Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World 316159892X, 9783161598920

Table of contents :
Cover
Titel
Table of Contents
Preface
Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World. Introduction
I. The City
II. Egyptian and Hellenistic Identities
III. Jewish Alexandria
IV. From the New Testament to Early Christianities
List of Contributors
Index of References
Index of Authors
Subject Index

Citation preview

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Herausgeber / Editor Jörg Frey (Zürich) Mitherausgeber / Associate Editors Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford) · James A. Kelhoffer (Uppsala) Tobias Nicklas (Regensburg) · Janet Spittler (Charlottesville, VA) J. Ross Wagner (Durham, NC)

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Alexandria Hub of the Hellenistic World

edited by

Benjamin Schliesser, Jan Rüggemeier, Thomas J. Kraus, and Jörg Frey

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with the assistance of Daniel Herrmann

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Mohr Siebeck

Benjamin Schliesser, born 1977; 2006 PhD; 2010–2016 senior assistant in Zurich; since 2016 Professor of New Testament Studies at the Institute for New Testament Studies at the University of Bern. orcid.org/0000-0002-3725-8350 Jan Rüggemeier, born 1981; 2017 PhD; since 2017 project assistant at the Institute for New Testament Studies in Bern and since 2018 senior assistant for New Testament Studies at the Theological Seminary of the University of Zurich. orcid.org/0000-0003-3506-3207 Thomas J. Kraus, born 1965; 1996–1999 Assistant Professor in Regensburg; since 1999 Director of Studies at a Bavarian grammar school; 2000 PhD; since 2013 Teaching Assignments and Habilitation Project in Early Christianity at the Theological Seminary of the University of Zurich; since 2014 Research Fellow at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. Jörg Frey, born 1962; 1996 PhD; 1998 Habilitation; professorships in Jena and Munich; since 2010 Professor of New Testament Studies with focus on Ancient Judaism and Hermeneutics at the Theological Seminary of the University of Zurich; Research Associate at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.

ISBN 978-3-16-159892-0 / eISBN 978-3-16-159893-7 DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-159893-7 ISSN 0512-1604 / eISSN 2568-7476 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament) The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

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© 2021 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany. www.mohrsiebeck.com This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was printed by Gulde Druck in Tübingen on non-aging paper and bound by Buch­ binderei Spinner in Ottersweier.

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Printed in Germany.

Table of Contents Preface .......................................................................................................... XI Jan Rüggemeier Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World. Introduction ............................. XIII 1. Alexandria as a Multidimensional Hub – 2. Urban Encounters and the Fragility of Alexandria’s Multiculturalism – 3. The Outline and Rationale of this Volume

I. The City Gregory E. Sterling “The Largest and Most Important” Part of Egypt: Alexandria according to Strabo.............................................................................................................. 3 1. Strabo’s Descriptions of Cities – 2. Strabo’s Description of Alexandria – 3. Significant Omissions – 4. Conclusions – Appendix: Strabo 17.1.6–10

Balbina Bäbler Whose “Glory of Alexandria”? Monuments, Identities, and the Eye of the Beholder ....................................................................................................... 29 1. Introduction – 2. Written Sources and Material Remains – 3. Mouseion and Library: Fortress of Greekness or Multicultural University? – 4. Places of Paideia in Alexandria: How Jews Became from Shareholders to Objects – 5. Conclusion

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Barbara Schmitz Alexandria: What Does the So-Called Letter of Aristeas Tell Us about Alexandria?................................................................................................... 49 1. “The First City of the Civilized World” (Diodorus 17.52.5) – 2. “Alexandria” in the Letter of Aristeas – 3. Comparing Alexandria with Jerusalem and Judea in the Letter of Aristeas – 4. Alexandria and Jerusalem

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Christina Harker Religious Violence and the Library of Alexandria ....................................... 63 1. “The Muses’ Bird-Cage” – 2. “They Are Pernicious and Ought to Be Destroyed” – 3. “They Reckoned Their Sacrilege and Impiety a Thing to Glory in” – 4. “A Shameful Memory, Let It Burn” – 5. Conclusion

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Table of Contents

Maria Sokolskaya Was Demetrius of Phalerum the Founder of the Alexandrian Library? ........ 81 1. The Sources and Their Value – 2. The Ptolemeans, Alexandria, and Athens – 3. The Role of Jewish Studies – 4. Why Demetrius?

II. Egyptian and Hellenistic Identities Christoph Riedweg Alexandria in the New Outline of Philosophy in the Roman Imperial Period and in Late Antiquity .................................................................................... 99 Stefan Pfeiffer Bottom Up or Top Down: Who Initiated the Building of Temples for Augustus in Alexandria and Upper Egypt? ..................................................107 1. The Situation in Egypt – 2. Evaluation

Sylvie Honigman The Shifting Definition of Greek Identity in Alexandria through the Transition from Ptolemaic to Roman Rule ..................................................125 1. Greek Identity under the Ptolemies – 2. Greek Identity of Egypt under Roman Rule – 3. Conclusions

Beatrice Wyss Cultural Rivalry in Alexandria: The Egyptians Apion and Chaeremon .......145 1. Introduction – 2. Apion – 3. Chaeremon – 4. Conclusion

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Sandra Gambetti When Syrian Politics Arrived in Egypt: 2nd Century BCE Egyptian Yahwism and the Vorlage of the LXX..............165 1. Yahwism in Egypt – 2. The Second Century – 3. The Alexandrian Yahwistic Scriptures – 4. Conclusions

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Michael Sommer The Apocalypse of Zephaniah and the Tombs of the Egyptian Chora: An Archeological Contribution to B. J. Diebner’s Opinion about the Relation between Clement of Alexandria and the Coptic Tradition of the Apocalypse of Zephaniah ................................................................................................207 1. A Journey into the Underworld and Back – A Look at the Images of the Apocalypse – 2. The Egyptian Underworld Books and Their Leitmotifs – 3. The Motif Circles of the Book of the Dead in Conceptions of the Otherworld of the First Two Centuries CE – 4. Conclusion

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III. Jewish Alexandria Benjamin Wright The Letter of Aristeas and the Place of the Septuagint in Alexandrian Judaism ........................................................................................................229 1. The Letter of Aristeas: Some Basics – 2. Aristeas as a Historical Source for Septuagint Origins – 3. The Nature of the Septuagint according to Aristeas – 4. The Septuagint as a Translation and the Problem of Origins – 5. Conclusion

Jan. N. Bremmer The First Pogrom? Religious Violence in Alexandria in 38 CE? .................245 1. The Term ‘Pogrom’ – 2. Judeans or Jews? – 3. The Riots and Their Aftermath – 4. Conclusions

René Bloch How Much Hebrew in Jewish Alexandria? ..................................................261 Justin P. Jeffcoat Schedtler From Alexandria to Caesarea and Beyond: The Transmission of the Fragments of the Hellenistic Jewish Authors ...............................................279 1. Introduction – 2. Eusebius and the Praeparatio Evangelica – 3. The Nature of Eusebius’s Sources – 4. Eusebius’s Library in Caesarea – 5. Transmission of Texts in the Library of Caesarea – 6. Clement of Alexandria – 7. Processes of Transmission – Excerpting 8. Clement’s Libraries in Alexandria? – 9. Alexander Polyhistor – 10. On What Basis Did Polyhistor Organize On the Jews? – 11. How Did Polyhistor Access His Sources? – 12. The Earliest Stages of Transmission of the Fragments – Date, Authorship, and Provenance 13. Jewish Scribes – 14. Composition and Dissemination of Texts

John Granger Cook Philo’s Quaestiones in Genesin and Paul’s σῶμα πνευματικόν .................... 303

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1. Philo on the πνευματικὸν βρῶμα – 2. Paul’s πνευματικὸν βρῶμα – 3. Summary and Conclusion

IV. From the New Testament to Early Christianities

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Samuel Vollenweider Apollos of Alexandria: Portrait of an Unknown ..........................................325 1. Apollos Attracts Modern Historians and Interpreters – 2. Two Lukan Episodes: Acts 18– 19 – 3. Various Roles in the Corinthian Community: 1 Cor 1–4 – 4. In Search of the Historical Apollos

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Jörg Frey Locating New Testament Writings in Alexandria: On Method and the Aporias of Scholarship .................................................345 1. The Lack of Sources and the Curiosity of Scholars – 2. Scholarly Suggestions and Methodological Questions – 3. Glimpses into the Beginnings of Critical New Testament Scholarship – 4. New Testament Writings and Alexandria – 5. Noncanonical Traditions as Our Earliest Sources for Alexandrian Jesus-Followers: The Apocalypse of Peter and the Gospel according to the Hebrews – 6. Conclusions and Perspectives

Benjamin Schliesser Jewish Beginnings: Earliest Christianity in Alexandria ...............................367 1. The Silence of the Sources and the Imagination of Scholarship – 2. Evidence for Continuity in Alexandrian Christian Literature – 3. Evidence for Continuity in Alexandrian “Anti-Christian” Literature – 4. Personal, Literary, Institutional, Documentary, and Statistical Evidence for Continuity – 5. Conclusion

Enno Edzard Popkes The Interpretation of Pauline Understandings of Resurrection within The Treatise on the Resurrection (NHC I 4) .......................................................399 1. The Treatise on the Resurrection (NHC I 4) within Early Christian Discourses Regarding the Notion of Resurrection – 2. Basic Information on The Treatise on the Resurrection (NHC I 4) – 3. The Notion of Resurrection in The Treatise on the Resurrection – 4. Contextualizing Notions of Resurrection in The Treatise on the Resurrection from a Discourse Analytical Perspective and from the Point of View of Religious History

Wolfgang Grünstäudl The Quest for Pantaenus: Paul Collomp, Wilhelm Bousset, and Johannes Munck on an Alexandrian Enigma ..............................................................413

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1. An Enigmatic Teacher and a Thoroughly Refuted Hypothesis – 2. What Do We (Not) Know about Pantaenus – 3. Collomp, Bousset and Munck – 4. Open Questions and New Perspectives – 5. Conclusion

Thomas J. Kraus Alexandria, City of Knowledge: Clement on “Statues” in His Protrepticus (chapter 4)....................................................................................................441

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1. Introduction – 2. Clement’s Protrepticus. Choosing and Adopting a Specific Literary Genre – 3. Clement and His Account of the “Statues” in Protr. 4 – 4. The “Greeks” as the Audience Addressed

Anna van den Kerchove Origen and the “Heterodox:” The Prologue of the Commentary on John within the Christian Alexandrian Context ...................................................487

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1. The Commentary on John: A Mandated Writing – 2. The Commentary on John within Origen’s Scholarship – 3. The Commentary on John: A “Spiritual” Gospel for a “Spiritual” People – 4. Conclusion

Luca Arcari “Monotheistic” Discourses in Pseudo-Justin’s De monarchia: The “Uniqueness” of God and the Alexandrian Hegemony ................................503 1. Structure and Contents of the De monarchia – 2. The Report by Eusebius of Caesarea, Hist. eccl. 4.18.4 – 3. Clement of Alexandria and the De monarchia – 4. The Alexandrian Provenance of the De monarchia – 5. “Monotheistic” Discourses and the Alexandrian Cultural Hegemonic System – 6. The Uniqueness of the Divine Principle and Judaism(s) in the Alexandrian Patronage System – 7. Conclusion

Tobias Nicklas The Martyrdom of Mark in Late Antique Alexandria ..................................519 1. Introduction – 2. The Story – 3. Theology, Function, and Impact – Appendix: Text and Translation of the “Martyrdom of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark in Alexandria” (Text of Codex Paris gr. 881)

List of Contributors .....................................................................................543

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Index of References .....................................................................................547 Index of Authors ..........................................................................................591 Subject Index ...............................................................................................610

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Preface A city is not just lines on a map, a discursive symbol or a static container. Rather, a city is “the battleground through which groups define their identity, stake their claims, wage their battles, and articulate citizenship rights, obligations, and principles” (Engin Isin). Ancient Alexandria proves to be just that: an arena for negotiating identities, a medley of urban life, a hub of a complex world. This volume puts the spotlight on a wide array of topics that pertain to the remarkable diversity of Alexandria’s urban life. Most contributions have their roots in a conference, which took place at the University of Bern from August 22 to 25, 2017. The event was co-hosted by the University of Zürich and sponsored by the Swiss National Foundation (SNF), the Fontes-Foundation (Bern), the Burgergemeinde Bern, and the Doctoral Program of the Theological Faculties of Basel, Bern, and Zürich. We thank all these organizations for their support. The organizers of the conference, who are also the editors of the present volume, are most grateful for the collaborative and engaging spirit among the presenters during the conference. We are equally grateful to those colleagues who agreed to join the project at a later stage and enriched the volume with their additional contributions. We are delighted to finally present the harvest of our collective endeavor: twenty-six contributions from the realm of archaeology, ancient history, classical philology, religious studies, philosophy, the Old Testament, narratology, Jewish studies, papyrology, and the New Testament. Furthermore, this volume is the initial spark for a research project located in Bern by the name of “ECCLESIAE – Early Christian Centers: Local Expressions, Social Identity & Actor Engagement”. Much narrower in scope than the present volume, it focusses on the formative stages of emergent Christianity as an urban phenomenon. All editors express their gratitude to Daniel Herrmann and Hanna-Maria Riesner for their remarkable editorial competence and their indexing prowess, as well as to Jacob Cerone and Christina Harker for their help in improving the English style of those of us who are non-native speakers. Thanks is also due the team of Mohr Siebeck, especially to Elena Müller and Tobias Stäbler, for their professional and personal support of this book project.

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Bern, December 31, 2020

Benjamin Schliesser Jan Rüggemeier Thomas J. Kraus Jörg Frey

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Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World Introduction JAN RÜGGEMEIER 1. Alexandria as a Multidimensional Hub

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Alexandria was the second-largest city in in the ancient Mediterranean world and at the same time enjoyed a unique political reputation.1 She was known to contemporaries as Ἀλεξανδρεία ἡ πρὸς Αἰγύπτῳ,2 this is to say: a city separated from the rest of Egypt. Though it is not just because of her size or political position, even more, due to her economic power and attractiveness, as well as her academic, cultural, philosophical, and religious impact that Alexandria can rightly be considered one of the most important “Hubs”3 in the Hellenistic World.

1 At the beginning of the imperial period, the population of Alexandria most likely reached or even exceeded the mark of half a million citizens (Diodorus Siculus 1.31.6–8; Josephus, B.J. 2.385). For an overview of modern attempts to assess the population of Alexandria, see Laurens E. Tacoma, Fragile Hierarchies: The Urban Elites of Third-Century Roman Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 30–31; Diana Delia, “The Population of Roman Alexandria,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 118 (1988): 275–92 (275n2); Jane Rowlandson and Andrew Harker, “Roman Alexandria from the Perspective of the Papyri,” in Alexandria, Real and Imagined, ed. Anthony Hirst and Michael Silk (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 79–111 (84). 2 Cf. P.Horak 13; P.Berl. Brash. 3; P.Berl. Bibl. 4; P.Cairo 10579; P.Oxy. 1.35 R; Strabo, Geogr. 5.1.7; Philo, Prob. 125. The Romans also distinguished between Alexandria and Egypt (Alexandria ad Aegyptum): BGU IV 1059, l. 7; P.Oxy 4.727; P. 7815, verso ll. 9–10; M.Chr. 91; 96; 188.2, ll. 12–14. As early as 170 BCE the Alexandrian astronomer Hypsikles refers to Alexandria as “Ἀλεξάνδρεια ἡ πρὸς Αἴγυπτον” (Hypsikles: Die Aufgangszeiten der Gestirne, ed. Vittorio de Falco and Max Krause, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Philologisch-Historische Klasse 3/62 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 36. 3 In social network analysis “Hubs” are defined as the central part of a network, where many of a network’s members are connected. See Charles Kadushin, Understanding Social Networks: Theories, Concepts, and Findings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 116–9. In real life, networks are mostly multidimensional, i.e., members are not only connected by one common feature but by many. On this aspect, see Michele Berlingerio et al., “The pursuit of hubbiness: Analysis of hubs in large multidimensional networks,” Journal of Computational Science 2 (2011): 223–37. In a similar way, Alexandria can be seen as a metropolis connected on different levels with other major cities, towns, regions, and her own hinterland.

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The city of Alexandria bridged separate worlds, cultures, and traditions, and connected leading key-figures, innovators, and other actors from all directions and many languages. New dimensions of trade, technological progress, and intellectual exchange were opened up here and established due to the city’s unique infrastructure and financial resources. Similar to other metropoleis – such as Rome, Antioch, or Ephesus – Alexandria was characterized by a high density of exchange, a frequency of social encounters, and a plurality of philosophical and religious views and practices. Due to the large number of traders and immigrants, Alexandria was closely linked to its hinterland, but also to most distant regions and cities. Egyptian, Hellenistic, Jewish, and Christian identities all emerged, developed, coexisted, and – at least selectively – influenced each other at this place. On the down run, this multifaceted process of identity formation also encouraged conflict or even violent riots. Due to this confluence of different ethnicities and social identities, one is inclined to refer to Alexandria as a melting pot, mosaic, or kaleidoscope.4 Of course, such labeling already indicates a strong interest in comparison with our postmodern culture, which is one main reason why Alexandria continues to fascinate so many scholars from a variety of academic disciplines.5 To emphasize the dynamics of ethnical encounters the term “kaleidoscope” is preferred nowadays over other metaphors in Ethnic studies, as already suggested by Lawrence H. Fuchs, The American Kaleidoscope: Race, Ethnicity, and the Civic Culture (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1996), 276. The term also seems appropriate in our context, because the images produced by a kaleidoscope highly depend on the observer’s handling and point of view. 5 The literature is immense and growing, but the following contributions (in chronological order) are of particular importance: Luca Arcari, ed., Beyond Conflicts: Cultural and Religious Cohabitations in Alexandria and Egypt between the 1st and the 6th Century CE, STAC 103 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017); Tobias Georges et al., eds., Alexandria, COMES 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013); Bojana Mojsov, Alexandria Lost: From the Advent of Christianity to the Arab Conquest (London: Duckworth, 2010); Georg Hinge and Jens A. Krasilnikoff, eds., Alexandria: A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2009); Niall Finneran, Alexandria: A City & Myth (Stroud: Tempus, 2005); William V. Harris and Giovanni Ruffini, eds., Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece, Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 26 (Leiden: Brill, 2004); Anthony Hirst and Michael Silk, eds., Alexandria, Real and Imagined (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004); Manfred Clauss, Alexandria: Schicksale einer antiken Weltstadt, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2004); Jean Leclant, ed., Alexandrie: une mégapole cosmopolite, Cahiers de la Villa Kérylos 9 (Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1999); Michael Pfrommer and Ulrike Denis, Alexandria im Schatten der Pyramiden, Antike Welt Sonderband / Zaberns Bildbände zur Archäologie (Mainz: von Zabern, 1999); Günter Grimm, Alexandria: Die erste Königsstadt der hellenistischen Welt: Bilder aus der Nilmetropole von Alexander dem Großen bis Kleopatra VII., Antike Welt Sonderheft 1998 / Zaberns Bildbände zur Archäologie (Mainz: von Zabern, 1998); Christopher Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Kenneth Hamma, Alexandria and Alexandrianism: Papers Delivered at a Symposium Organized by The J. Paul Getty Museum and by The Getty Center for

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1.1 Alexandria as an Economic Hub

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The place where most people flocked together when they reached Alexandria was the Great Harbor.6 This impressive industrial facility was capable of handling even the largest ships involved in the grain trade and therefore connected Alexandria to other economic centers in the Mediterranean world, especially Rome.7 Furthermore, the coastline from Alexandria to Antioch gained major importance for the ancient silk trade.8 We may add the exportation of beer,9 fish,10 medical remedies,11 linen, and wheat to Palestine.12 Accordingly, the city rightly received the reputation for being “the busiest port in the ancient world.”13

the History of Art and the Humanities and Held at the Museum April 22–25, 1993 (Malibu: Getty Museum, 1996); Nobert Hinske, Alexandrien: Kulturbegegnungen dreier Jahrtausende im Schmelztiegel einer mediterranen Großstadt, Aegyptiaca Treverensia 1 (Mainz: von Zabern, 1981); Peter M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972; repr. 1998); André Bernand, Alexandrie la Grande (Paris: Hachette, 1966). 6 For more details on the Great Harbor, see James Beresford, “Ships and Sails,” in The Ancient Sailing Season, ed. idem, Mnemosyne Supplements 351 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 125–30; Lionel Casson, Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 101–26. For Strabo’s description of the Harbor, see Gregory E. Sterling’s article in this volume. 7 It is probable that – at least occasionally – wheat was also exported to Jerusalem and Palestine. See, e.g., Josephus, Ant. 15.9.2 and 20.2.5. See also t. Makš. 3.4: „Joshua b. Perachia says: Wheat which comes from Alexandria is impure because of their water-wheel. The Sages replied: If so, it is impure for Joshua b. Perachai, but it is pure for the rest of Israel.“ 8 Jean-François Duneau, “Quelques aspects de la pénétration de l’hellenism dans l’Empire perse sassanide,” in Mélanges offerts à René Crozet à l’occasion de son soixante-dixième anniversaire 1, ed. Pierre Gallais and Yves-Jean Riou (Poitiers: Soc. d’Études Médiévales, 1966), 13–22 (14–5). 9 See m. Makš. 3.1, where “Egyptian beer” is listed among other items that have to be removed at the Passover. 10 In m. Makš. 6.3 we read that Egyptian fish brought in baskets can be presumed as clean. 11 Cf. Josephus, B.J. 1.30.4, 7; Ant. 17.4.2. 12 On trade routes to Palestine, see John Cassian, Instit. 4.31; Sulpicius Severus, Dial. 1.8.1; Jerome, Epist. 108.14. For more details on this trade between Alexandria and Palestine, see Daniel Sperber, Objects of Trade between Palestine and Egypt in Roman Times, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 19 (1976): 113–47. According to y. Sanh. 10, a person may not go to Egypt to study – due to the injunction against returning to Egypt (Deut 17:17) – but is allowed to do so for trade purposes. 13 Douglas J. Moo, “Alexandria,” in Major Cities of the Biblical World, ed. Roland K. Harrison (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1985), 1–7 (3). Haas, Alexandria, 42 estimates that “over thirty-two fully loaded vessels would have sailed weekly from Alexandria [in Roman times].” For the extent of the grain trade, see Geoffrey E. Rickman, “The Grain Trade under the Roman Empire,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 36 (1980): 263–4; and Geoffrey E. Rickman, The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 10, 113–18, 231–35.

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Due to the city’s geopolitical position the Eastern trade was also to a huge extent in the hands of Alexandrian rulers. Not only in the time of Strabo14 Alexandria’s merchants were in control of important Red Sea and Nile harbors. Dio Chrysostom still compliments the Alexandrians, writing: τήν τε θάλατταν τὴν καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς ἅπασαν ἐκδέχεσθε, κάλλει τε λιμένων καὶ μεγέθει στόλου καὶ τῶν πανταχοῦ γιγνομένων ἀφθονίᾳ καὶ διαθέσει, καὶ τὴν ἔξωθεν ὑπερκειμένην ἔχετε, τήν τε Ἐρυθρὰν καὶ τὴν Ἰνδικήν, ἧς πρότερον τοὔνομα ἀκοῦσαι χαλεπὸν ἦν: ὥστε τὰς ἐμπορίας οὐ νήσων οὐδὲ λιμένων οὐδὲ πορθμῶν τινων καὶ ἰσθμῶν, ἀλλὰ σχεδὸν ἁπάσης τῆς οἰκουμένης γίγνεσθαι παρ᾽ ὑμῖν. And, furthermore, not only have you a monopoly of the shipping of the entire Mediterranean by reason of the beauty of your harbors, the magnitude of your fleet, and the abundance and the marketing of the products of every land, but also the outer waters that lie beyond are in your grasp, both the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, whose name was rarely heard in former days.15

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In addition to her role as a trade and transport hub Alexandria also gradually advanced to a well-known manufacturing-center, particularly due to her textile industry16 and the refining of Arabian incenses, as we learn from Cicero and Pliny the Elder.17 Most likely Alexandria was also involved in Egyptian glass production.18 Furthermore, the rise of Alexandria’s Great Library and famous schools would be almost unimaginable without a major local paper manufacturing industry. All these characteristics together made Alexandria truly “the greatest emporium of the inhabited earth“ (Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.13), or at least one of the most important economic hubs of ancient times. This economic prosperity was the

14 Cf. Strabo, Geogr. 2.5.12. The papyrus P.Vind. G. 40822 gives us detailed information on how the shipment of goods from India was organized in the mid-2nd century CE. 15 Dio Chrysostom 32.36. The translation here is taken from Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 31–36, trans. James W. Cohoon and Henry L. Crosby, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940). Alexandria’s Eastern trade is also mentioned in Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.13. 16 In m. Yoma 3.7 we read that the High Priest in the temple of Jerusalem was clothed in Pelusian linen in the morning and in Indian linen in the evening. It is not explicitly stated, where the linen stems from or were the High Priest’s vestments were made. However, Alexandria was famous for the further processing of linum Pelusiacum (see Silius Italicus 3.23.375; Pliny the Elder, Nat. 19.1.14) and there was an important trade relation with Jerusalem (see below). 17 Cf. Cicero, Rab. Post. 40; Pliny the Elder, Nat. 8.74. Another passage from Pliny the Elder (Nat. 12.32) sensitizes us to the security measures that have been taken due to the high value of the trading goods: at, Hercules, Alexandriae, ubi tura interpolantur, nulla satis custodit dilgentia officinas subligaria signantur opifici, persona additur capiti densusue reticulus, nudi emittuntur. See also Diodorus Siculus 17.52.5, who states that Alexandria by far exceeds other cities in “the amount of revenue, and luxury goods.” 18 For Alexandria’s glass industry, see, e.g., Alan K. Bowman, Egypt after the Pharaohs 732 BC–AD 642: From Alexander to the Arab Conquest (London: British Museum Press, 1986), 221–2. In order to trace Alexandria’s glass exportation so called hafnium isotopes are most likely to become increasingly important. On this method, see Gry H. Barfod et al., “‘Alexandrian’ glass confirmed by hafnium isotopes,” Scientific Reports 10 (2020): 11322.

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basis for Alexandria’s supremacy in other areas, but also the cause of social tensions, especially due to an unequal distribution of wealth between Alexandria’s social and ethnic groups. 1.2 Alexandria as a Migration Hub Given her economic strength, the city drew immigrants and specialized workforces, mainly from neighboring nomes,19 but also from Greek provinces, the Levant,20 and many other regions,21 even Italy.22 Jews have been part of the ethnic and religious landscape of Egypt since the 6th century BCE and inhabited Alexandria from its foundation. Then, “the Macedonian conquest opened the floodgates of a new Jewish immigration to Egypt.”23 The Letter of Aristeas (Let. Aris. 12) in combination with the Satrap stela (dated August 29, 311) suggest that Jews came to Alexandria as prisoners of war after Ptolemy Lagos’s campaign in Gaza in 312–311 BCE.24 Sandra Gambetti therefore makes the significant point “that the Alexandrian Jewish community had military origins.”25

See Rowlandson and Harker, Roman Alexandria, 84–8. Horst Braunert, Die Binnenwanderung: Studien zur Sozialgeschichte Ägyptens in der Ptolemäer- und Kaiserzeit (Bonn: Röhrscheid, 1964), 195–213. 20 See Sylvie Honigman, “Ethnic Minority Groups,” in A Companion to Greco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt, ed. Katelijn Vandorpe (New York: Wiley & Sons, 2019), 315: “From the southern Levant, alongside Jews, we also find Phoenicians, ‘Syrian,’ Samarians, and, in the second century, Idumeans…. Mobility from the Levant to Egypt was a constant, and was periodically revitalized by political and economic vicissitudes.” 21 As becomes evident by the epitaphs a large part of Alexandria’s population came from various parts of the Mediterranean, such as Achaia, Bithynia, Crete, Cyrenaica, Galatia, Macedonia, Mysia, Pontus, Sicilia, Thessaly. Of course, the problem with this is, as with any papyrological, archaeological, and epigraphic evidence for movement, that the sources often remain silent about the underlying motives. This is also true for Dio Chrysostom 32.40, who mentions Syrians, Libyans, Cilicians, Ethiopians, Arabs, Bactrians, Scythians, Persians, and Indians among his audience. 22 For the 1st century BCE a community of Italici, who lived in Alexandria is attested by a bilingual inscription at Delos (ID 1699.1: Alexandreae Italicei quei fuere). “The perfect tense indicates that they had previously been at Alexandria, but leaves the character of that time unclear” (Patrick James, “HOC PRIMUS VENIT: Italians and Others in Egypt before the Caesars,” in Migration, Mobility and Language: Contact in and around the Ancient Mediterranean, ed. James Clackson et al. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020], 230–67 [261]). 23 Joseph M. Modrzejewski, The Jews of Egypt from Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian, trans. Robert Cornman (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 73. Josephus’s statement that Alexander himself gave the Jews the right to settle in Alexandria (Josephus, C. Ap. 2.36–37; 2.42; B.J. 2.487) is historically dubious. 24 Sandra Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots of 38 C.E. and the Persecution of the Jews: A Historical Reconstruction (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 23–24. 25 Gambetti, Riots, 48.

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Others came in later times as mercenaries, merchants, and craftsmen and carried with them not only their skills and goods, but also their conceptions of God and the world. Irrespective of their origin, migrants of all ages and both genders were lured by the city’s wealth and its need for supplies, by a desire for education or to make religious observance, and by the requirements of their legal or commercial interests.26

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The author of the Letter of Aristeas already complains about the negative sideeffects, migration had on the chora (Let. Aris. 109). In Roman times the demand for external workforces was hardly less, as becomes evident, for example, by the Edict of the prefect Vibius Maximus. Whereas the majority of immigrants is commissioned by this document to return to their hometowns (ἰδία) – due to an upcoming census – the text also gives permission (ὑπογράφαι) to some workers to stay in the city, if they can give a satisfactory reason (πάντα[ς τ]οὺς εὔ[λ]ο̣γον δο[κοῦν]τα[ς] ἔχειν τοῦ ἐνθάδε ἐπιμένειν). What seems to be indicated here is the city’s unabated demand for skilled and educated workers who could not be easily dismissed and replaced. There is even some indication that the recruitment of skilled workers was – at least temporarily – organized by professional mediators (P.Oxy 38.2860; 41.2981). As a consequence, we should by no means think of immigrants as unskilled workers only. The private letters from Oxyrhynchus – among which we find about forty letters that can indisputably be linked to Alexandria – confirm this and in particular give attestation to the high literacy of some immigrants. The papyrological evidence also suggests that besides some short-term contracts and journeys many immigrants stayed in the city for a rather long duration,27 even though the living conditions for most workers must have been rather poor. Due to the city’s high population density, the main type of housing was presumably multi-story apartment buildings with rather small units. The archaeological uncovering28 of three-story apartment buildings from the late Roman period and the literary reference to a tenement house with seven stories (P.Oxy. 34.2719), only give us a vague idea of what the living quarters might have looked like. The excavated tenement houses “consist basically of elongated central light

Rowlandson and Harker, Roman Alexandria, 84. In a letter from the 1st century BCE (P.Oxy. 4.744) Hilarion writes to his wife Alis, reassuring her that he has not forgotten her and is going to send some of his wages home. Apparently he has been away for several months and does not even know whether or not his wife is pregnant. Further letters suggest long-term migration: P.Oxy. 36.2756 (78 CE); 3.486 (131 CE) 8.1057 (3rd century CE); 9.1216 (2nd century CE), where a woman called Sarapas regrets: “A year today I have been away from you.” 28 See Mieczyslaw Rodziewicz, Alexandrie III: Les Habitations Romaines Tardives d’Alexandrie, a La Lumiere Des Fouiolles Polonaises, a Kom el-Dikka (Warsaw: Editions, Scientifiques de Pologne, 1984). 26

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wells and a sequence of single rooms opening off to either side, accessed on upper floors from internal wooden balconies.”29 1.3 Alexandria as a Scientific Hub Other arrivals enjoyed far more privileged living conditions than the majority of immigrants. This applies in particular to well-known scholars and scientists. Alexandria’s academic lead was based on the city’s economic wealth and a prudent investment policy by her rulers. Already in the city’s early period, the Ptolemies decided to invest equally in human resources and infrastructure: The best Greek scholars in both the humanities and the sciences – to use modern terminology – were invited to the Museum, where they had free board and lodging and access to the books, and during the Hellenistic period this ‘center for advanced study’ achieved brilliant results in the full spectrum of research fields known to the ancient world.30

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Due to this active patronage of the Museion and its affiliated Library,31 scholars from all directions and languages were attracted and studied or taught in Alexandria.32 It is therefore hardly surprising that already in the 3rd and 2nd century BCE Alexandria was home to most influential scholars.33

29 Richarrd A. Tomlinson, “From houses to tenements: domestic architecture in Hellenistic Alexandria,” British School at Athens Studies 15 (2007): 307–11 (310). Tomlinson himself even speaks of “rabbit-hutch tenement houses” (310). Interestingly, house H is not characterized by a Hellenistic style (as one might assume in a city like Alexandria), but rather follows the style known from Roman houses from the Egyptian hinterland. Cf. Grzegorz Majcherek, “Notes on Alexandria Habitat: Roman and Byzantine Houses from Kom el-Dikka,” Topoi 5/1 (1995): 133–50 (137–38). 30 Minna S. Jensen, “Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria,” in Melting Pot, ed. Hinge and Krasilnikoff, 80–93 (81). 31 In ancient sources no clear distinction is made between the Museion and the library. References suggest, however, that the Museion was a superior academy to which the library was attached. 32 The Museion was most likely founded by Ptolemaios I with the important aid of Demetrius of Phalerum and expanded under Ptolemaios II. For a more recent study of the Museion and its inner organization, see Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, “Das Museion und die Große Bibliothek von Alexandria,” in Georges et al., Alexandria, 65–88. In the present volume, Maria Sokolskaya asks why the author of the Letter of Aristeas calls Demetrius the first librarian and argues that Demetrius’s historical connection with the Sarapis cult is supplanted by a reference to the Jewish God. 33 Astrid Schürmann, Griechische Mechanik und antike Gesellschaft: Studien zur staatlichen Förderung einer technischen Wissenschaft, Texte und Abhandlung zur Geschichte der Mathematik und der Naturwissenschaften 27 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1991), lists 25 physicians, 11 astronomers, 15 mathematicians, 4 mechanics, and 2 geographers in the period between 300 and 146 BCE.

