welcome to BIBL 5203

[This is a slightly modified re-posting from July, 2008 (the original post is available here).]

I'd like to welcome all the students enrolled in my online course, The History of New Testament Interpretation. Students can find posts specifically relevant for this course by clicking on the label, BIBL 5203, available below.

In the previous version of this course, students found the following comment regarding the concomitant dangers of biblical interpretation:

Bernard Ramm reminds us that biblical interpretation is a demanding task, since our approach and procedures must be made explicit. Quite simply, we must avoid the error of making interpretations on the basis of speculation and we must avoid making them arbitrarily and dogmatically. Proper interpretation requires allowing the text to challenge and modify our prior assumptions about its meaning. Interpretation requires a courageous commitment to pursue the truth wherever it may lead.

I would like to take a moment to make this point a bit more forcefully.

For the last few years I have been thinking on-and-off about the idea that the Bible is a "dangerous," or even "offensive" text. I don't mean "offensive" in the same sense that Don Imus or Jesse Jackson are offensive; I mean "offensive" in the way Peyton Manning or LeBron James are offensive. The biblical text moves forward; it advances; it makes claims on the lives of those who read it, and if we're not careful (and especially if we are!), we will find the text calling us into question. Though I hesitate to cite Tolkien here, Frodo's recollection of Bilbo's caution seems apt here:

Remember what Bilbo used to say: "It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to."

Reading the Bible is similarly dangerous; studying the Bible only compounds the risk. For those of us who define ourselves in terms of our reading of biblical texts and who believe that problems attend not only to the wide world around us but also the hidden world inside us, the voice of God we strive to hear from the inscribed page continually threatens the safe and stable identities and identifications we have made for ourselves. Though "Protestant" does not define my attachment to Christianity (except to the extent that I am not "Catholic")—still less does the label "Reformed"—I have strong sympathies with the Reformation cry Reformata Semper Reformanda ("reformed yet always reforming" [in this context I intentionally elide Ecclesia, though I do not espouse an individualistic conception of Christianity]). I have been transformed/reformed, yes; but that transformation has not neutered the Bible or rendered me any less prone to its discipline, rebuke, and chastisement.

Surrendering to this offensive movement of the biblical text is (or ought to be) at the heart of what it means to be a confessing Christian, and especially (if not uniquely) an evangelical Christian. In this vein I was pleased to read Donna Freitas's observation, in a vastly different context, regarding students at evangelical institutions of higher education [nb: Freitas herself does not self-identify as an evangelical]:

When I tell friends and colleagues about the different groups of students who participated in this study, antievangelical prejudices surface over and over. Many people believe that evangelical Christians are not intellectual, that there is little nuance to their beliefs, and that they are not capable of sustaining a well-reasoned argument. But there is nearly as much diversity inside evangelical culture as there is outside of it. And time after time during my interviews, these stereotypes were shattered. [Two female students] epitomize the complexity of personal and religious identities common among the evangelical students I interviewed — perfect examples of the committed Christian who grows intellectually and learns to push boundaries and think hard about her place in the world because of her own and her college's intense faith commitments, not in spite of them. Although, to be sure, I met stereotypical Religious Right types, I also encountered a wide range of political persuasions. (Freitas, Sex and the Soul, 62–63; original emphasis)

Freitas may be focusing on political or ideological diversity among evangelicals, but I would like to draw attention to her comment about "the committed Christian who grows . . . because of her" faith. This is, of course, a romantic and backward-looking description of evangelical Christians, told from the perspective of their ultimate (if still ongoing) success in negotiating their identity and location within the wider world.

But from the forward-looking perspective at the beginning of biblical research (remember, this is only the beginning of the semester!) we need to realize that things look very different indeed. Researching and (hopefully) understanding the biblical text with greater clarity and sophistication does not bring comfort and succor. Rather, it augments the intensity with which the text calls us to account, highlights the situatedness of ourselves at the center of our lives as God looks on from outside, and warns ever more clearly that all that is chaff will be burned in his purifying judgment. Certainly the Bible comforts us, but the Bible's comfort is precisely that all this discomfort comes from the hands of a loving and merciful God.

As we examine how the church has read and utilized the NT texts throughout the last two millennia, we ought to be prepared to find ourselves in the highs and lows of the church's history. This finding, I hope, will add depth to our readings of the texts and resonance to the voice we hear speaking from the page and summoning us to incline our ear to his counsel.

the Old Testament among early Christians

I finished reading Ronald E. Heine's Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church: Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought (Evangelical Ressourcement; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007). I am relatively new to Patristics and the history of Christianity beyond 100 CE, so there's a lot I don't know here. But over the last ten months or so I've been doing quite a bit of reading, among both the literary remains of post-New Testament Christianity and the scholarship thereof, and Heine's book is perhaps the most engaging and wide-ranging of my recent reading.

At 194 pages and a list price less than $22.00 [USD], there's no reason why anyone should avoid this book. Heine draws together a diverse cross-section of primary materials, from the Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, to Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome. He touches on Ephrem and the Cappadocian Fathers. He treats Origen at length (relative to his treatment of other Fathers in this book).

Despite this broad scope, Heine's book exhibits a clear structure that remains in focus throughout. As the book moves from the Fathers' reading of the Law to their treatments of the Exodus, the Prophets, and the Psalms, I found myself always aware of our location within both the canon and Christian history. His treatment of such difficult topics as allegorical vs. literal hermeneutics is nuanced and even-handed. The last major chapter, "Living in the Text" (175–91), justifies the book's rather meagre cost by itself.

I would have liked to see some [more] explicit discussion of the Fathers' struggles (i) against the developing rabbinic expression of Judaism, and (ii) with theological and philosophical controversies arising within their ranks. But these discussions would likely have weighed down what is an otherwise clear, concise, and lucid text.

Heine has, in my view, provided the Church with a valuable sense of its past and its conviction that Israel's scriptures are its scriptures, that Israel's story is its story. He has also provided the Academy with a helpful way into the vast body of material that is the early Christians' reading of Israel's sacred traditions. Many of the writings from this material are readily available in print and online (see "English Sources for Exegetical and Homiletical Works of the Church Fathers" [195–97]), though too few of us—in the Church as well as in the Academy—are very familiar with them. Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church offers a helpful corrective to this problem.

on the psalms, again

For nearly ten years now I have been intrigued by the social aspects of individual life, or—in other words—the way the world outside us becomes the world inside us. Think, for example, of the kinds of dreams you have: what they're like, what happens in them, how they make sense until you wake up and realize they don't make any sense at all. Dreams may be the most private aspect of our lives (we never dream with other people!), and yet we all seem to have fairly similar dreams. Even more importantly, we all understand the people around us when they describe completely nonsensical dreams. This is because our private worlds—who we are inside, apart from all of our relationships with others—are formed and shaped by the same (or at least heavily overlapping) social worlds. I would suspect that the understandability of our very weird dreams begins to break down cross-culturally; if a person from sub-Saharan Africa or pre-Renaissance Europe were to describe their strangest dreams to us, we would have a harder time making "sense" of them.

This sense of the outside-world-in finds marvelous expression at the end of Ron Heine's discussion of the Psalms. Heine writes:

We can also learn from the fathers that even if we must pray the psalms in private, we still pray them in community. When I pray the psalms my voice blends in praise, petition, and confession with that of the whole people of God, whether my contemporaries or my predecessors in faith, who have lifted and who continue to lift up these prayers to God. This solidarity with the whole church in prayer includes even Christ himself, the head of the church. In this communal sense all the words of the psalms become my prayer even if I am not at the moment experiencing the joys or sufferings they express. I can lift up even the words of Psalm 22:1, which Jesus prayed on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" for I am one with the whole body of Christ, and where "one member suffers all suffer together." My prayer is one with those in seemingly God-forsaken situations who cry out for deliverance but none comes, even as Jesus cried out for deliverance in Gethsemane, when none was forthcoming.¹

Prayer in private is nevertheless prayer in community. The point of my doctoral thesis was similar: Memory in private is memory in community.² Or even more simply, Memory is community—community in the present with the past. "So it is when people think that they are alone, face to face with themselves, other people appear and with them the groups of which they are members."³

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¹ Ronald E. Heine, Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church: Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought (Evangelical Ressourcement; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 174.
² Rafael Rodríguez, Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance, and Text (European Studies on Christian Origins; London and New York: T&T Clark, 2010).

³ Maurice Halbwachs, The Social Frameworks of Memory (L. A. Coser, ed. and trans.; Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 49.

on the psalms

Ron Heine, on Athanasius's comments regarding the Psalms.

The unique element in the book of Psalms is that it allows the reader to get inside the personalities and events of the Old Testament as a participant; or, perhaps better said, it allows these personalities and events to get inside the reader as an emotive factor in shaping his or her life in accordance with the teachings found there.¹

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¹ Ronald E. Heine, Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church: Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought (Evangelical Ressourcement; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 147.

reading the Prophets in the early church

I've picked up (again) Ron Heine's Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church: Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought (Evangelical Ressourcement; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007). At the end of his chapter, "The Gospel in the Prophets" (97–141), Heine borrows an image from masonry to explain the function of the prophets among the church fathers and their understanding of the gospel.

