joshel to prise it out, is displayed on the surface of Revelation’s apocalyptic narrative: in contrast to the Annals, Revelation’s tale of the wicked woman is explicitly said to be an allegory of the evil empire: “And the woman that you saw is the great city which has imperium [βασιλείαν] over the kings of the earth” (17:18).71 In the implicitly allegorical figure of Tacitus’s Messalina as in the explicitly allegorical figure of John’s Babylon, “empire is mapped on the uncontained, overflowing body of a woman. Its lack of limits echoes the extension of the geographic boundaries of empire as well as the long-held Roman vision of empire as boundless.”72 The allegory entails gender transformation in accordance with an implacable cultural script that reflexively codes excess as feminine. In both the Annals and Revelation, absolute imperial power—which is also hyperbolic masculine power—is represented as a promiscuous, voracious, and violent feminine desire. The monstrous spectacle of a sexualized woman utterly out of control serves as a trope for imperial autocracy—absolute power exercised to excess, entirely without restraint. The violent nature of Babylon’s desire invites further reflection. Entire nations are drunk with lust (θυµός) for Babylon as a result of her boundless promiscuity (14:8; 17:2; 18:3, 9; 19:2), as we noted earlier. She herself, however, is drunk on violence. The golden cup she clutches in her hand is “full of abominations/obscenities and the impurities/filth of her prostitution [γέµον βδελυγµάτον καὶ τὰ ἀκάθαρτα τῆς πορνείας αὐτῆς]” (17:4). That loathsome decoction is almost immediately decoded as deadly violence: “And I saw the woman drunk on the blood of the saints and the blood of Jesus’ witnesses [µεθύουσαν ἐκ τοῦ αἵµατος τῶν ἁγίων καὶ ἐκ τοῦ αἵµατος τῶν µαρτύρων Ἰησοῦ]” (17:6; cf. 19:2). This savage feast of blood is subsequently and hyperbolically extended—in a paroxysm of excess, as it were—to “all who have been slaughtered on earth [πάντων τῶν ἐσφαγµένων ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς]” (18:24), corresponding to the earlier hyperbolic identification of those who have become drunk on the wine of her prostitution simply as “those dwelling on earth [οἱ κατοικοῦντες τὴν γῆν]” (17:2). Her lust is a lust for violence that intoxicates and infects the entire inhabited world. For the relationship between imperium and βασιλεία, see Stephen D. Moore, Empire and Apocalypse: Postcolonialism and the New Testament (Bible in the Modern World 12; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006), 38, 99. That Tacitus and John turn out to share a common gender ideology coheres with the analysis of Revelation offered by feminist critics such as Tina Pippin; see, e.g., her “The Heroine and the Whore: The Apocalypse of John in Feminist Perspective,” in From Every People and Nation: The Book of Revelation in Intercultural Perspective (ed. David Rhoads; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 129: “The subversive text of the Apocalypse subverts the status quo of the political realm and the status quo of the religious realm—the political and religious realities of the Roman Empire—but it subverts Rome without subverting or changing or challenging the typical gender relations in the culture and without empowering the ‘collective female.’” 72 Joshel, “Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire,” 247. 71


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Although a figure of lust, then, Babylon is not (necessarily) an active subject of sexual desire. Along with her desire for blood, she also craves acclaim and wealth; her sins are characterized as self-magnification and luxurious living (18:5–7). She is voracious, but is she sexually voracious? Babylon is a thoroughly ambiguous figure. She effectively manipulates the sexual desires of men to feed her bottomless appetites for blood and luxury goods.73 Juvenal creates an empress so sexually hungry—and perverse—that she turns tricks in a common brothel. Yet this does not imply that Roman sex workers were widely believed to be in the sex trade to satisfy their erotic longings.74 To read Babylon as seeking sexual gratification through promiscuity is to read her through later, largely christianized lenses. John rather presents her as a degraded woman who achieves international infamy and a sumptuous style of living by preying on the desires of powerful men. Although she is marked as a slave—perhaps the slave of the beast?75—there are nonetheless hints of the pathetic in her profession. Does she whore to sate her own lust (for sex or for blood), or to amass finery, or for fear of a savagely violent pimp (if that indeed is what the beast is—a well-founded fear, as we shall discover)? Returning to Tacitus’s Messalina, we note that Tacitus’s strategies for encaging and containing the rampaging female monster he has created are also those of John of Revelation. “Tacitus oscillates between his need for a powerful female voice and his reluctance to describe or quote female speech,” writes Joshel.76 On the one hand, Tacitus’s narrative “cannot work without the power of Messalina’s voice.” On the other hand, his narrative seeks to minimize the power of her voice by reducing it to its effects (seduction, murder, and general disorder).77 As a result, Messalina’s speech “is banished to the interior spaces” of Tacitus’s narrative world.78 Babylon, too, is all but mute. John allows her only one line, as we noted earlier. Ironically it is a line that declares her sovereignty—“I sit as a queen/empress [βασίλισσα]” (18:7)—even as her otherwise voiceless role declares the stark limits of that sovereignty, at least within the world of the narrative. And yet John’s 73

McGinn observes that “in many cultures prostitution can serve as a metaphor for a voracious, almost limitless mode of consumption that merges the sexual and the material” (Prostitution in the Roman World, 53–54). 74 Roman writers who accorded even scant attention to the question of why women entered prostitution understood the rationale as economic. For discussion and exceptions, see Flemming, “Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit,” 41–43. 75 The dragon, the sea beast, and the land beast exist in a hierarchical relationship: the sea beast serves the dragon (Rev 13:2b, 4), while the land beast serves the sea beast (13:12–17). Where does Babylon fit in the hierarchy? Does her forehead inscription (17:5), evocative of slave tattoos, as we have seen, together with the fact that she is eventually the victim of deadly violence on the part of the (sea) beast and its underlings (17:16–17), suggest that she is subservient to the beast? 76 Joshel, “Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire,” 234. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid.

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characterization of her presupposes not just a voice but an incomparably powerful voice, the most authoritative voice in John’s world: “And the woman whom you saw is the great city which has imperium [βασιλείαν] over the kings of the earth” (17:18). Like Messalina’s voice in the Annals, however, Babylon’s voice is banished to the interior spaces of Revelation’s narrative world, so that we hear only its echoes. To put it another way, John is careful to ensure that the βασίλισσα is subsumed in the πόρνη. Ancient Roman sex workers “cannot tell us their story,” notes McGinn, speaking of the real women and girls behind the male-generated literary and legal sources.79 One reason they cannot is that even when they are fictional characters in those sources, they may be systematically silenced, even—or especially—when simultaneously endowed with terrifying power. Such is the case with the πόρνη Babylon. Silencing is but the beginning, however. Not only does Tacitus set forth the problem—the category error of an empress who is a brothel worker—but he also provides the solution. He structures a narrative that not only silences this female embodiment of anarchic disorder but annihilates her altogether. Like John of Revelation, Tacitus is adept at the creation of monsters. He parades for “the gaze of his male readers the all-encompassing wickedness of the castrating woman.” The fear evoked by this monstrous image, however, “is relieved by a narrative that hunts her down. Step by step, Tacitus drains her of sexuality and life until she becomes a corpse.”80 Driven to suicide but too depleted even to complete the act, Messalina is run through by a tribune’s sword. When her death is announced at dinner, Claudius does not bother to ask its cause but keeps on eating. This final depersonalizing indifference is but the logical conclusion of a narrative designed to evoke, exorcise, and erase the empire-unraveling chaos of an empress turned whore. John’s strategy is structurally parallel to that of Tacitus, but it also has its own distinctive features. The story of Babylon’s demise is the story of a great many sex workers in every age, including our own. She is the victim of deadly violence on the part of her clients and, we have suggested, her pimp, the beast: “And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will loathe the whore, and they will ravage her and strip her naked, and they will devour her flesh and burn her with fire [οὗτοι µισήσουσιν τὴν πόρνην, καὶ ἠρηµωµένην ποιήσουσιν αὐτὴν καὶ γυµνήν, καὶ τὰς σάρκας αὐτῆς φάγονται, καὶ αὐτὴν κατακαύσουσιν ἐν πυρί]” (17:16).81 The ten horns 79

McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law, 9. Joshel, “Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire,” 247. 81 Tina Pippin was the first to accord this troubling verse the attention it deserves, beginning with her Death and Desire: The Rhetoric of Gender in the Apocalypse of John (Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992), 57–68 passim. See further Vander Stichele, “Remembering the Whore,” which extends Pippin’s trajectory. In common with the present article, these readings contrast with that of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, who resists the attribution to Revelation of a pernicious gender ideology; see most recently her The 80


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have earlier been identified as “ten kings” (17:12), and thus may plausibly be numbered among “the kings of the earth” who have previously availed of the sexual services of the “great πόρνη” (17:2–3; 18:3, 9). They now have their revenge on their seductress, and even her owner has no further use for her, apparently, apart from providing this grim object lesson in how to deal with a whore.

III. Conclusions John’s Babylon is no ordinary πόρνη. As prodigious in her allure as in her appetites, she could not be confused with the impoverished and servile women and girls who typically serviced clients in brothels throughout the Roman Empire. We have nonetheless argued that it is important to come to terms with John’s identification of her not as ἑταίρα but as πόρνη. Unlike a ἑταίρα loyal to a single man, Babylon is spectacularly promiscuous, servicing all the kings of the earth. With her name emblazoned on her forehead, she is implicitly marked as a slave, like so many fleshand-blood brothel workers of the empire. Yet at the same time, Babylon calls herself a queen/empress. Paradoxically, the πόρνη Babylon’s very claim to imperial status underscores the importance of locating her in the context of the servility and squalor of the Roman sex trade. Sexual invective was standard in Roman political discourse. A recurrent feature of that invective was association of members of the imperial family with prostitution, a pattern of invective contingent on identifying the most powerful figures of the empire with debased and dishonorable sexual practices. Babylon is thus a “whore-empress,” both like and unlike Messalina, who was labeled meretrix augusta. Juvenal relies on quotidian details of a Roman sex worker’s existence—the stench of the brothel, the commodifying display of its denuded human wares—to emphasize the empress’s moral turpitude. Similarly, the impact of John’s representation of Babylon is contingent on the audience’s recognition of the degradations to which enslaved brothel workers were subjected, including tattooed foreheads and perpetual vulnerability to violence. John’s representation of a whore seated as empress is designed to indict the empire itself, and this representation gains resonance from its location in the wider pattern of sexual invective characteristic of Roman political discourse. Understanding Babylon as βασίλισσα, we argue, requires that we give full weight to John’s designation of her as πόρνη.

Power of the Word: Scripture and the Rhetoric of Empire (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 130–47 passim. Rossing’s position is related: “While not disagreeing that Revelation’s violence poses ethical problems, I argue that the violence [in Rev 17:16] is directed primarily against a city’s landscape, not against a woman” (Choice between Two Cities, 90 n. 89; cf. 87–97 passim). For the limitations of this approach, see n. 4 above.

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JBL 130, no. 3 (2011): 571–591

Eschatology and the Emotions in Early Christianity stephen c. barton [email protected] Durham University, Durham DH1 3RS, United Kingdom

I. The Emotions: A Missing Element in the Study of Early Christianity Academic interest in the study of the emotions has grown considerably in recent years. Already an obvious focus of research for the biological sciences, the emotions have gained the attention also of the humanities and the social sciences. Witness developments in such cognate disciplines as philosophy, classical studies, history, social anthropology, and social psychology.1 By way of contrast, especially if standard reference works are any indication, study of the emotions has attracted relatively little attention in studies of early Christianity.2 The main exception is in the field of rhetorical criticism, where the attempt is made, drawing on Aristotelian For critical feedback I am grateful to the members of the Durham-Tübingen Symposium on Eschatology, September 16–20, 2009, the Biblical Studies Seminar of the Faculty of Divinity at Edinburgh University, and the New Testament Research Seminar at Durham University. Individual advice has come also from John Barclay, Douglas Davies, James Harrison, Paul Holloway, Walter Moberly, Christopher Rowland, and Francis Watson. 1 Evidence of the explosion of academic emotions research is cited in John Corrigan, Religion and Emotion: Approaches and Interpretations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 1–31. 2 I note, for example, that there are no entries on “emotion” or “passion” in The Dictionary of New Testament Background (ed. Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000). To date, I have come across only two monographs on emotions in the NT. The first is Stephen Voorwinde, Jesus’ Emotions in the Fourth Gospel: Human or Divine? (Library of New Testament Studies; London: T&T Clark International, 2005); his focus is doctrinal, that is, on the significance of Jesus’ emotions for Johannine christology and soteriology. The second is Matthew A. Elliott, Faithful Feelings: Rethinking Emotion in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006),

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categories, to identify the pathos—that is, the intended emotional effects on readers or hearers—of particular NT texts.3 Arguably, this neglect reflects a scholarly preoccupation in academic theology with matters of doctrinal, historical, and textual reconstruction. Arguably also, however, it reflects a certain myopia with respect to approaches to human perception and cognition that take seriously the expressive and cognitive resources of the emotions and the realm of the experiential.4 Allied with this may be the effects of a bias against Enthusiasmus in the history of Christianity in some quarters. In addition, in philosophy and the history of ideas generally, there has been a recurring tendency in the modern period to build a wall between reason and emotion, the Cartesian tendency being to posit emotion as a threat to reason (and, along with reason, ethics), as opposed to the tendency in Romanticism to exalt emotion at reason’s expense. In consequence, in the study of early Christianity, the ways in which belief and practice may have generated a distinctive emotional life (both individual and corporate) and the ways in which Christian emotional life may have affected belief and practice have been somewhat overlooked. Symptomatic of the problem is the way Klaus Berger curiously does all he can to play down any element of affectivity in Paul, as in the following statement: For Paul, new creation (dying in baptism and subsequent new being—cf. Rom 6:4–6; 12:2) is not a matter of feelings, of inner experience or certainty. Pauline Christianity has nothing to do with psychology of this sort. Thus Paul is a firm opponent of the modern union between pietism and psychology. . . . Paul hardly ever brings the new existence of the Christian into positive relationship with feelings, with emotionality, or with inner longings. Indeed he is deeply suspicious of all such notions. One can thus hazard the thesis that Paul in his anthropology and theology is a resolute rationalist, fully in accord with Hellenistic Judaism. . . . Between reason, on the one hand, and ecstasy, on the other, there is “missing” (or

a general work somewhat lacking in analytical and exegetical depth. For a relevant recent survey article on Paul, see David E. Aune, “Passions in the Pauline Epistles: The Current State of Research,” in Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought (ed. John T. Fitzgerald; London: Routledge, 2008), 221–37. 3 For the study of Pauline rhetoric in this regard, see Paul and Pathos (ed. Thomas H. Olbricht and Jerry L. Sumney; SBLSymS 16; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001). 4 Among the exceptions to this are James D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and Charismatic Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament (NTL; London: SCM, 1975); Luke Timothy Johnson, Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity: A Missing Dimension in New Testament Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998); Klaus Berger, Identity and Experience in the New Testament (trans. Charles Muenchow; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003); and, most recently, Petra von Gemünden, Affekt und Glaube: Studien zur Historischen Psychologie des Frühjudentums und Urchristentums (NTOA/SUNT 73; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009).