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Among them Aristarchus of Samothrace (ca. 217–145 BCE),34 who was the first to state that the earth revolves around the sun; Herophilus, famous for his anatomical discoveries and programmatic dissections of human corpses;35 Eratosthenes of Cyrene, the geographer, who devised ways to measure the circumference of the earth;36 Euclid, the most famous author of the Elements and other mathematical treatises;37 and Manetho of Sebennytos, the Egyptian priest who wrote a history of dynastic Egypt, the Αἰγυπτιακά, for the Greek speaking world.38 In the Roman period and late Antiquity, the city was visited by such great scholars as Galen (129–199 CE), the most famous physician of his time,39 or Hypatia, the first well-documented female mathematician, who studied and taught in Alexandria.40 The scientific lead over other metropoleis also influenced and shaped the cityscape.41 This becomes most obvious when we think of such a world-famous building as the Great Lighthouse on the eastern tip of the island of Pharos, which was engineered by Sostratus of Cnidus in 280 BCE (Eusebius, Chron. 124.1; Pliny, Nat. 36.8.3; Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.6) and impressed contemporaries and later generations alike.42 Walking down the Canopic road, the city’s grand boulevard lined with columns, and then taking the way down to the Harbor and Royal district a first-time visitor would have most likely been fascinated by all the other 34 Francesca Schironi, The Best of the Grammarians: Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliad (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018). 35 Heinrich von Staden, Herophilus: The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria, Edition, Translation and Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), esp. 301–6. 36 Nicholas Nicastro, Circumference: Eratosthenes and the Ancient Quest to Measure the Globe (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008). 37 David H. Fowler, The Mathematics of Plato’s Academy: A New Reconstruction, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 204–8 and passim. P.Oxy. 29 contains part of the text of the second book of the Elements. 38 Philippa Lang, “Manetho (609),” Brill’s New Jacoby, ed. Ian Worthington, Brill Online Reference Works, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-jacoby/manetho609-a609. 39 A direct connection of the physicians to the Museion is not attested by the sources and rather unlikely. See John Vallance, “Doctors in the Library,” in The Library of Alexandria: Centre of Learning in the Ancient World, ed. Roy MacLeod (London: Tauris, 2000), 95–113 (96). The influence of Egyptian medicine also remains a contentious issue. However, indirect influences should be expected. Robert J. Littman, “Medicine in Alexandria,” ANRW 2.37.3 (1996): 2686–92. 40 Hypatia’s father was still known as ὁ ἐκ τοῦ Μουσείου (Suda θ 205), though this does not necessarily imply that the Museion still existed as an institution in this time. 41 On Alexandria’s unique architecture and the city’s striving for glory, see also Balbina Bäbler’s article in this volume. 42 For more details on the lighthouse, see, e.g., James Beresford, The Ancient Sailing Season, Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava, Supplementum 351 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 201– 2. For a comparison with other Greco-Roman lighthouses, see Robert L. Vann, “The Drusion: A Candidate for Herod’s Lighthouse at Caesarea Maritima,” IJNA 20.2 (1991): 123–39.

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prestigious buildings, public sites, shrines, and temples.43 The erection of all these imposing buildings is hardly conceivable without the mathematical knowledge and technological skills that came together in Alexandria. That Alexandria’s rulers were aware of this technological supremacy becomes obvious by the way mechanical inventions were presented to the public. Die Zurschaustellung mechanischer Meisterwerke war gleichzeitig eindrucksvolle Machtdemonstration. Sie unterstrich, dass der betreffende Herrscher über hervorragendste Techniker verfügte, die im Kriegsfall auch Präzisionswaffen herstellen konnten.44

Probably the most famous example for such a mise-en-scène is the procession held in Athens in 308 BCE, when ostensibly a snail, driven by an internal mechanism, was presented, leaving a perfumed trail of slime on the road (Polybius, Hist. 12.13). 1.4 Alexandria as α Hub of Literature

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Simultaneously, Alexandria advanced to an international hotspot for the study of Greek literature. The city was most famous for her Homeric Scholarship, but also initiated fundamental studies of Hesiod, Pindar, and the Athenian drama or prose writers like Thucydides and Herodotus. Although the main focus was on the literature of the Greeks, and it remains highly disputed to which extent non-Greek literature was translated at the Museion,45 the scholarly work certainly required local cooperation and international networking. This becomes most apparent when referring to the Museion’s efforts in acquiring, copying, and collecting books.46 But also the edition (ekdosis) of single works involved scholarly

43 See, e.g., Achilles Tatius, Leuc. Clit. 5.1.1–6. In this narrative the 1st person narrator describes his arrival in Alexandria and how he is “instantly struck by the splendid beauty of the city, which filled my eyes with delight.” In the very same context he mentions “the row of columns intersected by another as long as right angles.” Both translations are taken from Stephen Gaselee, Achilles Tatius, LCL 45 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969). 44 Dorit Engster, Alexandria als Stadt der Forschung und Technik, BN 147 (2010): 49–66 (63–4). 45 For a rather optimistic view, see Mostafa El-Abbadi, “The Alexandrian Library in History,” in Hirst and Silk, Alexandria, Real and Imagined, 167–83. A very different conclusion is drawn by Jensen, “Homeric Scholarship,” 91: “Actually, the Ptolemies look like Greek snobs in their provocatory lack of interest in non-Greek themes.” Similar Herwig Maehler, “Alexandria, the Museion, and cultural identity,” in Hirst and Silk, Alexandria, Real and Imagined, 1– 14, who even speaks of “a fortress to protect the cultural heritage of Greece” (ibid., 7). 46 In ancient sources, the number of scrolls is estimated at 40,000 to 700,000 (Seneca, Tranq. 9.5; Aulus Gellius, Noct. att. 7.17.3; Ammianus, Hist. 22.12). According to Galen all ships that docked in the harbor were searched for books in order to make copies and to keep the originals (Galen, Hipp. Epidem. 3.2.4; cf. Athenaeus, Deipn. 1.3b). On the employment of scribes by Alexandrian libraries, see Suetonius, Dom. 20 and Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att. 7.17.3. Christina Harker in her contribution exposes exaggerated notions of the library’s size of the library’s

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discussion and interdisciplinary consultations.47 Something similar holds true for the interpretation and commenting of texts for this work was often enough influenced by historiographical, religious, philosophical, and political motifs.48 Beyond this academic engagement with literature, centered around the Museion, Alexandria also advanced to a hotspot for Jewish exegesis. However, it remains a subject of ongoing debate to what extent Jewish authors were oriented towards the Alexandrian tradition and practices of textual scholarship. The Letter of Aristeas (Let. Aris. 9–11) notoriously suggests that the Greek translation of the Jewish Bible was initiated by Alexandria’s chief librarian, Demetrius of Phalerum. In historical regards such an institutional affiliation is, of course, rather unlikely.49 However, the legend itself already articulates a certain interest in dialogue with the dominant culture.50 This openness to the Greek-speaking majority is also reflected in the fact that the Jewish community organized an annual festival to celebrate the completion of the Septuagint. Philo describes this event as a cheerful festival not only open to Jews but to “a great number of persons of other nations”51 as well. While this type of contact with the Greek-speaking population remained rather sporadic, the influence of Homeric scholarship on Jewish authors may have been much more substantial, as has been argued in particular by Maren R. Niehoff in the more recent past. Thus, Niehoff states that: “Jewish intellectuals in Alexandria,” namely Demetrius, Aristobulus, and later on Philo, “were acutely aware of academic methods developed at the Museum.”52 More than that, Philo even holdings and at the same time deconstructs scholarly ideas about the destruction of the Alexandrian libraries in an insightful way. 47 As has been suggested by Franco Montanari the process of “ekdosis” probably implied an internal distribution from one scholar of the Museion to other colleagues. See Franco Montanari, “Zenodotus, Aristarchos and the Ekdosis of Homer,” in Editing Texts, Texte edieren, ed. Glenn W. Most, Aporemata 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 1–21 (6–9); idem, “Ekdosis: A Product of the Ancient Scholarship,” in Brill's Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship, ed. Franco Montanari, Stephanos Matthaios and Antonios Rengakos (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 641–72. 48 See the examples given by Jensen, “Homeric Scholarship,” 88–89: The “most famous political criticism concerned the entries of Athens and Salamis in the Iliadic Catalogue of Ships (Iliad 2.546–558)” (88). For a historiographical reflection see Il. 13.658–59. Here, Venetus A considers that two warriors with the same name (Pylaemenes) might have lived at the same time. 49 See, however, the attempt by Nina Collins to revive the historical value of Aristeas’s account: Nina Collins, The Library in Alexandria & the Bible in Greek, VTSup 82 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 128–32. 50 Usually the Letter of Aristeas is dated between the 3rd and 1st century BCE. Josephus is already alluding to the work and occasionally paraphrases it. 51 Philo, Mos. 2.41. 52 Maren R. Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 186.

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unfolds his arguments for a Jewish audience, which itself was accustomed to critical scholarship on the literal level. Accordingly, Philo repeatedly tries to convince his readers of his own allegorical and philosophical interpretations (Conf. 2; Migr. 8, 48; Plant. 90; Det. 15, 167; Somn. 1.93). 1.5 Alexandria as a Philosophical Hub

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Alexandrian philosophy, originally strongly influenced by Platonism,53 also proved to be adaptable to other scholarly discourses,54 currents of change, and influences from outside. The city became home to such figures as the grammarian and stoic philosopher Chaeremon, who explained Egyptian religion to a nonEgyptian audience, and Eudorus, a contemporary of Strabo (Geogr. 17.1.5: καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς),55 who has been conceived by some as originator or first representative of Middle Platonism.56 With the physician Sextus Empiricus,57 who lived in the 2nd century CE and spent at least some years in Alexandria,58 we meet a well-known, yet surprisingly late representative of the Pyrrhonian skepticism. In the Roman Imperial period and in Late Antiquity three “clusters” shaped the philosophical discussion in Alexandria, as is pointed out by Christoph

53 Already in the 2nd century BCE Aristophanes produced a critical edition of Plato’s works. That Alexandrian philosophy centered on the Platonic heritage can also be seen from the work of Eudorus, the anonymous commentary on Theaetetus or the anonymous treatise Περὶ φύσιος κόσμω καὶ ψυχᾶς (On the Nature of the World and the Soul), a rereading of Plato’s Timaeus. 54 One example for this is Euclid’s systematization of geometry, which builds on an Aristotelean methodology of definitions (ὅροι), postulates (αἰτήματα), and ‘common notions.’ On this, see Fabio Acerbi, “Aristotle and Euclid’s Postulates,” Classical Quarterly 63.2 (2013): 680–85. Other scientists who were closely related to philosophy include Ptolemy from Alexandria, Pappus of Alexandria, Theon of Alexandria, his daughter Hypatia, and Paulus Alexandrinus. 55 See Irmgard Männlein-Robert, “Eudoros von Alexandrien,” in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie: Die Philosophie der Antike, ed. Christopf Riedweg, Christoph Horn and Dietmar Wyrwa (Basel: Schwabe, 2018), 5.1:555–61 (555–56). Similar John M. Dillon, The Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to A.D. 200 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 115–35 (115). 56 As argued, for instance, by Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 115. 57 Richard Bett, “Sextus Empiricus,” in Philosophie der Kaiserzeit und der Spätantike, ed. Christoph Riedweg, Christoph Horn, and Dietmar Wyrwa, 5.1:216–28; Emidio Spinelli, “Sextus Empiricus,” in Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, ed. Richard Goulet (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2016), 6:265–300. Sextus occasionally refers to his own medical practice (Pyr. 2.238; Math. 1.260; cf. Math. 11.47) and his name further suggests that he was a member of the medical Empiricist school. 58 See Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, “Sextus Empiricus,” in Kindler Kompakt Philosophie der Antike, ed. Anna Schriefl (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2016), 163–65 (163). Others take a rather cautious attitude: see Richard Bett, Sextus Empiricus: Against the Logicians, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), ix: “Such indications as there are concerning where Sextus was born, or where he worked in his maturity, are too slender to bear any significant weight.”

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Riedweg in this volume: (a) The Jewish-Hellenistic Philosophy, (b) Early Christian adaptions of this tradition, and (c) the Neoplatonic School. Remarkably, all these clusters proved to be pluralistic in itself and highly adaptive to other traditions. For example, Philo’s early writings are influenced in particular by (Middle) Platonism,59 but also by Skepticism, and Aristotelianism, whereas the Stoa becomes more important in his later work, which might be due to his travel to Rome and the influence of contemporary discourses there.60 In the early Christian era scholars like Pantaenus61 then referred to Philo’s work, but also used the Greek translation of the Jewish Bible, adopted other Jewish and Hellenistic traditions, and continued to use known citation techniques. Wolfgang Grünstäudl in his article points out that a more recent reevaluation of Clement’s minor writings62 has even raised the scholarly awareness of the extent to which this Christian teacher’s thinking is indebted to apocalypticism, Enoch traditions, angelological concepts,63 but also to traditions of οἱ πρεσβύτεροι, and Petrine texts (Apoc. Pet., Ker. Pet., 1 Peter). When referring to a synthesis of Greco-Roman philosophy and Christianity, Origen probably comes to mind first, who was philosophically well trained and strongly influenced by Stoicism and Plato’s philosophy.64 However, later authors are to be mentioned here as well. Luca Arcari, for example, reminds us of pseudo-Justinian’s De monarchia, a work which makes not only extensive use of Greek tragedy, but actually uses these excerpta “to support 59 Middle Platonic ideas play a central role for Philo’s rereading of biblical accounts. This influence is increasingly considered in Philonic research: see, e.g., Gregory E. Sterling, “Platonizing Moses: Philo and Middle Platonism,” SPhA 5 (1993): 96–111; David T. Runia, “Was Philo a Middle Platonist? A Difficult Question Revisited,” SPhA 5 (1993): 124–33. 60 Maren R. Niehoff has convincingly argued for this ‘Roman turn’ in Philo’s work. See Niehoff, Intellectual Biography, 93–172. 61 In the past Pantaenus has often been described as a mediator between a Jewish-Christian and a Hellenistic type of Christianity. A dependence on Philo is, e.g., suggested by David T. Runia, “Witness or Participant? Philo and the Neoplatonist Tradition,” in Philo and the Church Fathers: A Collection of Papers, ed. idem, VC Supp. 32 (Brill: Leiden, 1995), 182–205 (191). On Pantaenus and his potential influence on Clement’s psalm commentary, see Wolfgang Grünstäudl’s contribution in this volume. 62 For this fresh look at the “other Clement,” see Bogdan G. Bucur, “The Other Clement of Alexandria: Cosmic Hierarchy and Interiorized Apocalyticism,” VC 60 (2006): 251–68. 63 For a more detailed study on these theological themes, see Bogdan G. Bucur, “Revisiting Christian Oeyen: ‘The Other Clement’ on Father, Son, and the Angelomorphic Spirit,” VC 61 (2007): 381–413; and Bogdan G. Bucur, “The Place of the Hypotyposeis in the Clementine Corpus: An Apology for ‘The Other Clement of Alexandria’,” JECS 17 (2009): 313–35. 64 Christoph Riedweg even considers Origen to be identical with the homonymous Platonist and pupil of Ammonius: cf. Christoph Riedweg, “Das Origenes Problem aus der Sicht eines Klassischen Philologen,” in Origenes der Christ und Origenes der Platoniker, ed. Balbina Bäbler and Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, SERAPHIM 2 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 13–39. See also Porphyry’s evaluation of Origen, which is biased but therefore not less informative (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.4–8; Gregory Bar Hebraeus, Chron. eccl. 1.15.11).

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various apologetic arguments: the unity of God (Mon. 2), the future judgment (Mon. 3), the uselessness of sacrifices (Mon. 4), and the futility of false gods (Mon. 4).”65 Another aspect that is worth mentioning, when referring to Alexandria as a multidimensional hub, is the high degree of mobility and connectivity of most philosophers, ensuring an intensive exchange with Athens, Rome, and other philosophical centers. As a rather early example we can take the Aristotelian philosopher Xanarchus of Seleucia,66 who taught in Alexandria, Athens, and Rome alike and exerted important influence on other contemporaries, especially as teacher of Strabo and friend of Arius and Augustus.67 A later example is the Christian author and teacher Clement. According to Eusebius, Clement was already born in a Hellenistic environment in Athens (Eusebius, Praep. ev. 2.2.64),68 which explains his broad knowledge of Greek authors and Plato. As Thomas Kraus shows in his detailed discussion of the fourth chapter of the Protrepticus, Clement even had extensive knowledge of Alexandrian statues and worship, and is familiar with local craftsmanship. He uses this detailed knowledge to skillfully address educated Greeks by exposing the worship of handmade statues as void, pointless, and even contradictory to main philological assumptions. In return, he promotes the Christian faith in God – the true δημιουργός, who has created everything – and expounds why this new believe is more compatible with the Greek philosophy and culture. His Greek addressees do not necessarily have to be familiar with the Holy Scriptures yet, but are obviously open to Christian ideas and accordingly addressed like catechumens by Clement.

Luca Arcari, p. 503. Arcari’s own contribution focuses on the “monotheistic” Discourses in De monarchia. 66 Strabo, Geogr. 14.5.4. 67 Andrea Falcon, Aristotelianism in First Century: Xenarchus of Seleucia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 68 With George W. Butterworth, Clement of Alexandria, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), xi; Henry Chadwick, Alexandrian Christianity: Selected Translations of Clement and Origen (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954), 16. More details on Clement’s biography are provided by C. Wilfred Griggs, Early Egyptian Christianity from its Origins to 451 CE (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 56–61; Ralf Sedlak, “Klemens – ein christlicher Autor in Alexandria,” in Alexandria, ed. Tobias Georges et al., COMES 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 435–44 (435–36). 65

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2. Urban Encounters and the Fragility of Alexandria’s Multiculturalism Although people from all over the world flocked to Alexandria, it was mainly69 three ethnic groups that shaped the urban landscape in the 1st century CE: Greeks, Egyptians, and Jews.70 Only in the wake of the Kitos War 115 to 117 CE when the Jews were massively decimated and lost their culturally formative role, another transformation occurred with the rise of Christianity, which would set out to become a major movement in the 2nd and 3rd century CE. As indicated by literary and non-literary sources alike, all three groups were quite aware of their ethnic, political, and economic status, and self-confident regarding their respective legal privileges and cultural identities. At the same time, transitions were fluid, and the terms “Egyptian” or “Greek” often corresponded more to legal than to ethnic attributions. The effect of this was both “unique, creative diversity” and “constant social and ethnic unrest.”71 2.1 Greeks

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Since the founding of Alexandria, the Greeks have been the politically dominant group. At first, it was Macedonian soldiers and officials who came with Alexander and gradually let their families follow. In the course of time, and under the influence of Alexandria’s economic upturn, a far greater number of immigrants from all Greek provinces arrived, including traders and business people, laborers and artificers, scientists and philosophers, adventurers and soldiers of fortune. It was also mostly Greeks who possessed citizen rights and therefore enjoyed numerous privileges.72 For example, they enjoyed the right to buy land anywhere

69 Among the few Romans, who actually immigrated to Egypt most settled in Alexandria and other metropolitan areas: cf. Bernard Legras, L’Égypte grecque et romaine (Paris: Colin, 2004), 66–68. In ancient documents, the dua- or tria nomina-pattern (praenomen, nomen, cognomen) is usually the only indication of a citizen’s Roman origin. Greeks, Egyptians, and Jews, who were granted Roman citizenship often kept their old name as cognomen. However, one should still be careful about using Roman names in order to identify someone’s ethnicity. It is also difficult to reconstruct whether a legal distinction was made between old and new Roman citizens in that the former still had more privileges. 70 Defining ethnicity remains a challenging task. At least, we should distinguish between an ethnic labelling by governmental rules and ethnicity as a social construct either created by the group itself or attributed by others. Even if the ethnic group had to be clarified in legal documents (e.g., contracts, tax registers), this still says little about the ethnic self-ascription of an individual citizen. 71 Jürgen K. Zangenberg, “Fragile Vielfalt: Beobachtungen zur Sozialgeschichte Alexandrias in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit,” in Georges et al., Alexandria, 91. 72 It remains controversial, however, what percentage of the Greek population actually had full citizen rights.

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in Egypt.73 In addition, citizenship favored the Greeks in advancing to higher offices and administrative positions and in participating in administrative decision-making. Unlike their neighbors, Greek citizens did not have to fear a dishonorable flogging (Philo, Flacc. 78–79) or expulsion. Under Roman rule Greeks lost some of their benefits and rights. Most notably, Augustus forbade the existence of the βουλή, i.e. the city’s autonomous administration.74 However, Alexandria was considered one of three Greek cities in Egypt along with Ptolemaïs and Naucratis, which meant that her citizens continued to be largely exempt from the poll tax and had the privilege of claiming Roman citizenship (Pliny, Ep. 10.7).75 For understandable reasons Greeks defended their remaining privileges vehemently and were critical towards the attempts of other groups to achieve similar rights. The social advancement of newcomers from the Greek provinces and other regions was therefore experienced as a threat to their own status. The fact that Jews were allowed a council to administer their religious and legal affairs (see 2.3), while Greeks themselves lost the right to convene a βουλή (Cassius Dio 51.17.2) certainly caused displeasure. Intermarriage with Egyptian women was explicitly prohibited (Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.12),76 even though we find examples of such marriages in the papyri.77 Still, Alexandria’s size and cosmopolitan status “inevitably introduced a degree of permeability into these status boundaries, no matter how earnestly the Roman and other responsible officials attempted to police them.”78 The supremacy of the Greeks also found its expression in Alexandria’s urban architecture and the locations of her religious sites.79 Thus, Alexandria contained all elements typical of a Greek city: an agora (Arrian, Anab. 3.1.5), a theater, a βουλευτήριον, i.e. a council hall, law courts, a gymnasium, an armory (Philo,

73 Thus we find extensive evidence in the papyri for the 1st century BCE that Alexandrian citizens owned property in practically all parts of Egypt (see Rowlandson and Harker, Roman Alexandria, 88–89). 74 See Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:93. This only changed in the time of the Severans, when the Romans finally granted the city a βουλή again, and even admitted the first Alexandrians to the Roman senate. However, when in 212 CE Caracalla granted Roman citizenship to all freeborn citizens, the privileged position of the Greeks was finally lost. 75 Rowlandson and Harker, Roman Alexandria, 82. Different Diana Delia, Alexandrian Citizenship during the Roman Principate (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 39–46. 76 Strabo refers to the Gnomon of the idios logos, a Ptolemaic handbook of regulations later transformed by the Romans. 77 See the examples given by Rowlandson and Harker, Roman Alexandria, 81 (with n18). 78 Rowlandson and Harker, Roman Alexandria, 83. 79 On the building of temples for Augustus in Alexandria and Upper Egypt and the question, who initiated these, see Stefan Pfeiffer’s contribution in this volume (p. 107–23). As Pfeiffer points out, the emperor cult in Alexandria and Egypt was based on “a creative dialogue” between the Greeks, the Egyptians, and Roman rulers.

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Flacc. 92), a hippodrome, and a vast number of temples.80 Various sanctuaries for Greek Gods dominated the religious landscape of the city. According to Strabo (Geogr. 17.1.9–10), Poseidon had a temple set above the harbor, close to the theater. Another temple to the god of the sea supposedly stood on the island of Pharos.81 Polybius gives record to Demeter (Hist. 15.27) and also mentions a temple for her, the Thesmophorium (Hist. 15.29.8; 33.8–9). In the Zenon Archive two festivities honoring Demeter are mentioned (P.Cair. Zen. 59028; P.Col. Zen. 19). According to Suetonius (Aug. 18.2) Augustus enlarged an earlier temple dedicated to Apollo and in a fragment of Satyrus (P.Oxy. 2465 frag. 11) a public temple to Leto is mentioned. As evidenced by Sozomen there was a temple of Dionysos in the city, which was destructed by Theophilus at the end of the 4th century (Hist. eccl. 7.15). Some of the Greek gods can also be related to a chthonic cult. Thus, we find evidence for the worshipping of Hera Teleia, Zeus Soter,82 and Zeus Melchios/Orania.83 Furthermore, the Roman historian Appian reports of a temple of Nemesis, another chthonic deity, located near the city and destroyed during the Jewish uprising (Appian, Bell. Civ. 2.90). Since the Dioscuri were considered the patrons of the sailors, they could not be missing in Alexandria (cf. Acts 28:11). Thus, a temple is attested for the twin half-brothers and from a dedication we know of an association of the Dioskouriastai.84 Despite this variety of Greek gods, Sarapis was probably the deity that most prominently featured the religious landscape of Alexandria. The Sarapeum, once built on the hill of Rhakotis in the Egyptian quarter, also in later times remained one of the city’s most famous buildings and attractions.85 As Peter Fraser once famously stated, the cult was deliberately developed by Ptolemy in order to give “the Greek population of Egypt, and particularly of Alexandria, a patron deity, which was otherwise lacking.”86 More to the point, the establishment and promotion of the Sarapis cult was intended to limit the influence of Isis. 80 Unfortunately, no temples to Greek gods have survived. Thus, we have to rely solely on the textual and epigraphic evidence for their identification. In the Urbis Notitia Alexandriae of Michael bar Elias 2,478 temples are mentioned. However, this number can only claim plausibility if private shrines are included. Of course, even then the question arises as to how the author would have carried out a corresponding survey. 81 Cf. Haas, Alexandria, 144. 82 Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:194, 196. 83 Achilles Tatius, Leuc. Clit. 5.2: Ἐθεασάμην δὲ καὶ τὸν Μειλίχιον Δία καὶ τὸν Διὸς Οὐρανίου νεών. 84 Cf. Françoise Dunand, “The Religious System at Alexandria,” in A Companion to Greek Religion, ed. Daniel Ogden (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 255. Another dedication to the Dioscuri is made by members of the dynastic cult (BSAA 42:34). 85 The Ptolemaic temple was destroyed by a fire in 181 CE, but later rebuilt. It was finally destroyed by Theophilus in the late 4th century. 86 Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:252. Similar, Stefan Pfeiffer, “The God Serapis, His Cult and the Beginnings of the Ruler Cult in Ptolemaic Egypt,” in Ptolemy II Philadelphus and His World, ed. Paul McKechnie and Philipe Guillaume, Mnemosyne suppl. 300 (Leiden: Brill,

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Given the strong presence of Isis at Alexandria, especially in the harbor regions and Rhakotis, which was largely inhabited by Egyptians, one of the important theological achievements of the time was making Serapis the consort of Isis, thus creating a dyad with Egyptian and Greek origins.87

However, such a focus on the political intentions behind the cult is only one half of the truth. Thus, Sarapis attracted various religious groups and individuals from all social and ethnic backgrounds. Accordingly, Sarapis was associated with various other deities – such as Apis the Bull,88 Osiris,89 Helius and Zeus,90 Plutonis Aion,91 Pluto,92 Asclepius, Jupiter, or Dispater.93 Esther Eidinow, in a more recent study, aptly speaks of separate religious “publics” that were offered “to a diverse group of worshippers, allowing them to suspend existing cognitive and social associations, and to develop an identity within this cult.”94 In the private letters, we regularly come across religious statements of soldiers and other citizens, who promise to make obeisance to Sarapis upon their arrival in Alexandria – be it for their relatives or for their own goals.95 For example, we meet a certain Petronius Valens who hopes to gain a promotion through the help of the “lord Sarapis” (P.Turner 18, ll. 15–17). The numerous statues of Sarapis, which were probably scattered throughout the whole city, give further attestation to the individual dimension of this cult.96 2.2 Egyptians

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When the Greeks under Alexander founded the city near the Nile Delta, there were already Egyptian settlements at this place. Throughout Alexandria’s history, Egyptians remained the numerically most significant, yet socially and politically marginalized, part of the city’s population. Unlike Greek citizens, the great majority of Egyptians was fully taxable. As “foreigners,” they could be 2008), 387–408 (397–98): “The new cult had, as can be seen, found its devotees especially among the Greeks and obviously enjoyed certain popularity.” 87 Martina Bommas, “Isis, Osiris, and Serapis,” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt, ed. Christina Riggs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 582. 88 It is widely agreed today that the cult of Sarapis emerged from the deity Osiris-Apis. On this origin, see, e.g., Bjørn Paarman, “The Ptolemaic Sarapis-cult and its Founding Myths,” in Aneignung und Abgrenzung: Wechselnde Perspektiven auf die Antithese von “Ost” und “West” in der griechischen Antike, ed. Nicolas Zenzen et al. (Leuven: Brill, 2013), 255–91. 89 Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 4.48.4–6; cf. also Diodorus Siculus 1.25.2. 90 SEG 15.426. 91 Pseudo-Callisthenes 1.30.6; 1.33.2. 92 Diodorus Siculus 1.25.2. 93 Tacitus, Hist. 4.84.5. 94 Esther Eidinow, “Sarapis at Alexandria: The Creation and Destruction of a Religious ‘Public,’” in La cité interconnectée dans le monde gréco-romain, ed. Madalina Dana and Ivana Savalli-Lestrade, Ausonius Scripta Antiqua 118 (Bordeaux: Ausonius, 2019), 190. 95 Cf. P.Mich. 3.213; P.Oxy. 59.3992; PSI XIII 1331; XIII 1332; P.Warr. 18; BGU II 423. 96 Cf. Vincent Tran Tam Tinh, Sérapis debout: corpus des monuments de Sérapis debout et étude iconographique (Leiden: Brill, 1983).

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expelled from Alexandria at any time.97 Stereotypical attributions and prejudices further burdened the coexistence between Egyptians and Greeks. Thus, Egyptians were regarded as uncivilized, devious, superstitious,98 chatty,99 cowardly,100 and at the same time quick-tempered.101 Also the allegation of cannibalism seems to have been quite popular.102 In contrast to the Greek temples and gods, “Egyptian deities were, for the most part, relegated to the fringes of the city, though the Tychaion, a classical temple in the city center, held statues of both Greek and Egyptian gods.”103 For the Roman time a temple at Ras al-Soda gives attestation to the Isis cult being practiced in the metropolitan area. Under Roman rule, the priestly class, who maintained close relations to the Ptolemaic rulers, also lost privileges. However, in the first decades the new emperors were dependent on the provincial elites and their administrative support. Only in the 2nd century CE the Romans introduced the office of the ἀρχιερεύς (P.Oxy. 49.3472), a Roman procurator in Alexandria, to control the priestly class.104 Still, priests were most likely exempted from some taxes and the construction of several new Egyptian temples gives attestation to a Roman financial support. Social ties between the priests and the urban elite favored cultural and academic exchange.105 Some priestly families obviously sent away their children away to Alexandria for schooling. In P.Oxy 18.2190 (1st century CE) a son writes

97 P.Giss. Lit. 6.3 = P.Giss. 40, col. 2, ll. 16–29 deals with the expulsion of Egyptians from Alexandria, while Caracalla stayed in the city (215 CE). Throughout the Roman Empire there were periodic expulsions of “foreigners” from the cities in times of crisis, often combined with tighter controls at the borders and the investigation of residency claims. For more details, see Claudia Moatti, “Translation, migration, and communication in the Roman empire: Three aspects of movement in history,” Classical Antiquity 25 (2006): 109–40 (117–26). 98 Cf., e.g., Tacitus, Hist. 4.81: “the most superstitious of all peoples.“ Similar Tacitus, Hist. 1.11. 99 Cf. Herodian 4.8.7. 100 For example, Cassius Dio attributes Cleopatra’s escape at the battle of Actium to her “true nature as a woman and as an Egyptian” (Cassius Dio 50.33.2). 101 Cf. Herodian 1.17.6; Polybius, Hist. 15.33.11: “Terrible is the cruelty of the Egyptians when their anger is roused.” 102 See Juvenal, Sat. 15; Cassius Dio 72.4; Achilles Tatius, Leuc. Clit. 3.15. Cf. P.Oxy. 42.3065 (νῦν ἀνθ̣ρ̣ωποφαγεία ἐστὶν). 103 Marjorie S. Venit, “Alexandria,” in Riggs, The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt, 172. 104 Ségolène Demougin, “Archiereus Alexandreae et totius Aegypti: un office profane,” in Pouvoir et religion dans le monde romain, ed. Annie Vigourt et al. (Paris: Presses de l’Unversité de Paris-Sorbonne, 2007), 513–20. 105 Todd M. Hickey, “Writing Histories from the Papyri,” The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, ed. Roger S. Bagnall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 495–520 (506). In the priestly houses near the Fayum temples fragments of Homer and Euripides have been found, showing the open-mindedness towards Greek culture: cf. Willy Clarysse, “Egyptian Temples and Priests: Graeco-Roman,” in Blackwell Companion to Ancient Egypt, ed. Alan B. Lloyd (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell), 1:274–90.