It might be said that the prophetic texts of the Old Testament served as the mortar for the church's construction of its understanding of Christ. Mortar is not the primary material in the edifice. Bricks are the primary material. The primary material in the church's understanding of Christ is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Mortar, however, is essential to the edifice, enabling it to take form and hold together. Without the prophetic texts of the Old Testament, the early Christians would not have drawn the conclusions that they did concerning Jesus. The ancient Jewish prophetic texts that the early Christians read and wrestled with in their attempt to understand who Jesus of Nazareth had been and what his life meant for their lives lie close at hand in the Christian Bible. The early Christians were the first to make their way through these texts from a specifically Christian viewpoint.¹

One of the few things scholars of Christian origins agree upon is that Jesus' followers, historically, have read the texts of the Hebrew Bible through the lens of the gospel traditions. When God refers to "my son" in a Hebrew biblical text, early Christians hear "Jesus" (not "David," "Solomon," "Israel," or any of a number of other historical referents for that term). Heine shares that agreement (according to the quote provided above).

But we often neglect how the influence also moved in the opposite direction: Through the first four or five centuries of the church's history (and even beyond, including to the present day), the church has also—and simultaneously—understood Jesus from the perspective of Hebrew biblical traditions. If Jesus healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, brought the nations (= gentiles) into the kingdom of God, etc., Jesus' followers insisted on understanding these activities in light of Israel's history and sacred texts.

Heine draws our attention to this point. Jesus did not simply transform his followers' exegetical and hermeneutical understandings (though he did transform them). Jesus himself was recognized and portrayed in tones and hues directly evocative of Moses, David, the prophets, et al. I dare say that without these latter, early Christians (and we, too) would not know what to make of Jesus of Nazareth.

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¹ Heine, Reading the Old Testament, 141; my emphasis.

an interesting dilemma

Philip Sellew's article, "Achilles or Christ? Porphyry and Didymus in Debate over Allegorical Interpretation" (HTR 82 [1989]: 79–100) provides an interesting discussion of Porphyry (the third-century CE neo-Platonist student of Plotinus, who wrote a number of important works, including Against the Christians) and his criticism of the application of allegorical interpretation to biblical texts. I found this comment particularly interesting:

It was clear to Porphyry from his extensive firsthand knowledge that there was much of value in the Jewish scriptures, especially in some of the prophetic writings, and that they in some sense proclaimed the One High God that he too reverenced. But Porphyry was also strongly repelled by much of the Bible, particularly by its anthropomorphic images of God, its frequent anti-universalistic or even ethnocentric tendencies, and by such occasional episodes as Lot impregnating his own daughters in Genesis 19. Porphyry could not understand why the Christians did not simply reject the Jewish writings as no longer being religiously appropriate. (Sellew, "Achilles or Christ," 92; my emphasis)

I am fascinated by this dilemma. Why didn't the Christians, especially in the third and fourth centuries CE, simply cut loose of the Hebrew Bible and its traditions and pursue a more thoroughgoing New Testament theology? Why were Marcion and his followers the only ones to reject the Old Testament tout court?

I'm not advocating this move for contemporary Christianity; indeed, I find it worrisome that so much of contemporary Christianity seems to be following Marcion's lead, at least practically if not in so many words. My question (in the previous paragraph) really is, Why? I know what the Christians said: that the Bible was God's inspired word, that Moses and the prophets proclaimed Christ beforehand, etc. And these answers are themselves rooted in the general treatment of the Hebrew Bible in NT texts. But given the polemical and rhetorical energy the Church and its writers expended in its first four centuries repudiating the Jews and their reading of those texts, why did the Christians view the Jews' Bible as God's witness to the gospel's advent? Though I'm no church historian, from my NT scholar's point-of-view this seems a question too rarely raised.

Jerome and "our Judaizers"

I just finished reading Michael Graves's brief but very interesting article, "'Judaizing' Christian Interpretations of the Prophets As Seen by Saint Jerome," Vigiliae Christianae 61 (2007): 142–56. Graves asks what, specifically, Jerome objects to as "Judaizing" given his own striking (for the early fifth century CE) views vis-à-vis Hebrew texts (vs. the LXX), rabbinic exegetical traditions, and spiritual vs. literal interpretations.

Citing Vaccari,¹ Graves identifies two aspects of Jerome's interpretive practice. First, Jerome draws upon three rather distinct perspectives in his hermeneutical discussions, (i) the historical or literal interpretive tradition associated with Antioch, (ii) the Jewish interpretive tradition, "as mediated primarily through personal Jewish teachers" (144), and (iii) the Christian mystical interpretive tradition associated with Alexandria. Second, Jerome's interest in Hebraic interpretations was closely associated with his appreciation for the texts' literal or historical interpretation.

Graves then provides examples of Jerome's interpretative practice, especially of Hebrew prophetic texts, that illustrate how these two factors relate as part of that practice. Here's the first of those examples:

A brief and clear-cut example of the spiritual and literal meanings given side by side may be found in Jerome's Commentary on Jeremiah 4:11–12, where Jerome says this about the ventus urens, the "scorching wind" which, as Jerome reads the verse, is coming in judgment: "iuxta historiam, understand the 'scorching wind' as Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed everything, but iuxta tropologiam understand the 'scorching wind' as the Adversarial Power, who, coming from the desert and the wasteland, where there is no shelter of God, tries to destroy His church." Here, Jerome gives both the "historical" and the "tropological" meanings one right after the other. As is evident, Jerome accepts both meanings as valid. (Graves, "Saint Jerome," 146–47)

Given Jerome's willingness to accept a "historical," "Hebraic" interpretation of prophetic texts (which focus on Israel and her history), how should we understand Jerome's polemical references to "Judaizing" interpretations (which, presumably, Jerome himself may have been accused of propagating)? According to Graves, Jerome accepted Hebraic interpretations only insofar as they referred to past events. Two things distinguished Jerome's interpretations from those he found unacceptable. First, Jerome insisted that every passage held some spiritual significance and was fulfilled spiritually, whether in reference to (one of the two advents of) Christ or to the church. Second, "literal" or "historical" interpretations applied to the past and not to the future.

Thus, it is not the literal meaning per se that Jerome regards as "Judaizing"; Jerome is comfortable with "literal" interpretations, provided that they assign the fulfillment of prophecy either to Israel's past history or directly to Christ. It is certainly not the futuristic aspect of the interpretations to which Jerome objects, since all prophetic texts have some contemporary or future application to Christ and the church. The problem, from Jerome's perspective, is that the "Judaizers" look for future, literal fulfillments that are not directly Christological. The particular combination of these two elements, literal and futuristic, is what Jerome does not accept. (Graves, "Saint Jerome," 151)

I'm certainly no scholar when it comes to Jerome and/or fourth- and fifth-century Christian history, but Graves's discussion is both clear and (as far as I am able to tell) insightful. How fascinating to watch elements within the Church, four centuries after Jesus, engaging "the continuing struggle . . . to determine how they relate to the promises made to 'Israel' in the Old Testament, and how the interpretation of prophetic literature intersects with Christian theology and Christian identity" (Graves, "Saint Jerome," 156).

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¹ A. Vaccari, "I fattori della esegesi geronimiana," Bib 1 (1920): 457–80.

Jesus' cross as symbol

In his discussion of symbolic interpretations of the exodus among the Church Fathers (viz., Origen and Gregory of Nyssa), Ron Heine highlights Origen's very interesting connection between the Exodus traditions and the gospel. Of course, some New Testament texts already make this connection. But I found the following very interesting:

Origen connects God's statement that he has seen his people's affliction in Egypt and has come down to deliver them from their taskmasters and from pharaoh (Exod. 3:7–8)—Origen inserts "pharaoh" into the statement—with the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ. "For he did indeed set us free from Egypt and its leaders whom he nailed to the cross to make a public example of them, triumphing over them in the cross." Christ is the "true Lamb," who has "freed us from the servitude of the world ruler of this present darkness." The passover lamb slaughtered in Egypt was the type. Egypt means darkness, Origen says, and pharaoh, Egypt's governor, "means dissipater, because he dissipates the works of virtue done in the light by means of his princely power." (Ronald Heine, Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church: Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007], 86; citing Origen, Treatise on the Passover 47, 49 [Heine's emphases]).

Heine is discussing Origen's symbolic (= typological) reading of Egypt and Pharaoh as the world and the devil, respectively. But what caught my eye was Origen's symbolic reading of Jesus' crucified body. Notice what Origen says has been nailed to the cross: "Egypt and its leaders." This idea has its forerunner, perhaps, in 1 Pet. 2.24, which itself reads Isa. 53 symbolically in light of the salvific effects of Jesus' death. "He himself bore our sins in his body upon the tree" (ὃς τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν αὐτὸς ἀνήνεγκεν ἐν τῷ σώματι αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον; hos tas hamartias hēmōn autos anēnenken en tō sōmati autou epi to xylon). Of course, Origen hasn't abandoned the "literal" reading of the crucifixion, for Christ's victory over Egypt and Pharaoh (= the world and the devil) happened "in the cross."

It seems to me that in such short measure (Pasch. 47) Origen reads Jesus' crucified body as the instrument as well as the object of judgment. Thus the flexibility and adaptability of symbols in (some of) the Fathers' reading of the Bible, and thus the enduring power of those symbols.