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so we would say) in Paul the subjective middle of feelings, uniquely private needs, positive perceptions, and direct awareness of one’s corporeality.5

Berger’s statement is a salutary—although to my mind rather overstated—reminder of the rational-juridical “mode of thinking” that Paul shares with (at least some of) his contemporaries in Hellenistic Judaism, and of the danger of “psychologizing” Paul by attributing to him a subjectivity that is alien. I do not think, however, that Berger’s should be the last word, in relation either to Paul or to the first Christians generally. The aim of this study therefore is to open up the question of the impact of early Christian belief and practice on the construction and display of the emotions and to do so against the backdrop of cultures of the emotions in the Greco-Roman world. The kinds of questions I have in mind as an agenda for research are these: Is there a connection between developments in early Christian eschatological faith and the first Christians’ emotional life? Does the evident cognitive and psychosocial turbulence generated by conversion, belief in the resurrection, and worship of the risen Lord find an echo in any kind of disturbance of the taken-for-granted emotional regimes of antique culture? Does the creativity associated with new creation in Christ and experience of the Spirit correspond to changes in the ways Christians relate to the world through their bodies? What is the impact of “visions and revelations of the Lord” (2 Cor 12:1) on early Christian affect? Was early Christian emotionality in any way a means of resistance to traditional social patterns, beliefs, moral values, hierarchies, gender constructions, and so on? Did early Christian eschatological polity play a role in the shaping of early Christian feelings and understandings of the self? Obviously, it is not possible to respond to such a full agenda in one essay, but the items on the agenda are, I believe, worth registering. In the present work, and taking the emotion of grief as a case study, the thrust of my argument is that there is a prima facie case for the claim that early Christian eschatological faith corresponded in complex ways with a changed and “charged” emotional life, with the relation of the body both to itself and to the world as a matter for discovery, reinterpretation, discipline, and expression. As a methodological corollary, I seek to demonstrate that perspectives from the social sciences—precisely because of the wisdom they offer in interpreting the ways humans respond in social, symbolic, and material interaction in diverse times and places—may enable us to engage the subject of early Christian emotions at greater depth and with greater analytical sophistication than has been the case hitherto. In undertaking this task, and following the example of classicists such as Martha Nussbaum and David Konstan, I am not distinguishing in any methodologically significant way between speaking of the “emotions” and speaking of the 5

Berger, Identity and Experience, 128–30.

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“passions.”6 As John T. Fitzgerald points out in the most recent work on the subject, how to translate τὸ πάθος and τὰ πάθη has always been problematic, and Fitzgerald draws attention to texts from Cicero, Quintilian, and Augustine to illustrate various early attempts to find appropriate equivalents in Latin.7 While, in English, terms such as “emotions,” “affections,” or “passions” are plausible candidates all in current scholarly use (not to mention other synonyms such as “feelings,” “sentiments,” “affects,” and the like), it seems reasonable to take what is today the most generically common term—namely, “emotions.”

II. Understanding Emotions: Social-Scientific Perspectives But what are emotions? Given the current range of interpretative paradigms, the very definition of “emotion” is complex and controversial. To take one significant dichotomy,8 for example, are emotions a universal given of human experience and physiology, or are they historically specific and culture-relative? According to religious historian John Corrigan, “cutting-edge debate currently is characterized by, on the one hand, claims for the universality of emotion across cultures and historical settings, and, on the other, arguments supporting the cultural construction of emotion, the distinctiveness of local and even personal emotional experiences and styles.”9 Arguments on the side of universality10 come in at least five forms: (1) Evolutionary theory, drawing inspiration from Charles Darwin’s pioneering work The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), looks inter alia at the adaptive and communicative advantage offered physiologically by the expression of the emotions in the facial muscles of homo sapiens. (2) Comparative linguistics seeks 6 See Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 319 n. 4: “In what follows, I shall use these two words more or less interchangeably, making no salient distinction between them. ‘Emotions’ is the more common modern generic term, while ‘passions’ is both etymologically closer to the most common Greek and Latin terms and more firmly entrenched in the Western philosophical tradition. In any case, what I mean to designate by these terms is a genus of which experiences such as fear, love, grief, anger, envy, jealousy, and other relatives—but not bodily appetites such as hunger and thirst—are the species.” See also David Konstan, The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature (Robson Classical Lectures; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006) with methodological questions addressed on 3–40. 7 Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought (ed. John T. Fitzgerald; New York: Routledge, 2008), 2–5. 8 For an alternative (and partly complementary) narrative, where the dichotomy is drawn between noncognitive and cognitive theories of the emotions, see Elliott, Faithful Feelings, 18–53. 9 Corrigan, Religion and Emotion, 7. 10 I am summarizing here Corrigan, Religion and Emotion, 7–10.


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to identify cross-cultural commonalities in words that express feelings. (3) Structuralist anthropology, by attending to ritual performance such as that related to grief and mourning, argues that the performance of emotions is conditioned by “universally realized structures of social life.”11 (4) Certain theological perspectives posit emotion as an aspect of the universal essence of religion: cases in point might include Friedrich Schleiermacher’s identification of the “feeling of absolute dependence” and Rudolf Otto’s influential phenomenological category, mysterium tremendum et fascinans. (5) Finally, the biological sciences—neuroscience and psychobiology in particular—account for the emotions in universal, physiological terms, as the product of “chemical cascades in neural function, [and] electrical activity in the various lobes of the brain.”12 The emphasis of the constructionist interpretations of emotions lies elsewhere. Again, there are a number of disciplinary perspectives. (1) For the social sciences, “[e]motions are the result of a person’s engagement of highly complex social codes governing such things as status, authority, relationality, life passages (e.g. birth, marriage, death), and contact with outsiders. An emotion in this sense is given by culture, that is, made normative through ‘feeling rules’ that dictate the proper linkages between social experiences and emotional states.”13 (2) For historians, the focus is on “the ways emotional life has changed over time because of altered contexts for social life, shifting ideological grounds, revolutions in family, gender, and class experience, and other such structural features of historical settings.”14 (3) In philosophy, an argument for a cognitive theory of the emotions has been developed over against the late-nineteenth-century psychological paradigm of William James. According to the cognitivists, emotions are a reflection of local knowledge and cultural values and play a role in making judgments: “Emotion, steeped in ideas, attitudes, and desires, accordingly is an interpretation of the world and a judgment about it.”15 It is unnecessary to choose here between universalist and constructionist paradigms. For the present purpose of historical investigation, however, the constructionist paradigm grounded especially in the social sciences has most to commend it. To refine this further, cultural anthropologist Michelle Z. Rosaldo’s seminal article of 1984 is worth particular attention. Rosaldo states her main thesis thus: I want to argue that the development, in recent years, of an “interpretive” concept of culture provides for changes in the way we think about such things as selves, affects, and personalities. The unconscious remains with us. Bursts of feeling will continue to be opposed to careful thought. But recognition of the fact that thought is always culturally patterned and infused with feelings, which them11

Ibid., 8. Ibid., 9. 13 Ibid., 11. 14 Ibid., 12. 15 Ibid., 13. 12


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selves reflect a culturally ordered past, suggests that just as thought does not exist in isolation from affective life, so affect is culturally ordered and does not exist apart from thought. . . . Affects, then, are no less cultural and no more private than beliefs. They are instead, cognitions—or more aptly, perhaps, interpretations—always culturally informed, in which the actor finds that body, self, and identity are immediately involved.16

Rosaldo’s understanding of emotions is salutary in overcoming tendentious polarities. Emotion is opposed to reason no longer, but is itself a form of cognition and judgment. It is not just a matter of a person’s inner life, the business of psychoanalysis: it is “thought embodied,” the business of ethics and politics.17 It is not interpreted in a reductive, individualistic way as a matter of the personal and the private, but is set within the multilayered context of the discourses and practices that constitute local knowledge and culture. It is not a rather insubstantial “thing” lurking on the margins of self and society: it is a form of personal engagement in, and response to, a social process, itself the outworking of “particular forms of polities and social relations.”18 Rosaldo’s work represents a major advance in understanding the emotions from within the broadly constructionist paradigm. Others have followed along similar lines.19 Most recently, and taking a more specifically sociological approach, is a study by Ole Riis and Linda Woodhead.20 Starting from the sociological premise that emotions are “psycho-physical orientations and adjustments within relational contexts,”21 Riis and Woodhead offer a multidimensional account that contextualizes emotions in relations between individual agents, social groups, and material and symbolic objects: Emotions are essential to our constant, active bodily interventions and responses. In Latin they are called motus animi—movements of the soul—and in English we say we are “moved” when we feel deeply. Thus we can liken emotions to a field

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Rosaldo, “Towards an Anthropology of Self and Feeling,” in Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion (ed. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 137–57, at 137–38. 17 As Rosaldo puts it: “[W]hat distinguishes thought and affect, differentiating a ‘cold’ cognition from a ‘hot’, is fundamentally a sense of the engagement of the actor’s self. Emotions are thoughts somehow ‘felt’ in flushes, pulses, ‘movements’ of our livers, minds, hearts, stomachs, skin. They are embodied thoughts, thoughts seeped with the apprehension that ‘I am involved’ ” (“Self and Feeling,” 143). 18 Ibid., 150. 19 See, e.g., Catherine Lutz, “Emotion, Thought, and Estrangement: Emotion as a Cultural Category,” Cultural Anthropology 1, no. 3 (1986): 287–309. 20 Riis and Woodhead, A Sociology of Religious Emotion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). My special thanks to Professor Woodhead for allowing me to see this work prior to its publication. 21 Ibid., 21.


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of forces that attract or repel and that lead to harmonies, tensions, or eruptions. On this analogy, social life is a force field of emotional energies. Emotions are not confined to the heart, or even the brain, of the individual agent, but are integral to the flux of social and symbolic life. As we negotiate through the world, so we range through different emotional fields, shaping and being shaped by them in the process.22

Riis and Woodhead argue persuasively that this “shaping and being shaped” has many aspects. From Émile Durkheim they draw the lesson that “emotions are essentially social,” formed in the intensity of “collective, ritualised gatherings,” the material-symbolic focus of which is the totem.23 Somewhat in parallel with Durkheim, Georg Simmel reminds them of the importance of symbolic objects (such as scriptures or sacred buildings) as “part of the process by which emotions are captured, stabilized, cultivated, communicated, and reinforced.” From practitioners of a symbolic interactionist perspective they draw attention to the relation between emotions and imbalances of power and how these imbalances are embedded in “feeling rules” and emotional “display rules.” Related to this is the idea of the emotional “division of labour” whereby the social hierarchy and unequal power relations related to gender, class, and ethnicity are reinforced. At the macro-social level, a Marxist perspective offers insight into the phenomenon of collective emotions, their relation to production and reproduction in the material world, and their potential for generating social change, while cultural historians like Norbert Elias in his account of The Civilizing Process (1939) may be appealed to as demonstrating the variation of emotional standards over time, and their embeddedness in changing social structures. Linguistics offers yet another angle. If material-symbolic objects can serve as a focus of a society’s emotional identity, so too can language, itself a symbol system that both enables us to articulate how we feel and shapes how we feel. As Riis and Woodhead put it, “Such articulations are part of the emotion itself, just as dancing is part of joy and crying is part of sorrow. . . . Just as meaning can be concentrated material symbolization, so sets of words can become cultural objects with the same power to move and motivate.” These and other insights into emotions relationally understood, lead Riis and Woodhead to posit, finally, the concept of an “emotional regime.” The import of this is to locate emotions within the wider social-material relations (or regimes) of particular groups or social units: “Regimes persist over time, and transcend individuals, shaping what they can feel, how they can feel it, the way they can express their feelings, and hence the forms of social relationship and courses of action that are open to them. In this way they play an important role in shaping and repro22

Ibid., 22. For the remainder of this paragraph, see Riis and Woodhead, Religious Emotion, 30–45; quotations from 30, 31, 35, 45. 23