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to his father Theon, who is called the “high priest of the Nile” (ἀρχιερεὺς Νείλου), about his disappointing search for a teacher: For now in my search for a tutor [καθηγητής] I find that both Chaeremon the teacher and Didymus the son of Aristocles, in whose hands there was that I too might have some success, are no longer in town, but (only) trash, in whose hands pupils have taken the straight road to having their talent spoiled.106

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Due to his scorn for the available teachers the son asks his father for more money for tuition and at the same time expresses his dissatisfaction with the slave, who is accompanying him. In other cases, too, education paved the way to cultural assimilation and social advancement, which could in very few cases even be honored by granting Roman citizenship. The most prominent examples for Egyptians receiving full citizenship were Apion and Chaeremon.107 Pliny the Younger mentions that his Egyptian physician (iatralipta), Harpocras, was also granted Roman citizenship (Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10.6; cf. 10.7). While older scholarship only underlined the Hellenocentrism of Alexandria and sidelined the Egyptianizing tendencies or relegated them to the lower classes and to the hinterland, more recent studies unveil the gradual integration and infusion of Egyptian culture into all levels of Alexandrian society.108 This includes very different areas of life, such as literature studies, e.g., on “intercultural poetics”109 and on magical texts,110 prove as illustrative as do explorations into

106 Translation by John Rhea, “A Student’s Letter to His Father: P.Oxy. XVIII 2190 Revised,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 99 (1993): 75–88 (78). 107 For more details on these two “Egyptians,” see Beatrice Wyss’s article in this volume, who shows that Apion and Chaeremon chose quite different ways writing about Egypt for a Greek and/or Roman audience. 108 Frederick Naerebout, “The temple at Ras el-Soda. Is it an Isis temple? Is it Greek, Roman, Egyotian, or neither? And so what?” in Bricault et al., Nile into Tiber, 543–44. See, however, his judicious remarks (544n123): “Those who have seen such places as ‘bulwarks of Hellenism’ are not completely wrong, but it is, paradoxically, a certain Hellenocentrism that creates the basis for multiculturalism (to get to the stage of integration and fusion one has to stave off assimilation!)…. That Hellenocentrism pushed too hard can also create pockets of resistance to multiculturalism, is not to be denied (resistance can come from all cultures involved).” 109 Susan A. Stephens, Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 110 Jacco Dieleman, Priests, Tongues and Rites: The London-Leiden Magical Manuscripts and Translation in Egyptian Ritual (100–300 CE), Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 153 (Leiden: Brill, 1988).

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demography and onomastics,111 ethnicity,112 sculpture,113 the cult,114 images on coffins,115 and pictorial programs of decorated tombs.116 Michael Sommer’s contribution also fits into this more nuanced image, as he showcases the Egyptian character and logic of the narrative of the Akhmimic fragment: “Although Akh incorporates echoes of Israel’s traditions into this storyline, the Egyptian ground narrative is not only clearly visible but strongly dominant.”117 2.3 Jews

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Jewish communities are attested in cities and villages of Roman Egypt alike. The Jewish population of Alexandria was “massive,”118 though their number remains disputed. Josephus’s and Philo’s figures seem exaggerated. Philo, for instance, affirms that Egyptian Jews amounted to a million in his day,119 and Josephus

111 Roger S. Bagnall and Bruce W. Frier, The Demography of Roman Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Sandra Coussement, “Because I am Greek:” polyonymy as an expression of ethnicity in Ptolemaic Egypt (Leuven: Peeters, 2016). 112 Kurt Goudriaan, Ethnicity in Ptolemaic Egypt (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1988); cf. Uffe Østergård, “What Is National and Ethnic Identity?,” in Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt, ed. Per Bilde et al., Studies in Hellenistic Civilization 3 (Åarhus: Åarhus University Press, 1992), 16– 38. 113 Robert S. Bianchi, “Pharaonic Egyptian Elements in the Decorative Arts of Alexandria during the Hellenistic and Roman Periods,” in Hamma, Alexandria and Alexandrianism, 191– 202; Robert Bianchi, “Images of Isis and Her Cultic Shrines Reconsidered: Towards an Egyptian Understanding of the interpretatio graeca,” in Nile into Tiber: Egypt in the Roman World. Proceedings of the IIIrd International Conference of Isis Studies, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, May 11–14, 2005, ed. Laurent Bricault, Miguel J. Versluys, and Paul G. P. Meyboom (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 470–505; Bernard V. Bothmer, “Hellenistic Elements in Egyptian Sculpture of the Ptolemaic Period,” in Egyptian Art: Selected Writings of Bernard V. Bothmer, ed. Madeleine E. Cody (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 465–93. 114 Naerebout, “The temple,” 506–54. 115 Christina Riggs, The Beautiful Burial: Art, Identity, and Funerary Religion in Roman Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 116 Marjorie S. Venit, Monumental Tombs of Ancient Alexandria: The Theater of the Dead (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); specifically on tombs in Alexandria and the Egyptian chora, cf. eadem, Visualizing the Afterlife in the Tombs of Graeco-Roman Egypt (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 117 Sommer, p. 226. 118 Daniel R. Schwartz, “Philo, His Family, and His Times,” in The Cambridge Companion to Philo, ed. Adam Kamesar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 1–31 (15). 119 Philo, Flacc. 43. Adolf von Harnack, Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, trans. and ed. James Moffatt, 2nd ed. (Gloucester: Smith, 1972), 13, deems Philo’s number credible due to his “comparatively precise mode of expression” and due to the fact “that registers for the purpose of taxation were accurately kept in Egypt.” Furthermore, the figure does not appear too high, “when we consider that it includes the whole Jewish population of Alexandria. As the entire population of Egypt (under Vespasian) amounted to seven or eight millions, the Jews thus turn out to have formed a seventh or an eighth of the whole.”

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counts 50,000–60,000 killed Alexandrian Jews in 66 CE.120 At present, the scholarly consensus levels out at 100,000 Jews at the beginning of the 1st century CE,121 i.e., one fifth of the Alexandrian population was Jewish.122 For a long time, researchers believed that the Jews had sharply delineated themselves from their surrounding environment, not even allowing for intermarriages.123 However, more recently, this view has been challenged, and the continuity and adaptability to other ethnic and urban groups is highlighted.124 If we ask for the type of cultural encounters between Jews and Greeks, we find aspects of assimilation, integration, separation, and marginalization. Significant factors in the dynamics of cultural exchange and differentiation were political events such as Octavian’s establishing Egypt as province 30 BCE (in consequence of the Battle of Actium), but most importantly the riots of 38 CE, 66 CE and 115– 117 CE. Overall, it appears – in the words of Erich Gruen – “that, for most Jews, retention of a Jewish identity and accommodation to the circumstances of diaspora were joint goals – and often successfully achieved.”125 Under Ptolemaic rule, the Jews enjoyed more privileges than their Egyptian neighbors, because they were not only officially allowed to “live with others” (μετοικεῖν)126 in the city, but were also counted among the group of Hellenes. In order to meet the religious needs of an ever growing community, a large number of synagogues were built throughout the city (Philo, Legat. 132–34).127 The only Josephus, B.J. 2.497; 7.369. Cf. Daniel R. Schwartz, “Philo, his Family and his Times,” in Kamesar, The Cambridge Companion to Philo, 9–31 (15); Dorothy Sly, Philo’s Alexandria (New York: Routledge, 1996), 44–6, and Pieter van der Horst, ed., Philo’ s Flaccus: The First Pogrom, Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 136–37. 122 Jan N. Bremmer also calculates a total population of half a million, but only a Jewish population share of 10 to a maximum of 20 percent, that is, 50,000–100,000 Jews (cf. Bremmer, p. 248). 123 Cf. Louis H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interaction from Alexander to Justin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 56. Similar Werner R. A. Huss, “Die Juden im ptolemaiischen Ägypten,” in Arttibus: Kulturwissenschaft und deutsche Philologie des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Stephan Füssel, Gert Hübner, and Joachim Knape (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994), 11. 124 Gideon Bohak, “Ethnic Continuity in the Jewish Diaspora in Antiquity,” in Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities, ed. John R. Bartlett (London: Routledge, 2002), 175–92; Walter Ameling, “‘Market-place’ und Gewalt: Die Juden in Alexandrien 38 n. Chr.,” Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft 27 (2003): 71–123 (78). 125 Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), vii. 126 See Josephus, C. Ap. 2.36–37; 2.42; B.J. 2.487, according to whom this formal right of residence was already granted to the Jews by Alexander. 127 For a discussion of Philo’s account, see Aryeh Kasher, “Synagogues as ‘Houses of Prayer’ and ‘Holy Places’ in the Jewish Communities of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt,” in Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery, ed. Dan Urman and Paul V. McCracken Flesher (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 205–20. On the earliest evidence for the existence of synagogues in the Egyptian Diaspora (3rd century BCE), see Anders Runesson, 120

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important distinguishing feature from the Greek citizens remained that the Jews could not participate in the political self-administration of Alexandria. Still, they had their own πολίτευμα (Let. Aris. 308–10),128 i.e., a religious and legal administration. Accordingly, Jews enjoyed productive and rewarding lives…. Integration in the social, economic, and cultural life of Alexandria was open to them, and they took advantage of that opening. Jews served in the armies, obtained administrative posts, took part in commerce, shipping, finance, farming, and every form of occupation, reached posts of prestige and importance, and played a role in the world of the Hellenic intelligentsia.129

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Philo exemplifies this open attitude of the Jews to their hometown and its cultures when he calls Alexandria “our Alexandria”130 and Greek “our language.”131 At the same time he is equally clear and self-confident that “Hellenic accomplishments, even when laudable and admirable, don’t measure up to those of the

The Origins of the Synagogue: A Socio-Historic Study, CB 37 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 2001), 128–34. 128 Historically, the πολίτευμα must be addressed rather as an institution of 160s or more generally speaking the 2nd century BCE. On Aristeas’s reference to the politeuma, see Sylvie Honigman, “Politeumata and Ethnicity in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt,” Ancient Society 33 (2003): 61–102; Bradley Ritter, “On the ‘πολίτευμα in Heracleopolis’,” Scripta Classica Israelica 30 (2011): 9–37; Constantine Zuckerman, “Hellenistic Politeumata and the Jews: A Reconsideration,” Scripta Classica Israelica 8–9 (1985–1988): 171–85; Gert Lüderitz, “What is a Politeuma?” in Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy, ed. Jan W. van Henten and Pieter W. van der Horst, AGJU 21 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 183–225. 129 Gruen, Diaspora, 69. Similar already Heinz Heinen, “Alexandrien: Weltstadt und Residenz,” in Hinske, Alexandrien, 8, who refers to Alexandria’s Jewish population as “the most preferred ethnic group.” Similar Eve M. Smallwood, Philonis Alexandrini Legatio ad Gaium, (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 5: “The Jews resident in Alexandria were organized as a quasi-autonomous civic community, with a Constitution similar to, but not identical with, that of the Greek municipal Organization, and they thus formed a city within the city.” 130 Philo, Legat. 150: τὴν ἡμετέραν Ἀλεχάνδρειαν. 131 Philo, Congr. 44; see also Opif. 17. A quite similar attitude is taken by Let. Aris. 109; Sib. Or. 11.233–35. Nevertheless, we should not underestimate the knowledge of Hebrew among Alexandrian Jews, as René Bloch in his contribution points out, taking Philo as his starting point.

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Jews.”132 He calls out Egyptian lifestyle and beliefs, considering “Egypt” as a symbol of the body, sense-perception and passion.133 However, Philo is but one exemplar, other Jews took different stances. This is all the more important to emphasize as the circumstances already drastically changed at the beginning of the Roman rule, when Jews lost some of their most important privileges.134 Thus, the Romans did not maintain the distinction between Greeks and Egyptians without further ado, but classified all those living in Egypt as Egyptians, who as such had to pay the new introduced poll tax (laographia). Only those who could clearly be identified as Greeks – that is, above all those who had attended the Gymnasium and thus had enjoyed a Greek education – could be granted citizenship.135 From now on most Jews were de iure regarded as Egyptians, which implied not only a clear financial disadvantage. At least, Augustus granted the Jews the right to continue living according to their own laws. Furthermore, individual Jews were still granted Roman citizenship by the emperor and some were even held offices (CPJ II 428 = BGU III 715). The most prominent examples for this are Philo136 and his brother Alexander, who passed on his status to his sons Marcus Iulius Alexander (CPJ II 419, ll. 197– 200) and Tiberius Iulius Alexander (CPJ II 418, ll. 188–97).137 Gruen, Diaspora, 229. This attitude seems to be quite similar to the perception of Alexandria in the Letter of Aristeas. Thus, Barbara Schmitz argues in her contribution that the rudimentary representation of the space within this narrative is best explained by the readers’ familiarity with Alexandria’s cityscape. At the same time Jerusalem is presented in much more detail and conceptualized as a city prevailing over Alexandria in many regards. Similarly, Ben Wright concludes in his contribution on the “Letter of Aristeas and the Place of the Septuagint in Alexandrian Judaism” that “Ps.-Aristeas and his co-ethnics can maintain a Judean ethnic identity while also presenting themselves as Hellenes, insiders within Alexandrian Hellenistic society” (p. 244). 133 On Philo’s ambivalent stance towards Alexandria, cf. Sarah Pearce, “Belonging and not Belonging: Local Perspectives in Philo of Alexandria,” in Jewish Local Patriotism and Selfidendification in the Graeco-Roman Period, ed. Siân Jones and Sarah Pearce, JSP.SS 31 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998), 79–105. Cf. Cristina Termini, “Philo’s Thought within the Context of Middle Judaism,” in Kamesar, The Cambridge Companion to Philo, 97: “The height of delusion is the deification of irrational animals, typical of the Egyptian religion (Decal. 76–80).” Among the realia, the gravestones at Leontopolis reflect the contiguity of cultures most impressively – though, of course, not in an Alexandrian context. Venit, Visualizing the Afterlife, 87–90. 134 See John J. Collins, “Anti-Semitism in Antiquity? The Case of Alexandria,” in Ancient Judaism in its Hellenistic Context, ed. Carol Bakhos (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 9–29 (16). 135 This educated circle represented an extremely privileged population group. Cf. Alan K. Bowman and Dominic Rathbone, “Cities and Administration in Roman Egypt,” Journal of Roman Studies 82 (1992): 107–27 (116): “In effect the citizens of Alexandria were not treated as conquered subjects (dediticii) but more like an allied state.” 136 See David Runia, “Philon d’Alexandrie,” DPA Va 5 (2012): 362–90 (364). 137 Cf. Mireille Hadas-Lebel, Philon d’Alexandrie: un penseur en diaspora (Paris: Fayard, 2003), 53 (on Alexander); Eric G. Turner, “Tiberius Julius Alexander,” Journal of Roman Studies 44 (1954): 54–64 (on Alexander and his son Tiberius Julius Alexander).

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2.4 Christians

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How about the Christians? When did early Christianity become a recognizable player on Alexandria’s religious market place?138 Since our source material for the 1st and 2nd centuries remains rather sparse,139 this question eludes a simple answer. The traditional account by Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 2.16.1–3) credits Mark with the founding of Christianity in Alexandria. However, this legend is – similar to the later Martyrdom of Mark140 and related traditions (e.g., Ps.-Clem. 1:8.3– 15.9) – not primarily of historical relevance, but rather illustrates the church’s demand for an identification figure. The New Testament accounts do not really provide us with any detailed information on the origin of Christianity in Alexandria either.141 Even Apollos, who is introduced by Luke as a “native from Alexandria” (Acts 18:24–28),142 remains an otherwise unknown person and the New Testament’s depiction of him “leaves us with more questions than it does provide answers,”143 as Samuel Vollenweider in his contribution concludes, rather disenchantedly. Due to the geographical proximity between Alexandria and Jerusalem and the religious and ideological exchange between these two cities (Acts 2:10; 6:9), it is reasonable to assume that Christianity came to Egypt through the missionary activities of Jewish Christians,144 who initially advocated their faith in Christ

138 For the extensive literature on this topic, see the contribution of Benjamin Schliesser in the present volume (p. 367n1). 139 Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, ed. Robert A. Kraft and Gerhard Krodel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), once famously surmised that later church leaders suppressed the mostly ‘heretical’ writings. However, we also have little evidence before the 4th century CE for Christian objects, buildings, and archaeological remains, as well (see Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom, “Archaeology of Early Christianity in Egypt,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology, ed. William R. Caraher et al. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019], 665–84). Similarly, we find growing evidence of Christian names and nomina sacra only in the last decades of the 3rd century CE. All this makes it more likely that Christianity only gradually spread to the Egyptian hinterland and sources were lost for more trivial reasons. 140 For an introduction to and translation of this relatively unknown text, see Tobias Nicklas’s contribution at the end of this volume. 141 The city of Alexandria is only mentioned in some marginal notes. Thus, Luke refers to a “Synagogue of the Alexandrians” in Jerusalem (Acts 6:9) and twice relates to Alexandrian ships (27:6; 28:11). 142 Cf. 1 Cor 1:12; 16:12; Titus 3:13; 1 Clem 47:3. Luke’s account even leaves open, whether Apollos was already a Christian, when living in Alexandria. Codex Bezae and Codex Gigas both suggest this unequivocally: (κατηχημένος) ἐν τῇ πατρίδι (Acts 1:25). 143 Samuel Vollenweider, p. 344. 144 In a letter to the Egyptian prefect Lucius Aemilius Rectus (P.Lond. 6.1912 = CPJ II 153), Claudius refers to a dispute between Jews and Gentiles (41 CE). However, it is rather unlikely that this refers to the work of early Christian missionaries.

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among Hellenized Jews in Alexandria.145 It is also probable that early Christianity was not only an integral part of the Jewish community of Alexandria at the beginning, but even later followed the model of the synagogue when a Christian philosophical school was established.146 Some even see similarities at the organizational level, especially in regard to the presbyterate.147 In the wake of the Jewish revolt (115–117 CE) Christianity then – according to Alfons Fürst – evolved into a “religion of intellectuals” (Intellektuellen-Religion, 148 this is to say: Christianity participated in and was decisively shaped by the city’s educational, philosophical, and intellectual environment. Fürst’s guarantor for his thesis is above all Origen,149 whose work he places in the intellectual proximity of Philo and the educated elite of Alexandria.150 Pantaenus, Clement, and Ambrose,151 who were closely connected with the establishment of a

145 A Jewish character of earliest Christianity in Alexandria and Egpyt is for example advocated by Stephen J. Davis, The Early Coptic Papacy: The Egyptian Church and Its Leadership in Late Antiquity (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2004), 6–8; Helmut Koester, “Egypt,” in History and Literature of Early Christianity, vol. 2 of Introduction to the New Testament, 2nd ed. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000), 658–76; Martin Hengel and Anna M. Schwemer, Paulus zwischen Damaskus und Antiochien: Die unbekannten Jahre des Apostels – Mit einem Beitrag von Ernst Axel Knauf, WUNT 108 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 393; Colin H. Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt (London: Oxford University Press, 1979), esp. 19–21. 146 See Schliesser, p. 389–90. Cf. Gert J. Steyn, “Consequences of the Desecration and Destruction of Alexandrian Synagogues as Spaces of Learning and Living: An Orientation Based on Philo’s In Flaccum and Legatio ad Gaium,” in Tempel, Lehrhaus, Synagoge, Tempel: Orte jüdischen Lernens und Lebens – Festschrift für Wolfgang Kraus, ed. Christian Eberhart, Martin Karrer, Siegfried Kreuzer and Martin Meiser (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2020), 57–77. 147 See Roelof Van den Broek, “Juden und Christen in Alexandrien im 1. und 3. Jahrhundert,” in Studies in Gnosticism and Alexandrian Christianity, ed. Roelof Van den Broek, NHMS 39 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 181–96 (188–91). The earliest papyrological evidence of Jewish presbyteroi is P.Oxy. 2476 (2nd century BCE). Christian presbyteroi are mentioned in the papyri from the middle of the 3rd century CE (P.Flor. 1.21; P.Got. 12; P.Oxy. 31.2597; P.Neph. 48). 148 Alfons Fürst, Christentum als Intellektuellen-Religion: Die Anfänge des Christentums in Alexandria, SBS 213 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2007), 110: “Christianity in Alexandria started on a high, the highest intellectual level – as a religion of intellectuals.” 149 In her contribution Anna van den Kerchove focuses on the prologue of the Commentary on John and from here she examines the relationship between Origen and the (supposedly) “Heterodox” within the Christian Alexandrian context. 150 Alfons Fürst, “Der junge Origenes im Bildungsmilieu Alexandrias” (2007), Von Origenes und Hieronymus zu Augustinus: Studien zur antiken Theologiegeschichte, AKG 115 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 45–79. John Granger Cook even assumes a proximity between Philo and Paul in his contribution. Thus, he argues that both authors consciously drew on a common Hellenistic tradition in Alexandria, which already reflected the spiritual nature of the manna. 151 Fürst, Christentum als Intellektuellen-Religion, 36–42 (Pantaenus), 43–8 (Clemens), 68– 9 (Ambrose).

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catechetical school152 can also be considered as representatives of such an “educated Christianity” (Bildungschristentum).153 At the same time, the Nag Hammadi Codices impressively illustrate that the Christianization of Egypt was anything but monolithic.154 The various teachings, groups, and writings cannot even be adequately subsumed under the common label of “gnosis.”155 For example, the Letter to Rheginos, which is examined by Enno Edzard Popkes in this volume, reveals itself as a writing that differs from other documents of the Nag Hammadi codices. Thus, Popkes attributes this Letter to an intellectual circle in which Platonic ideas could be brought together with Pauline notions on the question of resurrection, and where contrary views of resurrection could even coexist. Due to the diversity, which becomes apparent in connection with Nag Hammadi codies, which reveals that Fürst’s thesis is too one-sided in the end. It is therefore hardly surprising that his position has been questioned and criticized.156

152 According to Eusebius this school already existed in Alexandria “from ancient custom” (Hist. eccl. 5.10.1). Pantaenus was head of a “school of sacred learning” until his death (5.10.4). Among his students was Clement (5.11.1), who later succeeded Pantaenus (6.3.3; 6.6.1). The historical value of Eusebius’s report has been evaluated divergently. Some have even argued that there were only individual teachers in the beginning and the school only came into existence in the time of Demetrius. Cf. Roelof Van den Broek, “The Christian ‘School’ of Alexandria in the Second and Third centuries,” in Studies in Gnosticism and Alexandrian Christianity, ed. Roelof Van den Broek, NHMS 39 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 197–205. 153 Unfortunately, the work of earlier teachers like Basilides and Valentinus has been handed down to us almost exclusively by these “orthodox” teachers, who branded their predecessors as “heretics” and “gnostics.” However, even on the basis of this later reception and few fragments, it becomes evident that their work appealed to Alexandria’s intellectual and philosophical milieu. Thus, “Valentinus received a very good education and was well read in Platonic, biblical, Jewish, and Christian literature” (David Brakke, The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity [London: Harvard University Press, 2010], 100). 154 Among the thirteen Coptic codices, there are six writings that most probably go back to originals in the 2nd century and for which an Egyptian origin is very likely: Ap. John (NHC II 1; III 1; IV 1; BG 2); Bk. Thom (NHC II 7); Wis. Jes. Chr. (NHC III 4); Auth. Disc. (NHC VI 3); Teach. Silv. (NHC VII 4); Sent. Sextus (NHC XII 1). For a discussion of these documents and further literature, see: Markus Lang, “Das ägyptische Christentum: Quellenlage, Forschungslage und -perspektiven,” in Das ägyptische Christentum im 2. Jahrhundert, ed. Wilhelm Pratscher, Markus Öhler and Markus Lang, SNTU.NF 6 (Wien: LIT, 2008), 34–35. 155 Christoph Markschies, Gnosis: An Introduction, trans. John Bowden (London: T&T Clark, 2003), 15–17, rightly cautions that today’s heuristic construct of “Gnosis” or “Gnosticism” refers to quite different groups, which were not directly connected in most cases, but rather originated from “a common cultural climate” or simply show some “agreement in content.” 156 Cf. Samuel Vollenweider, “Bildungsfreunde oder Bildungsverächter? Überlegungen zum Stellenwert der Bildung im frühen Christentum,” in Was ist Bildung in der Vormoderne? ed. Peter Gemeinhardt, SERAPHIM 4 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 283–304; and Dietmar Wyrwa, “Philosophie in der alexandrinischen Schule,” in PHILOSOPHIA in der Konkurrenz von Schulen, Wissenschaften und Religionen: Zur Pluralisierung des Philosophiebegriffs in

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Nevertheless, a certain affinity for education among Christians in Alexandria and Egypt can hardly be denied. This applies not only because various New Testament writings have been associated with Alexandria.157 Most notably, Christians also preserved the Septuagint and the writings of Philo and other Jewish authors.158 Furthermore, the wealth of later literary papyri and other papyrological records indicate a high degree of erudition and literary knowledge.159 In the course of the 3rd century, New Testament texts and early Christian writings were

Kaiserzeit und Spätantike, ed. Christoph Riedweg, Philosophie der Antike 34 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 193–216. 157 On the question of locating New Testament writings in Alexandria, see Jörg Frey’s contribution in this volume. According to Frey an Alexandrian origin remains particularly plausible in regard to 2 Peter. This has already been thoroughly argued by Wolfgang Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus: Studien zum historischen und theologischen Ort des zweiten Petrusbriefes, WUNT 353 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013); cf. also Jörg Frey, The Epistle of Jude and the Second Epistle of Peter (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2018). Furthermore, it seems quite likely that the Apocalypse of Peter and the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is quoted by Clement and Origen, must be associated with a Judeo-Christian milieu in Alexandria. For more details, see Jörg Frey, “Whence the Gospel according to the Hebrews?” in Texts in Context, ed. Joseph Verheyden, BETL (Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming); idem, Evangelien und Verwandtes (Teilband 1), vol. 1 of Antike christliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung, ed. Christoph Markschies and Jens Schröter (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 560–660 (597–98); idem, “Gospel of the Hebrews,” in The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries, ed. Chris L. Keith et al. (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 2:183–92. Further writings that have been repeatedly linked with Alexandria include the Gospel according to the Egyptians, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Secret Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of the Saviour, the Kerygma Petri, the Gospel and Traditions of Matthias, the Gospel of Eve, Jannes and Jambres, and, the Apocalypse of Elijah. 158 For more details, see Justin P. Jeffcoat Schedtler’s article on “The Transmission of the Fragments of the Hellenistic Jewish Authors” in this volume: Eusebius (p. 280–87), Clement of Alexandria (p. 287–91). According to David T. Runia, “Witness or Participant? Philo and the Neoplatonist Tradition,” in Philo and the Church Fathers: A Collection of Papers, ed. idem, VC Suppl. 32 (Brill: Leiden, 1995), 182–205, Philo’s work was also preserved in the Catechetical School (esp. 191). The papyrological findings are also noteworthy in this context: Paris, Bibl.Nat.Suppl. Gr. 1120 (Philo, Her.; Sacr); P.Oxy. 9.1173 (multiple works of Philo); 7.1007 (LXX Gen); P.Yale 1.1 (LXX Gen 14); P.Oxy. 9.1166 (LXX Gen 16; Jewish?); P.Berl. inv. 14039 (Ex 34, 35); P.Oxy. 8.1075 (Ex 40; Rev 1 on verso); 11.1351 (LXX Lev 27). 159 See Sabine R. Huebner, Papyri and the Social World of the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2019), 18–30.

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already widely copied at Oxyrhynchus,160 at Antinoopolis,161 in the Fayum,162 in the Heracleopolite nome,163 and at other places.164 More exciting than keeping track of all these diverse texts is, however, the question of how we should imagine the people who read, studied, shared, discussed, compared, collected, produced, bought, and sold these early Christian writings. A question that, surprisingly, has not been answered often in the past. In early excavations of papyri, little attention was paid to the archeological context, and because of this, we often know little or nothing about the place of discovery of these fragments of New Testament literature.165

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Seen from a socio-historical perspective, our earliest private writing of a Christian person (P.Bas. 2.43) points again to an educated and elite milieu.166 Thus, the Christian author of the letter relates the office of the gymnasiarch to a member of their own family and mentions another relative, who has already been nominated for the city council (βουλή). This implies that as early as the 230s,167 Christians in the Fayum were considered for higher offices or already held these.

160 Cf., e.g., P.Oxy. 64.4402 (Matt 4); 64.4403 (Matt 13, 14); 64.4404 (Matt 21; 2nd century CE?); 34.2683 (Matt 23); 66.4495 (Luke 17); 24.2383 (Luke 22); 2.208 (John 1); 15.1780 (John 8); 10.1228 (John 15, 16); P.Ryl. 3.457 (= P52; John 18; 2nd century CE); P.Oxy. 50.3523 (John 18, 19; 2nd century CE?); 65.4448 (John 21); PSI X 1165 (Acts 23); P.Oxy. 66.4497 (Rom 2); 11.1355 (Rom 8, 9); 7.1008 (1 Cor 7, 8); 7.1009 (Phil 3, 4); 10.1229 (Jam 1); 9.1171 (Jam 2, 3) 4.654, 655 (both: Gos. Thom.), 657 (Heb 2–5; 10–12); 41.2949 (Gos. Pet.); 60.4009 (Gos. Pet.?; 2nd century CE); 50.3525 (Gos. Mary); 50.3528 (Herm. Sim. 9:20; 9:22); 50.3527 (Herm. Sim 8:4); 52.3657 (unknown work); 3.405 (Irenaeus, Haer. 3.9); 3.412 (Julius Africanus). 161 Cf. P.Ant. 2.54 (Matt 6:10–13); 1.12 (2 John 1); 1.7 (Ps 81, 82); 1.9 (Prov 2, 3); AMC 1.185–86 (unknown Gospel; “Simon Peter”). Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.11.3 quotes a private letter of the bishop of Jerusalem to the Christian community of Antinoopolis, which also points to an early Christian grouping at this place. 162 P.Mich. 6652 (Matt 26; Acts 9, 10); P.Mich. 3.137 (Matt 26); 3.138 (Acts 18, 19); P.Amh. 1.3b (Heb 1:1); BKT 6.2.1 (Herm. Sim. 2:7–10; 4:2–5); Pap.bil. 1 (Acts Paul). 163 P.Vind. G 2325 (apocryphal gospel?; cf. Matt 26:30–34; Mark 14:26–30). 164 P.Laur. inv. 2/31 (John 5); P.Bodmer 2 (= P66; John 1–21; Dishna?); P.Macq. inv. 360 (Acts 2, 3); P.Berl. inv.11765 (Acts 5); P.Beatty 2 and P.Mich. 222 (Rom 5, 6, 8–16, Hebrews, 1 Cor, 2 Cor, Eph, Gal, Phil, Col, 1 Thess 1, 2, 5; c. 200); P.Köln 4.170 (Phlm 13–15, 24–25); P.Yale 1.2 (Eph 4, 5); P.Ryl. 1.5 (Titus 1, 2); P.Beatty 3 (Rev 9–17); P.IFAO 2.31 (Rev 1); P.Osl. 2.14 (Sib. Or. 5.484–504); PSI VII 757 (Barn. 9:1–6); P.Mich. 129 (Herm. Sim 2:8– 9:5); P.Iand. 1.4 (Herm. Mand. 11:19–21; 12:1.2–3); PSI XI 1200 bis (unknown); P.Mich. 18.764 (unknown; on last judgement). 165 Huebner, Papyri, 18. 166 Due to the nomen sacrum (ἐν κυρίῳ) used in the closing greeting the letter can be clearly identified as Christian. 167 For this dating of the document, see Sabine R. Huebner, “Christian Letters,” in Papyri of the University Library of Basel (P.Bas. II), ed. idem, W. Graham Claytor, Isabelle MarthotSantaniello and Matthias Müller, Archiv für Papyrusforschung Beihefte 41 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020), 182–88; Roger S. Bagnall, Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 8 argues for a rather late dating.