Heine on the ancient Church and its Bible

For the last couple weeks I've been working on a course on the history of New Testament interpretation, which is far enough afield from my own specialty to force me to research a number of interesting topics and historical figures. I'm dissatisfied with approach of the course I inherited, which provided brief synopses of how the Church has read the NT but did not require any primary readings. The approach I'm taking is to provide brief introductory comments on significant figures and then feature extended readings of actual examples of biblical interpretation from those figures.

For unrelated reasons, I picked up Ronald E. Heine's book, Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church: Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), which is part of Baker's "Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church's Future" series. Heine's goal is to examine "the central role that the Old Testament played in the formation of Christian thinking and life in the early centuries of the church" (11–12). His book feeds my growing interest in the history and writings of the post-Apostolic church, and it overlaps considerably with the material I'm researching and writing for my history course.

Heine's discussion of the Hebrew Bible among early Christians highlights just how foreign contemporary (i.e., post-Enlightenment) Christianity is to its ancient counterpart. From the end of Heine's introductory chapter:

[T]here can be no doubt that there has been an erosion of the position and authority of the Old Testament in much of Protestant theology since the beginning of the Enlightenment. Protestant theology has not had a consistent position on the role of the Old Testament in the church.

We will see in the chapters that follow that the church fathers never questioned that the Old Testament held a central position in the life of the church. They did not all agree on how it should be read in order to speak to the church but, with the exception of Marcion and perhaps a few Gnostics who were not church fathers, they never thought that it should be dismissed as uncanonical or treated as second-class literature in comparison with the New Testament. Averil Cameron has correctly observed that the energies exerted by the fathers in their explanations of the Old Testament demonstrate "how tenaciously Christians" defended it in spite of the difficulties they often encountered in interpreting it. (Heine 2007: 29, citing A. Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991], 110)

As I read Heine's book and the writings of the Church Fathers (esp. the Ante-Nicene Fathers), I'm beginning to think that the early Christians had a clearer sense of the importance of Israel's history and texts for their own identity than they did of how that history and those texts informed and sustained their identity. Justin, Irenaeus, Origen, et al., might not have known what to do with the Hebrew Bible (though they spent a lot effort trying to figure it out), but they knew they had to do something with it. The contemporary church, perhaps, shows itself unwilling to continue the struggle to reconcile an emphatically Christian identity with that identity's foundationally Israelite (or Mosaic, or Abrahamic, or whatever) pedigree.

the more things change . . .

the more things stay the same. I came across this in a sermon I'm reading. How timely does this sound to you?

For the Lord says, "Through it all, my name is reviled among the nations," and somewhere else, "Woe to the one through whom my name comes into revulsion. And how does it come into revulsion? Whenever you neglect the things I want you to do." For the nations, when they hear from our mouth the words of God, they are impressed by their beauty and value. But then they learn of our actions—that they do not measure up to the words we speak—then they turn to reviling, saying that our words are myth and deception. For whenever they hear from us that God says, "What good is it for you if you love those who love you? Instead, it benefits you if you love your enemies and those who hate you"—when they hear this, they are amazed by the all-surpassing goodness of God's word. But when they see that not only do we not love those who hate us, but we also don't love those who love us, they laugh at us and revile his name. (2 Clem. 13.2–4; my translation of Michael Holmes's Greek text)

2 Clement is, in a lot of likelihood if not in all likelihood, a second-century sermon read among the churches in Corinth (though not necessarily by the same author as 1 Clement). The problems of early second-century Corinth seem remarkably similar to the problems of early twenty-first-century America (and likely all times and places in between). Would that we (qere I) take the Sermon on the Mount just a bit more seriously.

returning to the Apostolic Fathers

Since I finished reading Ignatius' letters about six weeks ago or so I haven't continued reading through the Apostolic Fathers, mostly because I was fascinated by Ignatius and I didn't want to "move on" from him. But in those weeks my little green volume has beckoned me from my shelf, and so this morning I resumed my reading by beginning Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians. Michael Holmes presents a brief, helpful introductory discussion, but the text itself begins fairly straightforwardly. After a nearly Pauline salutation and introduction, Polycarp urges the Philippian Christians to "gird their loins" for loyal service to the Lord. What I find fascinating, however, is how Polycarp employs a piece of Jesus' teaching in service of his exhortation. Jesus' words about judgment and forgiveness, as well as his blessing on the poor and persecuted, did not originally bolster a call to service, at least not as they are preserved in the gospels. Nevertheless, notice how Polycarp's exhortation reapplies Jesus' teaching (and picks up an echo of Paul's teaching in Romans 12!):

Therefore prepare for action and serve God in fear and truth, . . . the one who raised him from the dead will raise us also, if we do his will and follow his commandments and love the things he loved, while avoiding every kind of unrighteousness, greed, love of money slander and false testimony, not repaying evil for evil or insult for insult or blow for blow or curse for curse, but instead remembering what the Lord said as he taught: "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged; forgive, and you will be forgiven; show mercy, so that you may be shown mercy; with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you;" and, "blessed are the poor and those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God." (Polycarp, Philippians 2.1, 2–3)

I also note that the exhortation to not judge (see Matt 7.1) is separated from the saying on measurement (see Matt 7.2) by Jesus' exhortation to exercise forgiveness (compare Matt 6.14–15; 18.35) and a parallel—but unattested—saying, "show mercy, so that may be shown mercy" [ἐλεᾶτε, ἵνα ἐλεηθῆτε]. I think this is very interesting. Does Polycarp have access to tradition that no longer exists? Or is he just vamping, producing variations on a theme here? Or is the saying at Matt 5.7—"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy" [μακάριοι οἱ ἐλεήμονες, ὅτι αὐτοὶ ἐλεηθήσονται]—a factor here?

heretical diets in Ign. Trall. 6.1

Now that I've finished my review of Chris Keith's book I've been able to get back to reading the Apostolic Fathers. I've tried not to stop completely, but certainly my progress was slowed as I paid particular attention to reviewing Chris's book.

So this morning I turned to Ignatius' epistle To the Trallians. Here's the Greek text, along with translation, of Ign. Trall. 6.1 from Michael Holmes (third edition; 2007: 218, 219):

Παρακαλῶ οὖν ὑμᾶς, οὐκ ἐγὼ ἀλλ᾽ ἡ ἀγάπη Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, μόνῃ τῇ Χριστιανῇ τροφῇ χρῆσθε, ἀλλοτρίας δὲ βοτάνης ἀπέχεσθε, ἥτις ἐστὶν αἵρεσις.

I urge you, therefore—yet not I, but the love of Jesus Christ—partake only of Christian food, and keep away from every strange plant, which is heresy.

As I consider Ignatius' view of food (and remember, this is far afield from my specialties), I'm reminded also of Ignatius' demonstrable affinity for Paul and his writings. If Ignatius was as fond of Paul as he seems to have been, and if Paul argued forcefully—both in his letters and in Luke's portrayal of him in Acts—that issues of diet should not disqualify a person from being counted among God's people, then how can Ignatius have deviated so far from Paul in prescribing a quite restrictive view of diet and fellowship?!

Paul was quite emphatic: The unity of the people, and not the food on their plate, mattered to him (see 1 Cor 8–10; Rom 14–15). This is also the point of Luke's portrayal of the Jerusalem council in Acts 15: Through Peter's ministry in Caesarea and Paul and Barnabas' work among the gentiles in Asia Minor, God had made clear that he had "made clean" (Acts 10.15) the people who eat pork and shrimp and [O, the greatness of his mercy!] even Taco Bell. Is Ignatius really capable of getting it this wrong?

It has been about eighteen months since I read Daniel Boyarin's Border Lines (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), which was a fascinating, very technical exploration of heresiology among Jews and Christians and its role in the "parting of the ways" between them. But if I remember correctly, Boyarin argues that the Greek word αἵρεσις [hairesis; "sect, division, party"] did not take on the "heretical" connotations of the English word heresy until the third or fourth century.

If this is the case (i.e., if Boyarin did make this argument as well as if this is a more helpful way of reading αἵρεσις), then the consequence for our understanding Ign. Trall. 6.1 is fairly clear. Ignatius' letters are often dated to c. 110 CE (though some have suggested a later date of 125–150 CE), which obviously antedates the third or fourth century. The texts of the New Testament (which also, obviously, antedate the third or fourth century and which, in my estimation, also antedate Ignatius), use αἵρεσις in the sense of "sect" (Acts 24.5, 14; 1 Cor 11.19; Gal 5.20; 2 Pet 2.1) or "party" (Acts 5.17; 15.5; 26.5; 28.22) rather than of "heresy." So I would render Trall. 6.1 as follows:

Therefore I urge you—yet not I but the love of Jesus Christ—only make use of Christian food and abstain from [every] strange plant [or herb], which is divisive [αἵρεσις].

If this gets us closer to Ignatius' intended meaning (or to his audience's likely understanding of his language), then he actually appears more Pauline here than in Holmes's translation (if I have understood Holmes rightly). The problem isn't that eating the wrong foods pushes a person or group of people beyond the pale of "Christianity"; rather, the church(es) in Tralles has/have formed groups [αἱρέσεις; haireseis (groups, divisions)] around distinctive menus. This coheres, I think, with another distinctive Ignatian emphasis: the importance of submitting to the bishop and other church leaders (see, inter alios, Trall. 2–3). Ignatius' emphasis on the bishop ensures both the unity of the church and its protection from false teaching. If the Trallians will accept "only Christian food" [μόνῃ τῇ Χριστιανῇ τροφῇ; monē tē Christianē trophē (6.1; = "food sanctioned by the bishop"?)], their unity will be restored/preserved and their ability to submit "to the bishop as to Jesus Christ" (Ign. Trall. 2.1) will likewise be restored/preserved.