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ducing structures of power.”24 Emotional regimes are not necessarily monopolistic, however. At various levels and by various means they may be subverted. What is more, individuals usually inhabit multiple regimes simultaneously and are able to move between them. Nor are they necessarily restrictive. On the contrary, they may offer resources shaped by time and tradition that increase an individual’s emotional range rather than inhibiting it. These resources may be passed on through education, example, or therapy, with acquisition likely reinforced by rewards and sanctions. As to how emotional regimes ought to be characterized and distinguished —the apt musical metaphor of emotional “scale” is deployed: “Some emotional regimes have dominant notes of fear, competitiveness, and envy; others sound only notes of excitement, joy and fun. Encompassing regimes—including many religions—balance a whole range of emotional notes, from grief to joy, setting them together in sustainable tensions and harmonies.”25

III. Thinking about Early Christian Emotions in Social-Scientific Terms In the light of social-scientific accounts of emotion and the emotions of the kind surveyed above, it is worth trying to draw out what such accounts might offer to the student of the eschatologically charged phenomenon of early Christianity in its historical and cultural context. At the risk of oversimplification, I would identify the following six points. First, social-scientific (i.e., broadly constructionist) accounts highlight the ways in which emotions communicate culturally mediated moral judgments. That is to say, emotions are cognitive and evaluative. This implies that study of early Christian emotions offers a window on the ethos, ethics, and identity of Christianity in a crucial formative period in a way that supplements traditional approaches. To put it another way, emotions as a form of rationality offer another avenue toward understanding early Christian rationality as a whole. Of course, the situation is more complex than this because to speak of “early Christian rationality” is to speak in the abstract. Closer to the historical reality is the notion of a plurality of rationalities, embodied in all likelihood in competing and conflicting emotions and emotional regimes. A comparison of responses to death in Jesus, Paul, Luke-Acts and John in the context of their respective (and developing) eschatologies would illustrate the point.26 A not unrelated example would be attitudes to purity and defilement, the moral-emotional repugnance of the seer to εἰδωλόθυτα in the Apocalypse 24

Ibid., 10; this idea is developed further at 47–51. Ibid., 48. 26 See Leander E. Keck, “New Testament Views of Death,” in Perspectives on Death (ed. Liston O. Mills; Nashville: Abingdon, 1969), 33–98. 25


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(see Rev 2:14, 20) contrasting interestingly with Paul’s more multivalent approach to the same issue in 1 Corinthians 8–10. Second, in social-scientific perspective, the moral judgments to which emotions respond and which they communicate arise in the course of social relations and interactions: emotions are integral to personal engagements in social processes. The implication of this is that the study of emotions offers additional insight into the tenor and character of early Christian social life and action, including relations over time between the individual and the group in the context of shared practice. This offers a potential corrective to interpretations of early Christianity that focus too narrowly on either the individual or the group. It also draws attention to the importance of certain kinds of practice—especially moral-legal and ritual practice— that tend to carry the greatest emotional and sociopolitical weight. Practices of inclusion and exclusion are likely cases in point. Baptism, the Lord’s meal, and the “holy kiss” would be examples of the former; expulsion and excommunication would be examples of the latter. Third, integral also to this kind of understanding is attention to the ways in which words and things offer symbolic resources for Christianity’s distinctive emotional rationality. As just one example, one thinks of the unusual deployment by Paul of the Aramaism µαράνα θά at the end of 1 Corinthians (16:22), reinforcing with its powerful eschatological overtones the pronouncement of the anathema. On a much wider front, there is the use of the words of Scripture generally as resources of tradition and memory for the shaping and evoking of Christian emotional life—cognitive and evaluative—along eschatological lines (see 1 Cor 10:1– 11). As to the symbolic resources offered by things, one notes how things like food and money, as highly concentrated emotional repositories in social relations,27 become a focus of the eschatological teaching and practice of both Jesus and Paul as also of the early church as portrayed in the Acts of the Apostles. Fourth, as personal engagements in social processes mediated by words and things, emotions are bodily and related to attitudes to the body. In a unique way, emotions both express and impress themselves at the boundary between the inner life of a person and his or her outer life—in particular, on the face (even if their source may be located in other parts of the body, such as the heart or the head or the belly).28 This somatic dimension is important for understanding early Christian anthropology and morality in a more holistic way. Attention to the emotions is one way of putting the body back into belief. It also raises for consideration a more pro-

27 On the notion of things such as food as “emotional repositories,” see Corrigan, Religion and Emotion, 23. 28 For an evocation of the ways emotions of honor and shame are revealed (and concealed) on the face, see Carlin A. Barton, “The Roman Blush: The Delicate Matter of Self-Control,” in Constructions of the Classical Body (ed. James I. Porter; Body in Theory; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 212–34.

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found understanding of what might be called “constitutional” issues in the Christian polity, that is, the impact of the emotions on how relations are conceived and generated between bodies—whether between individual persons, or within the body politic (both ecclesial and societal), or in relation to the cosmos. The early Jewish and Christian martyrologies are eloquent in this respect.29 Here the hope-inspired resistance of the martyrs to the degradation and dismemberment of their bodies in the public arena is a powerful, emotion-laden witness to an alternative constitution and an alternative understanding of the human telos: that of the heavenly realm and of angelic life in the kingdom of God. Fifth, emotions, as bodily and related to attitudes to the body (individual, social, and cosmic), express identity, including how gender, ethnicity, age, and status are constructed in particular societies. Classically, certain kinds of emotionality express and embody a series of potent oppositions: the “manly” over against the “womanly,” the wise over the foolish, the strong over the weak and infirm, the aristocratic over the plebeian, the fellow citizen over the stranger, and so on. In these ways, an emotional regime expresses the values and judgments of the social and cultural regime of which it is a part. Given the eschatological transformation of identity “in Christ” of the kind famously articulated in Gal 3:27–28, this has obvious implications for understanding early Christianity. Attention to the emotions along the lines of Christian identity formation allows us to probe elements of conformity, dissonance, and creativity in relation to the new religionists’ host cultures. Study of the emotion-related values of honor and shame and their effective inversion in the light of the cross and resurrection is particularly illuminating.30 Sixth, given that emotions express individual and group identity in the context of social engagement and process, the role of the emotions in marking social boundaries and attending to points of transition (e.g., through “feeling rules” and emotional “display rules”) is important. There might be a negative, disciplinary dimension to this: there might also be a positive, celebratory dimension. In the case of early Christianity, study of the emotions throws further light on a whole range of points of transition. The phenomenon of conversion is an obvious case in point. Another is the realm of experience that might be termed ecstatic or epiphanic. Another has to do with major life transitions, both individual and communal, such as betrothal/marriage/divorce or the deaths of members of the community. At the macro-level, transition from inner-Jewish sect to multiethnic voluntary association is another. Exemplary for the latter are the “feeling rules” that Paul gives to the

29 For a fine analysis, see Brent D. Shaw, “Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs,” JECS 4 (1996): 269–312. 30 See John T. Fitzgerald, Cracks in an Earthen Vessel: An Examination of the Catalogues of Hardships in the Corinthian Correspondence (SBLDS 99; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988).


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mixed-membership house churches in Rome as the basis for building and sustaining a new social polity: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; never be conceited. Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all” (Rom 12:15–17).

IV. Eschatology and the Emotion of Grief in Early Christianity Having laid some methodological foundations in terms of a broadly socialscientific understanding of the emotions and its potential for interpreting early Christianity, it remains to consider the interrelation between early Christian eschatology and the emotions. This promises to be a fruitful quest. I say this because Christian eschatology is that aspect of belief that concerns the transformations and transitions in space, time, and persons consequent upon the drawing near of God in Christ and the Spirit to redeem, sanctify, and glorify. It is recognition of that act of God, climaxing in the death and resurrection of God’s Son, that brings into being a “new creation” whose telos is participation in divine glory.31 Given that the emotions (as “thoughts embodied”) are integral to human interaction in social processes in space and time, it is hard to believe that epochal transformations and transitions of the kind inaugurated by the coming of God in Christ and the Spirit did not register emotionally. I take as a case study the emotion of grief (λύπη, πένθος) as an expression of bereavement, along with its social manifestation in feeling rules and display rules (i.e., rituals of mourning) in early Christianity—that is, how the individual and the group respond to the pain, loss, and change caused by the death of one of their own.32 Matters to do with death and with life in the face of death are pervasive concerns in antique society (as in the history of humanity as a whole), so it is not surprising that such matters recur also in the NT and other early Christian sources, no doubt stimulated in complex ways by the fact that a particular death, the death of the Messiah, was at the heart of Christian self-definition. How, then, were Christian grief and mourning related to their eschatological self-definition as people united by faith to a crucified, risen, and returning heavenly κύριος?

31

Insightful on this in systematic theological terms is John Webster, “Eschatology, Anthropology and Postmodernity,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 2, no. 1 (2000): 13–28. 32 Of course, there are types of grief in the NT other than the grief related specifically to bereavement. Typically, the type of grief is defined by its object and context. For example, the grief of the sinner over his sins as a step toward repentance (see Jas 4:9) is different from grief in the face of pain, suffering, and deprivation (see 2 Cor 6:10).

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Grief and Mourning the Dead in the Wider Society Greater historical sensitivity on this will be possible if something is said, by way of context, about feeling rules concerning grief and mourning in the emotional regimes of the wider Greco-Roman society.33 Several aspects are noteworthy. First, and indicative of the social nature of the phenomena, grief and mourning were subject to sanction and control. One aspect of this concerns rules to do with time—in particular, the duration of the period of mourning. Such rules, though conventional, are important: they admit of the necessity and inevitability of grief while at the same time setting limits to its extent. For example, a Roman funerary law stipulates that “parents and children over six years of age can be mourned for a year, children under six for a month. A husband can be mourned for ten months, close blood relations for eight months. Whoever acts contrary to these restrictions is placed in public disgrace.”34 Here a threat of public sanction is imposed on mourning deemed excessive, where propriety and therefore moralsocial value are calibrated according to the age of the deceased and the affinal or consanguinal proximity of the dead to the living. The status of the deceased was a factor also. That infants have relatively little social status value is indicated by the fact that they are accorded the shortest period of mourning. The fact that a widow is to mourn her deceased husband for ten months has a rationale that is pragmatic as well as symbolic. The pragmatic aspect is the avoidance of disputes over paternity should a widow remarry and conceive in the period up to ten months. Second, and indicative of both the social-symbolic significance of the body at points of transition and of the threat posed by human mortality to the ongoing processes of life, attitudes to grief and mourning were a matter of wide social comment and vigorous philosophical debate. This found expression in a rich textualrhetorical tradition of consolatory discourses, laments, death scene narratives, rhetorical manuals, philosophical treatises, and the like, not to mention nonliterary testimony in the form of funerary inscriptions. In the comment and debate, as Paul A. Holloway points out, popular arguments intended to assuage grief and offer comfort took various conventional forms: “(1) time heals all things, (2) death is common to all, (3) grief does not avail the dead and is detrimental to the living, and (4) the proper response to death is gratitude for the life lived.”35 33 In general, see Valerie M. Hope, Roman Death: The Dying and the Dead in Ancient Rome (London/New York: Continuum, 2009), esp. 121–49, “Mourning the Dead.” On conventions in ancient Israel, see Saul M. Olyan, Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 34 Cited in Konstan, Emotions of the Ancient Greeks, 252. 35 Holloway, “Left Behind: Jesus’ Consolation of His Disciples in John 13,31–17,26,” ZNW 96 (2005): 1–34, at 4. For examples drawn from the writings of Cicero, Seneca, and Pliny the Younger, see Hope, Roman Death, 132–37.


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Generally speaking, for the ideal wise man, death is not an evil. Instead, it is a test of character. Reason acknowledges that human mortality is according to nature. Death is a natural fact and comes to all. Manly virtue shows itself in courage and fortitude. As to the question of what happens after death, opinions varied.36 On one view (the Epicurean), death means personal annihilation; on another (the Platonist), it is the liberation of the soul from the body. Either way it is not a reason for sorrow—and certainly not sorrow in excess. Rather, death should be accepted with equanimity, a view famously expressed in the account of the death of Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo (67e–68a).37 Particularly interesting for the spectrum of views it reveals about the propriety of grief is Seneca’s advice in his Consolation to Polybius 11.18.5–6:38 Never will I demand of you that you not grieve at all. I know that there are to be found certain men, whose wisdom is more harsh than courageous, who deny that a wise man should mourn. I don’t believe that these men have ever experienced such a misfortune, for otherwise fortune would have knocked such arrogant wisdom out of them and forced them, all unwilling, to confess the truth. Reason will manifest itself sufficiently if one simply eliminates from one’s grief what is excessive and disproportionate: no one should hope or desire to feel that it is wholly nonexistent. . . . Let the tears flow, but let them also cease; let the groans be drawn from one’s deepest bosom, but let them also come to an end.

Plainly, at one end of the spectrum, the model man of reason is the one who exercises maximum self-control according to the feeling rule that a wise man should not mourn. At the other end is the folly of grief that is disproportionate, presumably because it invites the shame that attaches to lack of control, with personal and social dissolution as its potential corollary. What Seneca advocates is something in between: a wisdom that is less “arrogant,” that accepts that grief is natural in human experience but keeps it within reasonable limits that (one imagines) serve to protect personal agency, social obligation, and social standing.39 Especially noteworthy—and this is my third point—is the fact that, in philosophical circles, words about life in the face of death (as well as words about the possibility of an afterlife) distinguished one group from another and therefore contributed to group self-definition. Lines were drawn in various ways—often find36 See the relevant discussion in Alan F. Segal, Life after Death: A History of the Afterlife in the Religions of the West (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 204–47. 37 Cited in Segal, Life after Death, 226. 38 Cited in Konstan, Emotions of the Ancient Greeks, 256–57. 39 Compare Seneca’s advice to his wife prior to his own death, as reported in Tacitus, Ann. 15.60–64, with its emphasis on the propriety of grief in moderation (cited in Holloway, “Left Behind,” 15). By contrast, note Pliny’s invective against his enemy Regulus, which takes the form of an account of Regulus’s lack of moderation in his expressions of grief in public on the death of his son (Ep. 4.2; cf. also 4.7; cited in Hope, Roman Death, 1).