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This is quite understandable, considering the high value that the Roman elite placed on literacy and the ability to write and to comment on texts. A close tie to the social elite is also confirmed by SB 16.12497. Here a certain “Dioscorus, who is a Christian (ἔστ[ι] Διόσκορος χρηστιανός)” is mentioned on an official list as a nominee for public water supply. The person in view also possesses Alexandrian citizenship. This reference and the apparent literacy of Egyptian Christians gives us reason to ask, what role can be ascribed to Alexandria in the establishment of a welleducated Christian elite. Sabine Huebner sketches the following scenario: I suggest that it was mobility of the local elite that fostered the spread of Christianity to the Egyptian hinterland in the early third century. Quite often, the papyri report that a resident of the Fayum or Oxyrhynchus, in Middle Egypt, had to travel to Alexandria for a court date or to conduct business, and since the sons of wealthy families were typically sent to the regional capitals or to Alexandria for their higher education, parents would visit their children where they studied, and their children regularly returned home. It was perhaps by virtue of one of these occasions that, in the early third century, Arrianus’ father came into contact with the new faith. Christianity was flourishing in Alexandria by then, and it was easy to buy copies of the sacred texts which Arrianus had apparently studied in detail.168

Of course, we should be careful not to overvalue single papyri. The authors of private letters can be perceived as “gatekeepers,” who offer us a glimpse into an otherwise unknown world, but do so from a privileged and, thus, subjective and limited point of view. Neither were Christians always respected citizens or people of means,169 nor exclusively “foolish, dishonourable and stupid, and only slaves, women, and little children,” as the pagan writer Celsus later puts it (Origen, Cels. 3.44).170 Rather, we may assume that Christians in Alexandria came “from all social strata.”171 Thus, Athenagoras – a contemporary of Celsus – counts “simple folk, artisans and old women”172 (Leg. 11.1) amongst the Christians, but simultaneously takes note of Christian slave owners in the city (Leg. 55). Still, the fact that Irenaeus’s work was copied in Egypt only twenty years after its composition (P.Oxy. 3.405173) illustrates that Christ followers were obviously well net-worked at this time. This applies all the more as Huebner, Papyri, 24. This view is taken by Attila Jakab, Ecclesia alexandrina: evolution sociale et institutionnelle du christianisme alexandrin (IIe et IIIe siècles) (Bern: Lang, 2001), 54–55. 170 Translation by Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 158. 171 Birger A. Pearson, “Egypt,” in Origins to Constantine, ed. Margaret M. Mitchell and Frances M. Young, Cambridge History of Christianity 1 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 331–50 (340). 172 Translation by Joseph H. Crehan, Athenagoras: Embassy for the Christians, The Resurrection of the Dead, Ancient Christian Writer 23 (New York: Paulist, 1955), 42 173 When first published in 1903 the manuscript was considered “the oldest Christian fragment” (Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri III [London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1903], 10). Contemporary scholarship still dates P.Oxy 3.405 to the late

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Irenaeus’ work is only one of countless writings composed outside Egypt of various genres which, from the first century on, came in a flood from such diverse regions as Palestine, Antioch, eastern Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, Rome and North Africa. And Christian authors in Egypt returned the favour.174

Given the high costs for the production and distribution of texts, one is inclined to assume that at least some Christians participated in the city’s global trade and sought to use this engagement not only for their personal wealth and social advancement, but also for community purposes. On the downside, Christians were obviously at the mercy of the same persecutions as their Egyptian and Jewish neighbors. Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 6.41.1–9) and Origen (Cels. 3.15) unanimously report of local attacks on Christians in Alexandria. Egyptian libelli from the mid-3rd century CE suggest that Christians were among a group of citizens, who were forced to make public sacrifices in order to prove their loyalty to Rome.175 A later campaign against Christian leaders initiated by Valerian in 257 CE (Hist. eccl. 7.11.3) is possibly echoed in three papyri (P.Oxy. 42.3035176; 43.3119;177 P.Mil. Vogl. 6.287), but the actual date and exact meaning of each document is debated. Altogether, the Christians in Alexandria were obviously not subjected to targeted persecution, but merely suffered those reprisals by the Roman rulers that other ethnic or legal groups also had to endure. 2.5 Urban Ethnic Encounters

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Although arrivals came to Alexandria from different ethnic, social, and religious backgrounds and with various motives, they sooner or later crossed paths in the city. Influenced by the current discourse of “Urban Studies,” it has become generally acknowledged in Ancient Studies, as well, that such everyday encounters and interactions between different ethnic, legal, and social groups are often to be 2nd century. For Peter R. Rodgers it is not even “impossible that Irenaeus himself had written the fragment” (Peter R. Rodgers, “Irenaeus and the Text of Matthew 3.16-17,” in Text and Community: Essays in Memory of Bruce M. Metzger, Vol. 1, ed. J. Harold Ellens [Sheffield: Phoenix Press, 2007], 51–55 [51]). The place of origin can only be speculated about. Roberts, Manuscript, 24 considers Alexandria or Oxyrhynchus as possible production sites. Similar to Homeric scholarship in Alexandria, the document makes use of diplai. However, these simply highlight quotations from Scripture. 174 Pearson, Egypt, 344. 175 Malcolm Choat, “Christianity,” in Riggs, The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt, 474– 89 (481–82). Cf. AnneMarie Luijendijk, Greetings in the Lord: Early Christians and the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 168–74, who also suggests that we must assume a wider campaign that affected Christians and other alike. 176 In this document a Christian called Petosorapis is summoned, but the focus is obviously on a tax issue and not on a religious practice or belief. 177 It is not clear whether in this order the property of Christians is merely reassessed (then most likely for taxation) or confiscated. The document is dated “year 7”, which has been associated with the 7th year of Valerian (259/60) by several historians.

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associated with specific places and a city’s infrastructure. This holds true in particular for Alexandria. Already in regard to her basic layout the city was divided in five districts, named after the first letters of the Greek alphabet178 and each being dominated by different ethnic majorities and their customs. Whereas Alexandrian Jews were the predominant group in the Delta quarter,179 the south-western district of Alexandria, which goes back to the pre-Ptolemaic settlement of Rhakotis, was mainly inhabited by Egyptians, who presumably held on to their traditional rites and the worship of their gods.180 The royal district and the residential area to the east (Broucheion) represented the heart of Hellenistic culture and home to the Greek urban elite. Still, we should be careful not to paint an overly static picture of the coexistence of different ethnic groups in Alexandria. Urban life is inevitably shaped by the daily movement of residents, visitors, travelers, pilgrims, consumers, traders, artists, migrants, beggars, academics, pioneers, and newcomers. A first place that might be considered as a venue of multicultural exchange, is Alexandria’s theater.181 In the Roman era plays and mimoi were popular among Greeks, but also among other ethnicities. A large part of the Jewish population apparently visited the theater, as well. The Letter of Aristeas explicitly encourages its readers to visit plays (Let. Aris. 284) and Philo, who was obviously a frequent spectator of those performances, describes both the positive and negative effects of dramas (Philo, Ebr. 177; Flacc. 34). In the past there has even been some discussion whether the so-called Exagoge might be considered a Jewish play performed in Alexandria.182 Eusebius explicitly refers to the excerpts – that he discovered in the now lost work On the Jews (Περὶ Ἰουδαίων) – as δράμα (Praep. 9.28–29). Clement of Alexandria calls Ezekiel, the author, “a poet of Jewish tragedies” (ὁ τῶν Ἰουδαϊκῶν τραγῳδιῶν ποιητής; Strom. 1.23.155.1).183 Admittedly, this is no tangible proof of the actual performance of this dialogical text. But where, if not in Alexandria, could we expect such a Jewish performance? A second important place for everyday encounters, especially for the lower classes, were the main boulevards, streets, public places, and shrines in Alexandria, which could quickly turn into a colorful stage during processions and festivals. In addition to the aforementioned Jewish festival, which was held annually Philo, Flacc. 55. Philo, Flacc. 55–56; Josephus, B.J. 2.488, 495; Ant. 14.117; C. Ap. 2.34–35. 180 Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 5–6; Sally-Ann Ashton, “Ptolemaic Alexandria and the Egyptian Tradition,” in Hirst and Silk, Alexandria, 16–17. 181 On the presence of Jews in the theater, see the special issue “Jews and Drama” of the Journal of Ancient Judaism 8.2 (2017), edited by Lutz Doering and Sandra Gambetti. 182 Balbina Bäbler offers a concise account of this discussion in her contribution (p. 41–42) and for her part rather considers instead a private performance. 183 See also Ernst Vogt, Tragiker Ezechiel, JSHRZ IV/3 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher VerlagsHaus Mohn, 1983), 117, who draws attention to the obvious omission of the circumcision commandments, in which he even recognizes the author’s consideration of a non-Jewish audience. 178

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to celebrate the completion of the Septuagint and which was held along the eastern seashore, one must think of such events as the festival of Adonis, which passed through Alexandria’s royal quarter. Theocritus’s account of this event (Idyll 15) gives us a vivid and at the same time “amusing glimpse of Alexandria’s multicultural population.”184 Simultaneously, the dialogue between the two women Gorgo and Praxinoa and a stranger clearly resonates with existing prejudices against certain dialects and other stereotypes. Another example is the festival dedicated to the triumphal return of Dionysus from India, described by Athenaeus, after Callixenus (Deipn. 5.196d–203b). Although the festival was dedicated to the veneration of Alexander and, thus, mainly aimed at a Greek audience, it is hard to imagine the procession, in which several hundred costumed men and female dancers took part, without the active participation of Egyptians and other ethnicities.185 Third, the cemeteries located outside the city’s western and eastern walls have to be considered as places of ethnic encounter. Strabo only refers to the cemetery in the west (today known as Gabbary), for which he coins the expression “necropolis” and which he describes as a “suburb, in which there are many gardens, tombs, and structures set up for embalming of the dead” (Geogr. 17.1.10).186 We can therefore imagine a place that invited people to linger and could become very well a place of social encounter. At least, Egyptians, Greeks, Jews, and Christians were all buried here side by side. Jews and early Christians were also buried in the loculi and chambers of monumental tombs. Identifiable only by inscription or iconography, their burials are found within the same tomb complexes as those of their polytheistic neighbours.187

Jewish inscriptions have been found in all eastern cemeteries.188 The absence of such inscriptions in the western necropolis can easily be explained by the Balbina Bäbler, p. 37. According to Babett Edelmann, Religiöse Herrschaftslegitimation in der Antike: Die religiöse Legitimation orientalisch-ägyptischer und griechisch-hellenistischer Herrscher im Vergleich, PHAROS, Studien zur griechisch-römischen Antike 20 (St. Katharinen: Scripta Mercturae, 2007), 244–45, the πομπή even completely dispensed with Greek elements. 186 Translation by Gregory E. Sterling, p. 18. 187 Venit, “Alexandria,” 118. See also idem, Monumental Tombs, 20–21, 181–86; Ameling, “‘Market-place’,” 84; Gideon Bohak, “Good Jews, Bad Jews, and Non-Jews in Greek Papyri and Inscriptions,” in Akten des 21. internationalen Papyrologenkongresses (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1997), 105–6. The only entirely Jewish cemeteries outside the Levant are the Jewish catacombs in Rome and Venosa. 188 “The burial of Jews and non-Jews alongside each other in mixed cemeteries does not seem to have been deemed extraordinary in ancient Egyptian Jewish burial practice, as also emerges from the evidence of the cemeteries at Alexandria, Sedmet el-Gebel, and Cyrenaica“ (Meron M. Piotrkowski, “Priests in Exile: On the Identity of the Oniad Jewish Community of Heliopolis,” in A Question of Identity: Social, Political, and Historical Aspects of Identity Dynamics in Jewish and Other Contexts, ed. Dikla R. Katz et al. [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019], 172). Cf. William Horbury and David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt: With an 184

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distribution of the Jewish population in Alexandria. Unfortunately, the sources give us no insight into the everyday encounters between the relatives of the deceased. However, the remains of Alexandrian tombs show that different iconographic motifs and styles merged and influenced or enriched each other. Roman period tombs follow the general plan of their Ptolemaic predecessors but substitute triclinium-shaped chambers for the Ptolemaic kline room and admit a richer variety of Egyptian decorative and narrative elements into their classical fabric. The most extensive of these tombs, the Great Catacomb at Kom el-Shuqafa, marries Egyptian architectural and iconographic details to classical formal spaces – exedrae, a triclinium, and a burial chamber in triclinium form, in which Roman garland sarcophagi are cut to form niches that carry sculpted scenes depicting Egyptian deities.189

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Fourth, there must have been everyday encounters between the different ethnic groups in the tenement houses and neighborhoods of the city. Unfortunately, our knowledge regarding the so-called Delta quarter is about as vague as our knowledge about Alexandria’s housing situation. Whether this Jewish quarter referred to by Philo, Josephus, and Apion190 must be rather qualified as a “ghetto,” with its inhabitants being forced to settle here, or whether we should rather assume that Jews deliberately decided to live in a common area, can hardly be decided.191 However, one could draw an analogy with the housing habits of other migrants: Thus, Egyptian workers from neighboring nomes also joined forces and supported each other in their search for housing or in order to maintain contact with their relatives. Especially the epigraphic record bears witness to this.192 Furthermore, Jewish inscriptions suggest that synagogues were not only located in the Delta district, but could rather be found in all parts of the city.193 Based on the few occasional references to the professions of Jews,194 we may further assume that several members of the Jewish community earned their money as artisans and thus, quite common to Roman cities, worked (and maybe Index of the Jewish Inscriptions of Egypt and Cyrenaica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), nos. 1–2 (Chatby), 3–8 (El-Ibrahimiya), 9–10 (Hadra), 11–12 (Mustafa Pasha). For a discussion of the Aramaic and Hebrew inscriptions, see Bloch, p. 262–63. 189 Venit, “Alexandria,” 117. See also Venit, Monumental Tombs, 124–25. 190 Philo, Flacc. 55–56; Josephus, B.J. 2.488; 2.495; C. Ap. 2.34–35; CPJ II 158a, ll. 11–18; cf. Apion in Josephus, C. Ap. 2.33. 191 Also in this volume both positions are advocated. While Balbina Bäbler pleads for the first position (Bäbler, p. 46), Gregory E. Sterling votes for the second solution (Sterling, p. 20). 192 Thus, Gert Lüderitz, “What is the Politeuma?” in Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy, ed. Jan W. van Henten and Pieter W. van der Horst, AGAJU 21 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 200–1, speaks of a politeuma of Boetians, Idumeans, Cilicians, Cretans, Lycians, and Phrygians. 193 Horbury and Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt, nos. 9; 13; 16; 17; 19– 21, 23–26, 30–32. The Talmud (b. Sukkah 51b) and the Tosefta (t. Sukkah 4.6) only make reference to the Great synagogue, which appears here as an impressive building: “Who has not seen the double colonnade of Alexandria has never seen the glory of Israel in his entire life.” 194 Cf. Philo, Flacc. 57 (merchants, artisan; also captain, farmer); t. Sukkah 4.6 (goldsmiths, silversmiths, weavers, bronze-workers, blacksmiths); t. ‘Arak. 2.3–4 and t. Yoma 2.5–6 (Alexandrian artisans sent to mend Temple properties).

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even lived) in medium-sized workshops (tabernae).195 Accordingly, a contract dated 13CE mentions a carpenter shop in the Delta district.196 Contrary to this, it seems rather unlikely that a larger number or even majority of Alexandrian Jews lived as spaciously as Philo’s description of a Jewish house arrangement seems to suggests (Flacc. 89; cf. Legat. 3.40; Spec. 3.169). 2.6 Alexandria’s “Fragile Diversity”: Prejudices, Hostilities, and Violent Riots In a terrifying way the same sites that served as places of multiethnic encounters and as festive sites could in no time turn into an arena of violent scuffles, urban riots, and most terrible persecutions.197 Thus, Philo reports that Flaccus, in the course of the acts of violence of 38 CE, “marshalled a fine procession through the middle of the market” (Flacc. 74), whereupon the mob in the early morning moved on to the theater (Flacc. 41). Here the Jewish captives with their enemies seated in front … were stripped and lacerated with scourges which are commonly used for the degradation of the vilest malefactors, so that in consequence of the flogging some had to be carried out on stretchers and died at once, while others lay sick for a long time despairing of recovery.198

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Faced with these atrocities and this hardly perceivable perversion of urban sites, numerous Jews fled to the waterfront and the nearby cemeteries (Flacc. 56). This, however, only encouraged the enraged crowd to break open the houses and tabernae (ἐργαστήρια199) of the Alexandrian Jews and to plunder these (Flacc. 57). In the following years and decades the tensions between the Greeks, Egyptians, and Jews remained, until ethnic violence flared up again in 66 CE – coinciding with the outbreak of the First Jewish War in Roman Judea. Another time there occurred terrible chases and looting of Jewish houses in the city.200 At the beginning of the 2nd century, conflicts culminated in – what would later become 195 On the excavation of Early Roman structures and the remains of tabernae (built along the street), see Grzegorz Majcherek and Renata Kucharczyk, “Alexandria: Excavations and preservation work on Kom el-Dikka,” Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 23.1 (2014): 23–44 (esp. 24–25). “They appear to have formed a complex of separate units sharing the same length but varying in size” (ibid., 24). 196 BGU IV 1115, l. 40. 197 With regard to the riots in 38 CE, Pieter van der Horst has even spoken of “the First Pogrom” (Pieter W. van der Horst, ed., Philo’s Flaccus: The First Pogrom, Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series 2 [Leiden: Brill, 2003]). In his contribution, Jan Bremmer takes up this provocative formulation and examines the possibilities of how our modern knowledge about pogroms can be used to describe the events of 38 CE. 198 Philo, Flacc. 75. The English translation is taken from Philo, Volume IX. Every Good Person is Free, Against Flaccus and Hypothetica, trans. Francis H. Colson, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941), 343. 199 ἐργαστήριον is the common Greek equivalent for the Latin taberna (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 3.67.4; Herodian 7.12.5). Cf. BGU IV 1117 (bakery); IV 1127 (goldsmith’s workshop); IV 1116 (maintenance of a rented workshop). 200 Josephus, B.J. 2.494, 496.

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known as – the Kitos War.201 For obvious reasons, the events connected with this almost complete extinction of Jewish life in Alexandria cannot be adequately addressed in this introduction.202 This is all the more true as it still remains uncertain how we should relate previous attacks in 113 and 115CE203 and the subsequent violence at the beginning of Hadrian’s reign204 to the “Jewish revolt” between 115–117 CE.205 Above all, however, the bias and inconsistency of our sources hardly allows for any kind of reliable reconstruction of the actual events. So it is hardly a coincidence that the Jewish revolt has found a particularly strong echo in the Acta Alexandrinorum – a collection of Greek writings focusing on Alexandria in relation to Roman emperors and characterized by strong anti-Jewish, but also anti-Roman and anti-Egyptian attitudes.206 At the same time, the hostility towards Jews propagated in these texts suggests some kind of continuity of Jewish life in Egypt in the 2nd century CE and thereafter.207

201 The name “Kitos” either refers to L. Quietus or Quintus Turbo, this is to say: the Roman general who held commands in Egypt and finally ended the Jewish Revolt in 115–117. See David Rokeah, “The War of Kitos: Toward the Clarification of a Philological-Historical Problem,” ScrHier 23 (1972): 79–84. 202 Considering the “Jewish Beginnings” of Alexandria’s early Christianity, Benjamin Schliesser examines some of the effects that the persecution of Alexandrian and Egyptian Jews in the course of these devastating events had on the establishment of a Christian community. 203 On these earlier events, see Miriam P. Ben Zeev, “Greek Attacks Against Alexandrian Jews During Emperor Trajan’s Reign,” JSJ 20.1 (1989): 31–48. Presumably, the Jews retaliated after each of these attacks and at the same time the Romans intervened and responded with harsh measures against the Greek aggressors. 204 Thus, SHA Hadr. 12.1–2 mentions another “riot in Alexandria, which arose on account of Apis.” According to Cassius Dio 69.8.1a. (frag. from Petrus Patricus, Exc. Vat.108) this riot ceased due to a harsh letter from Hadrian. At any rate, if we can attribute the private letters of a Roman soldier (P.Mich. 8.477; 8.478) to this renewed flare-up of battle, this does not seem very credible. Jewish accounts even speak of an insidious slaughter of Alexandrian Jews during Hadrian’s early reign (b. Giṭ. 57b; S. Eli. Rab. 151, ll. 9–24). 205 According to Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.2.1–4 the revolt began in 115 CE (= Orosius, Adv. pagan. 7.12.6–7). In contrast, Cassius Dio (68.32.1–2) assumes that the uprising began in the last months of 116 CE. So even regarding the actual date there is great uncertainty. 206 To what extent this popular genre contributed to the formation of a Greek identity is answered in more detail by Sylvie Honigman (see esp. p. 141–43). Cf. also Andrew Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence in Roman Egypt: The Case of the Acta Alexandrinorum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Harker assumes that the negative experiences of the Alexandrian Greek delegations with Claudius (41 CE) led to an initial circulation of documents, from which the new Acta genre developed. Accordingly, the documents have a common form that typically links a (fictious) transcript of judicial proceedings and dialogues between the felonious Emperor and a heroic Alexandrian Greek. 207 A local revival of Jewish life in Egypt has recently also been advocated by Michael D. Swartz, “Yoma from Babylonia to Egypt: Ritual Function, Textual Transmission, and Sacrifice,” AJSReview 43.2 (2019): 339–53.

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Negative stereotypes or enemy images were not only the result of earlier hostilities, however, but also one of the driving factors for physical violence among the ethnic groups. We find a strong tendency for stereotyping among Alexandrian authors of all origins and in much earlier times. Anti-Jewish literary traditions can be found as early as in the writings of the Egyptian authors Hecataeus of Abdera and Manetho.208 Further representatives of such unabated anti-Jewish propaganda or “proto-anti-Semitism”209 are Lysimachus, to whom Josephus frequently refers, and Apion. Josephus, for his part, repeatedly relies on anti-Hellenistic stereotypes.210 And Philo’s characterizations of the Egyptians “agree to a striking extent with the Roman views on the Egyptians, which were overwhelmingly negative since Augustus’s propaganda campaign.”211 Anti-Egyptian propaganda also affected the writers of private letters (P.Oxy. 14.1681212) and even found its way into official legal texts. Hence we read in the Edict of Caracalla (P.Giss. Lit. 6.3): γὰρ̣ εἰς τοὺς οἱ ἀληθινοὶ Αἰγύπτιοι δύναντα̣ι εὐμαρῶς φωνῇ ἢ ἄλλων [αὐτ]οὶ ἔχειν ὄψεις τε καὶ σχῆμα. ἔτι τε καὶ ζω[ῇ] δεικνύει ἐναντία ἤθη ἀπ̣ὸ ἀναστ̣ροφῆς [πο]λειτικῆς εἶναι ἀγροίκους Αἰ̣γυπτιούς. The true Egyptians can easily be recognised among the linen weavers by their accent, or through their [obviously] alien appearance and dress. Moreover the way that they live, with their far from civilised manners, reveals them to be Egyptian peasants.213

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Admittedly, such ethnophobic attitudes were merely the breeding ground for later conflicts, which were nevertheless still favored by other social and political factors and urban conditions. On a very basic level, one can state that the Roman occupation of Egypt certainly aggravated existing ethnic tensions within the city. Another factor that is repeatedly discussed in research is the supposed efforts of Alexandrian Jews to improve their own legal status. An endeavor which may have had a negative – albeit unintended – impact on the coexistence of ethnic groups in Alexandria. On a linguistic level, one can address Philo’s and Josephus’s employment of ambiguous terms to blur the actual status of the Alexandrian Jews. Accordingly, both authors refer to Jews as πολίτης, which can either

Cf. Diodorus Siculus 40.3.8; Josephus, C. Ap. 1.228–29; 1.251–52 (Manetho). John J. Collins, “Anti-Semitism in antiquity? The case of Alexandria,” in Ancient Judaism in its Hellenistic Context, ed. Carol Bakhos, JSJSup 95 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 9–29 (21). 210 Cf. John M. G. Barclay, “Judaism in Roman Dress: Josephus’ Tactics in the ‘Contra Apionem’,” in Internationales Josephus-Kolloquium Aarhus 1999, ed. Jürgen Kalms, Münsteraner Judaistische Studien 6 (Münster: LIT, 2000), 231–45. 211 Maren R. Niehoff, Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture, TSAJ 86 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 59. 212 The author of this letter (an Egyptian Greek?) is afraid of being considered a “barbarian or an inhuman Egyptian (Αἰγύπτιον ἀνάνθρωπον).” 213 Translation by Harker, Loyalty, 57. Most likely the passage is an interpolation though. 208

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mean “a resident”214 or (more commonly) “a citizen.” In a similar manner, Philo sometimes explicitly calls his fellow Jews “Alexandrians (Ἀλεξανδρεῖς)” (Philo, Legat. 183, 194; Flacc. 80). Possibly both authors deliberately coquet with the privileges, which were guaranteed to Alexandrian Jews and repeatedly promised by Roman emperors. As Claudius’s letter to the Alexandrians indicates,215 some kind of request concerning the legal status of Alexandrian Jews has been made to him and this striving is – at least in some way – related to the riots of 38 CE, as well. However, in order to fully grasp the reasons behind the Alexandrian unrests, it is worth considering additional factors that are not primarily related to ethnicity or legal claims articulated by some representatives. This is one of the values of Sandra Gambetti’s work on the riots of 38 CE, in which she also highlights the relevance of Alexandria’s topography and the political microclimate.216

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3. The Outline and Rationale of this Volume Alexandria continues to fascinate scholars from a great variety of academic disciplines. A number of paths and alleys still await their discovery, some quarters and neighborhoods still have hidden corners, and – maybe most importantly – crossroads and border areas still reveal exciting interaction. The present volume takes up insights of earlier and more recent studies, but at the same time sets its own accents. First, this book is guided by the conviction that one can only do justice to the diversity of Alexandria if one looks at this metropolis from a multi- and interdisciplinary perspective. Accordingly, the present volume gathers together twentyfive contributions of international scholars from the realm of archaeology, ancient history, classical philology, religious studies, philosophy, the Old Testament, historical narratology, Jewish studies, papyrology, and the New Testament. Second, the thematic focus of the book is on the development, coexistence, and interrelations between Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, and early Christian identities in Alexandria. This is already reflected in the outline of the volume, which is divided into articles on “Egyptian and Hellenistic Identities,” on the “Jewish Alexandria,” and the identity of Christ followers “From the New Testament to Early Christianities.” In all these parts, the question of continuities and 214 See Miriam P. Ben Zeev, Jewish Rights in the Roman World. The Greek and Roman Documents Quoted by Josephus Flavius, TSAJ 74 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 29–30; John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora from Alexander to Trajan (323 B.C.E.–117 C.E.) (Edinburgh: Clark, 1996), 62, 69–71. Cf. Acts 21:39 (“resident” or “citizen” of Tarsus), Luke 15:15; 19:14; Heb 8:11 215 P.Lond. 6.1912 = CPJ II 153, esp. ll. 89–90 (41 CE). 216 Gambetti, Riots, esp. 57–76, 213–38.

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discontinuities between different ethnic, cultural, and religious identities is raised and answered. For example, it is asked how the riots in 38 CE were perceived and reflected by such diverse characters as Apion, Chaeremon, Isidorus, and Philo, or how different Christian writers and Christ followers engaged with their Jewish and Hellenistic environment. Third, the volume stands out from other studies due to its temporal focus on the Roman Imperial period. Thus, most of the contributions focus on persons, places, communities, and events between Octavian’s entry to the city and the beginning of the Christianization of Roman Egypt in the course of the 3rd century CE. The temporal limitation does not mean, however, that contributions referring back to the Ptolemaic period and looking ahead to Late Antiquity would be missing altogether. Still, even when a figure such as “Demetrius of Phalerum the Founder of the Alexandrian Library” or the history of the Septuagint is taken into consideration, this too is always done under the question of how corresponding legends were taken up and used by later authors like Aristeas, Philo, Josephus, Clement, or Irenaeus. Fourth, the attention is strongly focused on the urban area of Alexandria. Accordingly, an introductory section on “The City” opens the volume. In this section, five articles are devoted to the topography of Alexandria and its representation in the works of Hellenistic, Jewish, and Christian authors as well as in modern scholarship. Of course, since Alexandria is considered to be a “Hub of the Hellenistic world,” references to the Egyptian hinterland as well as to other metropoleis and regions of the Mediterranean must not be excluded. Thus, the Caesareum in Alexandria is compared with other temples in Egypt related to the Emperor cult. The literary, cultural, and religious exchange between Alexandria and Jerusalem is repeatedly addressed. And with regard to the genesis of the early Christianities, the relation between the orthodox school in Alexandria and divergent, heterodox communities in Egypt is examined. Even at the end of a major international and interdisciplinary research project, questions naturally remain unanswered, and some neighborhoods and groups in Alexandria remain fuzzy or even completely hidden. Still a lot has already been gained, if the reading of this volume leads to an individual engagement with the city and if the reader in many ways gets connected with Alexandria, the Hub of the Hellenistic world.

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I. The City

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“The Largest and Most Important” Part of Egypt Alexandria according to Strabo GREGORY E. STERLING

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There are several important large cities named after the leading figures of their countries. In the United States, Washington, D.C., is named after the commanding general of the American revolutionary armies and first president of the United States, George Washington. In Europe, St. Petersburg is named after Peter the Great who built the city in order to have a major port.1 In the ancient world the most famous city to take its name after its founder is Alexandria. While Alexandria is only one of many Alexandrias founded by Alexander the Great – there were at least nine in the far East alone – it easily eclipsed all others in size and importance.2 The second largest city of the Roman Empire, Alexandria also enjoyed its own status in the Roman Empire: it was known as Ἀλεξανδρεία ἡ πρὸς Αἰγύπτῳ3 or Alexandria ad Aegyptum. The Greek and the Latin suggest that from a Roman administrative perspective, Alexandria was separate from Egypt: it was beside Egypt, not in Egypt.4 Writers could refer to Alexandria in Egypt to describe the geographical reality in popular speech,5 but administratively Alexandria had its own status. This status led to a degree of pride for those who resided in Alexandria, including Jewish residents. In the 2nd century BCE, Pseudo-Aristeas said that Alexandria “surpasses all cities in size and prosperity” – an understandable exaggeration for someone who was making claims for the Greek translation that had occurred in the city.6 Almost two centuries later, Philo of Alexandria spoke of its “vast size and its admirable situation for serving the world.”7 The

1 For details, see Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great: His Life and World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), 355–66. 2 Karl Jansen-Winkeln, “Alexandria,” BNP 1:495. 3 Strabo, Geogr. 5.1.7; Philo, Prob. 125. 4 Harold I. Bell, “Alexandria ad Aegyptum,” JRS 36 (1946): 130–32. 5 Pausanias 8.33.3; Livy 8.24.1; 38.17.11; Pliny, Nat. 32.150. 6 Let. Aris. 109. All translations are my own. 7 Philo, Legat. 338: μέγιστην τε οὖσαν καὶ ἐν καλῷ τῆς οἰκουμένης. The final phrase can be understood in several ways. Since the context addresses Gaius’s plan to use Alexandria as

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Alexandrian commentator on the Pentateuch even used the story of its founding as a model for his description of the creation of the cosmos in his interpretation of Genesis 1.8 He made the same point indirectly by bestowing on Alexandria alone the term megalopolis,9 a word that he otherwise reserved for the cosmos.10 About the same time, the apocalyptic poet of the Eleventh Sibyl anachronistically predicted Alexandria’s Ptolemaic past: Then Egypt will be a ruling bride and the great city of the Macedonian lord, revered Alexandria, celebrated nurse of cities, glistening with beauty, will alone be metropolis.11

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Elsewhere the Sibyl described Alexandria as “the wealthiest of cities”12 and “the wondrous great city of the Macedonian lord” that served as “the beloved nourisher of Italians,” a reference to the grain supply that sailed from Alexandria to Rome.13 Like other residents, Jews who resided in Alexandria were proud to call Alexandria their πατρίς.14 But why this pride? What was the city like? Can we reconstruct the city beside Egypt? Unlike some significant ancient cities that have been abandoned and can be explored archaeologically without restriction, Alexandria has been and continues to be a densely populated city. In addition to the process of construction, demolition, and new construction, the water level has changed significantly making the task even more difficult. While this has not prevented archaeological work, it has restricted it.15 We are, however, fortunate to have at least seven ancient accounts that describe the city. Taking them in rough chronological order, they include descriptions by Diodorus

a base to promote his deification, I think that it refers to Alexandria as a model rather than to the natural topographical advantages that the city had. 8 Philo, Opif. 17–18. For an analysis, see David T. Runia, “Polis and Megalopolis: Philo and the Founding of Alexandria,” Mnemosyne 42 (1989): 398–412; reprinted in idem, Exegesis and Philosophy: Studies on Philo of Alexandria, CS 332 (Aldershot: Variorum, 1990). 9 Philo, Flacc. 163. Cf. also Apoc. El. 2.15. 10 Philo, Opif. 19; Ios. 29; Mos. 2.51; Decal. 53; Spec. 1.34. 11 Sib. Or. 11.233–35. Cf. also 11.219–20 for a description of its founding. 12 Sib. Or. 5.98. 13 Sib. Or. 13.43–49. Cf. also 12.42. 14 E.g., CPJ II 151, ll. 6–8. Cf. also Philo, Flacc. 46. On Philo’s relationship to Alexandria, see Dorothy Sly, Philo’s Alexandria (New York: Routledge, 1996); and David T. Runia, “The Idea and Reality of the City in the Thought of Philo of Alexandria,” JHI 38 (2000): 361–79. 15 For a recent summary of the archaeological work, see Balbina Bäbler, “Zur Archäologie Alexandrias,” in Alexandria, ed. Tobias Georges et al., COMES 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 3–27. For an overview of the knowledge of ancient Alexandria, see Judith McKenzie, The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt c. 300 BC to AD 700 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 8–18.