Judaism and Christianity (Ign. Magn. 8–10)

Michael Holmes introduces chapters 8–10 of his English translation of Ignatius' letter To the Magnesians with the subheading, "Judaism and Christianity." Naturally, my ears pricked up (which was a particularly strange sensation since I read with my eyes; thankfully, my eyes did not "prick up").

The section begins, "Do not be deceived by strange doctrines or antiquated myths, since they are worthless" (Ign. Magn. 8.1).¹ In the preceding context (Ign. Magn. 7) Ignatius exhibits an affinity for Johannine theology, claiming that "the Lord did nothing without the Father" [ὁ κύριος ἄνευ τοῦ πατρὸς οὐδὲν ἐποίησεν; ho kyrios aneu tou patros ouden epoiēsen (7.1)]. He also echoes the Pauline encomium to unity in Eph 4.1–6, through which Ignatius emphasizes the role of the bishop (the singular is important) and the presbyters (note the plural) in delimiting "right" [εὔλογον; eulogon] worship from "worthless" [ἀνωφελέσιν; anōphelesin] "doctrines and myths" (8.1). So far nothing suggests an anti-Judaic polemic.

The very next phrase, however, makes clear Ignatius' meaning. "For if we continue to live in accordance with Judaism, we admit that we have not received grace" [εἰ γὰρ μέχρι νῦν κατὰ Ἰουδαϊσμὸν ζῶμεν, ὁμολογοῦμεν χάριν μὴ εἰληφέναι; ei gar mechri nyn kata Ioudaïsmon zōmen, homologoumen charin mē eilēphenai (Ign. Magn. 8.1)]. The word "Judaism" [Ἰουδαϊσμός; Ioudaismos] is a rare word, with only seven occurrences in all the texts comprising our Septuagint and New Testament.

• In 2 Macc 2.21, Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers are said to have fought bravely for "Judaism" [ὑπὲρ τοῦ Ἰουδαϊσμοῦ; hyper tou Ioudaïsmou].
• Similarly, in 2 Macc 8.1, Judas and his companions secretly enter the villages and summon "their kinfolk and those who had persisted in Judaism" [τοὺς συγγενεῖς καὶ τοὺς μεμενηκότας ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ; tous syngeneis kai tous memenēkotas en tō Ioudaïsmō]. An observation and a question: First, 2 Maccabees 7 is the famous account of the woman and her seven sons who were martyred for their religious practice (not their religious faith). Second, Is the participial phrase "those who had persisted in Judaism" intended to identify a second group, separate from Judas' kinfolk, or is this two ways of identifying the same group? I lean toward the latter, perhaps with the stipulation that the participial phrase further specifies which of his kinsfolk Judas and his companions called to arms.
• In 2 Macc 14.38, a man named Razis, an elder of Jerusalem who had been given the epithet "father of the Jews" [πατὴρ τῶν Ἰουδαίων; patēr tōn Ioudaiōn (v 37)], is said to have been accused observing Judaism [= Jewish practices] and to have surrendered both his body and his soul for Judaism (the term Ioudaïsmos occurs twice in this verse).
• In 4 Macc 4.26 Antiochus tries to force the Jews "to renounce Judaism" [ἐξόμνυσθαι τὸν Ἰουδαϊσμόν; exomnysthai ton Ioudaïsmon] by forcing them via torture to eat defiling foods. It's worth noting that 4.23 makes clear that the observance of the ancestral law, rather than any particular religious conviction (or "faith"), is especially in view.
• So the two occurrences of Ioudaïsmos in Gal 1.13–14 present a particularly interesting problem. Paul refers in 1.13 to "my former life in Judaism" [τὴν ἐμὴν ἀναστροφήν ποτε ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ; tēn emēn anastrophēn pote en tō Ioudaïsmō] and claims in 1.14 to have "advanced in Judaism" [προέκοπτον ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ; proekopton en tō Ioudaïsmō] beyond his peers. On the face of things Paul could be referring to either his religious convictions or his religious practice when he refers to his Ioudaïsmos. But on closer inspection, a number of factors push us toward understanding "Judaism" in terms of behavior rather than religious belief. First, this referent characterizes the other five uses of Ioudaïsmos in the Maccabean literature cited above. Second, Paul himself makes clear that he is discussion his former pattern of behavior, both by his use of ἀναστροφή [anastrophē; "behavior, life, conduct"] and by immediately going on to discuss his persecution of "the church of God" (a behavior rather than a belief). As a result, in Gal 1.14 when Paul describes himself as "more zealous for his ancestral traditions" [περισσοτέρως ζηλωτὴς τῶν πατρικῶν παραδόσεων; perissoterōs zēlōtēs tōn patrikōn paradoseōn], he is most likely referring to his observance of Judaic customs rather than his acceptance of Judaic theology.

Granted, the distinction here can only ever be analytical (practice and belief are, after all, mutually informing). But the biblical (LXX and NT) evidence suggests that the term Ioudaïsmos refers to practice more directly than it does to belief. When an author rejects living "according to Judaism" [κατὰ Ἰουδαϊσμόν; kata Ioudaïsmon (Ign. Magn. 8.1)], the likelihood is that he has in mind Jewish practices rather than Jewish beliefs.² This is an important distinction, I think, because a lot of the NT attests debate regarding how to behave like faithful Israel rather than how to believe like faithful Israel. Even Ignatius, whose indebtedness to Hebrew biblical traditions is remarkably slight (as I've noted on three different occasions), goes on to appropriate Israel's prophetic tradition for "Christ Jesus" (Ign. Magn. 8.2).

In 9.1, then, Ignatius refers to those who lived [ἀναστραφέντες; anastraphentes (the same root that Paul used in Gal 1.13)] by the old practices and who "no longer [keep] the sabbath but [live] in accordance with the Lord's day." Here we seem to have a clear recognition that Jesus' first followers were Jewish, a fact that makes all the more significant their quitting the Sabbath and observing the first day of the week (the day of the resurrection). Implicit in all of this is a not-too-subtle critique of other Jews who, down to Ignatius' own day, continue to observe the Sabbath but not the Lord's day. Magnesians 10.1 refers explicitly to "the way we act" [καθὰ πράσσομεν; katha prassomen], and 10.3 goes on to declare it "utterly absurd to profess Jesus Christ and to practice Judaism" [ἄτοπόν ἐστιν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν λαλεῖν καὶ ἰουδαΐζειν; atopon estin Iēsoun Christon lalein kai ioudaïzein]. Holmes's translation of ioudaïzein as "to practice Judaism" rightly highlights the behavioral aspects of this verb; the issue is precisely one of behavior (which day of the week to observe, what foods to eat, etc.). Even the remainder of 10.3, which highlights "belief" [πιστεύω; pisteuō ("I believe")], maintains this emphasis (i.e., note that "belief" is something that "every tongue" does).

These three chapters—Ign. Magn. 8–10—provide some very interesting material to think about for any discussion of Judaism, Christianity, and the interaction/distinction between the two in the first centuries CE. I seriously doubt I've scratched the surface with these thoughts, but this passage, I think, is one to which I'll find myself returning in future writings.

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¹ Translations of Ignatius in this post, unless otherwise stated, come from Holmes 2007: 207, 209. All Greek texts come from Holmes 2007: 206, 208. Translations of Septuagintal texts are my own; the Greek LXX text is that of Rahlfs, accessed via BibleWorks 8.

² Holmes lists two textual variants here. The reading found in the main text, "according to Judaism" [κατὰ Ἰουδαϊσμόν], is found in the Latin translation of the middle recension of Ignatius' letters. Codex Mediceo-Laurentianus (the only surviving Greek ms of the middle recension) reads "according to the law of Judaism" [κατὰ νόμον Ἰουδαϊσμόν (?; I would have expected the genitive here)]. The Greek mss of the long recension (and the Armenian version [middle recension]?) read "according to the Judaic law" [κατὰ νόμον Ἰουδαϊκόν]. These variants do not impact my argument, except insofar as the term Ioudaïsmos disappears in the third reading.