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ing articulation, it appears, in rhetorical triads. Thus, according to Seneca, “Despite suffering the same bereavement, women are wounded more deeply than men, barbarians more than the civilized, and the uneducated more than the learned” (Marc. 7.3). According to Plutarch, “Mourning is feminine, weak and dishonourable, since it characterizes women more than men, barbarians more than Greeks, and inferior men more than better men” (Cons. Apoll. 22).40 Clearer articulations of the social hierarchy embedded in assumptions about conventional mourning behavior could hardly be found. The distinctions of gender, culture, and status around which life is organized by a governing élite are perpetuated— perhaps even intensified—in the distinctions surrounding death and the rites of passage associated with it. But mourning conventions also distinguish one philosophical school from another. This is evident in Cicero’s summary statement, in Tusculanae Disputationes 3.31.76: Some, like Cleanthes, believe that the consoler’s only task is to convince the person afflicted with grief that the alleged “evil” is not an evil at all. Others, like the Peripatetics, argue that the evil in question is not great. Others, like the Epicureans, try to avert our attention away from evil things to good things. Others, like the Cyrenaics, think that it is sufficient to show that nothing unexpected has happened.41

If we ask why words and practices about grief and mourning function in this way, the answer is no doubt to be found in the fact that, in philosophical circles, the terms of the debate were governed more self-consciously by larger considerations relating emotions to ontology and worldview.42 Death words and death rites highlight differences of ontology and worldview in particularly acute ways. One is reminded of the division over a related matter among the two Jewish parties reported in Acts 23:7–8: And when he [Paul] had said this [i.e., that he was on trial “on account of the hope and the resurrection of the dead”], a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees; and the assembly was divided [ἐσχίσθη]. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.

Fourth, as the quotations from Seneca and Plutarch above make explicit, there is a clear gender dimension to these feeling rules. Taking the Stoic Seneca again, this time in his Letter 99, “On Consolation to the Bereaved,” one of the arguments he 40

The quotations from Seneca and Plutarch come from Hope, Roman Death, 125. Cited in Holloway, “Left Behind,” 9. 42 Exemplary in relation to Stoicism is Brent D. Shaw, “The Divine Economy: Stoicism as Ideology,” Latomus 44 (1985): 16–54. Magisterial for the Hellenistic philosophies generally is Nussbaum, Therapy of Desire. 41


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uses to rebuke his friend Lucilius for his excessive grief at the death of his infant son is the shame of behavior that is womanly: “Is it solace you are looking for? Let me give you a scolding instead! You are like a woman in the way you take your son’s death [Molliter tu fers mortem filii]; what would you do if you had lost an intimate friend?” (Ep. 99.2).43 Less rebarbative is the advice Plutarch gives to his wife on the death of their two-year-old daughter: Each person invites his own grief to stay with him. When, in the course of time, it is established and becomes his companion and housemate, it does not leave even when people really want it to. This is why one must struggle with it at the doorway and not abandon one’s guard through funereal dress or cutting one’s hair or any of those things which, by confronting and shaming us daily, make our minds small, narrow, closed, harsh, and timid, so that they no longer take part in laughter or light or a generous table, since our minds are clad and practised in such things on account of grief. Neglect of the body follows upon this evil, and disparagement of unguents, baths, and any other of life’s comforts.44

We might say that there is considerable psychological intelligence here, reflecting close attention both to the effects of grief and the need for (what might be called) therapeutic advice to combat melancholia. Noteworthy in relation to the genderization of the discourse, however, is the sophisticated use of the imagery of domestic space in correlation with female-somatic items of dress and hair couture, all intended to evoke a sense of shame within and without and to provoke appropriate defensive action at the personal and social boundary points: “one must struggle with it [i.e., grief] at the doorway”! The presumption seems to be that tears, feeling too intensely, and losing control are bodily responses to which women are especially prone. The subtext is that such display would bring the culturalemotional norms set by standards of manliness and the gendered ordering of public and private space into disrepute.45 In sum, grief and its social manifestation in mourning were matters of wide concern.46 To adapt a poignant biblical phrase (see Isa 53:5), the men, women, and

43

See also 99.17: “they see a man who collapses and clings to his dead: they call him womanish and weak [effeminatum et enervem]” (trans. Gummere, LCL). I am grateful to Paul Holloway for the reference (personal communication, June 5, 2009). 44 Consolatio ad Uxorem 609F–610A (LCL), cited in Konstan, Emotions of the Ancient Greeks, 257. 45 On the construction of “manliness,” see Maud W. Gleason, Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). On gendered constructions of space, see Jorunn Økland, Women in Their Place: Paul and the Corinthian Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary Space (JSNTSup 269; London/New York: Continuum, 2004). 46 On contributory social and demographic factors, see Keith Hopkins, Death and Renewal (Sociological Studies in Roman History 2; Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

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children of antiquity were people of sorrows and acquainted with grief.47 This concern manifested itself in feeling rules pertaining to the duration and intensity of mourning, whose intention was to set limits on grief. These rules were customary and therefore a reflection of the values and beliefs of the wider society. Sanctions involved the imposition of honor and shame along lines determined in part by constructions of gender and status. In philosophical circles grief, mourning, and consolation, as personal and social responses to death, were topoi dealt with according to larger preconceptions about ontology, teleology, and virtue—that is, preconceptions about how to attain happiness in a life of virtue lived according to nature as revealed to reason. Given the plurality of philosophical and societal views, a distinctive stance on grief and mourning was a likely indication of group identity and moral ethos.

Grief and Mourning the Dead in Early Christianity: 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 Against the background of this historical sketch, and drawing upon the socialscientific account of emotions developed earlier, how may early Christian grief be interpreted? Does the emotional regime of the first Christians conform to that of the wider society or depart from it? A key passage, which is the earliest extant Christian text to give direct attention to the topos of grief (λύπη) in the face of death, is 1 Thess 4:13–18: But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve like the rest who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. . . . Therefore comfort one another with these words. (RSV)

Concerning this text, a number of observations may be made.48 First, whatever the precise circumstances of death that prompted these words, it is clear that Paul is doing what any father figure (2:11) in antiquity would do when a death in the household or community occurs—he is offering consolation: hence, Ὥστε παρακαλεῖτε ἀλλήλους ἐν τοῖς λόγοις τούτοις, in 4:18 (noting the repetition of παρακαλεῖτε ἀλλήλους in 5:11). The death of members of the presumably small Christian association of house churches in Thessalonica will have been seriously destabilizing. As converts who had “turned” from their traditional native religion, 47 For a sobering evocation, see Carlin A. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). 48 See further John Barclay, “‘That you may not grieve, like the rest who have no hope’ (1 Thess 4:13): Death and Early Christian Identity,” in Not in the Word Alone: The First Epistle to the Thessalonians (ed. Morna D. Hooker; Rome: Benedictina, 2003), 131–53.


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gods, and worldview (1:9–10), and as the victims of ongoing social ostracism and harassment from kinsfolk and friends (2:14; 3:2–3), they were extremely vulnerable already. Now this sense of vulnerability will have been aggravated by further separation and loss, this time due to death—a crisis they were apparently not expecting and that was therefore a cause of shock.49 The deaths represented a tear in the delicate fabric of their social life: those brothers and sisters whom they had come to love with a φιλαδελφία for which they had gained some renown (4:9–10) had been taken unexpectedly from them. But the deaths represented something else as well: a tear in the delicate fabric of their intensely eschatological faith (cf. 1:10; 2:19; 3:13; 5:1–11)—and, if of their faith, then of their self-understanding, sense of identity, and sense of future destiny. Thus, from the seriousness with which Paul addresses this matter, we may infer that its significance transcends issues of personal loss. This reflects an underlying intuition that death rules and rituals are paradigmatic of wider, social-cosmological concerns. Second, as is common in consolatory words in the face of death in antiquity, Paul gives feeling rules to control their grief and bolster their identity and selfunderstanding. Strikingly, however, where it was customary in the wider culture to seek to control grief within reasonable bounds by limiting its duration and carefully ordering its ritual performance, Paul may be interpreted as instructing the believers to cease from the grieving in which they were engaged (4:13: ἵνα µὴ λυπῆσθε καθὼς καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ οἱ µὴ ἔχοντες ἐλπίδα)—presumably, along with associated ritual practices of mourning.50 Whether this is indeed the case or whether Paul is placing a severe limit on grief and mourning (in terms of its duration, quality, and so on) is not essential to decide for present purposes: the matter is disputed.51 What seems clear is that the advice Paul offers places him at or near one 49 Paul’s introductory statement in 4:13a seems to imply that the teaching they had received up to now had not given them the resources to deal with this problem. 50 See further Abraham J. Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 32B; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 263–64. 51 The arguments on both sides are outlined in Barclay, “Death and Early Christian Identity,” 139–40 and nn. 21, 22. Barclay himself argues that Paul is ruling out grief altogether and, in the process, taking a momentous step in “making the death of a Christian a Christian death” (p. 144) such that each Christian death becomes a time, place, and practice (ritual and otherwise) that witnesses to the distinctiveness of Christian resurrection faith. In my view, his main thesis about the “christianizing” of death holds, irrespective of the validity of his interpretation of 4:13. In passing, the parallel (see Barclay, 140) between καθὼς καὶ οἱ λοιποί in 4:13 and καθάπερ καὶ τὰ ἔθνη in 4:5 is significant, certainly, in that in both contexts (the one to do with λύπη, the other with πορνεία), Paul is placing limits that will distinguish the believers from the unbelievers. It does not follow, however, given the phenomenological and social-symbolic differences between πορνεία and λύπη, that the kind of limit placed on both will be the same, that is, that the absolute prohibition on πορνεία requires or implies also an absolute prohibition on λύπη. Certainly, as Barclay admits (p. 140 n. 22), λύπη is legitimate in other contexts, notably, in relation to the near-death experience of Epaphroditus, where Paul anticipated having to cope with double grief:

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end of the spectrum of the debate in philosophical (and other) circles of his day as to whether grief and its social representation in mourning were reasonable responses to death for those who regarded themselves as truly wise and virtuous. In all likelihood, therefore, the consolation Paul offers has moral and rhetorical weight among the implied recipients at least in part because it accords to a degree with the therapeutic paraenesis of the Stoics with their emphasis on the strict control of the passions. Third, however, and here we approach our eschatological theme, what is especially noteworthy is not (or not just) the rigor of Paul’s feeling rule on grief but its rationale. Whereas the appeal of the philosophers was to the attainment of happiness in this life (however short or long) through the practice of reason in accordance with nature, with the control of the passions as a necessary corollary, Paul’s appeal is based on the practice of reason and emotion transformed by eschatological revelation issuing in hope. Drawing on eschatological motifs from the streams of his native Jewish tradition—especially the apocalyptic stream—but now significantly recast and historicized in relation to the recent epochal event of the death and resurrection of Jesus,52 Paul engages in a conversion of the emotions of the Thessalonian bereaved. It is as if the conversion of life that had begun with their transfer of allegiance to the service of “the living and true God” (1:9) had to be taken further: to the conversion of their emotions, not least emotions associated with life in the face of death. To bring this about, what Paul does is to reconstruct the event that gave rise to the emotion. Those who have died are only “asleep” (4:13, 14, 15)! What is more, those who have died are reincorporated with the living in a great eschatological drama inaugurated by the death and resurrection of Christ in time past, soon to reach its climax with his parousia in time future. In sum, if the feeling rule of severe constraint on grief appears to put Paul in the company of Stoic philosophy, the rationale he offers puts him in different company altogether: that of those whose life in the face of death is governed by resurrection hope along with its affective manifestation as joy (χαρά). To grieve and practice rites of mourning in the time-honored conventional ways would be to mix unacceptably the new with the old, thereby compromising their identity as God’s elect (cf. 1:4) and their vocation to holiness (cf. 4:1–8). Put another way, in the light of the resurrection, to grieve “like the rest” would be to behave out of time, or in a manner untimely. Thus, it would be a misrepresentation of the true, eschatological state of affairs.53

λύπην ἐπὶ λύπην (Phil 2:27)! Note also Rom 12:15, with the exhortation to “weep with those who weep.” 52 Paul’s christological recasting of motifs from Jewish apocalyptic is summarized nicely in Barclay, “Death and Early Christian Identity,” 139 n. 19. 53 Comparable are Paul’s eschatologically grounded words in 1 Cor 7:29–30: “I mean, brethren, the appointed time has grown very short; from now on, let . . . those who mourn as though they were not mourning [οἱ κλαίοντες ὡς µὴ κλαίοντες]. . . .”