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Siculus,16 Strabo,17 Pliny,18 Josephus,19 Achilles Tatius,20 the Scriptores Historiae Augustae,21 and Ammianus.22 The most important of these is that of the geographer Strabo who lived in the city in the last part of the 20s of the 1st century BCE. Several factors make Strabo’s the most significant account. It is the fullest description that we have of the topography and the structures of the city. While Diodorus and Josephus also spent time in Alexandria,23 Strabo was a resident for several years,24 offering him the opportunity to get to know the city reasonably well. Finally, he was a geographer who made it his business to describe places, a profession that is obvious in his description.25 Although the importance of Strabo’s description is widely recognized, to my knowledge it has not received a separate treatment.26 I propose to provide one with this contribution. I will proceed by summarizing Strabo’s descriptions of cities in his Γεωγραφικά, then work through his description of Alexandria, and finally note some of the things that he omits. I will supplement Diodorus Siculus 17.52.1–6. Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.6–13. 18 Pliny, Nat. 5.62–63. 19 Josephus, B.J. 2.385–87; 4.612–15. 20 Achilles Tatius, Leuc. Clit. 5.1. 21 Scriptores Historiae Augustae: Firmus, Saturninus, Proculus, et Bonosus 8.5–8. This is ostensibly a report from Hadrian. Hereafter SHA, Firm. 22 Ammianus 22.16.7–22. On the relationship between the SHA and Ammianus, see Ronald Syme, Ammianus and the Historia Augusta (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 25–30 (28–30). 23 Diodorus Siculus 17.52.6 (probably ca. 60–56 BCE) and Josephus, Vita 415–16, ca. 68– 69 CE. 24 Strabo, Geogr. 1.3.17; 2.3.5. He also used the first person to describe some of his travels in Egypt, e.g., 17.1.49–50. 25 Strabo argued that geography was a constituent part of philosophy (1.1.1). While he is as far from the modern norms of geography as ancient historians are from modern standards, he was serious about his task. 26 The most important treatments are those of Peter M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 1:7–8 and 1:13–29; Nicolà Biffi, L’Africa di Strabone: Libro XVII della Geografia: Introduzione, traduzione e comment, Quademi di ‘Invigilata lucernis’ 7 (Modugno: Edizioni dal Sud, 1999), 258–73, who provides excellent references to relevant ancient sources as well as analyses; Stefan Radt, Strabos Geographika: Mit Übersetzung und Kommentar, 10 vols. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002–11), 8:411–25, the standard commentary on Strabo; and Benoit Laudenbach and Jehan Desanges, eds., L’Afriqe, de l’Atlantique au golfe de Soloum, vol. 15, book 17, 2nd part of Strabon: Géographie, Collection des Universités de France, Série grecque 504 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2014), 115–38, for the comments by Desanges. For a shorter but helpful treatment, see McKenzie, Architecture of Alexandria, 173–76; also Duane W. Roller, A Historical and Topographical Guide to the Geography of Strabo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 946–50; I have offered a brief summary: Gregory E. Sterling, “Alexandria,” in T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2019), 2:19– 22. The map of Strabo’s Alexandria (see Figure 1) also appears in that article. 16

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Strabo’s description of Alexandria with the descriptions of other ancient sources and modern archaeological work where it is directly relevant.

1. Strabo’s Descriptions of Cities

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Our knowledge of Strabo is derived from his own statements.27 He tells us that he was born at the time of Pompey’s re-organization of Asia Minor ca. 64 BCE in the city of Amasea in Pontus.28 He came from a well placed family that, on his mother’s side, had been close to Mithridates VI and had held high office.29 However, his grandfather had eventually taken the side of Rome.30 While the fortunes of the family vacillated in the struggle over Asia Minor, the final outcome of Asia Minor and Strabo’s future was not in doubt. As a young man Strabo studied with a number of teachers whom he mentioned:31 most notably Aristodemus of Nysa, a philosopher, rhetorician, and grammarian, whose lectures he attended at Nysa;32 Xenarchus of Seleucia, the philosopher who spent time in Alexandria, Athens, and Rome;33 and Tyrannion of Amisus.34 He may have studied with Xenarchus in Rome where he spent a significant number of years.35 Strabo also mentions several noteworthy friends including Athenodorus, the student of Poseidonius,36 and the Peripatetic Boethus who was his fellow student and later teacher.37 He became oriented towards Stoic philosophy38 and considered his Γεωγραφικά to be 27 On Strabo, see Karl-Ludwig Elvers, “Strabo,” BNP 13:865–69; Daniela Dueck, Strabo of Amasia: A Greek Man of Letters in Augustan Rome (London: Routledge, 2000); and eadem, ed., The Routledge Companion to Strabo (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017). 28 Strabo, Geogr. 12.3.39, where he calls Amasea “our city.” 29 Strabo, Geogr. 10.4.10. 30 Strabo, Geogr. 12.3.33. 31 Dueck, Strabo of Amasia, 8–15, has a fuller and helpful discussion of Strabo’s education. 32 Strabo, Geogr. 14.1.48. 33 Strabo, Geogr. 14.5.4. On Xenarchus, see Karl-Wilhelm Welwei, “Xenarchus (4),” BNP 15:799–800. 34 Strabo, Geogr. 12.3.16. See also 13.1.54, where he tells us that Tyrannion obtained possession of Apellicon’s library. Cicero mentioned Tyrannion as a critic of Eratosthenes in Cicero, Att. 2.6.1. On Tyrannion, see Manuel Baumbach, “Tyrannion (1),” BNP 15:62–63. 35 Strabo, Geogr. 4.5.2; 6.2.6; 8.6.23. All three texts refer to events that Strabo witnessed in Rome. 36 Strabo, Geogr. 14.5.14. 37 Strabo, Geogr. 16.2.24. On Boethus, see Hans Gottschalk, “Boethus (4),” BNP 2:707, who suggests that he was a fellow student with Strabo. 38 Strabo, Geogr. 1.2.34, where he called Zeno “our Zeno.” On Strabo’s relationship to Stoicism, see Myrto Hatzimichali, “Strabo’s Philosophy and Stoicism,” in Dueck, The Routledge Companion to Strabo, 9–21.

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part of philosophy,39 perhaps along the lines of Poseidonius whose work he admired and who may have inspired his interest in both history and geography.40 Late in his life he accompanied his friend Aelius Gallus, newly appointed prefect, to Egypt ca. 26–25 BCE and lived for “a long period of time” in Alexandria, although he made trips throughout Egypt.41 He may have returned to Amasea, but this is uncertain. He appears to have lived into the early decades of the 1st century CE since the Γεωφραφία mentions Tiberius repeatedly.42 Strabo wrote a ἱστορικὰ ὑπομνήματα in 47 books that was a continuation of the work of Polybius.43 Unfortunately, all but a few fragments have been lost.44 His Γεωγραφικά or Γεωγραφία fared much better. It is the only work of its kind fully preserved, with the exception of the final section of the seventh book that only exists in fragments. Strabo related the geography of the known world in 17 books beginning with the Iberian peninsula, working east, then south, and then back to the west until he reached North Africa. The movement is thus like a U on its side with the opening on the left. At the center stands Rome which Strabo made the fulcrum of the Mediterranean world.45 Strabo worked from different sources. He was explicit about the distinction between the work of others and his own work. He wrote: “Now we will state what parts of the earth and sea we have traveled ourselves and concerning what parts we have relied on what others have said or written.”46 The work of others comprised the largest source for his work. While we can not know whom he consulted orally, we do know a number of his written sources. He mentions them often enough that we have some idea of the relative importance of them. The most noteworthy of these include Artemidorus of

Strabo, Geogr. 1.1.1. Strabo, Geogr. 2.3.5. On Poseidonius’s Histories, see Jürgen Malitz, Die Historien des Poseidonios, Zetemata 79 (Munich: Beck, 1983). 41 Strabo, Geogr. 2.5.12. He says that he lived in Alexandria. 42 E.g., Strabo, Geogr. 3.3.8; 4.6.9; 6.4.2; 7.1.5; 12.1.4; 12.8.18; 13.2.3; 13.4.8; 17.1.54. 43 FGH 91 frag. 1 and Strabo, Geogr. 11.9.3. Strabo’s τὰ μετὰ Πολύβιον began with book 5. On the influence of Polybius on Strabo’s Geography, see Dueck, Strabo of Amasia, 46–53; on the place of continuators, see John Marincola, Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 217–57, esp. 237–57, 289–92. 44 FGH 91. 45 On the centrality of Rome for Strabo, see Geogr. 6.4.1 and 17.3.24. For analyses, see Katherine Clark, Between Geography and History: Hellenistic Constructions of the Roman World (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 193–336, esp. 210–28, 294–336; Johannes Engels, Augusteische Oikumenegeographie und Universalhistorie im Werk Strabons von Amaseia, Geographica historica 12 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1999); and Dueck, Strabo of Amasia, 107–29. Cf. also ibid., 85–106 for Strabo’s knowledge of Rome. 46 Strabo, Geogr. 2.5.11. 39

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Ephesus, an immediately preceding geographer;47 Eratosthenes, of whom he is highly critical;48 Polybius, whose histories he continued – as we just noted;49 and, above all, Poseidonius, including not only On the Ocean but also his Historiai.50 Strabo called him “the Stoic, the most learned philosopher of my time.”51 These do not exhaust his sources, but represent those with whom he was in constant dialogue in his work. He also relied on his own investigations. He wrote: “We have traveled west from Armenia until the places of Tyrrhenia opposite Sardinia and to the south from the Euxine Sea until the limits of Ethiopia.”52 To put this in modern terms: from Armenia to Italy and from the Black Sea to Ethiopia. His travels allowed him to incorporate his own observations when describing places. 47 Strabo mentioned Artemidorus by name in all but the first two books (e.g., Strabo, Geogr. 3.1.4–5; 3.2.11; 3.4.3; 3.4.7; 3.4.17; 3.5.1; 3.5.5, 7; 4.1.8, 11; 4.4.6; 5.2.6; 5.4.6; 6.1.11; 6.2.1; 6.3.10; 7.56 (57); 8.2.1; 8.6.1; 8.8.5; 9.5.8, 15; 10.2.21; 10.4.3; 10.5.3; 11.2.14; 12.7.2; 12.8.1; 13.3.5; 14.1.22, 26; 14.2.29; 14.5.3, 16, 22; 15.1.72; 16.2.33; 16.4.5, 15–19; 17.1.18, 24; 17.3.2, 8, 10). For the fragments, see FGH 438. A papyrus was recently published that contains a section of text, but the authenticity is in doubt. See Kai Brodersen and Jas Elsner, eds., Images and Texts on the ‘Artemidorus Papyrus’: Working Papers on PArtemid (St. John’s College Oxford 2008), Historia Einzelschriften 214 (Stuttgart: Steiner 2009). 48 Strabo mentioned Eratosthenes by name in all but books 4, 6, 9, 12, 13, although the bulk of references are in books 1–2 (e.g., 1.1.1, 11, 12; 1.2.1–3, 7, 12, 14, 15, 19, 31; 1.3.1–4, 11, 13–14, 22–23; 1.4.1–6, 9; 2.1.1–5, 7, 11, 16, 19, 22, 23–41; 2.3.2; 2.4.1–2, 4; 2.5.7, 24, 25, 34, 40, 42; 3.2.11; 3.4.7; 3.5.5; 5.2.6; 7.3.6, 7; 7.5.9; 8.7.2; 8.8.4; 10.4.5; 11.1.1; 11.2.15; 11.6.1; 11.7.3, 4; 11.8.8–9; 11.12.5; 11.14.8; 14.2.29; 14.6.4; 15.1.7, 10–11, 13, 20; 15.2.8; 15.3.1; 16.1.11; 16.2.44; 16.3.2–6; 16.4.2, 19; 17.1.1–2, 17.3.2; 17.3.8, 22). For the fragments, see FGH 241 and Duane W. Roller, Eratosthenes, Geography: Fragments Collected and Translated with Commentary and Additional Material (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). 49 He mentioned Polybius by name in all but books 12, 13, 15, and 16 (e.g., 1.1.1; 1.2.1, 9, 15; 2.3.1–2; 2.4.2–5, 7; 3.1.6; 3.2.7, 10–11, 15; 3.4.13; 3.5.5, 7; 4.1.8; 4.2.1; 4.6.2, 10, 12; 5.1.3, 8; 5.2.5; 5.4.3; 6.1.11; 6.2.10; 6.3.10; 6.4.2; 7.5.1, 9; 7.7.4; 7.56 (57); 8.1.1; 8.2.1; 8.6.23; 8.8.5; 9.3.11; 10.3.5; 11.9.3; 14.2.29; 17.1.12). On the relationship between Strabo and Polybius, see Engels, Oikumenegeographie und Universalhistorie, 145–65. 50 Strabo mentioned Poseidonius in all but books 9, 12, and 15 (e.g., 1.1.1, 7, 9; 1.2.1, 21, 34; 1.3.9, 12, 16; 2.2.1, 3; 2.3.1, 3–8; 2.5.14, 43; 3.1.5; 3.2.5, 9; 3.3.3–4; 3.4.3, 13, 15, 17; 3.5.5, 7–8, 10; 4.1.7, 13–14; 4.4.5–6; 5.2.1; 6.2.1, 3, 7, 11; 7.2.2; 7.3.2–4, 7; 7.4.3; 7.5.8; 7.60 (58b); 8.1.1; 10.3.5; 11.1.5–6; 11.9.1, 3; 13.1.67; 14.2.13; 16.1.15; 16.2.4, 10, 17, 24, 43; 16.4.20, 27; 17.15, 21; 17.3.4, 10). For the texts of Poseidonius, see FGH 87; and Ludwig Edelstein and Ian G. Kidd, eds., Poseidonius, 3 vols., Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries 13, 34, 36, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). On the relationship between Strabo and Poseidonius, see Engels, Oikumenegeographie und Universalhistorie, 166–201. 51 Strabo, Geogr. 16.2.10. 52 Strabo, Geogr. 2.5.11. For a detailed treatment of his travels, see Dueck, Strabo of Amasia, 15–30.

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The form that his accounts take is strongly reminiscent of the work of earlier Greek ethnographers. While Strabo’s work is far more extensive than his predecessors, it is not unfair to compare it to the first Greek prose writer, Hecataeus of Miletus, who composed a Περιήγησις γῆς that circulated in two books: one devoted to Europe and one to Asia.53 The work was based on the map of Anaximander and covered the entire Mediterranean world, just as Strabo’s did. Like Strabo, Hecataeus traveled in order to investigate these places. Agathemeros called him “the great wanderer.”54 While we only know that he traveled to Egypt,55 he must have traveled extensively. His work moved systematically through regions covering the cities, peoples, geographical features, history, and the customs of each place. It is particularly worth noting that our fragments privilege the place of cities, a place that Strabo also accords them. The impression that one has in reading the fragments is that the work was a travel guide of sorts that provided key information about each area that it treated. Strabo was heir to this tradition.56 His accounts treat the same types of material. He typically begins with the topographical features of a region, noting especially the rivers,57 and then works through the region. As he works through it, he gives cities a pride of place. They appear in his work in three major ways. Sometimes he simply provides a list of the notable cities in a region, e.g., a list of the most notable cities of the Massaliotes (the ancients traders whose major city was modern Marseille).58 At other times, he describes each city in rapid sequence. For example, he worked through the cities of Phrygia by describing Antioch,59 Synnada,60 Docimaea,61 Apamea,62 and Laodicea63 without interruption. Finally, in some cases, he devotes longer sections to cities.64 Unsurprisingly, the bulk of these longer descriptions oc53 On Hecataeus of Miletus, see FGH 1; and Giuseppe Nenci, Hecataei Milesii fragmenta, Biblioteca di Studi Superiori, Filol. Greca 22 (Florence: La Nuova Italis, 1954). For details with bibliography, see Gregory E. Sterling, Historiography and Self-definition: Josephos, Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography, NovTSup 64 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 22–33. 54 FGH 1 T 34. 55 Herodotus 2.143. 56 Dueck, Strabo of Amasia, 40–45, discusses Strabo’s relationship to earlier Greek authors who circumnavigated the oikoumene. 57 On the role of rivers, see Catherine Connors, “A River runs through It: Waterways and narrative in Strabo,” in Dueck, The Routledge Companion to Strabo, 207–18. 58 Strabo, Geogr. 4.1.9. 59 Strabo, Geogr. 12.8.14. 60 Strabo, Geogr. 12.8.14. 61 Strabo, Geogr. 12.8.14. 62 Strabo, Geogr. 12.8.15. 63 Strabo, Geogr. 12.8.16. 64 Strabo, Geogr. 3.5.3–10, Gades (island and city); 4.1.3–5, Messilia; 5.3.7–8, Rome; 6.3.1–4, Taras; 8.5.3–8, Messene/Lacedaemon; 8.6.7–10, Argos; 8.6.20–23, Corinth; 9.1.16–

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cur in his account of Asia Minor in books 12–14 (approximately half of the long descriptions occur in these books). This suggests that he provided more detail where he had experienced it firsthand.

2. Strabo’s Description of Alexandria

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Fortunately for us, he had a good deal of detail to provide for Alexandria where he had resided. He incorporated his description of it in the final book.65 Although he had been a resident, he used the conventions of an ethnographer or geographer to present the city. He opened by providing distances, a regular feature in his descriptions. He tells us that it was 17.2 miles or 27.8 kilometers from the Canobic branch of the Nile to the Island of Pharos.66 Topography. He then turned to the topography, assuming that someone was sailing into Alexandria from the sea.67 The first visible sight was the island of Pharos. He described it in these words: “Pharos is an oblong island that is exceptionally close to the mainland and forms a harbor with two mouths. For the shore forms bays, having thrust two points into the sea. The island is located between these, closing up the bay. For it is situated in length parallel to the bay.”68 Philo suggested that the natural features of the island’s shoreline made it ideal for the task of translation, “surrounded by sea, it is not deep near the shore but shallow so that the roar and crash of the force of the waves dissipates before it reaches the shore as a result of the very great distance.”69 Strabo next describes the narrow opening into the main harbor. “The eastern of the points of Pharos lies closer to the mainland and to the point opposite it that is known as Cape Lochias and forms a harbor with a mouth requiring precision.” He explained, “for in addition to the narrowness of the inter20, Athens; 9.3.2–12, Delphi; 10.4.7–10, Cnossus; 13.1.24–27, 35–42, Ilium; 13.1.52–55, Scepsis; 13.1.57–58, Assus; 13.2.2–3, Mitylene; 13.4.1–3, Pergamum; 14.1.6–7, Miletus; 14.1.21–26, Ephesus; 14.1.27–28, Colophon; 14.1.39–41, Magnesia; 14.1.43–48, Myssa; 14.2.5–10, 13, Rhodes; 14.2.16–17, Halicarnassus; 14.2.23–24, Mylasa; 14.5.12–15, Tarsus; 15.3.2–3, Susa; 16.1.5–6, Babylon; 16.2.4–5, Antioch; 16.2.13–14, Aradus; 16.2.34–39, Jerusalem (with history and customs); 17.1.6–13, Alexandria; 17.1.27–28, Bubastis; 17.1.31– 34, Memphis; 17.3.14–15, Carthage. 65 For a summary of archaeological work on the reconstruction of the plan of Alexandria, see McKenzie, Architecture of Alexandria, 19–30. 66 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.6. Pliny, Nat. 5.62 offers a shorter distance ‘XII p’ (equivalent to twelve miles). Cf. also Ammianus 22.16.14. 67 Strabo, Geogr. 8.1.3 says that he followed the practice of Ephorus in making the sea coast his guide. For an approach from the sea into Alexandria, see also Philo, Flacc. 27, 110. 68 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.6. 69 Philo, Mos. 2.35.

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vening pathway, there are also rocks – some submerged and others exposed – that make the small waves that crash in from the sea, rough at every hour.”70 Pliny informs us that there were three channels named Steganus, Posideus, and Taurus.71 Josephus later mentioned break walls, likely added after Strabo’s stay in the city.72

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Figure 1: Map of Strabo’s Alexandria

On the eastern tip of Pharos stood one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. “The point on the island is a rock that is surrounded by the sea and has a tower amazingly constructed out of white stone with multiple stories; it has the same name as the island.”73 Strabo tells us that Sosastras of Cnidus dedicated the tower, Pliny tells that he built it and inscribed his name on it,74 and Lucian tells us that Sosastras was the architect and inscribed his name on the masonry under the name of the king in plaster over it.75 Ammianus thought 70 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.6. On the difficulty of entering the harbor, see Caesar, Bell. civ. 3.112; Josephus, B.J. 4.612; Lucian, Hist. conscr. 62; and Ammianus 22.16.9. 71 Pliny, Nat. 5.128. See also Posidippus, epig. 115 for Taurus. 72 Josephus, B.J. 4.612–13. 73 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.6. 74 Pliny, Nat. 36.83. 75 Lucian, Hist. conscr. 62; Icar. 12.

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that Cleopatra built Pharos, probably confusing her effort to rebuild it with the original construction under Ptolemy Philadelphus.76 The confusion among ancient sources has led to a debate among modern scholars: some think that he was the architect, some that he was the sponsor, and others that he was both.77 The lighthouse served an important role. Josephus tells us that the fire in it was visible for 300 stadia which is thirty-four and a half miles or fifty-five and a half kilometers.78 The fame of the lighthouse is evident in the depictions of it in many different sites. I was somewhat surprised when I first saw a mosaic of it in Sepphoris, but this is only an indication of its fame.79 It is certainly the most famous of the approximately twenty lighthouses known from antiquity.80 The entrance to the western harbor was easier to navigate, although apparently not simple. This may explain the name, Eunostos meaning either “good journey” or “good return.”81 Strabo also mentions a second harbor on the west side, an artificial harbor that was closed.82 It connected Lake Mareotis with Eunostus Harbor. Strabo returns to it later in his account. The two harbors were separated by a promontory known as the Heptastadium, a name that must reflect its length of seven stadia (four-fifths of a mile or 1.3 kilometers). “The promontory is a causeway from the mainland that extends to the western part of the island leaving only two avenues to sail into the Eunostos Harbor and these have been bridged over.83 This work was not only a causeway to the island, but also an aqueduct when it was built.”84 JulAmmianus 22.16.9. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:19–20 and Radt, Strabons Geographika, 8:413–14, argue that he was the sponsor. See Alexander Meus, “The Career of Sostratos of Knidos: Politics, Diplomacy and the Alexandrian Building Programme in the Early Hellenistic Period,” in Greece, Macedon and Persia: Studies in Social, Politica and Military History in Honour of Walemar Heckel, ed. Timothy Howe, Edward Garvin, and Graham Wrightson (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2015), 143–71. 78 Josephus, B.J. 4.613; Ant. 12.103. Cf. also B.J. 5.169. I have used the following equivalents to offer modern counterparts: 1 στάδιον = 606’ 9”; 5.4 στάδια = 1 kilometer. I have rounded all numbers. 79 A photo and brief discussion may be found in Ehud Netzer and Zeev Weiss, “New Mosaic Art from Sepphoris,” BAR 18.6 (1992): 36–43 (37–38, 40–43). 80 On the lighthouses, see James Beresford, The Ancient Sailing Season, Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava, Supplementum 351 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 201–203. 81 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.6. 82 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.6. 83 These have been confirmed by soundings. See Albert Hesse et al., “L’Heptastade d’Alexandrie,” Études alexandrines 6 (2001): 191–273 (232–34). 84 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.6. See also Caesar, Bell. civ. 3.112, who gives the length at 900 feet; Plutarch, Alex. 26.3; and Ammianus 22.16.10–11, who claims that Cleopatra built the Heptastadium. 76

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ius Caesar had destroyed the aqueduct during the Alexandrian War in 48–47 BCE.85 The destruction of the aqueduct meant that Pharos was no longer habitable for any size population. Strabo remarks that only a few sailors inhabited it.86 Today this causeway is more than 800m wide and has been heavily populated since the 16th century.87 Strabo turned his attention back to the Great Harbor and noted that it was capable of handling the largest ships.88 While we do not know the tonnage of the ships involved in the grain trade between Alexandria and Rome, they were probably capable of handling up to 200 tons and some exceptionally large ships even more.89 Although smaller ships were more common with tonnages between 75 and 200. Presumably some of the larger ships were the grain ships that carried grain grown in the Delta to Rome for the dole. It may be this that suggested the legend of the founding of Alexandria to Strabo, although he does not make the connection explicit. He draws an explicit connection between the old Egyptian village of Rhakotis and the contrast between pre-Hellenistic rulers and Alexander’s designs.90 Arrian has the earliest account of the legend. According to the Alexander historian, Alexander came ashore at a place which “seemed to him … was ideal for the founding of a city and that the city would be prosperous” – a common topos in foundation stories. Omitting any reference to the architect of the city, Deinocrates of Rhodes,91 Arrian continues by attributing the layout of the city to Cf. also Julius Caesar, Bell. civ. 3.111. Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.6. 87 For modern archaeological work, see Hesse, “L’Heptastade d’Alexandrie.” On the challenges posed by Strabo’s statements about the functions of the Heptastadium, see especially ibid., 192–93. 88 Josephus, B.J. 4.615 claimed that the harbor was 30 stadia in length (3.4 miles or 5.6 kilometers). This is far too large; it is the entire width of Alexandria (2.386; see also Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.8)! 89 For details, see Bereford, The Sailing Season, 125–30 and Lionel Casson, Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 101–26. There were apparently some very large ships. Lucian, Nav. 5–6, described one superfreighter named the Isis with dimensions of 120 cubits in length x 30 cubits in width x 29 cubits from deck to bilge, the equivalent of 180 feet x 45 feet x 44 feet. These dimensions suggest that it could carry more than 1,000 tons, a tonnage that makes his description of the Isis questionable. 90 On Rhakotis, see also Pliny, Nat. 5.62 and Pausanias 5.21.9. 91 Diodorus Siculus 17.52.2–3 also omits a reference to Deinocrates. On the role of Deinocrates, see Vitruvius, Arch. 2.pref. 4 and Pliny, Nat. 5.62; 7.125; Ammianus 22.16.7. Strabo, Geogr. 14.1.23 gave the alternate name of Cheirocrates. For a full discussion, see Guido A. Mansuelli, “Contributo a Deinocrates,” in Alessandria e il mondo ellenistico-romano: Studi in onore di Achille Adriani, 3 vols. (Roma: Bretschneider, 1983–1984), 1:77–90. On his role in the planning of Alexandria, see Blanche R. Brown, “Deinocrates and Alexandria,” The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 15 (1978): 39–42 who suggests that Deinocrates and Alexander collaborated. For a helpful summary of what is known with bibliography, see Heiner Knell, “Deinocrates (3),” BNP 4:184–85. 85

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Alexander himself who “laid out the boundaries of the city himself,” including “where the marketplace should be constructed, the number of temples and which gods they were to honor – some for Greek gods and others for Egyptian Isis, and the location of the wall which was to enclose it.” There was, however, a problem: Alexander had nothing to mark out the line of the walls. An ingenious builder in the company suggested that he use the grain that the soldiers were carrying. Alexander agreed and laid out the walls.92 In a more elaborate version of the myth found in several sources, birds ate the grain, an omen that the diviners wisely interpreted as positive!93 Strabo apparently knew the fuller version but omitted the story of the birds, preferring only to note the interpretation of the diviners.94 Strabo now returns to the artificial harbor on the east side and comments on the trade through it that “the lake harbor was wealthier than the ocean harbor; here exports from Alexandria are much greater than imports.”95 Strabo was not alone in noting this. In a speech delivered to the Alexandrians at the beginning of the 2nd century CE, Dio Chrysostom exclaimed that the city “is situated at a certain crossroad of the whole earth and of the nations scattered to its furthest ends, as if it were the marketplace of one city gathering all to the same place and both showing them to one another and – to the extent possible – making them related peoples.”96 Philo’s brother, Alexander the alabarch, became one of the wealthiest Jews of Alexandria through this trade.97 Strabo completed his topographical survey with a comment about the air quality, a feature that Diodorus, Philo, and Ammianus also mention.98 Strabo mentioned this one other time when he compared Ravenna to Alexandria.99 We should not think that air quality is only important to moderns!100 The City. Strabo next turned to the city proper. The Amaseian began with the layout of the city. “The shape of the layout of the city is like a chlamys whose long sides are washed by water, with a diameter of approximately 30 92 Arrian, Anab. 3.1.5–2.2. See also Ammianus 22.16.7 who suggests that Deinocrates laid out the walls rather than Alexander. 93 Pseudo-Callisthenes 1.32; Curtius 4.8.6; Plutarch, Alex. 26.5–6; Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Ἀλεξάνδρειαι (incorporating Jason). 94 So also Ammianus 22.16.7. 95 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.7. Philo, Legat. 129 mentions the harbors of the river and the trade that occurred there. 96 Dio Chrysostom 32.36. Cf. also Josephus B.J. 4.615. 97 For details, see Gregory E. Sterling, “‘Pre-eminent in Family and Wealth’: Gaius Julius Alexander and the Alexandrian Jewish Community,” forthcoming. 98 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.7; Diodorus Siculus 17.52.2; Philo, Contempl. 23; and Ammianus 22.16.8. 99 Strabo, Geogr. 5.1.7. 100 Strabo, Geogr. 14.2.3 mentions the poor air quality of Caunus in the summer and autumn.

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stadia. The isthmuses are the sides, each of seven or eight stadia, confined by the sea on one side and by the lake on the other side.”101 The description of the city’s shape as a chlamys (a trapezoidal shaped cloak whose narrower end goes around the neck and whose wider semi-circular end goes around the body) is fitting if we think of the lower city wall as the bottom of the garment.102 He suggests that the city was approximately 3.4 miles wide and just under one mile in length (5.6 kilometers wide and close to 1.5 kilometers in length). Josephus offered the same east to west dimensions, but placed the north-south axis at ten stadia (that is, a full mile or 1.9 kilometers),103 perhaps reflecting the city’s growth under Augustus.104 Both assume the presence of walls, although Strabo omitted a reference to them apart from a passing note in the foundation myth.105 The geographer then described the streets, especially the two major avenues that were 100 feet wide. This may be an exaggerated figure since archaeologists have only found it to be 46 feet (14m) or 65 feet (19.85m) wide in the two places where they have identified the Plateia or Broad street (eastwest street).106 Diodorus Siculus gives the same dimension for the width of the avenue but only mentioned the east-west avenue.107 He said that the eastwest avenue was 40 stadia from gate to gate, but this would make it 10 stadia or more than a mile (1.9 kilometers) longer than the width of the city. The smaller number is more likely.108

101 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.8. On the layout of ancient Alexandria, see the basic study of Achille Adriani, Repertorio d’arte dell’Egitto greco-romano, 2 vols. (Palermo: Fondazione Ignzrio Mormino del Banco di Sicilia, 1961–1966), 2: plate 1; and Richard Tomlinson, “The Town Plan of Hellenistic Alexandria,” in Alessandria e il mondo ellenistico-romano: I Centenario del Museo Greco-Romano, Alessandria, 23–27 Novembre 1992, ed. Nicola Bonacasa, Critina Naro, Elisa Chiara Portale, and Amedeo Tullio, Atti del II Congresso Internazionale Italo-Egiziano (Rome: Bretschneider, 1995) 236–40. 102 Strabo, Geogr. 2.4.14, 18. Strabo also compares the shape of the world to a chlamys. On the comparison of the shape of Alexandria to a chlamys, see also Diodorus Siculus 17.52.3; Pliny, Nat. 5.62; and Plutarch, Alex. 26.5. 103 Josephus, B.J. 2.386. Cf. also Philo, Flacc. 92. 104 So Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 2:26–27n64; Diana Delia, “The Population of Roman Alexandria,” TAPA 118 (1998): 275–92 (278n11), suggests that Philo and Josephus included the Heptastadium and Pharos but this would give a much larger number than 10 stadia. Stephanus, s.v. Ἀλεξάνδρεια gave the dimensions as 34 x 8 stadia. 105 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.6. On the walls, see Diodorus Siculus 17.52.3; and Ammianus 22.16.7. 106 Tomlinson, “Town Plan of Hellenistic Alexandria,” 236. 107 Diodorus Siculus 17.52.3. 108 Achilles Tatius, Leuc. Clit. 5.1 describes the experience of walking through the streets of Alexandria and being overwhelmed by the size and beauty of it.