Biblical imagery in Ignatius' letter To the Ephesians

Yesterday as I sat in the lobby of my doctor's office I picked up Ignatius' epistle To the Ephesians (as one does). I continue to be impressed by the freedom Ignatius apparently feels vis-à-vis Hebrew biblical traditions, at least compared to the constraint (I think that's the word I want) other authors exhibited to live within a world defined by those traditions. Paul may have written his letters in Greek, and the evangelists (or someone[s] before them) may have translated the sayings from and stories about Jesus into Greek, but Ignatius seems to be transposing the gospel into another cultural-linguistic system rather than simply translating. Here, perhaps, is yet another example:

1 Ἄμεινόν ἐστιν σιωπᾶν καὶ εἶναι, ἢ λαλοῦντα μὴ εἶναι, καλὸν τὸ διδάσκειν, ἐὰν ὁ λέγων ποιῇ. εἷς οὖν διδάσκαλος, ὃς εἶπεν καὶ ἐγένετο· καὶ ἃ σιγῶν δὲ πεποίηκεν ἄξια τοῦ πατρός ἐστιν. 2 ὁ λόγον Ἰησοῦ κεκτημένος ἀληθῶς δύναται καὶ τῆς ἡσυχίας αὐτοῦ ἀκούειν, ἵνα τέλειος ᾖ, ἵνα δι᾽ ὧν λαλεῖ πράσσῃ καὶ δι᾽ ὧν σιγᾷ γινώσκηται. 3 οὐδὲν λανθάνει τὸν κύριον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ κρυπτὰ ἡμῶν ἐγγὺς αὐτῷ ἐστιν. πάντα οὖν ποιῶμεν ὡς αὐτοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν κατοικοῦντος, ἵνα ὦμεν αὐτοῦ ναοὶ καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν ἡμῖν θεὸς ἡμῶν, ὅπερ καῖ ἔστιν καὶ φανήσεται πρὸ προσώπου ἡμῶν, ἐξ ὧν δικαίως ἀγαπῶμεν αὐτόν.

1 It is better to be silent with substance than to speak and lack substance. It is a good thing to teach, as long as the speaker heeds his own words. There is one teacher who speaks and reality conforms to his word; even the things he does in his silence are worthy of the Father. 2 The one who truly possesses Jesus' word is even able to hear [Jesus'] silence, so that he is perfect and he acts in accordance with what he says but is known through the things he doesn't need to say. 3 Nothing escapes the Lord; even our secrets are at his fingertips. Therefore, let us do everything in light of his dwelling among us, so that we would be his temples and he would be our God in our midst (since that is what he is, as will be made evident to us by those things we do out of our just love for him). (Ign. Eph. 15.1–3; Greek text from Holmes 2007: 194)

Holmes listed Eph. 15.1 as one of Ignatius' few allusions to biblical traditions (2007: 174, n. 14), as I mentioned here. Ignatius' description of Jesus [!] as the one teacher who speaks reality into existence [ὃς εἶπεν καὶ ἐγένετο; hos eipen kai egeneto] echoes the Septuagint's translation of Genesis 1. For example, "Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light" [καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεός, Γενηθήτω φῶς. καὶ ἐγένετο φῶς; kai eipen ho theos, Genēthētō phōs. kai egeneto phōs (Gen 1.3 LXX)]. This pattern of (i) God speaking [εἶπεν; eipen] and (ii) it being [ἐγένετο; egeneto] continues throughout Genesis 1 (see 1.6, 9, 11, 14–15, 20, 24). Interestingly, there is no corresponding egeneto after God eipen, "Let us make humanity in our image . . ." (1.26), unless I've missed something.

But even here, where I'd like to say that Ignatius is somewhat constrained by the world of Israelite tradition, nothing about Ignatius' language seems to capitalize on the semiotic potential of the first biblical creation account. Instead, Ignatius portrays Jesus as the one who speaks creation into existence (cf. John 1.1–5; Col. 1.15–17) and then goes on to speculate that even Jesus' silence is creative (redemptive?). Ignatius, in other words, seems to be reflecting less on the tradition of God creating the cosmos and more on New Testament traditions of Jesus, traditions which themselves do reflect more conscientiously and pervasively on, among other things, the tradition of God creating the cosmos.

But what I think is really interesting is that Ignatius could have taken up creation traditions in order to make the point he's making. The statement in Gen 1.26 that God wants to make humanity "in his image" takes aim, among other things, at polytheistic religious practices. The other nations worship images of their gods, but Israel is the image of her God. And if the images of the nations' gods dwell in man-made temples, the Spirit of Israel's God dwells among his people and sanctifies them as his holy presence. Ignatius, arrested for some unknown reason and being marched across the Roman empire to face the lions in Rome's newly built Coliseum, could have consoled himself and his readers that the Lord will avenge the desecration of his image (is anyone aware of any use of the creation accounts in this fashion among Jewish and Christian martyrological traditions?).

But instead, he turns immediately to the contrast between Jesus' creative word "in the beginning" and his redemptive silence before the Sanhedrin and before Pontius Pilate. In other words, Ignatius seems to dwell in a world colored by Hebrew biblical tradition only indirectly, inasmuch as Hebrew biblical tradition colors the texts and stories coming out of the first two or three generations of Christian activity. If I'm reading him rightly, Ignatius is reflecting consciously on various New Testament texts and only dimly, if at all, aware without any concern that those texts are indebted to the forms and expressions and significances of biblical tradition.

a martyrological discussion of Ignatius

I started reading Clayton Jefford's The Apostolic Fathers and the New Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006), an easy-to-follow introduction to this disparate corpus of texts from sundry times, locales, and occasions. Of course, I'm especially interested in these texts' participation in traditional universes, and in particular how those universes relate to those of the NT texts. As I've stated elsewhere, Ignatius seems to be remarkably detached from the universes defined by and populated with Hebrew biblical traditions, traditions which seem to inform and contextualize just about every word of the New Testament.

So I was very intrigued when Jefford's begins his discussion of martyrologies in the Apostolic Fathers (a discussion that first turns to Ignatius' letters) by briefly mentioning 2 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees. The utility of these Jewish texts for framing Ignatius' letters isn't immediately apparent, as Jeffords notes (e.g., p. 47, n. 16). Jefford writes,

The matter of martyrologies within early patristic literature is most interesting in that the roots of this genre surely must lie within late [sic] Jewish and early Christian literature. At the same time, however, those roots are perhaps vague at best. For our present purposes, I will initiate the discussion of the genre "martyrology" with the works of 2 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees. . . . I begin with these texts because it is evident to me that the bishop Ignatius envisioned himself and his predicament within the borders of the philosophy of "reason over passion" extolled by the author of 4 Maccabees. (Jeffords 2006: 47)

I want Jefford to be right, but two points give me pause. First, I'm just not sure how Jefford conceives ancient Judaism that he can refer to Roman-era texts as "late Jewish literature." This, of course, was the standard way of referencing Jewish texts among NT scholars of a previous generation, and I hope Jefford is not falling into that way of thinking. This is a deceptively significant issue; Does Jefford conceive Judaism as coming to an end (and therefore no longer interacting with) the early church? I don't think so, but I can't explain the language otherwise.

Second, the link between Ignatius and 4 Maccabees is very tenuous: "The terminology that Ignatius employs in his letters and the position that he assumes with respect to his captors seem to betray his dependence upon the perspective of this text" (viz., 4 Maccabees; 2006: 47–48; my emphasis). Jefford only explicitly names one link: Ignatius' famous reference to his captors as "leopards" [λεόπαρδοι; leopardoi] at Ign. Rom. 5.1 (cf. 4 Macc 9.28). Otherwise, notice that the dependence is merely "upon the perspective of" 4 Maccabees. If this is all the two share, I'm inclined to side with Bowersock, "who argues that Ignatius and the author of 4 Maccabees simply are the common participants of their times" (Jefford 2006: 47, n. 16; citing G. W. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995], 77–82).

If we prefer Bowersock to Jefford here, then it strikes me as all the more surprising that Jewish tradition, biblical as well as post-biblical, offered such robust resources for Ignatius to comprehend and respond to his world. But he doesn't utilize those resources in any significant way. And coupled with Paul's immersion in a biblical universe—Paul, of whom Ignatius is demonstrably fond—I am "doubly all the more surprised" at Ignatius lack of reference to Israelite tradition. Could this be intentional? If so, why? What does this say about the Antiochene bishop's conception of Christianity and the church? Questions questions everywhere!

some (less) preliminary thoughts on Ignatius of Antioch

As I mentioned previously, I recently began reading the Apostolic Fathers. After reading Whitacre's text and translation of Ignatius' letter To The Romans (in A Patristic Greek Reader [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007]), I thought I noticed a shift in Ignatius (from the NT authors, the author of the Didache, and from Clement of Rome) regarding his use and thinking in terms of Hebrew biblical traditions.

Today, I returned to Michael Holmes's text of the Apostolic Fathers and read Holmes's introduction to Ignatius. He begins with a wonderful description of Ignatius, which I reproduce here:

Just as we become aware of a meteor only when, after traveling silently through space for untold millions of miles, it blazes briefly through the atmosphere before dying in a shower of fire, so it is with Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria. We meet him for the first time for just a few weeks not long before his death as a martyr in Rome early in the second century. But during those weeks he wrote, virtually as his "last will and testament," seven letters of extraordinary interest because of the unparalleled light they shed on the history of the church at that time, and because of what they reveal about the remarkable personality of the author. (Holmes 2007: 166)

Still only on the basis of my cursory reading of Ignatius' To The Romans, I find Holmes's description compelling. In that letter Ignatius is almost obsessive in his concern that he be able to "attain God" [τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπιτυχεῖν; tou theou epituchein (Rom. 1.2, passim)], which is synonymous for Ignatius with his successful (and gruesome!) martyrdom.