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Fourth, and related, the rationale Paul offers has a sociological corollary that has to do with boundary definition and identity formation. The corollary is doublesided. On the one hand, as eschatological revelation, coming with the authority of a “word of the Lord” (4:15: ἐν λόγῳ κυρίου), Paul’s admonition is the basis for an emotional regime that marks the Thessalonian believers out from that of their unbelieving neighbors,54 characterized as “the rest who have no hope” (οἱ λοιποὶ οἱ µὴ ἔχοντες ἐλπίδα). One notes here the stark brevity and bleakness of this way of characterizing the outsider. To them is offered neither distinguishing feature nor salvific narrative. They are simply lumped together in ignominious anonymity as οἱ λοιποί, and the story they are given is a “non-story” typical of apocalyptic pessimism: they are the ones who have “no hope.” On the other hand, what Paul says has the potential to strengthen the fragile self-understanding of the believers and bolster their vulnerable sense of identity by enrolling them as active participants in a narrative that projects them both upward toward heaven and forward into the future in the company both of the risen Lord and ultimately of those from whom death has separated them (4:14– 5:11). The grievous separation from those of their number who have died is transcended by the pervasive, hope-directed, “with”-language (i.e., σὺν αὐτῷ, 4:14; σὺν αὐτοῖς, σὺν κυρίῳ, 4:17) of union and solidarity. If for unbelievers there is “no hope,” for believers, on the basis of the death, resurrection, and imminent return of Jesus, there is hope indeed. In its cultural and social setting, this narrative of hope and its related practices constitutes an emotional regime of a significantly different order that puts the emotion of grief and the associated rituals of mourning in a different light. Indeed, the ritual-symbolic wisdom that may underlie Paul’s admonition is that grief and joy, communicated socially in rituals of (respectively) mourning and rejoicing, are opposites and incompatible.55 For the Thessalonians to grieve and mourn, therefore, would be to contradict who they are by virtue of their eschatological identity in Christ crucified and risen. How, finally, may this distinctive emotional regime be characterized? (1) For a start, it has a strong cognitive-evaluative framework. Reason and emotion are not mutually exclusive but interpenetrate each other. That is to say, this is an emotional regime linked integrally with a “gospel” (1:5) or “word of the Lord” (1:8) with a clearly defined, cognitive content touching on matters of both eschatological world-

54 This “marking out” is characteristic of the apocalyptic dualism pervading the letter as a whole and according to which humanity is divided into two categories—for example, “sons of light” over against “sons of darkness” (5:5)—and the Thessalonian believers are identified, for their encouragement, with the former. See further Barclay, “Death and Early Christian Identity,” 141–44. 55 Compare Jesus’ response to the analogous question of fasting in Mark 2:19. For analysis of relevant biblical (OT) traditions along these lines, see Olyan, Biblical Mourning, 13–19, “Mourning and Rejoicing as Ritual Oppositions.”

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view (1:9–10) and corresponding moral life (4:1–5:11). Consonant with this is the recurring juxtaposition of “faith” and “love” (1:3; 3:6; 5:8). Further, key cognitiveevaluative words, along with desired action-responses, are given prominence at the very start, introducing themes constitutive of the letter as a whole: “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3; cf. 5:8). Significantly, in comparison with the ordering of the trio of key words in 1 Cor 13:13 (i.e., faith, hope, love), the ordering in 1 Thessalonians places the eschatological virtue of “hope” as the climactic third, and does so twice (1:3; 5:8). (2) Underpinning the emotional regime are preconceptions about power relations. In other words, the emotional regime is at the same time an ordering regime. Preeminent are the roles attributed to God (the Father), Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit (see 1:3–5) that bind together the past, present, and future of the believers in terms of election, empowerment, and coming glory, and whose embrace reaches out to the whole world. Important as a human mediator of divine power is Paul himself, who is “like a nurse taking care of her children” (2:7) or, again, “like a father with his children” (2:11), and whose loving and sacrificial practice offers an example for them to imitate. But the believers also share in power, even if in differentiated ways: all have the gift of the Holy Spirit (1:5; 4:8; 5:19–20) and all can be described as θεοδίδακτοι (4:9). But there are some whose status and “work” make them worthy of particular respect and obedience (5:12–13). Such a differentiated ordering of power (divine and human) constitutes that most highly desirable kind of polity in antiquity: one ordered toward peace (5:13b, 23; cf. 1:1). Interesting at the same time is the fact that the feeling rule about grief laid down by Paul is gender blind: no distinction (of the kind evident in pagan sources cited above) is drawn between expectations for men and expectations for women. Christian hope in the face of death is an emotion all can share. (3) The emotional regime is also intensely social. The two, mutually reinforcing emotion practices—ideal for generating solidarity and counteracting grief— are “love” (1:3; 3:6, 12; 4:9–10; 5:13) and “joy” (and cognates; see 1:6; 2:19, 20; 3:9; 5:16). Divine and human emotions are interrelated, conveying a sense that the kind of sociality is one that unites heaven and earth. The dominant social metaphor Paul uses to describe the believers is familial: he is their “father” and they are both his “children” and ἀδελφοί of one another.56 Emphasis is placed on the pedagogic virtue of imitation, including imitation that unites the Thessalonian churches translocally with the churches in Judea (2:14). Also emphasized is experience shared in common: shared suffering in particular (2:13–16; 3:2–4, 7–8), but also shared hope (5:8). There is a strong ethic of corporate holiness focusing particularly on rules designed to avoid destructive competition within the brotherhood, to distinguish 56 See Reidar Aasgaard, “My Beloved Brothers and Sisters!” Christian Siblingship in Paul (Studies of the New Testament and Its World; London: T&T Clark, 2004), esp. 151–66.


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believers and unbelievers, and to act as a prophylactic against eschatological judgment (4:1–8). There are also rituals of solidarity such as the “holy kiss” (5:26). Perhaps above all, the future is cast in terms of renewed and heightened sociality: “then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord ” (5:17). All in all, the multiple crises of loss and separation, of personal and social anomie, are overcome by an intensification of all the things that hold a Christian people together.

V. Conclusion: From Conversion of the Imagination to Conversion of the Emotions For some time now, research into Christian origins has given studied attention to the various ways in which conversion to Christ involved an ongoing conversion of the imagination.57 The suggestion offered here is that, complementary to this, more attention needs to be given to the various ways in which conversion to Christ involved an ongoing conversion of the emotions.58 This is a necessarily interdisciplinary enterprise. As I have shown, it requires engagement with the analytical and interpretative perspectives offered by the social sciences, along with the historical contextualization made possible by developments in research into the construction of the emotions in the philosophies and cultures of antiquity. The present essay is a modest attempt to bring that interdisciplinary enterprise to bear on a tiny fragment of evidence about the Christian construction of one particular emotion—the emotion of grief as characterized by Paul in his earliest letter. What Paul offers as a therapy for grief in the face of death is a feeling rule of restraint shaped by the consoling reassurance of a distinctively Christian hope. The personal and social bonds that have been stretched to the breaking point by death are renewed both by means of an eschatological narrative oriented toward the reshaping of reality and by social practices and disciplines oriented toward solidarity. Their intended effect is to reincorporate the dead with the living in a cosmic christological drama that embraces time, space, and persons under the sovereign protection of the One identified in the final benediction as “the God of peace” (1 Thess 5:23). 57 See Richard B. Hays, “The Conversion of the Imagination: Scripture and Eschatology in 1 Corinthians,” NTS 45 (1999): 391–412. 58 See Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 21–33, for a useful discussion of conversion both to philosophy and to Christ, with occasional reference to accompanying emotions.

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JBL 130, no. 3 (2011): 593–612

Gentile Christians, Exile, and Return in 5 Ezra 1:35–40 theodore a. bergren tbergren @richmond.edu University of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173

5 Ezra is a short, early Christian writing of the second or third century that is a thinly veiled supersessionist tract. Pseudepigraphically ascribed to the biblical Ezra, the work describes God’s decision to abandon his originally chosen people and transfer his allegiance to a newly chosen, different people (the Christians) who will better fulfill his expectations. Although the origins of the work are uncertain, it seems to have been composed in Latin, the only language in which it is attested, and thus was most probably written in Rome or northern Africa.1 The Latin text of 5 Ezra constitutes the first two chapters of the composite apocryphal biblical writing 2 Esdras.2 Analysis of the text of 5 Ezra suggests that it can be divided into six major units, roughly corresponding to six successive periods of (Christian) salvation history. In the third text unit, 1:35–40, God addresses his unrepentant original people, Israel, through the prophetic mouthpiece of Ezra: I am indebted to Prof. Adela Yarbro Collins for her comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 1 For evaluation of the original language and provenance of 5 Ezra, see especially Jean Daniélou, “5 Ezra,” in The Origins of Latin Christianity (History of Early Christian Doctrine before the Council of Nicaea 3; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1977), 17–31. 2 Recent commentaries on 5 Ezra are by Jacob M. Myers, I and II Esdras: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (AB 42; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974); Michael A. Knibb, “The Second Book of Esdras,” in The First and Second Books of Esdras (by R. J. Coggins and M. A. Knibb; CBC, New English Bible; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); and Michael Wolter, 5. Esra-Buch, 6. Esra-Buch (JSHRZ 3.7; Gütersloh: Mohn, 2001). An extensive textual study is that of Theodore A. Bergren, Fifth Ezra: The Text, Origin and Early History (SBLSCS 25; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990) (appendix 1 contains a critical edition, appendix 2 a critical Latin text, and appendix 3 an English translation).

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[1:35] I will hand over your houses to a people coming from far away [Tradam domos vestras populo venienti a longe], and those who have not known me will believe me, and those to whom I have not shown signs will do what I have said. [36] They have not seen prophets, but are mindful of the antiquity of the prophets [Lat.: of them]. [37] The apostles [or: emissaries] bear witness to [testantur] the coming people [populum venientem] with joy. Although they do not see me with bodily eyes [oculis carnalibus], they believe with the spirit, and they have heard the things that I have said, and believe me. [38] Now, father, look with glory and see the people coming [populum venientem] from the east. [39] I will lead them, (I) together with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Elijah and Enoch, Zachariah and Hosea, Amos, Joel, Micah, Obadiah, Zephaniah, [40] Nahum, Jonah, Malachi, Habakkuk, and twelve angels with flowers.3

Even a superficial reading of these verses reveals a number of exegetical difficulties. 5 Ezra 1:35a seems to suggest that the “houses” of the original people will be taken over by a group of invaders who will conquer the inhabitants and despoil their land. In vv. 35b–37, however, these “coming people” appear to be a benign, if naïve, lot who are described in terms reminiscent of Gentile Christians. Verse 38 then depicts God summoning Ezra to view the “coming people,” in language similar to the descriptions of Jewish exiles returning from Babylon to Israel in Second/ Third Isaiah and Baruch. Finally, in vv. 39–40, God promises that he himself will lead the coming procession, along with an assortment of biblical patriarchs, biblical prophets, and “twelve angels with flowers.” Prima facie, besides the overarching theme of the “coming people,” there does not seem to be much else that binds together this collection of thematic elements. Especially difficult is the connection between what are apparently Gentile Christians in vv. 35b–37 and what seem to be returning Jewish exiles in vv. 38–40. The present study is an attempt to unravel some of these difficulties and to discern why the normally intelligible, even sophisticated, author of 5 Ezra presented this material in the way in which he did. Since there is not much question about the identity of the Gentile Christians depicted in vv. 35b–37, much of our exegesis will focus on how the portrayal of the “people coming from the east” in vv. 38–40 can be reconciled with the earlier verses in the pericope.

I. Exegesis of 5 Ezra 1:35a Since the author of 5 Ezra has the habit of composing his work by putting together strings of biblical quotations and allusions, it seems logical to begin our 3

The text of 5 Ezra is quoted from Bergren, Fifth Ezra, appendix 3.

Bergren: 5 Ezra 1:35–40

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investigation by attempting to identify those biblical references that may be present in 5 Ezra 1:35–40. We start with v. 35a. As noted above, 5 Ezra 1:35a seems most reminiscent of a large body of Jewish scriptural passages in which God threatens the Israelites with the advent of a group of ruthless foreign invaders who will invade the land, conquer its inhabitants, and wreak general havoc. Indeed, this theme fits well with the preceding material in 1:4–34, wherein God castigates the original people for their intransigence and threatens them with a number of harsh punishments. Prominent among Jewish scriptural parallels to 1:35a are Deut 28:49–50; Isa 5:26; 10:3; Jer 5:15; 6:22; 25:8-9; 27(50):41; Ezek 7:21; Hab 1:6–8; and Bar 4:15. The following passages are indicative:4 Deut 28:49-50:

The Lord will bring upon you a nation from far away [µακρόθεν], from the end of the earth, like the swoop of an eagle, a nation whose speech you will not hear, a nation shameless in face. . . .

Hab 1:6, 8:

For behold I am rousing [the Chaldeans,] the fighters, the bitter and swift nation that goes over the breadths of the earth to possess dwellings not his own. . . . [8] His horsemen will ride forth and charge from far away [µακρόθεν]; they will fly like an eagle eager to devour.

The chief conceptual elements binding these passages together and tying them to 5 Ezra 1:35a are (1) the characterization of the invading group as a “people” or “nation,” (2) the idea that the people are “coming,” (3) the idea that they come from “far away,” that they are foreigners, (4) the notion that the coming people will take possession of the Israelites’ “houses,” or heritage, and (5) the conviction that God is controlling these events. The first of our exegetical challenges in vv. 35–40 is to determine how this strange apparent reference in v. 35a to marauding foreigners who invade the land of Israel can be reconciled with the depictions of Gentile Christians in vv. 35b–37 and of returning Jewish exiles in vv. 38–40. A possible initial solution to this problem lies in the evocation of a number of additional Jewish scriptural passages that also describe a “people coming” to Israel “from far away,” but coming in a far less threatening manner. Prominent examples are Isa 43:5–7; 49:10–12; 57:19; 60:2–4, 8–10; Jer 38(31):3, 8–12; and Tob 13:11. The following passages are indicative: 4

Passages from the Jewish Scriptures are quoted from A New English Translation of the Septuagint (ed. Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Passages from the Apocrypha and the NT are quoted from the RSV or the NRSV.


596 Isa 43:5–7:

I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; . . . bring my sons from a land far away [πορρώθεν] and my daughters from the ends of the earth— all who have been called by my name.