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Strabo then turned to the royal buildings that he estimated comprised a quarter to a third of the city.109 These sat on the harbor and extended to Cape Lochias that had its own royal buildings.110 This suggests that the royal buildings occupied the north-central section of the city, the district that the Romans called Bruchion.111 It may be that the Romans reduced the size of this area since Pliny estimated that the royal quarter was approximately one-fifth of the city’s total area.112 It is also possible that Pliny guessed on the low side or Strabo on the high side since they only gave rough estimates. Strabo found two structures in the royal district worthy of note. The first was the Museum.113 Modeled after Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum, it was the center of intellectual life in Alexandria, making the city a magnet for some of the most impressive scholars of the Hellenistic and Roman periods.114 These included Euclid who taught mathematics under Ptolemy I (306– 283 BCE); Apollonius of Rhodes (born ca. 295 BCE), the author of the Argonautica, the most famous epic of the Hellenistic period; Aristarchus of Samothrace (ca. 217–145 BCE), nicknamed Homericus, who placed philology on solid ground and gave us the text of Homer we know today; Eudorus (fl. 25 BCE), the first figure whom we may call a Middle Platonist; Galen (129–ca. 199 CE), the most famous physician of the Roman period; and Plotinus (205 to 269–270 CE), the founder of Neoplatonism. The most surprising omission from a modern perspective in this account is the absence of the royal library. Why didn’t Strabo mention it, especially since he appears to know about it in earlier contexts?115 While there are different explanations – silence always opens the door to multiple interpretations – the best explanation is that it had been severely damaged or destroyed during the Alexandrian War.116 The 109 Pliny, Nat. 5.62 estimates that the royal quarter took one-fifth of the city. On the royal quarter, see Mieczyslaw Rodzeiwicz, “Ptolemaic Street Directions in Basilea (Alexandria),” in Bonacasa et al., Alessandria e il mondo ellenistico-romano, 227–35. 110 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.8. Diodorus Siculus 17.52.4 also mentions the palace and the development of the royal quarter. 111 Ammianus 22.16.15. 112 Pliny, Nat. 3.9.62. 113 For a recent treatment, see Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, “Das Museion und die Große Bibliothek von Alexandria,” in Georges, Albrecht and Feldmeier, Alexandria, 65–88. 114 Ammianus 22.16.16–22 goes on at length about Alexandrian intellectuals and their impact. 115 Strabo, Geogr. 2.1.5 refers to Eratosthenes’s use of it; 13.1.54 refers to Theophrastus’s role in the library. 116 Plutarch, Caes. 49. See also Seneca, Tranq. 9.5 who is quoting Livy. Seneca suggests that 40,000 books burned, the lowest estimate of any source. Unfortunately, this section of Livy has been lost. On the library and its debated end, see Edward A. Parsons, The Alexandrian Library: Glory of the Hellenic World: Its Rise, Antiquities, and Destructions (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1952); Mostafa El-Abbadi, Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria (Paris: UNESCO/UNDP, 1990); and Luciano Canfora, The Vanished Library: A Wonder of

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royal library was not, however, the only library in Alexandria. There was a library in the Serapeum,117 the libraries of the Caesareum,118 and libraries in several temples.119 The second structure Strabo mentioned was Alexander’s tomb.120 He offered a brief history of the tomb explaining that Ptolemy I had taken Alexander’s body from Perdiccas whose own soldiers killed him when they were overwhelmed by Ptolemy. Ptolemy laid the body to rest in a gold sarcophagus, but Ptolemy Cocces plundered the tomb and replaced the gold with a glass structure.121 Ptolemy understood the importance of Alexander’s body. The debate over its final resting place has continued until the present with some implausibly suggesting that a recently discovered tomb in Amphipolis may have been intended for Alexander. The Amaseian returned once again to the Great Harbor where he assumed the perspective of someone sailing into the harbor and examining the structures on the shore or the left side of the ship.122 The first structure worthy of note is the royal palace on Lochias. Moving on we see “the inner royal palaces” with their groves and private artificial harbor nestled up against Lochias and the mainland. There is a small island named Antirhodes just off the coast. Beyond the royal palaces, we can see a theater in the background. This may not have been the only theater in Alexandria, but it was probably the main theater and the theater in which the pogram against the Jews broke out in 38 CE.123 Continuing along the coast we next come to the Emporium from which the Poseidium extended out into the harbor. Mark Antony had extended this elbow into the middle of the harbor and constructed a residence where he spent his final days, secluded like the famous misanthrope Timon.124 Strabo finished his tour of the Great Harbor by describing the structures that extended to the Heptastadion. These include the Caesarium that stood until the 10th century and whose obelisks stood until the 19th century. Philo the Ancient World, trans. Martin Ryle, Hellenistic Culture and Society 7 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). 117 Epiphanius, Weights and Measures 12; Ammianus 22.16.13 who appears to have confused this library with the library in the Museum. 118 Philo, Legat. 151. 119 Orosius, History against the Pagans 6.15.31. 120 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.8. The mss of Strabo refer to the σῶμα that has been emended to σῆμα in modern editions. See Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 2:32–33. A number of recent scholars have defended the reading of the ‘mss’ including Biffi, L’Africa di Strabone, 267; Radt, Strabons Geographika, 8:420; and Laudenbach and Desanges, Strabon, 128–29. 121 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.8. 122 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.9. 123 Philo, Flacc. 41, 74, 84–85, 95–96, 173. 124 See also Plutarch, Ant. 69.4–70.4; 71.2. On Timon, see Aristophanes, Av. 1549; Lys. 808–20; Cicero, Tusc. 4.25; Pausanias 1.30.4.

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described it in the 1st century as unique, “for there is no other area like the one known as Sebasteum (the Greek equivalent of Caesarium).” He continued, it is “a temple in honor of Caesar’s disembarking which, opposite the harbors providing outstanding moorage, is elevated, enormous, remarkable, and filled with dedicatory offerings to an extent which is not found elsewhere.” He then offered specifics: “surrounded all about with paintings, statues, silver, and gold; an area made most spacious with porticoes, libraries, banqueting halls, groves, gates, open spaces, open courts, and everything which is suited for the most lavish decoration imaginable.” He concluded by explaining that it functioned for “the hope of safety for those putting out to sea and those sailing into the harbor.”125 After the Caesarium, Strabo again mentions the Emporium which suggests that the market extended on both sides of the Caesarium. It was the place where customs were collected for imports. The final buildings were the warehouses and docks. We now have to imagine that we made our way through one of the sailing lanes of the Heptastadium to enter the Eunostus Harbor. In the 1st century CE, it would have been possible to sail through the diolkos or the slipway at the northern end of the Heptastadium.126 The most notable feature is the artificial harbor that Strabo mentioned earlier. Now he tells us its name: it was known as Cibotus or “the Box.”127 He reminds us that it is connected to Lake Mareotis by a canal.128 This is the only canal that Strabo mentions, but there may well have been others. These interior waterways created several problems that Dio Chrysostom mentioned when he complained about the filth and smell of the canals.129 The city wall must have been near the Cibotus since Strabo says: “Outside the canal there only remains a small part of the city. Next is the Necropolis, a suburb, in which there are many gardens, tombs, and structures set up for the embalming of the dead.”130 It was a universal Greek practice – and Jewish practice – to bury outside the city walls. Inside the canal and consequently inside the city walls was the Serapeum, a Ptolemaic temple measuring 558 feet (approx. 170m) north-south and 253 feet (77m) east-west that was later replaced by a more imposing structure in the Roman period.131 The older 125 Philo, Legat. 151. For a summary of what we now know about it see McKenzie, Architecture of Alexandria, 177–78. 126 See Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:21. 127 On the Cibotus, see Fawzi El-Fakharani, “The Kibôtos of Alexandria,” Studi Miscellanei 28 (1991): 21–28 who suggests that it was originally built in the Pharonic period. 128 Pliny, Nat. 5.63 describes the size of Lake Mareotis and mentions the canal that connected it to the Canobic branch of the Nile. 129 Dio Chrysostom 32.15. 130 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.10. 131 Pausanias 1.18.4 called the Serapeum at Alexandria the most famous Serapeum in Egypt; and Ammianus 22.16.12 describes it in extravagant terms.

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sacred buildings that had once dominated this section of the city had fallen into disuse as a result of new construction at nearby Nicopolis, 30 stadia or 3.4 miles (5.6 kilometers) away.132 The final section of Strabo’s tour does not move in an orderly sequence which is unfortunate since it makes locating the structures he describes difficult. He mentions the Gymnasium with its porticoes that extended for more than a stadium or two hundred yards and which, like the theater, was a significant locale during the pogrom against the Jews.133 It may also have been where Philo and his brother went through their ephebate, although it was undoubtedly not the only gymnasium in the city. Claudius closed the doors to the gymnasia of Alexandria to Jews when he denied them city citizenship in his famous letter of 41 CE.134 The other structure worth noting is the Paneion, a structure mentioned only by Strabo. The geographer described it in these words: “a human built height in the shape of pinecone, resembling a rocky hill, that offers ascent through a spiral path. From the summit one can see the entire city lying below it on all sides.”135 One wonders how often Strabo climbed the summit himself. He explained that it was possible to see all of Alexandria from this point, including the major east-west thoroughfare that ran “from the Necropolis past the Gymnasium all the way to the Canopic Gate.”136 The road continued to the hippodrome until it reached Nicopolis, where Augustus reduced the final forces of Antony and Cleopatra.137

3. Significant Omissions

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Strabo went on to provide a brief summary of the history of Alexandria, but this is the extent of his description of the city proper. There are a number of features of the city that Strabo does not describe that we wish he had. Let me mention a few.138 Strabo mentioned the court, but no other administrative buildings such as the City Hall or bouleuterion and the Civic Dining Hall or Josephus, B.J. 4.659 gives the distance of 20 stadia vs. 30 stadia in Strabo. Philo, Flacc. 34 the mob ridiculed Agrippa in the gymnasium and, in 36–37, crowned Carabas. Cf. also Legat. 135 which mentions the theft of a chariot devoted to a royal Egyptian woman. 134 CPJ II 153. There is a great deal of literature on the events of 38–41 CE. For a recent analysis with bibliography, see Bradley Ritter, Judeans in the Greek Cities of the Roman Empire: Rights, Citizenship and Civil Discord, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 170 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 77–183. 135 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.10. 136 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.10. 137 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.10. On the final battle, see Plutarch, Ant. 74.3–86.5. 138 In this paragraph, I am following the lead of Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:29–37. 132

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prytaneion. They were presumably close to the agora, but we do not know where the Hellenistic agora was other than to guess that it would have been in the center section of the Hellenistic city. Similarly, we would like to know where the citadel that stood in the palace area was located.139 Strabo was also relatively unconcerned about the cemeteries. He mentioned the necropolis on the west side of the city that today is known as Gabbary but skipped any reference to the four areas east of the city that today are known as Chatby, El-Ibrahimiya, Hadra, and Mustafa Pasha. The first two are east of Cape Lochias close to or adjacent to the shore, the third is south of these, and the fourth is further east on the coast.140 This evidence is important to us since all of the early Ptolemaic inscriptions about Jews that we have come from the necropolis of El-Ibrahimiya on the east side. This suggests that Apion may well have been correct that the Jews settled in the northeast section of the city. The Alexandria opponent of the Jews wrote, “they settled beside the sea where there was no harbor, right where the waves crash into the shore.”141 This was the area immediately to the east of Cape Lochias, within the city walls, but outside the protection of Pharos. This was probably the Delta Quarter mentioned by Philo and Josephus.142 We should not think that this was a ghetto in the modern sense, but it reflects the widespread tendency of groups of foreigners to settle in a common area. Other Jewish examples in Egypt include Oxyrhynchus,143 Apollinopolis Magna where they also lived in the Delta quarter,144 and perhaps Arsinoe.145 Philo explained that there were a total of five sections in the city (“There are five sections of the city named after the first letters of the alphabet”).146 Pseudo-Callisthenes has an expanded version of the same division.147 We can identify some of the major concentrations of population. The Jews lived on the far northeast. The central section was the royal quarter and was likely inhabited by AlexandriMentioned in Let. Aris. 181. See Plate 2 in William Horbury and David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt: With an Index of the Jewish Inscriptions of Egypt and Cyrenaica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 141 Apion in Josephus, C. Ap. 2.33. 142 Philo, Flacc. 55–56; Josephus, B.J. 2.488, 495; Ant. 14.117 (citing Strabo); C. Ap. 2.34–35; CPJ II 158a, ll. 11–18. 143 CPJ II 423. 144 CPJ II 194, 209, 212, 213, 216, 221, 328, 329, 331, 334, 344, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 356, 358, 363, 371, 372. 145 CPJ I 134. 146 Philo, Flacc. 55. 147 Pseudo-Callisthenes 1.32. Bäbler, “Zur Archäologie Alexandrias,” 7, suggests that the quarters were relatively even: “Die Quartiere der Stadt waren regelmäßige Rechtecke von 310 m x 277 m, in denen sich insulae von 44 m Bereite und 88 m Tiefe befanden; wahrscheinlich bervorzugte man Peristylhäuser, eine Architekturform, die man in den großem Grabanlagen reflektiert findet.” 139

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ans and Romans. Rhakotis was likely located near the Serapeum and was the area where native Egyptians resided. This leads us to the issue of the city’s population. In his summary of the history of Alexandria, Strabo referred to Polybius’s description of the population of the city in three groups: the Egyptians, the mercenaries, and the Alexandrian citizens. Polybius was not impressed by any of the three, although he thought that the final group was better than the first two who appeared to have few redeeming civic virtues.148 Polybius did not mention the Jews as a separate group, although he may have included them in his second category. Strabo elected not to augment Polybius in this case, even though he must have been aware of the large number of Jewish residents during his time in Alexandria.149 In another context, Strabo estimated that Alexandria and Antioch were roughly the same size.150 Others made it larger. For example, Diodorus Siculus claims that the city had a free population of 300,000. Dio Chrysostom reduced all argumentation with the sweeping claim that Alexandria was the most populous city of all.151 Achilles Tatius went one step further and exclaimed that the size of the city “was greater than a continent and residents more numerous than a nation.”152 The ancients were not the only ones to debate the size of the population. Modern estimates have varied widely. Based on the census figure of Diodorus Siculus, Michael Rostovtzeff estimated the total population to be 1,000,000.153 P. M. Fraser agreed that it was 1,000,000 at the time of Strabo but thought that it expanded to 1,500,000 by the time of Josephus, a little more than a century later.154 More recently, Diana Delia has placed the total population at 500,000–600,000,155 a figure echoed by R. S. Bagnall and B. W. Frier in their study of the demography of

Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.12. Strabo, Geogr. 16.2.35–39 offered a positive assessment of the origins of Judaism. Bezalel Bar Kochva, The Image of the Jews in Greek Literature: The Hellenistic Period, Hellenistic Culture and Society 51 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 355, wrote: “This excursus is the most enthusiastic account of the origins of the Jewish people to have been written by a non-Jewish ancient author.” Bar Kochva argues that Strabo’s account is based on Hecataeus of Abdera (Diodorus Siculus 40.3.1–8) mediated through Poseidonius (ibid., 355–98 and the appendix by Ivor Ludlam, 525–41). 150 Strabo, Geogr. 16.2.5. 151 Dio Chrysostom 32.47. Cf. also 32.29, 35, 37, 41, 87, 94. 152 Achilles Tatius, Leuc. Clit. 5.1. 153 Michael Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1941), 2:1138–39. 154 Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 2:171–72n358. 155 Delia, “Population of Roman Alexandria,” 272–92, esp. 284, 288, 290. 148

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Roman Egypt.156 While we will probably never have a completely reliable figure, we are on terra firma to suggest that Alexandria was a large city and can probably also say that it was second in size only to Rome. The Jews probably constituted a significant number of residents. Philo wrote of the five districts that “two of these are called Ἰουδαϊκαί because most of the Jews reside in them; however, not a few Jews also live scattered about in the other (districts).”157 In another context he claims that “there are many prayer houses in each part of the city.”158 Precisely how many Jews were living in Alexandria at this time is difficult – if not impossible – to compute. Philo estimates their number in Egypt to be 1,000,000, surely an exaggerated figure. Still, it makes the point that they were numerous. Diana Delia drew attention to a textually problematic fragment from the Acts of the Alexandrian Martyrs that refers to 180,000 after a reference to 173 elders.159 She suggests that this refers to the Jewish population of Alexandria and its environs.160 Whether her interpretation of the fragment is correct or not, her assessment of the Jewish population is probably not too far from the mark if Philo’s comments about the spread of the Jews throughout the city are accurate. There is other literary evidence that supports the large size of the Jewish population. Josephus claims that Tiberius Julius Alexander’s troops slew 50,000 Jews in Alexandria.161 Talmudic traditions claim that the Great Synagogue in Alexandria sometimes held double the number of Jews who left Egypt with Moses!162 While we have to take these cum grano magno salis, they all point to a significant population. In my judgment, it is likely that the Jewish population of Alexandria was larger than the total population of Jerusalem.

4. Conclusions

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While speculation about the population size will continue, it is safe to return to Strabo and remember that he began his description with the statement that Alexandria was “the largest and most important” part of Egypt.163 By largest, 156 Roger S. Bagnall and Bruce W. Frier, The Demography of Roman Egypt, Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time 23 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 54. 157 Philo, Flacc. 155. 158 Philo, Legat. 132. 159 The standard edition is Herbert A. Musurillo, The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs: Acta Alexandrinorum (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954; repr., New York: Arno, 1979). 160 Delia, “Population of Roman Alexandria,” 286–88. 161 Josephus, B.J. 2.487–98. 162 y. Sukkah 5.55a. Cf. also t. Sukkah 4.6; b. Sukkah 51b. 163 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.6.

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he meant its population. By importance, he meant economically, politically, and socially. However, he did not consider it the best city of his day; he reserved this assessment for Rhodes.164 Diodorus differed and wrote, “Alexandria is counted by many to be the leading city of the inhabited world. For in beauty, size, the amount of revenue, and luxury goods it far exceeds other cities.”165 Josephus referred to its vast population, wealth, and size.166 More than three centuries later, Ammianus Marcellinus could still give voice to this sentiment. He wrote that “Alexandria is the crown of all communities.”167 Not everyone agreed. On another occasion, Diodorus more soberly wrote: “among most it is counted as the first or second city in the inhabited world.”168 Josephus and Dio Chrysostom considered it the second city to Rome.169 In the 2nd century CE, Lucian thought that it held third place after Rome and Antioch.170 By the 4th century it had slipped to fifth place in Ausonius’s ranking of cities.171 However one might have assessed cities in the ancient world, Strabo’s claim that it is “the largest and most important” part of Egypt is undoubtedly accurate for the 1st century BCE and CE.

Appendix: Strabo 17.1.6–10 6 Since Alexandria and its environs constitute the largest and most important part of this topic, we must begin with it. The coastline for those sailing west from Pelusium as far as the mouth of the Canobic branch is some one thousand and three hundred stadia172 – that we have called the base of the Delta. From there to the island of Pharos is an additional one hundred and fifty stadia.173 Pharos is an oblong island that is exceptionally close to the mainland and forms a harbor with two mouths. For the shore forms bays, having thrust two points into the sea. The island is located between these, closing up the bay. For it is situated in length parallel to the bay. The eastern of the points of Strabo, Geogr. 14.2.5. Diodorus Siculus 17.52.5. See also SHA, Firm. 8.5–8, on the industry and wealth of the Alexandrians. 166 Josephus, B.J. 2.385. This was in the speech of Herod Agrippa II to dissuade his compatriots from revolting against Rome. The point was that if a city like Alexandria was occupied by Rome, Jerusalem had no chance to succeed in a revolt. 167 Ammianus 22.16.7. 168 Diodorus Siculus 1.50.7. 169 Josephus, B.J. 4.656; Dio Chrysostom 32.35. 170 Lucian, Pseudol. 21. 171 Ausonius, Ordo nob. urb. 11. 172 Ca. 149.4 miles or 240.7 kilometers. 173 Ca. 17.2 miles or 27.8 kilometers.

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Pharos lies closer to the mainland and to the point opposite it that is known as Point Lochias and forms a harbor with a mouth requiring precision. For in addition to the narrowness of the intervening pathway, there are also rocks – some submerged and others exposed – that make the surf that crashes in from the sea rough at every hour. The point on the island is a rock that is surrounded by the sea and has a tower amazingly constructed out of white stone with multiple stories; it has the same name as the island. Sosastras of Cnidus, a friend of the kings, dedicated this for the safety of sailors, as the inscription says. For since the coastline was without a harbor and low on both sides, and additionally had reefs and shallows, there needed to be some sign high aloft and bright for those sailing in from the sea so that they could accurately gauge the entrance to the harbor. The western mouth is also not easy to enter; however, it does not require as much care. It forms the other harbor that is known as Eunostos. It lies in front of the artificial and closed in harbor. For the harbor that has the entry on the side of the tower of Pharos that we have mentioned is the Great Harbor. These harbors (Eunostus and the artificial harbor) are contiguous (with the Great Harbor) in the deep part, separated from it (the Great Harbor) by a promontory known as the Heptastadium. The promontory is a causeway from the mainland that extends to the western part of the island leaving only two avenues to sail into the Eunostos Harbor and these have been bridged over. This work was not only a causeway to the island, but also an aqueduct when it was built. But now the god Caesar laid it waste in the war against the Alexandrians since it was used by the kings. A few sailors live near the tower. The Great Harbor is, in addition to being beautifully closed in by the promontory and nature, of such a depth that the biggest ships can moor at the peer and is divided into many harbors. The former kings of the Egyptians were happy with what they had and were completely uninterested in imports. They were prejudiced against all who sailed, most particularly the Greeks – for they were pillagers and coveters of the land of others due to the lack of their own. They set up a guard in this place and ordered the guard to turn back those who approached. They gave them as a residence, so-called Rhakotis, that is now part of the city of the Alexandrians. It lies above the docks but was formerly a village. They gave the environs around the village to herdsmen who were also able to prevent outsiders from entering. But when Alexander came and saw the advantages of the site, he decided to wall the city at the harbor. Writers recorded a sign of the good fortune that later came to the city that accompanied the plan of the founding. As the architects were marking out the line of the perimeter with white chalk, the chalk ran out. When the king arrived, the officials gave part of the barley that had been prepared for the workers by means of which the majority of the streets were laid out. They say that this this was considered to have occurred as a good sign.

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7 The advantages (of the site) are various. For the land is enclosed by two seas: the one on the north is called the Egyptian Sea, the one on the south is Lake of Mareia which is also called Mareotis. The Nile fills this by means of many canals, both from above and from the sides. Through these canals many more goods are imported than from the sea so that the lake harbor was wealthier than the ocean harbor; here exports from Alexandria are much greater than imports. Someone who was in Alexandria or Dicaerchia174 and saw the merchant ships at their arrival and departure would know how much heavier and how much lighter they sailed to here and from here. In addition to the wealth from the goods brought into each port – into the ocean harbor and into the lake harbor – the fresh air is also worth noting. It occurs because it is washed by water on both sides and because of the advantage gained through the rising of the Nile. For other cities that are situated on lakes have heavy and suffocating air in the heat waves of summer. For the lakes become marshy along the shorelines as a result of the evaporation caused by the sun’s heat. Consequently, when the dirty moisture rises, the air that is breathed is unhealthy and leads to pestilential diseases. But in Alexandria when summer begins, the Nile is full and fills the lake as well and does not allow any marsh to make the rising air harmful. Then the Etesian winds175 blow from the north and from so great a sea that the Alexandrians pass the summertime most pleasantly. 8 The shape of the layout of the city is like a chlamys whose long sides are washed by water, with a diameter of approximately 30 stadia.176 The isthmuses are the sides, each of seven or eight stadia,177 confined by the sea on one side and by the lake on the other side. The whole city is divided up by roads suitable for horses and chariots, but two are the broadest, extending for more than a plethrum in width,178 and divide one another into two sections and at right angles. The city has both the most beautiful public spaces and royal palaces that comprise one-fourth or even one-third of the enclosed area of the city. For each of the kings, just as he loved to add some adornment to the public monuments, so he would build a residence at his own expense in addition to those that exist so that the word of the poet is true: “There is building upon building.”179 All are connected both to one another and to the harbor, even those that lie outside it.

Puteoli. Annual winds. 176 Ca. 3.4 miles or 5.6 kilometers. 177 Ca. 8/10ths to 9/10ths of a mile or 1.3 to 1.5 kilometers. 178 100 feet. 179 Homer, Od. 17.266. 174 175

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The Musaeum is part of the royal quarter. It contains a walkway, an exedra,180 and a large building in which the dining table of the scholars of the Musaeum is located. This group has a common treasury and a priest over the Musaeum who was formerly appointed by the kings, but now by Caesar. The so-called Soma181 is also part of the royal quarter which was an enclosure in which the tombs of the kings were located and that of Alexander. For Ptolemy Lagus seized the body (of Alexander) pre-empting Perdiccas as he was bringing it from Babylon and turning towards this place. Ptolemy was motivated by greed and a desire to win Egypt. What is more, Perdiccas perished, killed by his own soldiers when Ptolemy arrived and shut him up on a deserted island. So Perdiccas died impaled by sarissae182 when his own soldiers attacked him. But the royals who were with him, both Aridaeus and the children of Alexander and his wife Roxanne left for Macedonia. Ptolemy took the body of Alexander and buried it in Alexandria where it still lies; however, not in the same sarcophagus since the present one is glass but Ptolemy laid him in a gold sarcophagus. The Ptolemy who was nicknamed “Cocces”183 and “Pareisactus”184 plundered it when he arrived from Syria, but he was immediately expelled so that his plunder became unprofitable to him. 9 As one sails into the Great Harbor, the island and the tower of Pharos is on the right hand side, and, on the other side, are the reefs and the promontory of Lochias that has a royal palace. As one sails in further, on the left there are the inner royal palaces that are continuous with those on Lochias and that have numerous and different types of residences and groves. Lying below these is the artificial and hidden harbor, a private harbor of the kings. There is also Antirhodes, a small island lying opposite the artificial harbor, that contains a royal palace and a harbor. They named it so that it would rival Rhodes. Lying above the artificial harbor is the theater. Then comes the Poseidium, an elbow projecting from the so-called Emporium, that has a temple of Poseidon. To this elbow, Antony added a promontory jutting out into the middle of the harbor. On the point of it he built a royal residence that he named Timonium. This was his final act when abandoned by his friends he departed for Alexandria after the failure at Actium. He determined to spend the rest of his life Timon-like, a life that he would spend bereft of all friends. Then comes the Caesarium, the Emporium, and the warehouses. After these are the docks until the Heptastadion. These are the parts that belong to the Great Harbor.

A large hall with recesses and seats. See Vitruvius 5.11.2. I have kept the reading of the mss over the modern emendation of σῆμα. 182 These were the long speers used in Macedonian phalanxes. 183 Scarlet. 184 Lit. “introduced secretly.” Perhaps usurper.

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Alexandria according to Strabo

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10 Next is the harbor of Eunostos after the Hepatastadion. Above this is the artificial harbor that they call Cibotus185 and that also has docks. Within this there is a navigable canal that extends all the way to Lake Mareotis. Outside the canal there only remains a small part of the city. Next is the Necropolis, a suburb, in which there are many gardens, tombs, and structures set up for the embalming of the dead. On the inner side of the canal are the Serapeum and other old precincts that have been nearly been abandoned because of the construction of new buildings in Nicopolis. For they have an amphitheater, a stadium, and the quinquennial games are held there. The old buildings are of little value. To put it in a summary, the city is full of public structures and temples. But the most beautiful of these is the Gymnasium that has porticoes more than a stadium in length.186 In the middle of the city are the courthouse and the groves. There is also a Paneion, a human built height in the shape of pinecone, resembling a rocky hill, that offers ascent through a spiral path. From the summit one can see the entire city lying below it on all sides. The broad street extends from the Necropolis past the Gymnasium all the way to the Canobic Gate. Next is the so-called hippodrome and other adjacent structures until the Canobic canal. After passing through the hippodrome one comes to Nicopolis that has a settlement on the sea no smaller than a city. It is thirty stadia from Alexandria.187 Augustus Caesar honored this place because it was here that he conquered in battle those who had come out against him with Antony. When he took the city at the first assault, he forced Antony to commit suicide but took Cleopatra into his custody alive. A short time later she also took her own life in prison secretly by the bite of an asp or by poisonous ointment (for it is related both ways). The result was that the rule of the Lagonids that had endured for many years was ended.

The Box. 606 feet and 9 inches. 187 Ca. 3.4 miles or 5.6 kilometers. 185 186

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Whose “Glory of Alexandria”? Monuments, Identities, and the Eye of the Beholder1 BALBINA BÄBLER 1. Introduction

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“La gloire d’Alexandrie,” the glory of Alexandria, was the title of a very successful exhibition two decades ago; another, some years later, touted the “sunken treasures” of the city.2 The almost mythical ring of the name of a city that was once a center of learning and culture and home of the ancient world’s most famous library as well as – with its colossal lighthouse, the Pharos – of one of its seven wonders stands in stark contrast to what is left of its glory for us to behold today. The decline of Alexandria began already in Late Antiquity, when fighting between the troops of the Palmyrene queen Zenobia and the Roman emperor Aurelian irretrievably damaged the city. Moreover, the old cults did not peacefully and gradually peter out in Alexandria as in most ancient cities like e.g., Athens, but many of the famous pagan places fell victim to a fanatical Christian mob, most notably the Serapeum 392 CE, at this time the greatest library of the city and the remaining center of pagan paideia.3 In the early Middle Ages the rise of the sea level flooded the harbor and part of the royal quarters of the city. But it was the modern development and building activities since the 19th century that destroyed or covered almost all the

1 First thoughts on the subject were conceived for the conference “Nomos zwischen Identität und Normativität” (Münster, 26.3–28.3.2015). The whole article has been thoroughly revised and expanded in connection with my work at the Collaborative Research Centre 1136 “Bildung und Religion” of the University of Göttingen (sub-project A 02). I am very grateful to the editors Benjamin Schliesser (University of Berne), Jan Rüggemeier (University of Zurich), Thomas J. Kraus (University of Zurich), and Jörg Frey (University of Zurich) for the opportunity to publish the aricle in their volume. 2 La gloire d’Alexandrie (Paris: Musée du Petit Palais, 7 mai – 26 juillet 1998). See also Franck Goddio and Manfred Clauss, eds., Ägyptens versunkene Schätze (Munich: Prestel, 2006). 3 Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, “Das Museion und die große Bibliothek von Alexandria,” in Alexandria, ed. Tobias Georges et al. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 65–88 (87–88).

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ancient structures.4 Although excavations and research not least in the harbor time and again yielded spectacular finds of sculpture, architectural parts or small finds like jewelry and household items, most of the pieces were no longer in their original context and often even dumped there from another part of the city. The best explored parts are those that were situated outside ancient Alexandria like cisterns and necropoleis.5 At the edge of the modern city a late antique quarter with houses, shops, workshops, and an odeion has been excavated during the last decades.6 It seems that the city center had shifted to this site between the 5th and the 7th century CE. When Alexander the Great founded the city in 332/1 BCE at the place of the Egyptian village Rhakotis, the architect Deinocrates of Rhodes created seven main streets leading from West to East with a North-South distance between them of 280 m and eleven leading from North to South with a West-East distance between them of ca. 330 m. The city’s main artery, twice as broad as the others, was the so-called Canopic road, a splendid boulevard lined by porticoes where triumphal processions as well as religious festivals took place. It remained the backbone of Alexandria until modern times.7 The city was divided in five districts designated by the letters Alpha to Epsilon. The most noble residential area, also called Broucheion, was situated east of the royal palaces. Others were mostly ethnic neighborhoods, as is to be expected in a multi-ethnic, multireligious society (more on that below).

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2. Written Sources and Material Remains Being without reliable bearings when it comes to the exact topography of the city center of whose buildings no securely identified remains exist, we have to turn to literary sources. Our main written source for the topography, urbanistics, and architecture of ancient Alexandria in the 1st century CE is the geographer Strabo of Amasia (ca. 63 BCE – 25 CE). In 29–26 BCE he joined Aelius Gallus on his mission as governor of Egypt and spent a few years in Alexandria, where he used the great During the creation of the seafront by French engineers in 1890 the ancient remains in the area were either used as a filling for the new coastline or deposited elsewhere, see Balbina Bäbler, “Zur Archäologie Alexandrias,” in Georges et al., Alexandria, 3–27 (4–5). 5 Bäbler, “Archäologie Alexandrias,” 19–22. 6 Diana Delia, “The population of Roman Alexandria,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 118 (1988): 275–92 (279). On this part of the city see now Tomasz Derda et al., eds., Alexandria: Auditoria of Kom el-Dikka and Late Antique Education (Warsaw: Warsaw University, 2007); Bäbler, “Archäologie Alexandrias,” 23–27. 7 Christopher Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 82–83; Delia, “The population,” 276–77.