In his discussion of Ignatius' "Sources and Cultural Context," Holmes acknowledges that Ignatius "makes very little use of the Old Testament" (2007: 174) and mentions only three citations (Eph. 5.3; Magn. 12; Trall. 8.2) and three allusions (Eph. 15.1; Magn. 10.3; 13.1; see Holmes 2007: 174, n. 14). Perhaps not surprisingly, Ignatius is very influenced by Pauline tradition and perhaps broader streams of New Testament tradition (including John and/or Matthew). But given the shot-through-ness of those earlier texts with allusions to, connections with, and even citations of Hebrew biblical traditions, I'm intrigued by how Ignatius can be shaped by Paul but largely unserved by the resources Hebrew biblical traditions offered him for understanding and responding to his arrest and martyrdom.

Tomorrow (or later today, since I'm not very motivated to get to my work), I'll start reading Ignatius' To the Ephesians. Should be fun!

in the meantime

The last month has been a bit of a blur, making it difficult to find time to blog. Now the semester is over (well, final exams are next week; but classes have finished), and all I have left is grading and preparing for next semester.

Since I finished reading through my Greek New Testament nearly a month ago, I've been working through the Apostolic Fathers in fairly unsystematic fashion. I've managed to acquire a number of helpful resources: For those with only a tenuous grasp of Greek, I've found Rodney A. Whitacre's A Patristic Greek Reader (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007) a very helpful introduction to the Greek texts of early Christian writings. For the complete text of the Apostolic Fathers I've been reading Michael W. Holmes's The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (third edition; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007). I also have the first volume of Bart Ehrman's revised Loeb Classical Library edition, The Apostolic Fathers (two vols.; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003 [volume 1; volume 2]), but I have stuck mostly to Holmes's one-volume edition.

In the last month I've read the Didache, 1 Clement, and Ignatius' epistle To The Romans. What has struck me thus far is the different ethos with respect to biblical tradition that characterizes those three texts. The Didache (an early church manual with strong resonances with Matthew) sounds a lot like a NT text, though considerably more focused on the life of the church. As a NT scholar, I'm used to inferring the church's conduct from gospel texts; the Didache, even more than the NT epistolary texts, explicitly addresses how the church ought to pray, celebrate the Eucharist, welcome itinerant missionaries, etc.

1 Clement, on the other hand, reads a bit more like a Pauline epistle (with considerable differences, to be sure). But 1 Clement, like the NT texts, lives in a world defined by and filled with Hebrew biblical traditions. Here Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Job, and others appear not just as characters but also reference points for apprehending and interpreting late-first-century realities and responding appropriately to them. In 1 Clement the church continues to find nourishment and succor from her Israelite roots.

Ignatius, however, strikes me differently. Granted, I've still six Ignatian letters to read through, and I don't know what I'll encounter there. But in To The Romans, Ignatius doesn't take advantage of the opportunities afforded by Hebrew biblical traditions to make sense of and respond to his impending martyrdom. He clearly does understand what will happen to him, but Israel's story doesn't seem to play much, if any, role in how he understands it. I'm wondering, in other words, if Ignatius, unlike the author of the Didache, Clement, or the NT authors, distinguishes between the stories of Christ and of Israel.

BIBL 5203 Lesson 4:Antioch vs. Alexandria

I have to admit that I'm not sure what I think about the Antioch||Alexandria schema that seems ubiquitous. There are obvious differences, of course, and if (I'm genuinely ignorant here) the ancients understood themselves — as Antiochenes and as Alexandrians — in terms of their not being the other, then this schema appears more helpful. But if not, if Antioch did not intentionally see itself as an antidote to Alexandrian allegorism (and/or vice versa), then I can only wonder what this schema causes us to miss even as it reveals something about both schools.

But I lack the qualification to propose another solution, so, within the traditional schema, I'd like to offer a few thoughts regarding the two approaches to biblical interpretation. First, the debate between (or dichotomization of) Aristotelian empiricism and Platonic mysticism not only has a lengthy pedigree but also continues to influence contemporary biblical exegesis and theology. As an example, Eerdmans is currently putting out a series of commentaries, The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary, that seeks "to bridge the existing gap between biblical studies and systematic theology." I haven't looked through any of the four currently available volumes in this series, but the very perception of this "gap" corresponds to contemporary empirical analyses of texts, on the one hand, and a more philosophical theological enterprise. I'm not disparaging the THNTC series; indeed, this seems to me a strength in light of other series' failure to recognize the difference between these approaches (e.g., compare this commentary on Romans with this on I and II Thessalonians). I'm not, at this point anyway, disparaging either approach to biblical interpretation; but the differences between them should be recognized and respected.

With respect to the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, I should first admit that I am whole-heartedly persuaded of the methodological superiority of an Antiochene approach to Scripture. I'm not here arguing for a literal rather than allegorical approach to exegesis so much as I am advocating an approach where texts are read within a reconstruction of their original socio-historical context rather than simply from an uncritical acceptance of our (the readers') contexts. Because allegorical interpretation generates meanings from a text that apply more directly (to say things kindly) to their readers than to their authors, this approach "de-natures" texts and treats them like contemporary rather than ancient artifacts. In other words, reading allegorically is akin to deciphering hieroglyphic inscriptions without need of the Rosetta Stone and the insights it affords: Who cares what the ancient Egyptians might have meant as they painted falcons and ankhs on the walls?

That said, I'm also wary of the reductionist potential inherent in emphatically literal interpretations of biblical texts. Some people, for example, insist so strongly on a particular, "literal" interpretation of certain texts that they fail to recognize the violence they themselves do to the texts they claim to be interpreting. In this way, ironically, I suggest that my own readings of the Genesis narrative are both more "literal" readings of the texts and yet do not necessitate specific literal events behind those texts. Not every text intends to communicate historical truth (see, e.g., Jesus' parable of the sower); reducing every biblical text to a historical statement fails to respect the other purposes texts — and language more generally — can serve. What is more, the significance a text can have for its readers does not depend on its original significance, at least insofar as this significance inheres between the text's author and original audience. In other words, "literal" interpretation does not end at a literal interpretation but can also raise questions the author never intended to raise. This last point, of course, lies at the heart of evangelical hermeneutics.

My last point, perhaps, is my most controversial. Let me first say that I am intentionally a biblical scholar and not a theologian. In recent years I have begun to appreciate the contribution theologians make, especially scholars such as Kevin Vanhoozer, John Franke, William Placher. (If my readings in theology appear narrow, that's probably because they are.) But earlier in my education I had only been exposed to theologians whose work seemed formulaic and rigid. That said, let me suggest that what we actually have in the Antioch||Alexandria dichotomy is not so much two approaches to biblical interpretation but rather two different methods of constructing Christianity. The Antiochene project (exegesis, in a broad sense) is biblical interpretation, whilst the Alexandrian project (theology, similarly broad) is not biblical interpretation but theological reflection. In the former, the text is primary and theological conclusions must be suggested by proposed interpretations of publicly available texts. In the latter, the text is a vehicle for expressing theological propositions that are not necessarily suggested by the text but are rather legitimated through them. The text, in this project, is ancillary to the allegorical meanings mapped onto the texts.

This tension between theology arising from the biblical text (Antioch), on the one hand, and theology finding expression through the biblical text (Alexandria), if I am correct in so naming this tension, has left an indelible mark on the Church (and its history of reading its sacred texts). Since Irenaeus at least — and arguably since the late-Pauline tradition — the purpose of biblical interpretation has often been to justify previously established theological conclusions rather than to refine and reform those conclusions. The naming of certain individuals and groups as "heretical" often — though not always — relies on theological convictions whose simplicity is at odds with the complexities of the texts themselves. I would suggest, tentatively, that many of the early Christological heresies fell victim to this move. It seems to me, for example, that Arius's portrayal of Jesus as the first born son of God, the instrument God created for the creation of the world, attempts (inadequately, in the end) to preserve the tension in the biblical text in the face of a (perceived?) denial of the distinction between God, the Creator of the world, and Wisdom/his Word, through whom God effected his creation. Similarly, the condemnation of emphatically Jewish expressions of Christianity as "heretical" seems, at least to me, at odds with the complexity of, for instance, Paul's arguments regarding the Law, the Jews, and God's covenant with humanity throughout Romans.

Perhaps some of these observations are too blunt to be of any historical, exegetical, or theological use. Perhaps the dichotomization of Antioch||Alexandria, as I first suggested, obscures some things even as it brings other things into view. But the tensions I'm trying to identify lie at the heart of my own faith tradition which seeks to marginalize Alexandria and to epitomize Antioch in slogans such as, "No creed but Christ; no book but the Bible" (see also my comments here). Even despite this slogan (or perhaps especially because of it), theological conflict in my tradition has often employed polemic and philosophical argument explicitly and neglected to pursue questions and answers through biblical interpretation. I suspect, in the end, that this is rooted in the oft-felt but rarely spoken recognition that sola Scriptura doesn't always (doesn't even usually, perhaps) support our own conclusions as clearly and as forcefully as we would like. In these cases, Alexandria becomes eminently useful; Antioch, not so much.

[For an Orthodox discussion of Antioch||Alexandria, see this article, though recognize that this site is remarkably partisan.]

BIBL 5203 Lesson 3:Marcion's Bible

I'm fascinated by the second-century heretic, Marcion. There's so much I wish I knew, much of which has been lost to the ravages of time (barring some discovery like those of the mid-twentieth century at Nag-Hammadi and Qumran). For instance, it would be absolutely fascinating if a copy of Marcion's Bible were still extant, not least for what it could teach us about the reception of Luke's gospel and Paul's letters both among Marcion and his party as well as among the "orthodox" writers who opposed him (viz., Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian).