Isa 60:2–4:

Look, darkness and gloom shall cover the earth upon the nations, but the Lord will appear upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. . . . [4] Lift up your eyes round about, and see your children gathered together; look, all your sons have come from far away [µακρόθεν], and your daughters shall be carried on shoulders.

Jer 38(31):8–12:

Behold, I am bringing them from the north, and I will gather them from the farthest part of the earth at the feast of phasek, and you will breed a large crowd, and they shall return here. . . . [10] Hear a word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the islands far off [µακρόθεν]; say, “He who winnowed Israel will gather him and will keep him . . . .” [12] And they shall come and be glad on the mountain of Zion. . . .

These passages clearly describe the advent of “people coming from far away,” but these people are, for the most part, Jewish exiles who are returning to their homeland after a long period of separation. Their advent is an event initiated and blessed by God, and therefore an occasion for rejoicing. This reading of 1:35a fits well with v. 38, which describes the same process of Jewish return from exile, in slightly different wording. It also fits well in the context of what follows in vv. 35b– 37. As noted above, these verses lionize the “coming people” as righteous outsiders who, despite their lack of direct experience of God’s benefits, nevertheless have an unconditional belief in God. But what of the first part of v. 35a: “I will hand over your houses . . .”? It is this part of the verse that casts a negative tone on the whole pericope and that, as stated above, fits better with the dire threats against the former people enunciated by God in vv. 25–34. The perceptive reader soon comes to realize that 5 Ezra 1:35a represents a “pivotal,” or Janus-like literary reference, one that looks both back and ahead. Here 5 Ezra’s author is deliberately playing off “traditional,” threat-oriented readings of 1:35a against passages from the Jewish Scriptures in which righteous Israelite exiles are depicted as people who are “far away,” and who indeed will “come” from “far


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away” as beneficiaries of God’s kindness. These “coming people” will inherit the old people’s “houses” in the sense that they, as specially blessed by God, will assume the divine favor and status previously reserved for the former inhabitants of the land. It is this newly minted conception of “people coming from far away” that connects seamlessly to the following context of righteous returnees in vv. 35b–40. Thus, 1:35a provides an insight into the skill of 5 Ezra’s author at rendering literary transitions. As it happens, there may be still further levels of meaning in v. 35a. The author of 5 Ezra has consistently demonstrated a penchant for incorporating into the same context elements of both the “old” (Jewish scriptural) and the “new” (Christian scriptural) religious traditions. Thus, it may be worthwhile to be alert for something of this practice here in v. 35a as well. Investigation of the main Septuagintal terms uncovered thus far for “far away” or “from afar”—viz., µακράν, µακρόθεν, and πορρώθεν—as they occur in the Christian Scriptures yields some interesting results: Acts 2:39:

For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off [πᾶσιν τοῖς εἰς µακράν], every one whom the Lord our God calls to him.”5

Acts 22:21:

And he [Jesus] said to me [Paul], “Depart; for I will send you far away [µακράν] to the Gentiles.”

Eph 2:11–13:

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh . . . [12] were at that time separated from Christ, alienated [ἀπηλλοτριωµένοι] from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers [ξένοι] to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. [13] But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off [µακράν] have been brought near [ἐγγύς] in the blood of Christ. (Cf. Isa 57:19.)

Eph 2:17–19:

And he [Jesus] came and preached peace to you who were far off [µακράν] and peace to those who were near [ἐγγύς] [cf. Isa 57:19]; [18] for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. [19] So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners [ξένοι καὶ πάροικοι], but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

Heb 11:1–3, 13–16:

Now faith [or: belief] is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. [2] For by it the men of old received divine approval. [3] By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that

5 Spoken by Peter to Jews in Jerusalem at Pentecost; “all that are far off ” presumably refers to Gentiles.

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Journal of Biblical Literature 130, no. 3 (2011) what is seen is made out of things which do not appear. . . . [13] These [the great patriarchs and matriarchs of the early biblical tradition] all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar [πόρρωθεν], and having acknowledged that they were strangers [ξένοι] and exiles [παρεπίδηµοι] on the earth. [14] For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. [15] If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. [16] But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God . . . has prepared for them a city.

The passages cited above from Acts and Ephesians make it clear that the terms “far” or “far off ” (µακράν) in these books function as a sort of code term for Gentile Christians. These are believers in Jesus who are not “native,” so to speak, to the biblical tradition but nevertheless have been “called” by God from their position “far off ” to approach and become full participants in that tradition. Especially in Eph 2:13 and 2:17, the language of “far off ” and “near” appears to have been drawn from Isa 57:19. Gentile Christians are “far off ” mainly in the sense that the cultural heritage from which they spring is foreign to the biblical or Jewish cultural tradition. Thus, they are “far off,” first, in a spiritual or theological sense. Acts 22:21, however, adds an additional dimension. Gentiles are also those who are “far off ” in a physical sense. That is, the nations or areas in which Gentiles typically live are physically removed from the land of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish biblical tradition. Gentiles are, in a sense, by definition “foreigners” or “aliens” in a literal sense. This discovery that early Christian authors can refer to Gentile Christians as individuals who are “far off,” probably under the influence of Isa 57:19, allows us for the first time to establish a thematic connection between 5 Ezra 1:35a, which speaks of “people coming from far away,” and 1:35b–37, which appears to describe the “coming people” as Gentile Christians. It also allows us to establish a third possible reading of v. 35a. Earlier we noted that v. 35a could be understood in the sense either of (1) marauding foreign invaders coming to devastate the land of Israel, or of (2) Jewish exiles returning to Israel from Babylon. With this new perspective, we can now also read v. 35a as God stating, to form a paraphrase, “I will hand over your [the unrighteous former people’s] heritage to Gentile Christians”! This statement, of course, aligns well with the Christian supersessionist theology of 5 Ezra. Looking ahead briefly to 5 Ezra 1:36, we see that here Gentile Christians are “far away,” or separated from the Jewish cultural heritage, not only spiritually and spatially but also temporally. They live too late to have “seen” the ancient Jewish prophets in person, but nevertheless “are mindful of the antiquity” of the prophets. In a sense, then, their respect for the Jewish prophetic heritage compensates for the chance occurrence of their late birth.


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We turn now to the final passage cited above, Heb 11:1–3, 13–16. First, it happens that Heb 11:1–3, the prologue to the discussion of “faith” in Hebrews 11, presents a remarkably close thematic analogy to 5 Ezra 1:35–37. Like 1:35–37, Heb 11:1–3 stresses the fundamental opposition or dichotomy between “faith,” or belief, in a thing and actually “seeing” the thing. As we noted above, this distinction also constitutes the main conceptual premise of 5 Ezra 1:35–37. Like the “men of old” of Heb 11:2, the people lionized in 5 Ezra 1:35–37 are those who have not seen or known God directly but have nevertheless demonstrated unconditional “belief.” Furthermore, like 5 Ezra 1:36, Heb 11:1-3 points out the appropriateness of bringing into the consideration of modern-day believers the situation of “men of old”— that is, individuals like the Hebrew prophets mentioned in 5 Ezra 1:36. In Heb 11:13–16, we again encounter the expression “from afar.” And, as it happens, this passage moves in an entirely different direction from the passages quoted from Acts and Ephesians. In Hebrews, the people who are “far away” are “men of old”—they are the great patriarchs and matriarchs of the early biblical tradition, namely, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah. As in 5 Ezra 1:36, these are individuals who are “far away” not spiritually or spatially but temporally. The temporal remove, however, is in the opposite direction from that in 1:36. The worthies in Hebrews lived far too early to have experienced or “received” God’s saving event manifested in Jesus. Nevertheless they anticipated and lived lives of faith, or belief, in that event, embracing it proleptically, so to speak. Thus, even though they had not experienced God’s saving event in Jesus, they were “believers” de facto. In this sense their situation mirrors that described in Heb 11:1–3, where “faith” or “belief ” is “the conviction of things not seen.” Furthermore, their situation is analogous to that of the people described in 5 Ezra 1:35b (“those who have not known me will believe me”) and 1:37b (“although they do not see me with bodily eyes, they believe with the spirit”). To reprise, the concept of temporal displacement in Heb 11:13–16 constitutes a counterpoint to the dilemma of those described in 5 Ezra 1:36, who faced the opposite situation: they lived too late, rather than too early. Nevertheless they, like the worthies of Heb 11:13–16, “saw and greeted [the tradition] from afar” (Heb 11:13). They “have not seen prophets, but are mindful of the antiquity of the prophets” (5 Ezra 1:36).6 Before leaving our consideration of the five Christian scriptural passages that speak of a people “far off,” we should stress the particular language used in Ephesians 2 and Hebrews 11 to characterize the “far off ” people. In Ephesians 2, they are “separated [χωρίς] from Christ, alienated [ἀπηλλοτριωµένοι] from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers [ξένοι] to the covenants of promise” (2:12); again, they are “strangers and sojourners [ξένοι καὶ πάροικοι]” (2:19). In Heb 11:13 the “far off ” people are “strangers [ξένοι] and exiles [παρεπίδηµοι] on the earth.” In Heb 6

Closely analogous is Paul’s treatment of Abraham in Rom 4:9–12.

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11:9–10, Abraham, one of those “far off,” “sojourned [παρῴκησεν] in the land of promise, as in a foreign land [ὡς ἀλλοτρίαν], living in tents [ἐν σκηναῖς κατοικήσας] with Isaac and Jacob. . . . ” These peculiar descriptions of the social and political status of the “far off ” people will have important ramifications in our discussion of 5 Ezra 1:38–40. In summary to our discussion of 5 Ezra 1:35a, we stress the following points. First, as noted above, this verse can actually be interpreted in three distinct ways. (1) The “people coming from far away” can be understood as marauding foreign invaders coming to devastate the land of Israel. This reading fits well with the preceding context in 1:25–34. (2) These people can be understood as Jewish exiles returning to Israel from Babylon. This reading matches the following context in 1:38–40. (3) On the basis of selected passages from the Christian Scriptures, these people can also be understood as Gentile Christians. This reading aligns with the following context in 1:35b–37. The author of 5 Ezra was by all indications a skilled littérateur, and I suspect that 1:35a was crafted deliberately with all of these possibilities in mind. This realization helps to alleviate to some degree the exegetical difficulties sketched at the start of this paper. We now possess at least a preliminary basis for forging exegetical links between the marauding foreign invaders of v. 35a, the Gentile Christians of vv. 35b–37, and the returning Jewish exiles of vv. 38–40. On first reading, these groups seemed to be entirely disparate. A second summary point is that we have discerned in this discussion at least three distinct ways in which the term “far away,” with reference to the “coming people,” can be interpreted. (1) The “coming people” are “coming from far away” in a physical or geographical sense. This reading would apply both to foreign invaders of Israel and to returning Jewish exiles. Indeed, even Gentile Christians are “far away” geographically from the Jewish tradition in the sense that they tend to live in areas outside the land of Israel. (2) Gentile Christians are also “far away” from the Jewish biblical tradition in a spiritual or theological sense. The cultural heritage from which they spring is foreign to the Jewish, biblical cultural tradition. (3) Gentile Christians are “far away” from the Jewish cultural heritage not only geographically and spiritually but also temporally. They live too late to have “seen” the ancient Jewish prophets in person, but nevertheless “are mindful of the antiquity” of the prophets. Furthermore, the great patriarchs and matriarchs of the early biblical tradition adduced in Heb 11:13–16 are also “far away” temporally, but in the opposite sense. They lived far too early to have experienced the saving event of Jesus directly, but they nevertheless anticipated that event proleptically through their faith. Appreciation of these various modes of understanding the term “far away” also helps to alleviate the exegetical difficulties sketched at the start of this article. Again, it provides a tentative exegetical link between foreign invaders, Gentile Christians, and returning Jewish exiles. A third summary point concerns the particular language used in Ephesians 2


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and Hebrews 11 to characterize the “far off ” people. They are “separated” from Christ, “strangers,” “sojourners,” and “exiles on the earth.” These terms will figure significantly in the coming discussion.

II. Exegesis of 5 Ezra 1:35b 5 Ezra 1:35b does not seem to have any direct parallels in the Jewish or Christian Scriptures. There are, however, a number of passages that are cognate to it in various ways. First, and most notably, Isa 42:16; 52:15–53:1; 55:5; and 65:1 all feature a rhetorical structure that is remarkably similar to that of 1:35b. This is clearly a characteristic rhetorical feature of Second/Third Isaiah and doubtless influenced the phrasing of 5 Ezra 1:35b. Isaiah 52:15–53:1 is indicative: So shall many nations be astonished at him, and kings shall shut their mouth, because those who were not informed about him shall see and those who did not hear shall understand. Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?7

The chief characteristic binding these Isaianic passages together and tying them to 5 Ezra 1:35b is the presentation, always in two or three consecutive, conceptually parallel clauses, of the idea that a group of people who had previously lacked knowledge and experience of God is now brought by God to a state of knowledge and experience. The main traits of the people referred to in these passages are those of knowing, seeing, hearing, believing, understanding, obeying, and being shown signs. The people in question move from a state of lacking these qualities to a state of having them, owing to God’s intentions. A supersessionist Christian thinker such as the author of 5 Ezra would almost certainly have read these Isaianic passages, at least in part, as prophetic references to Gentile Christians (as did Paul; see below). These are individuals who have not “known” God or had direct experience of divine revelations or benefits as recorded in the Jewish Scriptures, but they were nevertheless favored and “led” by God, perhaps in part because of their very status as “outsiders.” This situation in turn would have formed a natural counterpoint to the biblical (Jewish) exodus generation, the very group that is excoriated so harshly in 5 Ezra 1:4–24. These were people who had had all the benefits of direct knowledge and experience of God, but who nevertheless had rebelled against God and thus repudiated their heritage and favored status. Reference to this latter sort of person is scattered throughout the biblical exodus narrative and is found elsewhere in both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures: see, e.g., Num 14:11; Ps 77(78):32; Hab 1:5; Rom 10:14–21; and Hebrews 2–4. 7

Quoted by Paul in Rom 10:14–19 and 15:21.