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library and probably wrote one of his historical works.8 He therefore certainly had first-hand knowledge of the place. Archaeologists often tend to regard Strabo’s descriptions as a kind of “travel-guide” for the material still extant and as a provider of information on what is lost today. Yet Strabo is not a neutral source; what he includes or leaves out in his narrative is influenced by his origin, education, and culture as well as by his intended audience. Strabo was a well-educated Greek from a noble Pontic family that had inclined towards Rome during the Mithridatic wars, and he was probably even a Roman citizen himself.9 He stayed in Rome from about 20 BCE until at least 7 BCE and presents the Romans as the central political and military power in his work. He writes however from a Greek point of view: His account of myths, lists of scholars and special reverence towards Homer express a sense of Greek cultural superiority.10 His readers were Greeks and Romans. Jews, let alone Egyptians, were certainly not people Strabo could have imagined as an audience for his work. In his Geography he refers only once to the Jews, and only to note what he holds to be their particularly strange customs that stem from their superstition (δεσιδαιμονίαι), that is abstinence from meat and the performance of circumcisions and excisions.11 The mention of vegetarianism and ἐκτομαί (meaning genital mutilations of women)12 show clearly how little acquainted he was with them. Very obviously, Jews were for Strabo among the stranger kind of barbarians and certainly not a part of Alexandria that should be taken into account. He shows next to no interest in their history and culture but just mentions what seem to him to be particularly “un-Greek” customs. Strabo, therefore, would see the monuments of Alexandria as signs of the glory of Greek culture and paideia. We often tend to forget that this is only part

8 Daniela Dueck, Strabo of Amasia: A Greek Man of Letters in Augustan Rome (London: Routledge, 2000), 20–21; Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, “Did it burn or not? Caesar and the Great Library of Alexandria: A new look at the sources,” in Quattuor Lustra: Papers celebrating the 20th anniversary of the re-establishment of classical studies at University of Tartu, ed. Ivo Volt and Janika Päll (Tartu: Tartu University Press, 2012), 56–74 (59). 9 Dueck, Strabo of Amasia, 1–8, 85. 10 Dueck, Strabo of Amasia, 156–59, 161–65: Strabo’s encyclopaedic approach that provides the reader with details from various fields of knowledge such as astronomy, geometry, medicine, history, poetry and others also shows the enkyklios paideia of an upper class Greek. 11 See the edition by Stefan Radt, ed., Strabons Geographika, 10 vols. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002–11), 4:340–42 (Strabo, Geogr. 16.2.37); Dueck, Strabo of Amasia, 77–78, see also ibid. 71–72: In his History, Strabo apparently inserted a small digression on the Jews when writing on the Roman general Lucullus putting down a Jewish revolt in Cyrene: Jews were originally from Egypt, but spread everywhere in the oecumene, and had special territories and autonomy in Alexandria (FGH 91 Frag. 7). 12 Also elsewhere attributed erroneously to the Jews by Strabo, see Radt, Strabons Geographika, 8:324.

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of the story. In this case, however, for some of the monuments we have a source written from another point of view: About two generations after Strabo, Philo of Alexandria (ca. 20/15 – 50 CE), an inhabitant of the city, gives an account of events he witnessed there in 38 CE. We do not know much about Philo’s personal life; he was certainly a member of the Hellenized Jewish elite in Alexandria and very probably a Roman citizen. His brother Alexander was a leading official of the Jewish community in Alexandria, and his nephew Tiberius Iulius Alexander had a brilliant career in the Roman army and administration.13 Philo himself obviously had a thorough Greek education and profound knowledge of Greek philosophical traditions, perhaps even contacts to the philosophical schools of Alexandria.14 In this article, however, he is not of interest as a philosopher and exegete of the Bible, but as a historian and eyewitness. His treatise against Flaccus who was in charge of the Roman administration when the riots of 38 CE erupted shall be read against the background of the urbanistic context and the buildings where some of the most harrowing scenes took place. Of course Philo is in some ways as much biased as Strabo was, especially against the Egyptians (more on that below).15 Moreover, Maren Niehoff has shown that holding the views of a Greek intellectual does not automatically mean adopting Greek identity. While Philo enthusiastically praises certain Greek philosophers and poets of the Classical period he leaves no doubt that they derived their ideas either directly from Scripture or reached the same insights as Moses. In some of his writings he even paints a rather negative image of talkative and ostentatious Greeks as opposite to the practical wisdom of the Jews.16 What people were Philo’s audience? Per Bilde considers the treatise against Flaccus to be a warning to the Roman élite; he senses a menacing undertone directed primarily against the new Roman emperor Claudius and the new imperial prefect in Egypt, Pollio, who are advised not to change the previous positive Roman policy towards the Jewish people – which Caligula had done – , as this would cause serious problems to Rome. But it seems highly doubtful to me that Philo could have gone that far, and to avoid trouble in a tinderbox like Alexandria would have been the policy of any sensible governor and emperor anyway.17 Niehoff’s view that Philo’s audience were his immediate friends and 13 David T. Runia, “Philon von Alexandria,” DNP 9 (2000): 850–56 (850); Maren Niehoff, Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture: Text and Studies in Ancient Judaism (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 8. 14 Runia, “Philon,” 851. 15 Niehoff, Philo, 45–74. 16 Niehoff, Philo, 137–58, here esp. 139–40, 147. 17 Per Bilde, “Philo as a Polemist and a Political Apologist: An Investigation of his Two Historical Treatises Against Flaccus and the Embassy to Gaius,” in Alexandria: A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot, ed. Georg Hinge and Jens A. Krasilnikoff (Aarhus: Aarhus Uni-

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intellectual community seems therefore more plausible.18 Van der Horst also thinks that Philo’s main audience was Jewish, since he says at the very end of his treatise that Flaccus’s fate – the governor was punished and killed in the end – was “an indubitable proof that the help which god can give was not withdrawn from the nation of the Jews.”19 But on the other hand, Philo also explains several times Jewish customs or historical facts that would have been obvious to Jewish readers; he might therefore have thought a pagan audience or readers not familiar with the situation in Alexandria at least possible.20 A particular challenge is the Egyptian view: this we can access only indirectly, mainly from archaeological material and the cultural policy of the Ptolemaic rulers (see below). How do we bring literary sources and material remains together? Is it even possible to create a comprehensive narrative from them? And what do they tell us about the interactions of the people? The inhabitants of the city did not live separated from the material context and the topography that surrounded them. Can we, by combining Strabo’s descriptions and Philo’s accounts of certain events in the city, guess at how they perceived the monuments of glory of the Hellenistic kings? Did the monumental signs of Greco-Roman paideia that shape our perception of Alexandria have the same, or any, meaning at all for them? How did religious or ethnical minorities react to them? Was the urban space perceived differently by them? On the other hand, were Greeks, Egyptians, Jews conditioned differently by the space that surrounded them?21 I am aware that no objectivity is possible and that the modern reader and viewer is equally influenced by his own paideia, his upbringing and background. The aim of this article is merely to challenge some traditional views by shifting the focus from the architectonical and cultural wonder to 1. what happened in this place, 2. to the ethnical and / or religious affiliation of the beholders of the monuments. Both aspects are in my view closely linked.

versity Press, 2009), 97–114 (111–12). Bilde mainly refers to Philo, Flacc. 48, where Philo mentions that the Jews, though “naturally well-disposed for peace (πεφυκότες εὖ πρὸς εἰρήνην)” could not be expected to remain quiet when they feared to lose their synagogues. This seems to me apologetic rather than menacing. 18 Niehoff, Philo, 13. 19 Pieter W. van der Horst, ed., Philo’ s Flaccus: The First Pogrom, Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 191, 15, 244–45. 20 E.g., van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus, 25, 37, 116. See Bilde, “Philo,” 109 and esp. van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus, 151–216 on the genre of Philo’s In Flaccum. 21 Some of these questions have been discussed by Laura S. Nasrallah, Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: The Second-Century Church amid the Spaces of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), by analyzing texts of Christian writers of the 2nd century CE.

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3. Mouseion and Library: Fortress of Greekness or Multicultural University? Somewhere in the royal quarter of Alexandria the Mouseion and the sema, the tomb of Alexander the Great, were located (Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.8).22 The Mouseion – research institution and place of learning under the patronage of the Muses – was founded by the philosopher and politician Demetrius of Phalerum under the reign of Ptolemy I (367/6–283/2 BCE) and contained also the famous library.23 Most likely this building was not far from the theater, but its exact location is very much debated, since no material remains have yet been found. The discussion therefore focuses mainly on the question of how much damage the fire in the harbor provoked by Caesar’s troops caused in 48 BC: If the whole library was destroyed (as claimed, e.g., by Plutarch, Caes. 49.6), the library would have been situated not far from the harbor, or else a fire-storm must have ravaged the whole royal quarter, which is, however, not confirmed by any ancient source. Indeed the library seems to have functioned on its accustomed level during the Roman imperial epoch, with the emperor Domitian even sending scribes to Alexandria to copy manuscripts to supply the libraries of Rome (Sueton, Dom. 20). This would indicate that the library was out of range of the fire that perhaps burned mostly the papyrus scrolls already loaded on ships for transport.24 Who would visit the Mouseion and the library, and which inhabitants of the city would have called the library “theirs”? Some time ago Herwig Maehler argued that the library was an expression of the radically hellenocentric cultural politics of the Ptolemies. According to him, the institution had been founded to protect Greek culture from amalgamation with or even absorption by the surrounding Egyptian culture.25 Because the Greeks had, in fact, recognized the superiority and high age of the Egyptian culture they meant to erect “a fortress to protect the cultural heritage of Greece,”26 and exclude everything Egyptian. But this view seems questionable in many ways: Accepting the very high age of the Egyptian culture meant not necessarily acknowledging also its superiority. Herodotus provides an impressive description of Egyptian customs that are just the opposite from everything that was thought standard in Greece, Radt, Strabons Geographika, 4:428. Goddio and Clauss, Ägyptens versunkene Schätze, 370–84; Nesselrath, Das Museion, 66–77; Bäbler, “Zur Archäologie,” 8–13. 24 For a careful analysis of all the written testimonies see Nesselrath, “Did it burn or not?,” 56–74; Nesselrath, Das Museion, 80–85: In the end the modern scholar has to decide whether the rather pro-Caesarian Livius or Plutarch, who is obviously dependent on anti-Caesarian earlier literature, seems more trustworthy. 25 Herwig Maehler, “Alexandria, the Museion, and cultural identity,” in Alexandria, Real and Imagined, ed. Anthony Hirst and Michael Silk (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 1–14 (10–11). 26 Maehler, “Alexandria,” 7. 22

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which is not necessarily meant as a compliment.27 The Greeks’ attitude towards the Egyptians was ambiguous at least (see below), and many of their strange customs seemed so downright appalling to them that certainly no protection against their takeover was necessary. On the other hand, a certain amount of assimilation to a surrounding culture is not incompatible with preservation of one’s own, and to some extent this is exactly what the Ptolemies practiced. The kings of the dynasty cast themselves as successors of the Egyptian pharaohs and created their image after the Egyptian model. Portraits of the Ptolemaic kings show them in Pharaonic outfit, while the queens were often assimilated to the goddess Isis.28 Alexandria was fitted up with Egyptian monuments, preferably from Heliopolis, the city of the sun god Re. These historical pieces were not collected at random, but represented a choice of the most distinctive artworks.29 The Ptolemaic kings even restored and funded Egyptian temples in order to find a modus vivendi with the Egyptian elite.30 Already Mostafa El-Abbadi has painted a totally different image of the role, goal and function of the library of Alexandria:31 He sees it as a comprehensive cultural enterprise, where also non-Greek literature was translated and where Greek scholars also studied Egyptian wisdom and culture. This picture seems to fit much better what is known about Ptolemaic culture and policy. Already Ptolemy I, the founder of the library (or at least Demetrius of Phalerum) arranged for the inclusion of the Torah among the books of the library and for its translation into Greek, as told by the Letter of Ps.-Aristeas (9–10).32 Even after removing the legendary exaggerations of the story, the wide-ranging cultural interests of the founders of the library of Alexandria are still discernible in the text.

27 Herodotus 2.35.2–3; Egyptian customs were a favourite object of ridicule in Attic comedies, see Balbina Bäbler, Fleissige Thrakerinnen und wehrhafte Skythen: Nichtgriechen im klassischen Athen und ihre archäologische Hinterlassenschaft (Leipzig: Teubner, 1998), 70– 71. 28 Jan Quaegebeur, “Cleopatra VII and the Cults of Ptolemaic Queens,” in Cleopatra’s Egypt: Age of the Ptolemies, ed. Robert S. Bianchi et al. (New York: The Brooklyn Museum Press, 1988), 41–54; Goddio and Clauss, Ägyptens versunkene Schätze, 170–79. 29 Sabine Schlegelmilch, Bürger, Gott und Götterschützling: Kinderbilder der hellenistischen Kunst und Literatur (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009), 235; Goddio and Clauss, Ägyptens versunkene Schätze, 132–38. 30 Jean-Claude Goyon, “Ptolemaic Egypt: Priests and the Traditional Religion,” in Bianchi et al., Cleopatra’s Egypt, 29–32. 31 Mostafa El-Abbadi, “The Alexandrian library in history,” in Hirst and Silk, Alexandria, 167–83. 32 The name Aristeas is probably a pseudonym. The letter is dated by scholars between the 3rd century BCE and the early 1st century BCE; it must in any case be earlier than Flavius Josephus who paraphrases the work.

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Most certainly Jewish scholars, philosophers and poets frequented the library; where else would Philo have found the necessary material for his allegorical interpretations of Biblical writings?33 Also Egyptian history must have been accessible in the library: Manetho, a high priest of Heliopolis, was commissioned by Ptolemy I to write a History of Egypt (Aegyptiaca) in three volumes. Manetho also used Egyptian sources for this endeavor.34 The Hellenistic poets who were at the same time heads of the library had scholarly interests that belie the notion of the institution as a fortress of Hellenocentrism. A most interesting case is Callimachus (320–245 BC), a poeta doctus with extensive interests in antiquarian, ethnological and historical subjects who also wrote a treatise on Customs of the Barbarians and a collection of Mirabilia. The material for research of this kind must have been available in the library of Alexandria. We cannot tell if Callimachus had any knowledge of Egyptian, but it is more than likely that the library contained translations of Egyptian literature as they did of the Torah. 35 Sabine Schlegelmilch has shown that there are elements in Callimachus’s hymns that may be interpreted as allusions on Egyptian cults; moreover, in some of his epigrams and fragmentarily preserved texts he explicitly mentions Egyptian gods and temples.36 Members of the educated Egyptian elite might therefore have enjoyed Callimachus’s educated and allusive poetry. They certainly were not in any way excluded from the library. Scholars interested in

33 See also Maren Niehoff, “Jüdische Bibelinterpretation zwischen Homerforschung und Christentum,” in Georges et al., Alexandria, 341–60 (345–46), who shows the deep roots Alexandrian Jews had in Greek culture and their intimate familiarity with Homer and Greek Tragedy. 34 FGH 609. The work was largely ignored by later Greek historians; our main source are the fragments preserved by Alexander Polyhistor (born ca. 110 BCE in Miletus). On works of other Near Eastern Cultures in the library of Alexandria see El-Abbadi, “The Alexandrian library,” 170–71. 35 Schlegelmilch, Bürger, 235 pointed out that a ruler of foreign origin must have had an interest in the literature of his subjects, if only for strategical and political reasons: the books might have contained dangerous ideologies. In contrast, Maehler, “Alexandria,” 7 argues that ancient authors attesting the Alexandrian library to contain “all books in the world” automatically meant only Greek ones. His “proof” for this view is that Ps.-Aristeas (Let. Aris. 9–10 = Eusebius, Praep. ev. 8.2.1–4) mentions the writings of the Old Testament separately as τὰ τῶν Ἰουδαίων νόμιμα but does not mention anything Egyptian. This seems to me to be too far-fetched, since Aristeas (who was very probably Jewish, since he describes the interior of the temple in Jerusalem, 84–91) is explicitly concerned with the Jewish Law (the Pentateuch) and had simply no reason to mention Egyptian literature in this context. 36 Schlegelmilch, Bürger, 235 with n421.

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Egyptian history and culture may have consulted Egyptian priests as Herodotus had done long ago.37 And very probably the library was not entirely reserved for just the cultivated elite. There is at least a hint that this part of the city was also a place with which the lower classes might have identified themselves: Idyll 15 of Theocritus (written between 287 and 279 BCE) describes the enormous crowd that visits the Basileia, the royal quarter of Alexandria, that are open to public on the occasion of the festival of Adonis (vv. 44–45, 59, 65, 72). The people admire the porticoes, the luxurious tapestries hanging between the columns and the artworks that are exhibited (vv. 78–87). We see the luxury of the palace, the art and architecture through the eyes of two garrulous women, Gorgo and Praxinoa, who want to hear the festival song performed by a famous prima donna, and comment on everything they encounter along their way. We get an amusing glimpse of Alexandria’s multicultural population when a bystander mocks the two women’s Doric accent and bids them shut up. Praxinoa, not cowed at all, informs the man that they are immigrants from Syracuse, but Corinthian by extraction, “like Bellerophon himself” (vv. 87–88), and brashly tells him to buy a slave if he wants to give orders. Although the plebs certainly did not share in the intellectual pursuits of the scholars in the Mouseion and the library, there were parts of the royal quarter they were allowed and able to enjoy. Obviously the celebrations when these places were open to all were very popular, since the two ladies constantly complain how crowded it is and how difficult to get in. While Gorgo and Praxinoa were certainly no connoisseurs of art, their pride and joy in the buildings and the exhibited works of art is genuine, and they look at them as part of their life and culture. All signs point therefore to the library as a unique multicultural, maybe even multireligious landmark of Alexandria, of which Greek, Jewish and Egyptian inhabitants may have been proud. The theater and the gymnasium, however, are another story.

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4. Places of Paideia in Alexandria: How Jews Became from Shareholders to Objects

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Two important buildings of ancient Alexandria – the gymnasium and the theater – played a crucial role in the tragic events of 38 CE. In what follows I will argue that the pogrom of 38 CE transformed these two landmarks of the city forever in the eyes of at least a considerable part of its population.

Interaction between Egyptian priests and Greek scholars is also assumed by El-Abbadi, “The Alexandrian library,” 170. 37

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A very short introduction must provide the historical background of the pogrom of 38 CE:38 Since 32 CE the governor of Egypt had been Aulus Avilius Flaccus, an intimate of the emperor Tiberius. According to Philo, he was a capable and competent administrator.39 When Tiberius died in 37 CE, however, Flaccus developed symptoms of what might today be called depression (Flacc. 9), and his state of misery and apathy was obviously aggravated when two important people in Rome he had put his trust in – Tiberius’s grandson Tiberius Gemellus and the praetorian prefect Macro – were put to death by the new emperor Gaius (Caligula). Flaccus then became susceptible to the influence of three anti-Semitic advisers whom Philo calls “a popularity-hunting Dionysius, a paper-poring Lampo, an Isidorus, faction leader, busy intriguer, mischief contriver and a name which has gained special currency – state embroiler (Διονύσιοι δημοκόποι, Λάμπῳνες γραμματοκύφωνες, Ἰσίδωρι στασιάρχαι, φιλοπράγμονες, κακῶν εὑρεταί, ταραξιπόλιδες· τοῦτο γὰρ κεκρατηκέ πως τοὔνομα).” (Flacc. 29).40 They managed to convince Flaccus that he needed a powerful intercessor to propitiate Caligula (Flacc. 2). The best advocate in this case would be the city of Alexandria that would certainly intercede if Flaccus would surrender and sacrifice the Jews (Flacc. 23).41 Apparently Flaccus was even more receptive to this suggestion since he was jealous of Agrippa I, the newly appointed king of Judaea whom he saw honoured by the emperor and who had been staying a few days in pomp and glory in Alexandria on his way back from Rome (Flacc. 26–31).42 Now the situation suddenly became critical. A public show of mockery of the new Jewish king was the spark that ignited the tinderbox when Flaccus did nothing to stop it. 4.1 The Gymnasium

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The actual victim of the cruel mockery was a harmless lunatic called Carabas43 in the gymnasium of the city. Strabo calls this institution the most beautiful of 38 A detailed analysis is provided by the exellent study of Sandra Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots of 38 C.E. and the Persecution of the Jews: A Historical Reconstruction (Leiden: Brill, 2009). 39 Van der Horst, Philo‘s Flaccus, 1–8; Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots, 76–78. 40 The English translation of Philo is from the Loeb Classical Library: Philo, Volume IX, trans. Francis Henry Colson, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941). For the role of Isidorus see Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots, 143–44. 41 Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots, 145–50 thinks that this “alliance of Flaccus with the Alexandrians” is a construction of Philo and argues that the governor’s change in his attitude towards the Jews rather reflected a change in imperial policy. 42 On Agrippa in Alexandria see Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots, 151–58. 43 For the discussion of the name, see van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus, 128: It has sometimes been derived from a supposed Aramaic word karaba (“cabbage”), but also the Aramaic name Barabbas has been conjectured.

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all the public buildings in the city; it was located in the center, next to the courts of justice and the sacred groves and was adorned with porticoes of more than a stadium in length.44 Carabas usually spent day and night in the street, naked,45 and was therefore an easy target for the mob: The rioters drove the poor fellow into the gymnasium and set him up high to be seen of all and put on his head a sheet of byblus spread out wide for a diadem, clothed the rest of his body with a rug for a royal robe, while someone who had noticed a piece of the native papyrus thrown away in the road gave it to him for his sceptre. And when as in some theatrical farce (θεατρικοῖς μίμοις) he had received the insignia of kingship and had been tricked out as a king, young men carrying rods on their shoulders as spearmen stood on either side of him in imitation of a bodyguard. (Flacc. 37–38)

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Now the gymnasium was certainly one of the pillars of Greco-Roman paideia; as Gruen puts it: “… [it] marked the capstone of higher education in Greek cities all around the Mediterranean and beyond. That institution … represented the cultural and intellectual elite of the Hellenistic word.”46 To what extent did Jews participate in this pre-eminently Greek institution? Ephebic lists of Cyrene, the Carian city of Iasos, Korone in Messenia and Hypaipa near Sardis dating from the 1st century BCE until the 3rd century CE contain unmistakable Jewish names like Elazar, Jesus, and Judas.47 Cohen moreover points out the description of Jewish ephebes in Jerusalem who wore the Petasos, the broad-rimmed Greek hat (2 Macc 4:12); the passage, however, criticizes harshly the introduction of Greek customs by the high priest Jason who had moreover received his office from the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes by unsavory means.48 There are indications that the gymnasium in Jerusalem mentioned 2 Macc 4:7–15 was established exclusively for the Jews of the city; the situation in Jerusalem should therefore probably not be general-

44 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.10; Peter M. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 29; Manfred Clauss, Alexandria: Schicksale einer antiken Weltstadt, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2004), 26. 45 van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus, 129 thinks that Philon points out that Carabas was going about γυμνός because that would have made his circumcision obvious, a practice that was often ridiculed by gentiles. Shaye J. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 44 however argued that in the eastern parts of the Empire, at least until the 1st century CE, circumcision was practiced by non-Jews as well and thus was no marker of Jewish identity. In any case, Carabas’s / Barabas’s name or nickname would have been enough to brand him. 46 Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 123. 47 Gruen, Diaspora, 123–24. 48 Cohen, The Beginnings, 31. The name Jason (which also appears in the abovementioned ephebic lists) is probably a Hellenization of a Jewish name like Josiah, see Gruen, Diaspora, 123.

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ized.49 To be Hellenized was certainly a precondition to visit the gymnasium. The ephebes therefore probably came from privileged social classes of both the Greek and Jewish part of the population.50 Especially in Alexandria, educated Jews would have been thoroughly Hellenized; the author of the Letter of Ps.-Aristeas as well as Philo himself are familiar with Greek institutions. Indeed Philo even shows an intimate knowledge of the athletic training practiced in the gymnasia, the contests held there and their organization. He often uses images of athletic contests or training in his writings.51 Obviously, he takes it for granted that his readers would understand these kind of metaphors and allusions.52 Participating in Greek paideia was much more matter of social status than of religious affiliation. It was this place of paideia that first turned into the scene of an obscene mimos, and worse was to follow. 4.2 The Theater The theater was situated on a hill above the harbor overlooking the island of Antirrhodos. According to Julius Caesar it was close to the royal palace and had access to the harbor and other dock installations.53 This was not only a place of education and culture but of entertainment for everyone; in Roman times the bawdy mimos had become a favorite. Philo explicitly accuses the mob of taking authors of mimoi as their teachers for the disgusting mockery of the poor fool in the gymnasium (Flacc. 34). Jews certainly were among the public in the theater.54 Philo visited the theater often and the author of the Letter of Aristeas makes a Jewish sage say that witnessing decent dramatic productions (θεωρεῖν ὅσα παίζεται μετὰ περιστολῆς) was a See the discussion of the passage by Kirsten Groß-Albenhausen, “Bedeutung und Funktion der Gymnasien für die Hellenisierung des Ostens,” in Das hellenistische Gymnasion, ed. Daniel Kah and Peter Scholz (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2004), 313–22 (317–19). 50 Groß-Albenhausen, “Bedeutung,” 317–18. 51 Gruen, Diaspora, 125 and 309n150 with a list of passages from various works of Philo. 52 Aryeh Kasher, “The Jewish Attitude to the Alexandrian Gymnasium in the First Century A.D,” American Journal of Ancient History 1 (1976): 148–61 (155–56), is more sceptic and thinks that the overall attitude of Jews towards the Greek gymnasium was negative, although he concedes that some of the Jews “probably did not avoid taking an active part in such institutions.” 53 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.9; Caesar, Bell. civ. 3.112; Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:23; Clauss, Alexandria, 20. 54 In Caesarea Maritima there is evidence that Jews and pagans enjoyed together the mimoi that were the main performances in the theater, and Jews even were among the actors, see Balbina Bäbler, “Für Christen und Heiden, Männer und Frauen: Origenes’ Bibliotheksund Lehrinstitut in Caesarea,” in Das Paradies ist ein Hörsaal für die Seelen: Institutionen religiöser Bildung in historischer Perspektive, ed. Peter Gemeinhardt and Ilinca TanaseanuDöbler, SERAPHIM 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 10 (with earlier literature).

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fitting way to spend one’s leisure hours.55 Interestingly, the only tragic poet of the Hellenistic epoch of whose work fragments are preserved is the Jewish poet Ezekiel, who wrote a piece with the title Exagoge.56 This play was most probably created in Alexandria, although the exact date of its composition (2nd half of the 3rd to beginning of the 1st century BCE) cannot be determined. While the main source of the action is the Septuagint, strong influences of Aeschylus and Euripides can be seen.57 Whether the piece was actually ever put on stage remains a matter of debate. Ernst Vogt argued that the author meant to create a decent alternative for Hellenized Jews to sometimes scandalous Greek Tragedy and that this aim made sense only when the Exagoge was actually performed. Otto Zwierlein however listed several points against an actual performance, mostly changes of the place and jumps over periods of time that would go totally against all rules of classical drama and would have prevented the play from being a cohesive whole. Even if we might allow for more liberty from classical models in Hellenistic Alexandria, several actions on stage like the burning thornbush or Moses’s staff changing into a huge snake would have been very difficult to manage (although we should perhaps not underestimate what Alexandrian technique was able to do, as well as the imagination of the public).58 I wonder if Ezekiel did not simply mean to tell stories from the Bible in an entertaining form especially for secular, Hellenized Jews who were not particularly avid readers of the Bible anymore. The really observant ones would probably have shunned the theater anyway. The interest of gentiles in the subject was certainly slim;59 if anything, a private performance might be conceivable but hardly one in Alexandria’s main theater. In any case Ezekiel’s tragedy shows that education meant taking part of Greek paideia and sharing its institutions – figuratively and in specific buildings. All aspects of Greek culture were familiar to the Jews of Alexandria. 55 Let. Aris. 284; Philo, Ebr. 177 describes the different effect music has on individuals from his observations in the theater, where he happened to be often (πολλάκις); see also Gruen, Diaspora, 125. 56 269 verses of the tragedy are preserved in Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.29.4, 12, 15; 9.29.14, who had them from Alexander Polyhistor’s work Περὶ Ἰουδαίων; since they are from different parts of the piece its composition can be more or less reconstructed, see Ernst Vogt, Tragiker Ezechiel, JSHRZ IV/3 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlag, 1983), 115–16. 57 Vogt, Tragiker Ezechiel, 117. 58 Otto Zwierlein, Die Rezitationsdramen Senecas (Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1966), 138–46; he also points out (ibid., 142–43) that the public would have had to endure during one entire act a silent Moses on the stage, while God’s voice from the off would have prophesied all the plagues that were to come. See the discussion in Bardo Gauly et al., eds, Musa tragica: Die griechische Tragödie von Thespis bis Ezechiel: Ausgewählte Zeugnisse und Fragmente griechisch und deutsch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 216–19. 59 Although Vogt, Tragiker Ezechiel, 117 argues that certain omisssions (e.g., of the command of circumcision) were made with respect to the non-Jewish part of the audience.

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But this very place where people of different ethnicities and religions shared a common, if not very high-minded pastime could also bring forward the worst side in human beings. Either only a generation or about 70 years after the pogrom of Alexandria (depending on the still debated date of the work60) the famous rhetor and philosopher Dio of Prusa gave a speech in this theater that reads in part like a severe harangue against a horde of ill-mannered boors: Already in his first sentence, when begging his audience to “kindly be serious for a brief while” he calls them “frivolous and heedless” and claims that they exhibit “a complete lack of seriousness” (1–2). Later he states that even if his address had accomplished nothing else, “it has at any rate rendered you this service, and no small one – one hour of sobriety!” (30) The Alexandrians’ disorders in the theater show their lack of self-control and reason, and “the folly of their misconducts knows no bounds” (73).61 If this sounds rather entertaining and like “business as usual” that could have been applied to the audiences of spectacles in many Greco-Roman towns, there are more sinister hints throughout the speech: Already at the beginning he describes how people in a democracy can change from reasonable and gentle into a dreadful beast (δεινὸν … θηρίον) and a monster (τέρας) (27–28). Later he is even more explicit: While Orpheus tamed savage beasts by his songs, the performers in the theater of Alexandria “turned you human beings into savages and made you insensible to culture” (οὗτοι δὲ ὑμᾶς, ἀνθρώπους ὄντας, ἀγρίους πεποιήκασι καὶ ἀπαιδεύτους) (62); an “unbridled mob” (ἀκόλαστος ὄχλος) he finally calls them with a quotation from Euripides (Euripides, Hec. 607). We do not know if Dio had the pogrom of 38 CE in mind, nor indeed if he had any particular event in mind, as riots in Alexandria were not uncommon. Yet Dio’s diagnosis of the city’s population and its behavior in the theater The 32nd Discourse To the People of Alexandria has been dated by Hans von Arnim, Leben und Werke des Dion von Prusa (Berlin: Weidmann, 1898), 435–36 in the year 105 CE as it seems to contain several allusions to the reigning emperor Trajan with whom Dio got into contact after his second stay in Rome. This date had been unanimously accepted until C. P. Jones in the early 1970s proposed to date the discourse in Vespasian’s epoch, because he identified the Κόνων mentioned in § 72, the Roman troup commander who quelled a riot not long before, with L. Peducaeus Colonus (Κόλων in Greek Documents) who was in command in Alexandria from 70 to 72/3. See Christopher P. Jones, The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), 36 and 134 for a summary of the arguments. Arnim, Leben und Werke, however interpreted the description of the riots in § 72 as part of Dio’s “educational mission” in support of the Roman emperor, a role he could have played only after having achieved a personal relationship with the emperor. Nasrallah, Christian Responses, 270 accepts the earlier date, but does not discuss it; several other scholars, however, have rejected it, see the discussion in Giovanni Salmieri “Dio, Rome, and the Civic Life of Asia Minor,” in Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy, ed. Simon Swain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 54–92 (82n142). 61 All English translations are from the edition Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 31–36, trans. James W. Cohoon and Henry L. Crosby, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940).

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forms a chilling background to what happened next after the governor Flaccus had been unable or unwilling to put an end to the humiliation of Carabas in the gymnasium, where the mob had obviously been testing how far it could go. Encouraged by the government’s inaction they now shed their last restraint and clamored in the theater for the installation of images of the Roman emperor in the synagogues (Flacc. 41), something which amounted to a desecration of the holy places. This was especially malicious as Jews in the diaspora usually took care to be loyal to the local government and were willing to honor the emperor to a certain amount. When Flaccus caved in and had images of the emperor installed in the synagogues the situation predictably got completely out of control – for which development, equally predictably, the Jews were held responsible. The theater then became the setting of the most repulsive atrocities: Flaccus had thirty-eight elders of the Jewish “senate,” an official body in charge of Jewish affairs in Alexandria appointed by the emperor, arrested and straightway put in bonds marshalled a fine procession through the middle of the market of these elderly men trussed and pinioned, some with thongs and others with iron chains, and then taken into the theatre, a spectacle most pitiable and incongruous with the occasion. Then as they stood with their enemies seated in front to signalize their disgrace he ordered them all to be stripped and lacerated with scourges which are commonly used for the degradation of the vilest malefactors, so that in consequence of the flogging some had to be carried out on stretchers and died at once, while others lay sick for a long time despairing of recovery. (Flacc. 74–75)

Here again, like already in the gymnasium before, one of the most humiliating parts for the victims was probably their public nakedness.62 Somewhat later, torture and slaughter became part of the regular theater schedule, staged like a play and with a cynical division in “acts”:

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The first spectacle from dawn till the third or fourth hour consisted of Jews being scourged, hung up, bound to the wheel, brutally mauled and haled for their death march through the middle of the orchestra. After this splendid exhibition came dancers and mimes and flute players and all the other amusements of theatrical competitions. (Flacc. 85)

One is reminded of executions of convicted criminals in Roman theaters where the capital punishment was sometimes staged as an enactment of a myth in which the victims were forced to a degrading role-play set in a dramatic context.63

Cf. van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus, 170. Tertullian, for whom this practice proved the sacrilegious nature of pagan religion provides some gruesome examples (Tertullian, Apol. 15.4). See Kathleen M. Coleman, “Fatal charades: Roman executions staged as mythological enactments,” The Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990): 44–73.