Ever since Walter Bauer (of BDAG fame) published Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum [1934; ET: Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, trans. and supplemented by Robert Kraft and Gerhard Kroedel, 1971], scholars have been wrestling with and contesting the ways that "orthodoxy" and "heresy" were constructed in the early church (and in its modern critics) and the way(s) this construction has masked the diversity that certainly characterized earliest Christianity (as is evident throughout the NT itself). Though the narrative of a unified, homogenous church in the first century (or even the first decades) was/is in dire need of deconstruction, some critics have gone too far, I think, in suggesting that "orthodoxy" and "heresy" are only discursive constructions imposed in later centuries.

What fascinates me most, I think, about Marcion's Bible is how Marcion could understand the story of Jesus apart from a framework that is made up almost completely by Hebrew biblical traditions and their reception in Second-Temple Judaism. How could Marcion have projected his narrative about Jesus (whatever the specific contours of that narrative) on the Jew Jesus? At every turn in Luke's gospel Jesus' story is an expression of Israel's story, from the angelic annunciation of Jesus' birth through his teachings and activities (esp. the healings and exorcisms) and especially his death and resurrection. I expect that some would claim Marcion didn't see (or project) his story of Jesus in the story of the Jew Jesus because he excised all the explicitly Jewish elements of Luke's gospel and Paul's letters. But this excision followed after he came to his understanding of Jesus, which would have been developed in the light of Luke's and Paul's stories of Jesus.

Here is one instance, then, where Bauer's thesis of the contemporaneous origins of orthodoxy and heresy falters: Marcion's canon is clearly later than and derivative of Luke's and Paul's earlier writings. This isn't to deny that a major component of heresiological discourse still remains the marginalization of previously acceptable ideas and practices as "heretical," but it does suggest the likelihood that heresiology is never merely discourse. Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian surely enjoyed the support of a significant portion of the "Christian" non-élite when they argued against Marcion's theology and his canon; in other words, these three writers (and especially Tertullian!) weren't simply constructing "orthodoxy" as something other than Marcionism. This is especially interesting, I think, because (as I argued here re: Irenaeus) these heresiologists were just as committed to understanding "Christianity" in terms of its relation to "Israel" ("Judaism"?) as they were to defining "Christianity" in contrast to "Judaism"!

On a more theological/pastoral level, perhaps, I wonder how prevalent Marcionite ideas are in the church today. It seems to me that a number of the teachings against which Ireneaus and Co. rail so passionately actually inform a lot of contemporary Christian practice today. How many of us avoid the Hebrew Bible in our own spirituality/theologizing? Even when we do read the Old Testament, how many of us are unable to read, say, Gen. 3.15 or Isaiah 53 on their own terms and without immediately reducing these texts' value to how easily they can be indexed to a passage in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John? And how many of us perceive, whether explicitly or subconsciously, a disjunction between God as he's portrayed in the Hebrew Bible and how he's portrayed in the New Testament? For all the danger of writings such as Tertullian's Adversus Iudaeos, real as they are, we should also appreciate that Tertullian — like Justin and Irenaeus before him — were wrestling with the question of Christian-Jew relations rather than denying them outright.

It seems to me, eighteen centuries after Tertullian, the church would do well to once again take up the struggle with the question and not allow itself to contentedly continue the anti-Judaic thinking and praxis advocated by Marcion and continued, in modulated if not in moderated form, by his "orthodox" opponents.

I have included below samples of Irenaeus's and Tertullian's writings against Marcion that specifically address his bibliology (cf. Early Christian Writings [HT: Thanks to Tom Thatcher]).

Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics, 17:

Now this heresy of yours does not receive certain Scriptures; and whichever of them it does receive, it perverts by means of additions and diminutions, for the accomplishment of it own purpose; and such as it does receive, it receives not in their entirety; but even when it does receive any up to a certain point as entire, it nevertheless perverts even these by the contrivance of diverse interpretations. Truth is just as much opposed by an adulteration of its meaning as it is by a corruption of its text. Their vain presumptions must needs refuse to acknowledge the (writings) whereby they are refuted. They rely on those which they have falsely put together, and which they have selected, because of their ambiguity. Though most skilled in the Scriptures, you will make no progress, when everything which you maintain is denied on the other side, and whatever you deny is (by them) maintained. As for yourself, indeed, you will lose nothing but your breath, and gain nothing but vexation from their blasphemy.

Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics, 39:

These were the ingenious arts of spiritual wickedness,” wherewith we also, my brethren, may fairly expect to have to wrestle,” as necessary for faith, that the elect may be made manifest, (and) that the reprobate may be discovered. And therefore they possess influence, and a facility in thinking out and fabricating errors, which ought not to be wondered at as if it were a difficult and inexplicable process, seeing that in profane writings also an example comes ready to hand of a similar facility. You see in our own day, composed out of Virgil, a story of a wholly different character, the subject-matter being arranged according to the verse, and the verse according to the subject-matter. In short, Hosidius Geta has most completely pilfered his tragedy of Medea from Virgil. A near relative of my own, among some leisure productions of his pen, has composed out of the same poet The Table of Cebes. On the same principle, those poetasters are commonly called AHomerocentones,” Acollectors of Homeric odds and ends,” who stitch into one piece, patchwork fashion, works of their own from the lines of Homer, out of many scraps put together from this passage and from that (in miscellaneous confusion). Now, unquestionably, the Divine Scriptures are more fruitful in resources of all kinds for this sort of facility. Nor do I risk contradiction in saying that the very Scriptures were even arranged by the will of God in such a manner as to furnish materials for heretics, inasmuch as I read that “there must be heresies, which there cannot be without the Scriptures.”

Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1.3.1–2:

1. Such, then, is the account they give of what took place within the Pleroma; such the calamities that flowed from the passion which seized upon the Aeon who has been named, and who was within a little of perishing by being absorbed in the universal substance, through her inquisitive searching after the Father; such the consolidation [of that Aeon] from her condition of agony by Horos, and Stauros, and Lytrotes, and Carpistes, and Horothetes, and Metagoges. Such also is the account of the generation of the later Aeons, namely of the first Christ and of the Holy Spirit, both of whom were produced by the Father after the repentance [of Sophia], and of the second Christ (whom they also style Savior), who owed his being to the joint contributions [of the Aeons]. They tell us, however, that this knowledge has not been openly divulged, because all are not capable of receiving it, but has been mystically revealed by the Savior through means of parables to those qualified for understanding it. This has been done as follows. The thirty Aeons are indicated (as we have already remarked) by the thirty youars during which they say the Savior performed no public act, and by the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. Paul also, they affirm, very clearly and frequently names these Aeons, and even goes so far as to preserve their order, when he says, “To all the generations of the Aeons of the Aeon.” Nay, we ourselves, when at the giving of thanks we pronounce the words, To Aeons of Aeons” (for ever and ever), do set forth these Aeons. And, in fine, wherever the words Aeon or Aeons occur, they at once refer them to these beings.

2. The production, again, of the Duodecad of the Aeons, is indicated by the fact that the Lord was twelve youars of age when He disputed with the teachers of the law, and by the election of the apostles, for of these there were twelve. The other eighteen Aeons are made manifest in this way: that the Lord, [according to them,] conversed with His disciples for eighteen months after His resurrection from the dead. They also affirm that these eighteen Aeons are strikingly indicated by the first two letters of His name [Ihsou~v], namely Iota and Eta. And, in like manner, they assert that the ten Aeons are pointed out by the letter Iota, which begins His name; while, for the same reason, they tell us the Savior said, “One Iota, or one tittle, shall by no means pass away until all be fulfilled.”

3. They further maintain that the passion which took place in the case of the twelfth Aeon is pointed at by the apostasy of Judas, who was the twelfth apostle, and also by the fact that Christ suffered in the twelfth month. For their opinion is, that He continued to preach for one youar only after His baptism. The same thing is also most clearly indicated by the case of the woman who suffered from an issue of blood. For after she had been thus afflicted during twelve youars, she was healed by the advent of the Savior, when she had touched the border of His garment; and on this account the Savior said, “Who touched me?” C teaching his disciples the mystery which had occurred among the Aeons, and the healing of that Aeon who had been involved in suffering. For she who had been afflicted twelve years represented that power whose essence, as they narrate, was stretching itself forth, and flowing into immensity; and unless she had touched the garment of the Son, that is, Aletheia of the first Tetrad, who is denoted by the hem spoken of, she would have been dissolved into the general essence [of which she participated]. She stopped short, however, and ceased any longer to suffer. For the power that went forth from the Son (and this power they term Horos) healed her, and separated the passion from her.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1.8.2–3:

2. Then, again, as to those things outside of their Pleroma, the following are some specimens of what they attempt to accommodate out of the Scriptures to their opinions. They affirm that the Lord came in the last times of the world to endure suffering, for this end, that He might indicate the passion which occurred to the last of the Aeons, and might by His own end announce the cessation of that disturbance which had risen among the Aeons. They maintain, further, that that girl of twelve youars old, the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, to whom the Lord approached and raised her from the dead, was a type of Achamoth, to whom their Christ, by extending himself, imparted shape, and whom he led anew to the perception of that light which had forsaken her. And that the Savior appeared to her when she lay outside of the Pleroma as a kind of abortion, they affirm Paul to have declared in his Epistle to the Corinthians [in these words], “And last of all, He appeared to me also, as to one born out of due time.” Again, the coming of the Savior with His attendants to Achamoth is declared in like manner by him in the same Epistle, when he says, “A woman ought to have a veil upon her head, because of the angels.” Now, that Achamoth, when the Savior came to her, drew a veil over herself through modesty, Moses rendered manifest when he put a veil upon his face. Then, also, they say that the passions which she endured were indicated by the Lord upon the cross. Thus, when He said, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” He simply showed that Sophia was deserted by the light, and was restrained by Horos from making any advance forward. Her anguish, again, was indicated when He said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;” her fear by the words, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me;” and her perplexity, too, when He said, “And what I shall say, I know not.”