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This ideology, of course, meshes perfectly with Christian supersessionist theology, the theology embraced so firmly by the author of 5 Ezra. Second, a number of scriptural passages echo 5 Ezra 1:35b in conjoining the themes of (a) “believing” and (b) seeing or being shown “signs.” Especially noteworthy is Num 14:11: And the Lord said to Moyses, “How long is this people going to provoke me, and how long are they not going to believe me amidst all the signs that I have performed among them?

This verse is especially significant in that it directly addresses the exodus generation, the same group that was criticized in 5 Ezra 1:4–24. As noted above, this is a group of individuals who patently had been “shown signs,” who had had direct experience of God’s beneficence, and yet still did not “believe” God. This status stands in direct contrast to those who are lionized in 1:35b, who had not seen signs but had nevertheless believed. The contrast with the exodus generation could hardly be made more explicit. Third, several other Christian scriptural passages conjoin a number of the themes expressed in 5 Ezra 1:35b: viz., “knowing” God, “believing” God, being “shown signs” by God, and obeying God. Most notable are Rom 10:14–21 and Hebrews 2–4. The former passage shows that Paul has read and interpreted the Isaianic passages cited above as referring to Gentile Christians. The latter passage explicitly contrasts believing Christians with the recalcitrant exodus generation. Furthermore, it deals with the same issues addressed in 5 Ezra 1:35b: direct knowledge of God and direct experience of God’s “works” (Heb 3:7–9) are contrasted with “belief ” in and “obedience” toward God. I suspect that the author of 5 Ezra modeled 1:35b structurally on the four Isaianic passages cited above, but drew the contrast between “believing” and being “shown signs” from Num 14:11. Romans 10:14–21 and Hebrews 2–4 may also have been in his mind as he crafted 1:35b. In summary to our discussion of 1:35b, there is little doubt that the author of 5 Ezra here intended to portray Gentile Christians, and to draw a pointed contrast between this group and the recalcitrant exodus generation.

III. Exegesis of 5 Ezra 1:36–37 If we were unable to identify precisely defined, individual scriptural models for 5 Ezra 1:35a and b, quite the opposite is true for vv. 36–37 and v. 38. 5 Ezra 1:36–37—with its successive attention to “prophets,” “apostles,” “joy,” and the contrast between “seeing” and “believing”—seems to have been inspired directly by 1 Pet 1:8–12:


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[8] Without having seen him you love him; though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy. [9] As the outcome of your faith you obtain the salvation of your souls. [10] The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired about this salvation; [11] they inquired what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory. [12] It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things which have now been announced to you by those who preached the good news to you through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

Here in 1 Pet 1:8–12 we find precisely the same elements as in 5 Ezra 1:36–37, albeit in a somewhat different order. 1 Peter has first “seeing” vs. “believing,” then “joy,” then “prophets,” and finally a clear reference to Christian apostles (although the term “apostles” itself is not used). Although 5 Ezra 1:36–37 is drawn in a macroscopic sense from 1 Pet 1:8–12, there are also some individual elements of the pericope that may have been influenced by other Christian scriptural passages. For example, although 1 Pet 1:8–12 does not actually use the word “testify” or “bear witness” to describe the activity of the apostles, as does 5 Ezra 1:37, this term is used in this sense in Heb 2:1–4. Another element in 5 Ezra 1:37 that does not have a direct parallel in 1 Pet 1:8–12 is the phrase, “and they have heard the things that I have said, and believe me.” The closest scriptural parallel to this passage known to me is again from Hebrews, 4:2–3. In summary, then, 5 Ezra 1:36–37 uses an overall textual framework drawn mainly from 1 Pet 1:8–12 to reiterate the same general principles that are enunciated in 5 Ezra 1:35b. The “coming people” have not actually “seen” the ancient prophets, nor have they “seen” God with “bodily eyes” yet they respect the prophets, they “believe” God “with the spirit,” and they have “heard” what God has said and “believe” God. As in 1:35b, all of these elements bespeak reference to Gentile Christians, who are “outside” the classical Jewish biblical tradition yet possess the essential qualities of “belief ” and obedience. The fact that “the apostles bear witness to the coming people” (5 Ezra 1:37) further suggests that the people in question are, at the least, second-generation Christians. 5 Ezra 1:37b, which praises the coming people for “believing” without having “seen,” besides echoing 1 Pet 1:8, also bears a striking resemblance to John 20:29: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” John 20:29 is often interpreted as a veiled reference by the evangelist to Christians of generations later than the apostles. These are Christians who will not have had the direct experience of “seeing” Jesus but who should nevertheless “believe.” Given the apparent intent of 5 Ezra 1:37—and the force of its ideological parallel in John 20:29—it would seem that here in v. 37 we have yet another example of how the “coming people” is “far away” from its traditional soteriological roots.


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Earlier we noted that Gentile Christians are “far away” from their Jewish cultural heritage spiritually, spatially, and temporally—the latter because they lived too late to have actually “seen” the Jewish prophets. 5 Ezra 1:37 adds another dimension to this temporal remove. Gentile Christians live too late not only to have seen the prophets but also to have witnessed directly God’s saving event in Jesus. They nevertheless have overcome this temporal remove by demonstrating unconditional “belief ” in this event, thus proving their spiritual worth! In summary to our discussion of 5 Ezra 1:36–37, the main point is that here, as in 1:35b, the author seems clearly to be alluding to Gentile Christians. Furthermore, these Christians are “far away” from their soteriological roots temporally in yet another sense. Besides living too late to have experienced directly the Jewish biblical tradition, they also lived too late to have witnessed directly God’s saving event in Jesus. Nevertheless, like the worthies of Hebrews 11, they can participate in this event even at a remove through their faith.

IV. Exegesis of 5 Ezra 1:38 The main exegetical hurdle still facing us is to attempt to understand how the portrayal of the “coming people” as Gentile Christians in 5 Ezra 1:35–37 can be reconciled with the apparent attempt in vv. 38–40 to identify them as Jewish exiles returning from Babylon to Israel, exiles who are led by God and by a daunting assemblage of Jewish biblical heroes. 5 Ezra 1:38, like 1:36–37, has a clearly identifiable scriptural basis, namely, Bar 4:36–37 and its parallel in 5:5: Bar 4:36–37:

Look toward the east, O Jerusalem, and see the joy that is coming to you from God. Look, your children are coming, whom you sent away; they are coming, gathered from east and west, at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing in the glory of God.

Bar 5:5:

Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height and look toward the east, and see your children gathered from west and east, at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them.

These passages from Baruch are in turn inspired by Isa 43:5–7; 49:18; and 60:2–4. These passages from Baruch and Second/Third Isaiah constitute unambiguous references to the return of Jewish exiles from Babylon to the land of Israel. Both books paint the return of these exiles in glowing, ideal, even divine terms, as the gift of a loving God who has pardoned his people. Neither here nor in 5 Ezra 1:38 is there any indication that the text supports, or can be read as supporting, Christian apologetic interests.


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A first step in overcoming our remaining exegetical hurdle is to recall that, as we have shown, 5 Ezra 1:35a can legitimately be read in three distinct ways: (1) “I will hand over your houses/heritage to foreign invaders”; (2) “I will hand over your houses/heritage to Jewish exiles returning to Israel”; and (3) “I will hand over your houses/heritage to Gentile Christians.” Thus, there already exists in 5 Ezra textual warrant for drawing a correlation between the Gentile Christians of 1:35b–37 and the returning Jewish exiles of 1:38–40. We should also keep in mind that “exiles” are, by definition, people who are “far away” geographically from their homeland. As we have seen, Gentile Christians are also often characterized in Christian sources as people “far away.” And, as stated in 5 Ezra 1:35a and 1:38–40, the exiles at issue here are “coming” from far away; that is, they are in the process of returning from exile. Second, it is important to note that there are significant precedents in the Jewish Scriptures for idealizing the process of Jews returning from foreign exile. Important examples include Second/Third Isaiah (esp. 40:1–11; 43:5–7; 49:10–18; 51:11; 60:2–17; 65:9); Jer 38(31):8–12; Ezek 20:38; and Baruch 4–5. Third, it is also important to realize that there are significant Jewish scriptural precedents not only for idealizing the Jews returning from exile in Babylon, but also for lionizing those who are still in a state of exile. Key passages exemplifying this idea are Jeremiah 24; 38(31):1–14; Ezek 11:14–21; and Bar 2:30–35. The parable of the good and rotten figs in Jeremiah 24, for example, identifies the good figs as Judean exiles in Chaldea whom God will return to the land. “And I will give them a heart that they may know me, that I am the Lord, and they shall become a people to me, and I will become a god to them, because they shall return to me with their whole heart” (Jer 24:7). The rotten figs, on the other hand, are “the remnant of Jerousalem, those left in this land and those who live in Egypt” (24:8). “And I will give them as a scattering to all the kingdoms of the earth and as a disgrace and as an illustration and as a thing to be hated and as a curse in every place, there where I drove them” (24:9). Ezekiel 11:14–21 draws an equally emphatic contrast between the returning exiles and the Jews presently inhabiting the land.8 Similar passages idealizing the moral and spiritual qualities of Jews living in a state of exile are found in a variety of other early Jewish and Christian writings, for example, 4 Ezra 13, the Qumran Damascus Document, and the poems of the Christian writer Commodian.9 Thus, this theme is well attested in early biblical and cognate sources.

8 I suspect that some early Christian exegetes of Jeremiah 24 and Ezekiel 11 identified the Christians with the righteous returnees from exile and the exegetes’ Jewish opponents with those who had remained behind from exile. 9 See Theodore A. Bergren, “The ‘People Coming from the East’ in 5 Ezra 1:38,” JBL 108 (1989): 675–83.


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A fourth step in our consideration of the motif of Jews returning from Babylonian exile in 5 Ezra 1:38–40 involves a review of the various terms that we have seen used for the “people far away” in early Christian sources, viz., Acts, Ephesians, Hebrews, and 1 Peter. These terms include “separated,” “alienated,” “strangers,” “sojourners,” and “exiles.” Generally in these sources these terms are used specifically to describe Gentile Christians, who are by definition “separated” or “far away” from the classical Jewish biblical tradition. Of special significance in our consideration of 5 Ezra 1:38–40 is the use of the term “exile” or “sojourner” (Gk. παρεπίδηµος, πάροικος) and cognate terms in early Christian sources. A survey of the Christian Scriptures reveals that the most direct NT Greek equivalent for the term “exile,” viz., παρεπίδηµος, occurs there in only two sources: Hebrews (11:13) and 1 Peter (1:1; 2:11; cf. 1:17). Significantly, as we have shown above, these are precisely the two documents that are quoted explicitly in 5 Ezra 1:36– 37! In Heb 11:13, as we have seen in the excerpt quoted in extenso above, the term “exile” refers to the great patriarchs and matriarchs of the early biblical period, from Abel through Sarah. In 1 Peter, on the other hand, the term describes early Christians: 1 Pet 1:1:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the exiles [παρεπιδήµοις] of the dispersion [διασπορᾶς] in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. . . .

1 Pet 2:11:

Beloved, I beseech you as aliens [παροίκους] and exiles [παρεπιδήµους] to abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against your soul.

Cf. 1 Pet 1:17:

. . . conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile [τῆς παροικίας].

The other main NT Greek term for “exile” or “sojourner,” πάροικος, occurs in the Christian Scriptures in two passages that we have already reviewed, 1 Pet 2:11 and Eph 2:19. It is found also in Acts 7:6 and 7:29, where it refers respectively to Jews sojourning in Egypt and to Moses taking refuge in Midian. Other occurrences of the term and its cognates in early Christian literature are as follows: Eph 2:19 (above):

Gentile Christians were “strangers and sojourners [ξένοι καὶ πάροικοι].”

Diogn. 5:5:

[Christians] dwell in their own fatherlands, but as sojourners [πάροικοι]; . . . every fatherland is a foreign country.

1 Pet 1:17 (above):

. . . conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile [τῆς παροικίας].

2 Clem. 5:1:

Let us forsake our exile/sojourning [παροικίαν] in this world . . . let us not fear to go forth from this world.

Cf. 2 Clem. 5:5:

Our sojourning/exile [ἐπιδηµία] in this world in the flesh is a little thing and lasts a short time.

Bergren: 5 Ezra 1:35–40 Heb 11:9 (above):

Abraham, one of those “far off,” “sojourned [παρῴκησεν] in the land of promise.”

Diogn. 6:8:

Christians sojourn [παροικοῦσιν] among corruptible things, waiting for the incorruptibility which is in heavenly things.

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1 Clement prologue: The church of God which sojourns [παροικοῦσα] in Rome to the church of God which sojourns [παροικούσῃ] in Corinth.10 Cf. Phil 3:20; Hermas Similitude 1.