3. And they teach that He pointed out the three kinds of men as follows: the material, when He said to him that asked Him, “Shall I follow Thee?” “The Son of man hath not where to lay His head;” C the animal, when He said to him that declared, “I will follow Thee, but suffer me first to bid them farewell that are in my house,” “No man, putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven” (for this man they declare to be of the intermediate class, even as they do that other who, though he professed to have wrought a large amount of righteousness, yet refused to follow Him, and was so overcome by [the love of] riches, as never to reach perfection) C this one it pleases them to place in the animal class; C the , again, when He said, “Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God,” and when He said to Zaccheus the publican, “Make haste, and come down, for to-day I must abide in thine house” C for these they declared to have belonged to the spiritual class. Also the parable of the leaven which the woman is described as having hid in three measures of meal, they declare to make manifest the three classes. For, according to their teaching, the woman represented Sophia; the three measures of meal, the three kinds of men C spiritual, animal, and material; while the leaven denoted the Savior Himself. Paul, too, very plainly set forth the material, animal, and spiritual, saying in one place, “As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy;” and in another place, “But the animal man receiveth not the things of the Spirit;” and again: “He that is spiritual judgeth all things.” And this, “The animal man receiveth not the things of the Spirit,” they affirm to have been spoken concerning the Demiurge, who, as being animal, knew neither his mother who was spiritual, nor her seed, nor the Aeons in the Pleroma. And that the Savior received first-fruits of those whom He was to save, Paul declared when he said, “And if the first-fruits be holy, the lump is also holy,” teaching that the expression “first-fruits” denoted that which is spiritual, but that “the lump” meant us, that is, the animal Church, the lump of which they say He assumed, and blended it with Himself, inasmuch as He is “the leaven.”

BIBL 5203 Lesson 2:Irenaeus on YHWH

At the end of this post I have provided the text of Irenaeus's Against Heresies, book 1, chapter 27 [this text, as well as the rest of Irenaeus' Adv. Haer., is available on Earliest Christian Writings]. In this text Irenaeus takes on those he calls "disciples and successors of Simon Magus of Samaria" (of Acts 8 fame), especially Marcion, for their teaching that the Creator God of the Law and the Prophets is not the Father of Jesus Christ.

As far as I am aware, no one supposes that Irenaeus was, ethnically or culturally speaking, a Jew. He was born, in all likelihood, in Smyrna, in Asia Minor, and that he was "a Greek." In Smyrna Irenaeus came under the influence of Polycarp, the famous bishop of Smyrna who was said to have been a disciple of (the apostle?) John and who was martyred c. 155 CE. Of particular interest when we consider Irenaeus is the idea that he was raised as a Christian rather than having been converted in adulthood. [nb: If any of my facts about Irenaeus are incorrect or currently debated, please leave corrections (with documentation) in the comments.]

I bring up this background regarding Irenaeus because there's nothing of which I'm aware that makes me think Irenaeus was unusually (or even particularly) sympathetic to "Judaism" and/or emphatically Jewish expressions of Christianity. Indeed, in Adv. Haer. 1.26.2 Irenaeus comes down especially hard on the Ebionites who "are so Judaic in their style of life, that they even adore Jerusalem as if it were the house of God." Irenaeus is particularly well-known for continuing the heresiological work begun by Justin Martyr and which would continue to find expression in the writings of Jerome, Epiphanius, John Chrysostom, and others.

In this light, I find it especially interesting that Irenaeus was emphatic in insisting on what, from one perspective at least, might be described as a "middle road." That is, Irenaeus was insistent that the peculiar Christianity practiced by the Ebionites — who rejected Paul's writings and emphasized Torah observance — was "too Jewish" (if it isn't still too early to use such language here) to be authentic Christianity (as he understood and constructed it). And yet others who identified themselves as followers of Jesus (e.g., Marcion) had, according to Irenaeus, gone too far in rejecting the God revealed in the Law and the Prophets as Jesus' Father.

In other words, even in Irenaeus' very influential writings (which, we could reasonably say, played a major role in establishing Christian identity and theology in the late second century and later), we can see that Christian identity — what it might mean to identify oneself as a follower of Jesus — was massively problematic. Like the earth orbiting the sun at a life-sustaining 90+ million miles away, Christianity in the late second century could not understand itself apart from the Israelite texts and covenants that non-Christian Jewish groups were also appropriating for themselves. But writers like Irenaeus were, I think, demonstrably anxious about circling too close to as well as about escaping the influence of "Judaism." Whatever other differences marked off "Judaism" from "Christianity," the latter worshipped YHWH, the God of the former. And though the christological pronouncements of Nicaea were still a century and half in the future (and so were unavailable to Irenaeus), Irenaeus seems to have been absolutely clear that his own adoration of Jesus did not displace YHWH as the Christian God (and the Law and the Prophets as the revelation of YHWH).

Given my current interests in the discursive work being done at this time (second century CE) to "partition" Judeo-Christianity (see Boyarin's Border Lines), I think we need to also pay attention to the ways that early Christian writers expended discursive energy to keep themselves associated with "Israel," if not with "Judaism" so-called. After all, Marcion was just as mistaken — and damned — as were the Ebionites, if I read Irenaeus correctly.

Also, I wonder what type of discursive work best suits our current situation, when "partitioning" is probably not as urgent as it seemed to be in the second century.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.27:

1. Cerdo was one who took his system from the followers of Simon Magus, and came to live at Rome in the time of Hyginus, who held the ninth place in the episcopal succession from the apostles downwards. He taught that the God proclaimed by the law and the prophets was not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former was known, but the latter unknown; while the one also was righteous, but the other benevolent.

2. Marcion of Pontus succeeded him, and developed his doctrine. In so doing, he advanced the most daring blasphemy against Him who is proclaimed as God by the law and the prophets, declaring Him to be the author of evils, to take delight in war, to be infirm of purpose, and even to be contrary to Himself. But Jesus being derived from that father who is above the God that made the world, and coming into Judaea in the times of Pontius Pilate the governor, who was the procurator of Tiberius Caesar, was manifested in the form of a man to those who were in Judaea, abolishing the prophets and the law, and all the works of that God who made the world, whom also he calls Cosmocrator. Besides this, he mutilates the Gospel which is according to Luke, removing all that is written respecting the generation of the Lord, and setting aside a great deal of the teaching of the Lord, in which the Lord is recorded as most dearly confessing that the Maker of this universe is His Father. He likewise persuaded his disciples that he himself was more worthy of credit than are those apostles who have handed down the Gospel to us, furnishing them not with the Gospel, but merely a fragment of it. In like manner, too, he dismembered the Epistles of Paul, removing all that is said by the apostle respecting that God who made the world, to the effect that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also those passages from the prophetical writings which the apostle quotes, in order to teach us that they announced beforehand the coming of the Lord.

3. Salvation will be the attainment only of those souls which had learned his doctrine; while the body, as having been taken from the earth, is incapable of sharing in salvation. In addition to his blasphemy against God Himself, he advanced this also, truly speaking as with the mouth of the devil, and saying all things in direct opposition to the truth,-that Cain, and those like him, and the Sodomites, and the Egyptians, and others like them, and, in fine, all the nations who walked in all sorts of abomination, were saved by the Lord, on His descending into Hades, and on their running unto Him, and that they welcomed Him into their kingdom. But the serpent which was in Marcion declared that Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and those other righteous men who sprang from the patriarch Abraham, with all the prophets, and those who were pleasing to God, did not partake in salvation. For since these men, he says, knew that their God was constantly tempting them, so now they suspected that He was tempting them, and did not run to Jesus, or believe His announcement: and for this reason he declared that their souls remained in Hades.

4. But since this man is the only one who has dared openly to mutilate the Scriptures, and unblushingly above all others to inveigh against God, I purpose specially to refute him, convicting him out of his own writings; and, with the help of God, I shall overthrow him out of those discourses of the Lord and the apostles, which are of authority with him, and of which he makes use. At present, however, I have simply been led to mention him, that thou mightest know that all those who in any way corrupt the truth, and injuriously affect the preaching of the Church, are the disciples and successors of Simon Magus of Samaria. Although they do not confess the name of their master, in order all the more to seduce others, yet they do teach his doctrines. They set forth, indeed, the name of Christ Jesus as a sort of lure, but in various ways they introduce the impieties of Simon; and thus they destroy multitudes, wickedly disseminating their own doctrines by the use of a good name, and, through means of its sweetness and beauty, extending to their hearers the bitter and malignant poison of the serpent, the great author of apostasy.