What do the terms “exile” and “to be in exile” signify as they are applied to Christians (and to their spiritual forebears) in these early Christian sources? Clearly these terms generally are not used in the traditional, literal sense of a person displaced from his or her homeland. Neither the early patriarchs and matriarchs of Hebrews 11 nor the early Christians referred to in the sources cited above are “exiles” in the traditional sense of the word. Rather, the terms here clearly take on a transferred, or metaphorical, sense. “Exile” here does refer to a person who is living in an alien place, who is not “at home,” but this person is “not at home” in a metaphysical or spiritual, rather than a literal, sense. For early Christian writers such as the authors of Hebrews, 1 Peter, and Ephesians, as also for Paul,11 the earthly sphere in which Christians presently reside is not their true “home,” any more than Babylon was the “home” of exiled Israelites. The true home of Christian believers, for these authors, is not any physical, earthly place. Rather, it is the heavenly sphere —specifically, that place to which believers will be transferred after they die, or at the time of their resurrection.12 10 Similar usages occur in the prologue of Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians and in the prologue of the Martyrdom of Polycarp. 11 See esp. 1 Cor 3:19; 2 Corinthians 3–6; Gal 1:4; 5:16–26; 6:14; and Phil 1:21–23; 3:20–21. 12 As commentators on the passages quoted above regularly point out, the notion that the human soul is a “sojourner” or “exile” on the earth, separated from its true, heavenly home, is a commonplace both in Greek thought and in the Hellenistic Jewish tradition represented by Philo. In the writings of Philo, as in Hebrews, this imagery is used largely to interpret the biblical motif of the patriarchs as “sojourners” in the land of Israel (see esp. Gen 23:3–4; also Gen 47:4, 9; Lev 25:23; 1 Chr 29:15; and Ps 38[39]:13). Harold W. Attridge (see reference below) cites no fewer than thirteen applications of the motif in Philo; most directly relevant to our study are Conf. 76– 81; Cher. 120–21; Her. 82, 267; Somn. 1.181; Leg. 3.83; Fug. 76; and Agr. 64–65. Metaphorical description of the soul as a “sojourner” in its present condition is also found in a number of LXX psalms: viz., Pss 38(39):12–13; 93(94):17; 118(119):54; and 119(120):5–6. For further details and bibliography on this theme, see esp. Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter: A Commentary on 1 Peter (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 81–82, 125–26, 173–75; Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 328–32; Carolyn Osiek, The Shepherd of Hermas: A Commentary. (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 157–60; Johannes Roldanus, “Références patristiques au ‘chrétien-étranger’ dans les trois premiers siècles,” in Lectures anciennes de la Bible (Cahiers de

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Thus, as “exiles” in the earthly sphere, Gentile Christians, the “coming people” of 5 Ezra 1:35-37, are “far away” from their true, heavenly home—this time, once again, in a spatial sense. Although the author of 5 Ezra nowhere uses the term “exile,” there is every reason to believe that he was aware of the use of this term in Hebrews, 1 Peter, and Ephesians. His summons to Ezra in 1:38 to “look with glory, and see the people coming from the east” was intended, at least in part, to evoke the image of Christians as “exiles,” rather than simply signifying the return of Jews from captivity in Babylon. This is suggested not only by the explicit citations of Hebrews and 1 Peter in 5 Ezra 1:36–37 but also by the ideology expressed later in 5 Ezra 2:33–48, which explicitly and at length underscores the idea that the true home of Christian believers is the heavenly rather than the earthly sphere (see esp. 2:35– 39, 44–45). These four considerations show that there was both precedent and ample cause for the author of 5 Ezra to characterize Gentile Christians as “exiles” and to equate them metaphorically with Jewish exiles returning from Babylon to Israel. But what are we to make of the emphasis in 1:38 on the physical movement of the exiles, on their process of return from exile to Israel, their homeland? How does this image of a motion of return from exile accord with the idea of Christians living as “exiles” in the earthly sphere, out of alignment with their true, heavenly home?

V. Exegesis of 5 Ezra 1:39–40 To answer this question we turn to 5 Ezra 1:39–40, the passage appended to v. 38, which describes the large company of patriarchs, prophets, and angels who, together with God, will lead the exiles in their return to their homeland. 5 Ezra 1:39–40 initially presents something of a puzzle regarding its origins and intention. Baruch 5:9 and other sources make it clear that God will “lead” the Jews’ return from Babylonian exile, but whence springs the long list of biblical worthies and “angels” who will also guide the returnees? The closest scriptural parallel to this passage known to me is Luke 13:28–29, with its parallel in Matt 8:11–12. The Lukan passage reads as follows: There you will weep and gnash your teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves thrust out. Biblia Patristica 1; Strasbourg: Centre d’Analyse et de Documentation Patristiques, 1987), 27–52; and the literature and references cited in these sources. The comments of Achtemeier on the relevance of this theme to the situation of Jews in exile (pp. 82, 126, 174) are especially germane to this study.


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And men will come from east and west, and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God.

These Synoptic passages, in particular the Lukan version, conjoin a number of fascinating points. Most importantly, they account for most of the lengthy list of co-leaders in 5 Ezra 1:39–40. Second, they explicitly elicit the theme of return from exile that was so prominent in 1:38 (“And men will come from east and west, and from north and south, and sit at table . . .”). Third, and perhaps most remarkably, they betray a strong orientation toward Gentile believers, as in 5 Ezra 1:35b–37. Finally, with the phrase “kingdom of God/heaven,” they evoke a clear eschatological orientation, or at least an orientation toward the afterlife. Such an orientation has not been apparent thus far in 5 Ezra 1:35–40. On this point of afterlife orientation, we also note that prominent in the list of leaders in 5 Ezra 1:39–40 are the twelve “minor prophets.” Although explicit references to the minor prophets as a group are rare in the Bible, such a reference does occur in Sir 49:10: May the bones of the Twelve Prophets send forth new life from where they lie, for they comforted the people of Jacob and delivered them with confident hope.

This passage is often understood as eliciting a hope for the resurrection of the twelve minor prophets, an idea that fits well with the theme of afterlife or eschatology as expressed in Luke 13:28–29 and Matt 8:11–12. In a previous study I surveyed a number of passages in early Jewish and Christian sources that offer close parallels to 5 Ezra 1:39–40, that is, that depict a large gathering of biblical patriarchs and prophets with whom righteous humans become associated.13 That survey identified two basic types of situation in which this condition may be found. One type involves groups of biblical worthies who are situated in a glorified, heavenly setting, and whom righteous humans encounter in the afterlife. Examples of this type include Apocalypse of Paul 20–30 and 45–51; Luke 13:28– 29 (and its parallel in Matt 8:11–12); 4 Macc 7:19; 13:17; 16:25; Apocalypse of Zephaniah 8–11; and Gk. Apoc. Ezra 5:22. A second type involves similar groupings of biblical worthies who, rather than simply being resident in a heavenly state, are engaged in a dynamic process of leading righteous humans in a sort of procession from the earthly to the heavenly sphere. In these sources the process of movement is normally associated with resurrection. Examples include Sib. Or. 2:238–51; T. Jud. 25; T. Benj. 10:6–8; and Justin, Dial. 45.2–4; 80.1–5; 113.3–4. T. Benj. 10:6–8 reads as follows:

13

See Theodore A. Bergren, “The List of Leaders in 5 Ezra 1:39–40,” JBL 120 (2001): 313–27.


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Then you will see Enoch, Noah, and Shem, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, rising on the right hand in gladness. Then shall we [the twelve sons of Jacob] also rise, each one over our tribe, and worship (Jesus); and all those who believed him on earth will rejoice with him. Then, too, all men will rise, some to glory and some to disgrace.14

Interestingly, all of the sources in this second group are either Christian compositions or Christian additions to Jewish sources, and all date from the second or third century c.e. In addition, as noted above, Sir 49:10 could be read as associating the twelve minor prophets in particular with the process of resurrection. Clearly the second of these options more closely matches the situation in 5 Ezra 1:39–40. Here, as in the second group of sources cited above, the extended group of biblical worthies is not simply resident in a heavenly setting but is engaged in an active, dynamic process of leading righteous believers in a sort of grand procession from a “foreign” setting to their “home” territory. The main difference is that 5 Ezra 1:38–40 envisions this process as a return from exile, while the sources cited above tend to view the procession as one involving resurrection. Given the observations made earlier in this article, however, it is not difficult to forge a connection between these two apparently disparate life settings of return from exile and resurrection. We have noted that early Christian sources generally use the term “exile” to denote Gentile Christians (or their spiritual forebears) who are “not at home” in the earthly sphere, but long to return to a heavenly “homeland.” And it is a logical extension of this observation to hold that “resurrection” is the process by which this goal will be accomplished. After all, a process of motion is required if one is to move from a less desirable, “foreign” state to a more desirable, “home” state. This simple observation allows us to establish an exegetical connection between the “people coming from the east” in 5 Ezra 1:38–40 and the righteous Christian believers engaged in a process of resurrection in the second group of sources cited above. And the key to this exegetical connection lies in the common appeal in all of these sources to the large group of biblical worthies who will, in all cases, “lead” the grand procession of return. To state the conclusion in other words, I suggest that the image of exiles returning “from the east” in 5 Ezra 1:38–40 serves as a metaphor for Gentile Christians who are engaged in a process of resurrection, “returning” from their earthly “exile” to their true, heavenly home. Indeed, I suspect that early Christian readers of 5 Ezra would have immediately recognized the scenario in 1:39–40 as an allusion to resurrection and thus would have grasped the metaphor. In order to buttress my conclusion, I note that 5 Ezra is not the only early source in which the processes of return from exile and resurrection are identified. George W. E. Nickelsburg has argued that these two processes are metaphorically 14

Quoted from AOT, ad loc.


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linked in 2 Maccabees 7.15 In addition, in the study cited above, I noted that Justin Martyr explicitly connects the two processes in Dial. 113.3–4:16 Jesus the Christ will turn again the dispersion of the people [τὴν διασπορὰν τοῦ λαοῦ] and will distribute the good land to each one . . . after the holy resurrection, [he] will give us the eternal possession.

Even in the Synoptic logion Luke 13:28–29//Matt 8:11–12, one could argue that the righteous believers enjoying a meal with “Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God” (Luke 13:28) are Gentile Christians who have been gathered from a situation of “exile” (Luke 13:29: “men will come from east and west, and from north and south”) into a postmortem, resurrected state (“the kingdom of God”). Having established a connection between exiles returning from the east and Gentile Christians engaged in a process of resurrection, we return to our starting point, 5 Ezra 1:35a. Here the people to whom God will “hand over” the “houses” of the original people are “coming from far away,” again stressing the process of motion from one state to a more desirable situation. This, then, forms an elegant inclusio with 5 Ezra 1:38–40.

VI. Conclusion; Summary of Findings In conclusion, I briefly summarize the findings of this study: 1. There is clearly one group of individuals that is at issue in 5 Ezra 1:35–40: the so-called coming people (populus veniens) (cf. 1:35a, 37, 38). 2. 5 Ezra 1:35b–37 implies that these people are Gentile Christians. This is suggested by the fact that they have not “known,” “been shown signs by,” or “seen” God or the ancient prophets but nevertheless “believe” and obey God, and respect the prophets. Verse 37 implies that they are at least second-generation Christians. In vv. 38–40, however, the “coming people” seem to be Jews returning from a state of exile. 3. The people in vv. 35b–37 are deliberately contrasted with the unbelieving and disobedient exodus generation excoriated in vv. 4–34. 4. Textual analysis of v. 35a suggests that this verse is polyvalent in character, referring at once to the “coming people” as foreign invaders, returning Jewish exiles, and Gentile Christians. As such it affords a transition between vv. 4–34 and vv. 35b– 15 See Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism and Early Christianity (expanded ed.; HTS 56; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 119–38. 16 See n. 13 above.

612


40 and a link between the concepts of returning Jewish exiles and Gentile Christians. 5. When read as a reference to Gentile Christians, v. 35a suggests that these people, “far away” theologically from the Jewish tradition, are “coming” to inherit or appropriate that tradition. 6. “Not hav[ing] seen” the ancient prophets (v. 36), the “coming people” are “far away” chronologically from the classical Jewish biblical tradition. Further, since Gentiles typically live in non-Jewish areas, they are also “far away” geographically from Judaism. 7. If the “coming people” are viewed as exiles, as suggested by (one reading of) v. 35a and especially by vv. 38–40, then they are also “far away” geographically in the “exilic” sense. 8. As already noted, the “coming people” in vv. 38–40 seem prima facie to be returning Jewish exiles. There is a strong tradition in the Jewish Scriptures both of lionizing the spiritual qualities of Jews in exile and of glorifying the process of their return. Exegesis of v. 35a, however, has also shown that Gentile Christians could be characterized as “people coming from far away,” or returning exiles. 9. Analysis of uses of the terms “exile” or “sojourner” in early Christian literature shows that these terms are used there mainly for Christians and their spiritual forebears. These people are characterized as “exiles” for several reasons. First they, like Gentiles, are “far away” theologically, temporally, and geographically from the classical, established religious traditions. Christians are also “exiles” in the sense that, during their “sojourn” on the earth, they are spatially removed, or “far away,” from their true, heavenly homeland. 10. Comparison of the long list of patriarchs and prophets who lead the people in vv. 39–40 with similar lists in other early Jewish and Christian sources strongly suggests that the journey of the “coming people” in vv. 38–40 actually represents a process of resurrection of the righteous. 11. In view of these considerations (nos. 8–10), I suggest that the motif of return from exile in 5 Ezra 1:38–40 actually serves as a metaphor for the process of resurrection of righteous Gentile Christians. This metaphor is adopted by the author because both return from exile and resurrection involve a process of movement from a less desirable, “foreign” state to a more desirable, “home” state. This interpretation helps to resolve the apparent contradiction between the presentation of the “coming people” as Gentile Christians in vv. 35b–37 and as returning Jewish exiles in vv. 38–40.

New Texts for Hebrew Bible Studies 1 Enoch 2 A Critical Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 37–82 Hermeneia Series GEORGE W.E. NICKELSBURG and JAMES C. VANDERKAM KLAUS BALTZER, Editor

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