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Jewish women could obviously not be distinguished by a bodily marker from non-Jewish ones64, and apparently many gentiles were seized by mistake. To find out the religious affiliation of the victims there was an especially cruel method: … then these onlookers at a show turned into despotic tyrants and gave orders to fetch swine’s flesh and give it to the women. Then all the women who in fear of punishment tasted the meat were dismissed and did not have to bear any further dire maltreatment. But the more resolute were delivered to the tormentors to suffer desperate ill-usage, which is the clearest proof of their entire innocence of wrongdoing. (Flacc. 96)

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Philo’s description of the onlookers’ behavior immediately recalls Dio’s diagnosis, but Philo’s choice of words – τύραννοι καὶ δεσπόται – is almost surprisingly mild compared to the fitting terms of τέρας and ἀκόλαστος ὄχλος. Gymnasium and theater had been part of the life of the Hellenized Jews of Alexandria. The theater offered entertainment for everyone, while the more educated part of the Jewish population would take part in the paideia of the gymnasium or send their children there. Like everyone else, they would have spoken Greek. As Cohen concludes, “Jews and gentiles in antiquity were corporeally, visually, linguistically and socially indistinguishable.”65 Apparently, on their part gentiles participated in the annual festival celebrated by the Alexandrian Jewish community, commemorating the completion of the Septuagint.66 There might even have been intermarriages, although the evidence for this is mainly indirect and may be open to question.67 Who was ultimately responsible for the turn of events in 38 CE? Gruen strives to exonerate Flaccus as far as possible, who, in his view, “can be crossed off the list of principal villains,” as he did not initiate the pogrom and surely did

64 Cohen, The Beginnings, 32. On the order of events in the treatise, see van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus, 185–86 (though presented only here, the scene belongs to ch. 85, where also the men’s suffering in the theater is told). 65 Cohen, The Beginnings, 37. Cohen’s thorough analysis of ancient sources showed that no Greek or Latin author identified Jews as distinctive because of their looks, clothing, speech, names or occupations; see esp. ibid., 25–68. 66 Philo, Mos. 2.41 describes a cheerful open-air festival on the beach in which everyone took part (οὐκ Ἰουδαῖοι μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ παμπληθεῖς ἕτεροι); Cohen, The Beginnings, 55. 67 Philo, Spec. 3.29 mentions the prohibition of intermarriage in Ex 34:16 and Deut 7:3 (although the passages in the Bible refer to the conquered Canaanites, the prohibition – from fear of contamination with heathenism – was naturally regarded as a general ordinance). Cohen, The Beginnings, 245 concludes that “Philo knew many Alexandrian Jews who intermarried or committed other forms of rebellion against the Jewish community,” which seems to me a rather far-reaching deduction from Philo’s passage; might it not be mainly a warning against such actions in the first place? van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus, 186 thinks that the gentile women arrested (see above) suffered this fate because they were found in a Jewish environment, possibly an indication of mixed marriages.

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not want it, but could not control the situation.68 He puts all the blame on the Egyptians, whose role, in his opinion, has been overlooked: According to him, they stood at the bottom of the social and political structure, and now seized an opportunity to vent their passions and lash out against those above them.69 While, however, the mob certainly consisted also of Egyptians, Gruen here seems to uncritically follow Philo’s own cultural and political agenda. Niehoff has impressively shown to what extent Philo describes the Egyptians as “Ultimate Other”70 in order to give them a key role in his construction of Jewish identity. In his picture of them he draws heavily on Greek authors, e.g., on Herodotus for their strange customs; his Biblical Egyptians are constructed after Aeschylus’s Persians, and thus he puts Greeks and Jews on the same side of the divide between barbarians and Hellenized people.71 Gruen takes the jealousy and envy Philo attributes to the Egyptians at face value and explains it on the grounds of their position in Alexandrian society, but Philo himself never discusses its nature and origin, he simply attributes it to the “Egyptian nature” (βάσκανον γὰρ φύσει τὸ Αἰγυπτιακόν, Flacc. 29). Philo’s characterizations of the Egyptians “agree to a striking extent with the Roman views on the Egyptians, which were overwhelmingly negative since Augustus’s propaganda campaign.”72 In this way, he integrates the Jews into Roman culture and directly associates them with the rulers of the known world.73 This does not excuse Flaccus, who totally failed in his administrative function, but if Philo paints him as depressed, weak and under bad influence rather than as really vicious himself, he avoids antagonizing potential Roman readers (if there were any, see above). But there is another argument that speaks against the Egyptians as mainly responsible for the pogrom: The places where the worst excesses of the pogrom took place as well as their staging were within the framework of Greco-Roman paideia and its most

Gruen, Diaspora, 59. Gruen, Diaspora, 63. But see, e.g., Haas, Alexandria, 98–99 who sees the main reason for the tensions in the respective relations of the Jewish and Greek communities with governing authorities. 70 This is the title of her chapter 2 (Niehoff, Philo, 45–74). 71 Niehoff, Philo, 50–59. One might perhaps add the mockery of Greek comedy that also targeted customs that seemed particularly absurd to the Greeks, especially the worship of animals (Timokles, frag. 1 K.-A.; Antiphanes, frag. 145 K.-A.), see Bäbler, Fleissige Thrakerinnen, 71. Cf. also Jan N. Sevenster, The Roots of Pagan Anti-Semitism in the Ancient World, NovTSup 41 (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 95. 72 Niehoff, Philo, 59. 73 Niehoff, Philo, 74. 68

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characteristic buildings. The mimos was not invented by the Egyptians! And the Egyptian mob was not so Hellenized as to frequent the gymnasium.74 Dio’s speech (see above) is clearly directed at Greek (or at least Greekspeaking) inhabitants of Alexandria. There were probably not many Egyptians who would enjoy the stage appearance of a Greek sophist. While the hostile Egyptian mob was certainly part of the problem, the bigger problem were the educated Greeks who should have known better, and the complete failure of the Roman authorities who should have controlled them. As Dio with keen perspicacity diagnosed, all it took was an occasion to turn cultivated Greeks into an ἀκόλαστος ὄχλος. The layer of civilization was as thin in 38 CE as it would be two millennia later. The paideia did not prevent those who regarded it as their proper heritage from becoming beasts, nor did it protect those who had assimilated themselves to it. From ancient writers we can learn the location and appearance of buildings. But after 38 CE a considerable percentage of Alexandria’s population would not simply have seen galleries, porticoes, race tracks and a scaenae frons with reliefs in these buildings, but sites of humiliation, torture and murder. A part of the inhabitants of the city were suddenly transformed from subjects taking part in paideia and fun into objects of the most cruel mimoi and stage-plays in the same buildings that would thus not have been simply the gymnasium and theater for them any more. If architecture is a medium of expression for a community,75 the Jews in Alexandria were made to understand in 38 CE in a most brutal way that they were no longer part of it, even if they were thoroughly Hellenized and had taken part in the activities of the gymnasium end enjoyed performances in the theater. But there was another impact on the whole aspect of the city as well. As has been mentioned above, there were five quarters labelled with the letters of the Greek alphabet in the city of Alexandria. Flavius Josephus (B.J. 2.495) locates the Jewish area on the coast in the neighborhood of the palaces, in an area where there was no harbor, that means probably immediately to the east of Cape Lochias, in a harborless area devoid of important public buildings.76 Modern scholars tend to point out that this was no “ghetto,” as it was no compulsory residential area outside of which Jews were not allowed to live, but an ethnic neighborhood deliberately chosen by those who wished to be closer to their

74 See also Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots, 182–86, who points out that several incidents could not have been carried out by a “casual mob,” but required familiarity with the gymnasium. 75 See Regine Hess, Emotionen am Werk: Peter Zumthor, Daniel Libeskind, Lars Spuybroek und die historische Architekturpsychologie (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2013), 23. 76 Achille Adriani, Repertorio d’Arte dell’Egitto greco-romano, 2 vols. (Palermo: Fondazione “Ignazio Mormino” del Banco di Sicilia, 1966), 2:239–40; Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:34–35, 2:108–10; Bäbler, Zur Archäologie, 7.

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relatives concentrated in particular areas.77 This was certainly the case before the pogrom of 38 CE, as is confirmed by Philo: The city has five quarters named after the first letters of the alphabet, two of these are called Jewish because most of the Jews inhabit them, though in the rest also there are not a few Jews scattered about. (Flacc. 55)

But at the end, with the anti-Jewish riots having gotten completely out of hand, the situation changed dramatically: From the four letters they ejected the Jews and drove them to herd in a very small part of one. The Jews were so numerous that they poured out over beaches, dunghills and tombs, robbed of all their belongings. Their enemies overran the houses now left empty and turned to pillaging them, distributing the contents like spoil of war, and as no one prevented them they broke open the workshops of the Jews … (Flacc. 55–56).

Quarter Delta as the living area was therefore not a deliberate choice but the consequence of a pogrom in the course of which the Jewish part of the population was forcefully displaced from their former residential quarters and squeezed into a place that was obviously too small and might well be called a ghetto.78 These events must have had a profound impact on the topography and urbanistics of the city: The distribution of the population across the living areas was severely disrupted and a vital part of the city was destroyed and certainly for some time abandoned. It was not only private dwellings and synagogues that were destroyed, but the whole social and economic life of Alexandria must have been disrupted:

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A still more grievous evil than the pillaging was the unemployment produced. The tradespeople had lost their stocks, and no one, husbandman, shipman, merchant, artisan, was allowed to practice his usual business (Flacc. 57).

Careful excavation might perhaps still yield signs of this destruction. No ancient author apart from Philo mentions the consequences and the change in the landscape of the city, as well as the probable impact on professional and business activities of the Jewish population. Modern scholars often take it for granted that the Jews just settled in quarter Delta, but this had not been so before 38 CE.

77 Sevenster, The Roots, 102; Cohen, The Beginnings, 56; Gruen, Diaspora, 69; Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots, 180. 78 See also van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus, 159 and Nasrallah, Christian Responses, 269– 70.

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5. Conclusion

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We tend to combine the available material and literary sources, often without looking close enough at the context and often not realizing that we are subtly biased by what we want to see, which is shaped by our own culture, upbringing and expectations on one hand, by the ancient authors’ background and intended audience on the other. Strabo saw the library, the gymnasium, the theater as an educated Greek of the Roman imperial epoch would see it. He is no voice for the people of Alexandria who very probably had a very different perspective on these buildings and institutions. While we have to take into account all available sources in the first place, we have to be (more) aware that what we see and read in texts and monuments and how we read it is determined also by our own paideia, taste and convictions. Is a theater in a Roman city in the East the place of performance of Greek tragedies, or of bawdy mimoi, or the site of torture and murder? We should also be more attentive to the lacunae and silences of our sources. They are still often taken as objective, although it has been a commonplace that large parts of society are mostly absent from them.79 For whom was the “glory of Alexandria” a glory? If we take a closer look, we will probably get contradictory or no answers at all. While many of Alexandria’s inhabitants would immediately have mentioned the library, the Mouseion or the Pharos as a matter of pride, for others there was probably little or no glory connected with the name of that city. It depends on from which side we look at the monuments.

79 It seems quietly taken for granted anyway that all geographical and historical narratives have come down to us only from a male perspective, but see, e.g., Nasrallah, Christian Responses, 56–59 with further literature.

Alexandria: What Does the So-Called Letter of Aristeas Tell Us about Alexandria? BARBARA SCHMITZ 1. “The First City of the Civilized World” (Diodorus 17.52.5) From its founding1 by Alexander the Great, Alexandria was known as the glittering metropolis,2 famed for centuries for its wealth, its architecture, its urbane possibilities, and its cosmopolitan atmosphere. “The city in general has grown so much in later times that many reckon it to be the first city of the civilized world, and it is certainly far ahead of all the rest in elegance and extent and riches and luxury,” wrote Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BCE (Diodorus 17.52.5). The Letter of Aristeas, for its part, speaks of Alexandria as the city “which surpasses all other cities in size and prosperity” (περὶ τὴν Ἀλεξάνδρειαν ὑπερβάλλουσαν πάσας τῷ μεγέθει καὶ εὐδαιμονίᾳ τὰς πόλεις (Let. Aris. 109). Few were able to resist the city’s appeal. This is true of the first-person narrator of Leucippe and Clitophon (2nd century CE),3 and of the younger Theon (2nd–3rd century CE), who in wonderful, grammaticallyincorrect Greek wrote a letter to his father with considerable irritation saying,

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Theon to his father Theon, greeting. It was a fine thing of you not to take me with you to the city! If you won’t take me with you to Alexandria I won’t write you a letter or speak to

1 Anna M. Schwemer, “Zur griechischen und jüdischen Gründungslegende Alexandriens,” in Alexandria, ed. Tobias Georges et al., COMES 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 175–92. 2 On Alexandria see: Peter M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972); Manfred Clauss, Alexandria: Eine antike Weltstadt (Stuttgart: Klett Cotta, 2003); Niall Finneran, Alexandria: A City & Myth (Stroud: Tempus, 2005); Nobert Hinske, Alexandrien: Kulturbegegnungen dreier Jahrtausende im Schmelztiegel einer mediterranen Großstadt, Aegyptiaca Treverensia 1 (Mainz: von Zabern, 1981); Günter Grimm, Alexandria: Die erste Königsstadt der hellenistischen Welt: Bilder aus der Nilmetropole von Alexander dem Großen bis Kleopatra VII., Antike Welt Sonderheft 1998,2 / Zaberns Bildbände zur Archäologie (Mainz: von Zabern, 1998); Michael Pfrommer and Ulrike Denis, Alexandria im Schatten der Pyramiden, Antike Welt Sonderband / Zaberns Bildbände zur Archäologie (Mainz: von Zabern, 1999); André Bernand, Alexandrie la Grande (Paris: Hachette, 1996); Georges et al., Alexandria. 3 Achilles Tatius 5.1.4–5.

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you or say goodbye to you; and if you go to Alexandria I won’t take your hand nor ever greet you again. That is what will happen if you won’t take me!4

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Alexandria very clearly had an overwhelming impact on its inhabitants and on visitors to the city over the centuries. Although Alexandria was the most famous Hellenistic city, it is explicitly mentioned with remarkable rarity in the Jewish literature of the Second Temple period. The Letter of Aristeas is one of the few Jewish writings that chose Alexandria as the setting of the plot and in it Alexandria is presented as the city in which the Jewish nomos is translated into Greek. Therefore, the Letter of Aristeas is the first text to describe, comprehensively,5 in the genre of diëgesis (Let. Aris. 1), how it came about that the Jewish nomos was rendered into Greek.6 In light of this outcome, the question arises, how is Alexandria, a city that was so important for the translation of the LXX, portrayed in the Letter of Aristeas? My question (what does the so-called Letter of Aristeas tell us about Alexandria?) means that my reflections will be deliberately focused on the literary level in order to examine the story world from a narratological point of view: What kind of image is drawn of Alexandria in the narrative world of the Letter of Aristeas?7 Besides the construct of time, the construct of space is one of the constitutive elements for establishing narrative worlds. In ancient as well as in modern literature, the construct of space of the story world can be purely fictive (e.g., Bethulia in the Book of Judith or Hogwarts in Harry Potter) or the plot can be embedded in a landscape or a city that the reader knows from his or 4 Cf. Joachim Hengstl, Griechische Papyri aus Ägypten als Zeugnisse des öffentlichen und privaten Lebens: griechisch-deutsch (Munich: Heimeran, 1978), nr. 82, 209–10. 5 Cf. to start with Aristobulos, frag. 2. 6 Philo then follows this narrative (Philo, Mos. 2.25–44), as does Josephus, Ant. 12.2 and later traditions. 7 Cf. Ruth Ronen, “Space in Fiction,” Poetics Today 7 (1986): 421–38; Monika Fludernik, Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology (London: Routledge, 1996); Marie-Laure Ryan, “Cognitive Maps and the Construction of Narrative Space,” in Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences, ed. David Herman, CSLI lecture notes 158 (Stanford: CSLI Publications, 2003), 214–42; Marie-Laure Ryan, “Space,” in Handbook of Narratology, ed. Peter Hühn et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009), 420–33; David Herman, “Storyworld,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, ed. David Herman et al. (London: Routledge, 2005), 569–70; Barbara Piatti et al., “Mapping Literature: Towards a Geography of Fiction,” in Cartography and Art, ed. William Cartwright (Berlin: Springer, 2009) 177–92; Katrin Dennerlein, Narratologie des Raumes, Narratologia 22 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009); David Herman, Basic Elements of Narrative (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009); Carolin Frank, “Prolegomena zu einer historischen Raumnarratologie am Beispiel von drei autodiegetisch erzählten Romanen,” Diegesis 3 (2014), http://www.diegesis.uni-wuppertal.de/index.php/ diegesis/article/view/166/219; Carolin Frank, “Raum,” in Grundthemen der Literaturwissenschaft – Erzählen, ed. Martin Huber and Wolf Schmid, Grundthemen der Literaturwissenschaft (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018), 352–61.

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her own world (e.g., Alexandria in the Letter of Aristeas or London in Harry Potter). Literary writings therefore can play with these different levels: narrated space and the knowledge of the ‘real’ geography (as we perceive it). The depiction of cities in literary texts is of particular importance. For example, in Ulysses, James Joyce depicts a single day, June 16, 1904, in the life of Leopold Bloom. On this day, the protagonist wanders through Dublin. His wandering appears to be meandering, unplanned, and as if by chance. However, if one plots his apparently unplanned wanderings, it becomes clear that these wanderings through the city take the shape of a question mark. Although the wanderings are aimless as far as the protagonist is concerned, for readers such a construct of space can be a means of conveying background information, which, in turn, gives meaning to the events narrated, precisely via the ordering of the space.8 The contrast between Alexandria and Dublin also makes plain the methodological difficulties raised by the question of Alexandria in the Letter of Aristeas. Unlike Dublin, ancient Alexandria is known chiefly through literary texts and only a few archaeological digs. Unfortunately, we cannot wander through Alexandria with the Letter of Aristeas in hand (nor any other literary witness), as one can Dublin with James Joyce’s Ulysses (granted, with many limitations). But this does not mean that the question of the spatial ordering of Alexandria in the Letter of Aristeas is obsolete at all. Alexandria is not a fictitious, invented place. Rather, it is a real city which must have been familiar to many of the ancient readers of the Letter of Aristeas and a place that they had all heard about. This raises the (unfortunately unanswerable) question, what kind of picture would ancient readers have had in mind when they read the Letter of Aristeas?

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What do readers discover about Alexandria in the Letter of Aristeas? Which places are named? How can they be identified? How are they described? What is left out? 2.1 Alexandria, “the City”

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The first surprising observation is that Alexandria is never introduced by name in the Letter of Aristeas but is instead introduced as “the city” (ἡ πόλις, Let. Aris. 4): Aristeas states that he wishes to have an audience with the king concerning the Jews, who had been resettled by the father of the king who Clive Hart and Leo Knuth, A Topographical Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses (Colchester: Wake Newsletter Press, 1975), 26, see two question marks, whereas Frank Delaney, James Joyce’s Odyssey: A Guide to the Dublin of Ulysses (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1981), 50–51, sees only one. 8

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was the first to reign over “the city” and the land of Egypt (Let. Aris. 4). Neither the king nor his father are named in the text. Two related observations come to mind. On the one hand, the matter-of-fact way that Alexandria can be referred to as “the city” is indicative of a self-evident assumption that Alexandria is the metropolis, the city (cf. similarly in Let. Aris. 22, 109, and 111). The proper name “Alexandria” first appears later and almost incidentally in the Letter of Aristeas 109 and 173. On the other hand, it is assumed that readers will know who or what is intended by the terms “the king” and “the city.” In other words, it is clear from the beginning of the Letter of Aristeas that the text assumes an informed readership, who naturally knows that the events described take place in Alexandria, in the court of the Ptolemaic ruler. This familiarity with conditions in Alexandria is assumed again and again in what follows in the text. The manner in which the space of the narrated action is introduced in the text is a logical consequence of the communicative situation of the text. Aristeas writes a “narrative” (διήγησις) to Philocrates because Philocrates wants to hear “about the details and purpose of our deputation” (Let. Aris. 1, cf. 8)9. At the outset, the reader is brought into a communicative situation. Philocrates obviously knows about the embassy to Jerusalem and the desire to translate the Jewish nomos. He is now interested in the details that Aristeas shares with him. Therefore, Aristeas is both the “I-narrator” who tells the story and a character who is part of the action in this text. In the language of Gérard Genette, he is the intradiegetic-homodiegetic narrator.10 This text-internal communicative situation has consequences for the spatial construct. The I-narrator Aristeas does not have to explain within the text itself to his (text-internal) addressee Philocrates that they find themselves in Alexandria nor that the narrative is about the Ptolemaic palace and matters concerning the library of Alexandria. Of course, Alexandria is “the city” (ἡ πόλις, e.g., Let. Aris. 4). All of this can be assumed as well-known. For textexternal readers this means that they are also self-evidently incorporated into this communicative situation and it is assumed that they know what is meant when the embassy is mentioned or when figures such as “the king” or Demetrius of Phalerum are named. We can conclude from this that the audience for the text, if not from Alexandria, must have been one that was well-acquainted with the situation in Alexandria. The I-narrator Aristeas, however, is precise: it is perfectly accurate to designate Alexandria “the city” as distinct from Egypt (Let. Aris. 4). Alexandria was a distinct Greek city, it is Alexandria ad Aegyptum (Alexandria by Egypt) and thus not simply a city in Egypt. The Letter of Aristeas speaks therefore very precisely of “the city and the coun9 The translation of the Letter of Aristeas is adapted from Benjamin G. Wright, The Letter of Aristeas: ‘Aristeas to Philocrates’ or ‘On the Translation of the law of the Jews’, CEJL (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015). 10 Cf. Gérard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 248–52.

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try” (ἡ πόλις καί ἡ χώρα) when it comes to describing the realm of the Ptolemaic king (Let. Aris. 4 and 22). It is interesting that Alexandria is not only praised but also spoken about with ambivalence, including, in fact, the first time the city is mentioned by name in the letter (Let. Aris. 108–11): But in those cities that have great size and an accompanying prosperity, an abundance of population results, but the countryside is neglected, everyone is inclined towards individual enjoyment, all people being in constitution prone towards pleasure. This is what happened to Alexandria, which surpassed all other cities in size and prosperity. For those from the country who dwelled abroad there and stayed for a long time brought matters of trade into decline. Thus, so that they might not stay, the king commanded that no one could sojourn for more than twenty days. And to those who were in charge of business matters he similarly issued orders in writing that if it became necessary to summon anyone, a decision must be rendered within five days.111 Considering it very important, he ordered judges and their staffs into the districts, so that the farmers and agents, who were pursuing making money, might not diminish the city’s storehouse––I mean the income from agriculture.

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This section is found not in one of the parts of the Letter of Aristeas that take place in Alexandria, but rather, interestingly enough, in the section in which Jerusalem and Judea are introduced. This section marks itself as a “digression” (Let. Aris. 112).11 Alexandria is praised here in a stereotypical way, as the city “which surpassed all other cities in size and prosperity” (Let. Aris. 109). But, at the same time, a serious problem that confronts all growing cities is noted: the problem of urbanization and the concomitant abandoning of rural land. The voluntary migration to the city on the part of the population that used to live on the land leads to a decline in agricultural production. Fields lie fallow, which makes it difficult to supply the city with adequate food.12 A serious problem is thereby addressed. The praise for Alexandria as the city “which surpassed all other cities in size and prosperity,” is not merely an example of captatio benevolentiae, but is also a means of naming clearly a particular problem, the need of every great city for a stable source of food.13 The problem, which is even more serious for Alexandria because of its great size, is mitigated in the smaller city of Jerusalem because of its more moderate size (cf. Let. Aris. 105). In other words, despite the praise being heaped

11 Moses Hadas regards this digression as an example of the rhetorical figure synkrisis, a comparison, that shows “one thing is proved better or worse than another by systematic comparison of the qualities of both” (Moses Hadas, Aristeas to Philocrates [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951], 144). 12 See on this Wright, Aristeas, 222, and his text-critical choice of ἐπιξενούμενοι (voluntary immigration) from manuscripts O and T as opposed to ἀποξενούμενοι (forced migration). 13 Cf. Sylvie Honigman, The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria: A Study in the Narrative of the Letter of Aristeas (London: Routledge, 2003), 24.

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on the city, a challenge Alexandria faces is described as well. In comparison, Jerusalem appears as the ideal city.14 2.2 The Library The first site mentioned in the Letter of Aristeas in Alexandria is the library.15 But in the entire text the library is never the site of the action. Instead, it is only mentioned in connection with Demetrius of Phalerum, the head of the royal library (κατασταθεὶς ἐπὶ τῆς τοῦ βασιλέως βιβλιοθήκης Δημήτριος ὁ Φαληρεὺς, Let. Aris. 9). As surprising as this may be in terms of the translation project described in the Letter of Aristeas, the famous library of Alexandria is not a location for action. Furthermore, there is no link or exchange with the library, the Museion or other scholars in Alexandria. The library is introduced only when the function of Demetrius is mentioned. Furthermore, he is the only one in Alexandria who is involved in the translation project (cf. Let. Aris. 302).

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2.3 The Royal Palace The first place to be identified as a site of action in the Letter of Aristeas is not mentioned explicitly but has to be deduced from its context. The first scene is the conversation between Demetrius and the king concerning the acquisition of the Jewish nomoi (Let. Aris. 10–11). The scene immediately following describes how Aristeas goes to the king and intercedes in order to secure the release of the Jewish captives (Let. Aris. 12 and 20). In neither scene is there any explicit mention of a location, but it should be clear from the context that both Demetrius and Aristeas go to the king and not vice versa. The assumed location of the action is therefore the royal palace. This is then also the place where the decrees are drafted and carried out (Let. Aris. 21–27), where the order is given that Demetrius report on the copying of the Jewish books (Let. Aris. 28–33), where the letter to the high priest is composed (Let. Aris. 34–40), where his response is read (Let. Aris. 41–50), and where the gifts for the Jerusalem Temple are prepared (Let. Aris. 51–82). In other words: the entire first quarter of the Letter of Aristeas assumes the palace of the king with its audience hall and administrative rooms as the location of the action, even though these things are not described. In the Letter of Aristeas the palace is not mentioned as a place. Rather, the palace appears as a site of action for the figures who work there and for their areas of activity. Thus, many officials are named16 as well as the smooth-running and sophisticated administration with its requisite and highly organized archives.17 14 Cf. Sylvie Honigman, “La description de Jérusalem et de la Judée dans la Lettre d’Aristée,” Athenaeum 92/1 (2004): 93–94. 15 The word βιβλιοθήκη is found in the Letter of Aristeas in 9–10, 29 and 38. 16 There are “friends” of the king (Let. Aris. 45, 125, 209, 268, 318) and “family” (Let. Aris. 241), bodyguards like Sosibios or Andreas (Let. Aris. 12, 19, 40, 43, 123, 173), a

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In the Letter of Aristeas, this is followed by the trip of the embassy to Jerusalem (Let. Aris. 83–172), a section containing numerous detailed descriptions of location. After the return of the delegation of 72 Jewish scholars to Alexandria, it is reported that both of the Alexandrian leaders of the delegation, Andreas and Aristeas, are immediately brought before the king.18 The place of action is – again implicitly – the royal palace. The king invites the Jewish scholars to a first audience at once, an unusual procedure and therefore highlighted by the text itself (Let. Aris. 173–75). The significance of arrival of the scholars in “the city” is brought out by the second use of the name of the city, “Alexandria” (Let. Aris. 173, cf. 109). After the reception by the king, two further references to places are made: the king “commanded that the best lodgings near the citadel (ἄκρα) be given to them” (Let. Aris. 181). The royal akra, the citadel, is mentioned here in the Letter of Aristeas for the first and only time (Let. Aris. 181). The scholars are given lodgings in the vicinity of the akra, that is, lodgings immediately next to the akra. Those areas are identified by means of a few key words such as akra, audience rooms, etc., which, for those who are obviously very familiar with the details, evoke images and entire scenes. Those things that they pictured are things we can only reconstruct today fragmentarily and tentatively. After the scholars have been lodged in the immediate vicinity of the palace, preparations also begin for the symposium in the royal palace (Let. Aris. 181). The symposium begins on the following day and continues for seven days (Let. Aris. 184–294). We can scarcely imagine the setting for the first reception of the scholars and then the seven-day symposium. Callixenus of Rhodes’ description gives us some idea of what the premises in the palace complex must have been like. He wrote a work (now lost), On Alexandria (likely early 2nd century BCE), of which the fourth book is preserved in The Deipnosophists of Athenaeus of Naucratis (2nd century CE). In it Callixenus describes the spectacular procession (pompé), the royal barge,19 and the festival tent of Ptolemy II, that were part of the Ptolemaia initiated by Ptolemy I and Ptolemy II. The tent was likely erected somewhere in the akra (Athenae-

chief steward (Nicanor, Let. Aris. 182), a steward for guests (Dorotheos, Let. Aris. 183, 304), royal servants (Let. Aris. 40, 43, 186), a royal bank (Let. Aris. 22, 26, 33), different officials (Let. Aris. 110; 174; 271), magistrates (Let. Aris. 280), etc. 17 There are letters and memorandums (Let. Aris. 33–40, 321), edicts of the king (Let. Aris. 20–26), different reports (Let. Aris. 28, 283) and/or records (Let. Aris. 298). 18 Interestingly, the Letter of Aristeas does not say how the delegation travelled: by land or by sea? 19 Perhaps it is possible to see in the description of the royal barge of Ptolemy II, the Thalamegos, as a palace en miniature, evidence for the appearance of the palace complex. This is the view of Pfrommer, Alexandria, 117; on the reconstruction of the Thalamegos see ibid., 93–117.

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us, Deipn. 5.196a–197c).20 Even though information is missing and the details are puzzling,21 Callixenus’ description of the festival tent could give us an impression of how we (perhaps) could imagine the royal palaces and the ways in which they dramatized royal sovereignty. The description is of interest not only because, as in the Letter of Aristeas, events take place in the time of Ptolemy II, but also because it involves an event of comparable proportions: the festival tent is – according to Callixenus – furnished for a symposium with 130 participants and therefore has 130 couches. We should imagine that the symposium described in the Letter of Aristeas was of similar proportions; the participants included the 72 scholars from Jerusalem and the king, as well as an audience consisting of, for example, the philosophers and others who give speeches at the end of every day. On the last day, there were even more auditors from other cities (Let. Aris. 275).

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2.4 The Island The only other place named in the Letter of Aristeas apart from the royal palace complex is the island of Pharos. The island is identified only as “the island” (ὁ νῆσος; Let. Aris. 5; 301). The name “Pharos” is found nowhere in the Letter of Aristeas. Obviously, it is assumed that readers of the text will know that the island referred to is Pharos. The scholars repair to this island following the seven-day symposium plus three additional days, in order to prepare their translation (Let. Aris. 301–11). They are brought there by Demetrius (Let. Aris. 301). It is striking that this is one of the few places in the Letter of Aristeas in which Alexandrian localities are described: “After three days, Demetrius took them to the island, passing over the mole, which was seven stadia long, and, crossing the bridge, he went towards the northern sections, having made a meeting-place prepared by the beach in a house, which was magnificent and in a very quiet location” (Let. Aris. 301). The Letter of Aristeas 301 next describes the Heptastadion, the bridge leading to the island, and finally the accommodations on the island. The 72 scholars are then brought to the northern sections of the island, where a house near the shore had been prepared for them. The house is described as “magnificent and in a very quiet location.” The house, in which the men from Jerusalem are lodged, is on the shore. It is so close to the sea that the Jewish scholars can go to the sea every day and wash their hands in it before they 20 Reconstructions of this tent can be found in Franz Studniczkas, Das Symposion Ptolemaios II.: Nach den Beschreibungen des Kallixeinos (Leipzig: Teubner, 1914), pl. 1; which is also the basis for the reconstruction in Pfrommer, Alexandria, 69; cf. also ibid., 69–75; Grimm, Alexandria, 53. Cf. Studniczkas, Symposion Ptolemaios II., 24–117; and Wilhelm Franzmeyer, Kallixeinos’ Bericht über das Prachtzelt und den Festzug Ptolemaios’ II. (PhD diss., University of Straßburg, 1904). 21 Pfrommer, Alexandria, 69–70.

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begin their work (Let. Aris. 305).22 The island of Pharos is famous above all for its lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. There is, however, no mention of the lighthouse in the Letter of Aristeas; only “the island” (ὁ νῆσος) is mentioned (Let. Aris. 5, 301). The house on the shore, which is not located more precisely, is further described in the Letter of Aristeas 307: “So just as we have said previously, in this way each day they gathered together at this spot, which was delightful due to its quietness and brightness, in order to complete their appointed task.” The scholars work independently on the island, conceived as an autarkic scholarly community. They need each other only for discussion and to come to agreements: “And they accomplished it (the translation) making each detail agree by comparisons with each other. And that which came out of the agreement Demetrius thus suitably set in writing” (Let. Aris. 302). The sole Alexandrian to participate in the translation is Demetrius, whose precise contribution to the translation is left rather vague. When the Letter of Aristeas states that Demetrius, together with the 72 scholars and certainly a variety of other persons as well, lived, worked and ate on the island for 72 days (i.e., for almost three months), there must have been logistical support and infrastructure. It is not possible to reconstruct what these were like. Was the island in fact such an isolated, quiet place, ideally suited for work, as the Letter of Aristeas implies and as Philo (but not, interestingly, Josephus)23 describes even more expansively?24 Or are we dealing with a literary topos, related to the idea that the translation was made in complete isolation and selfsufficiency? At any rate, this is the motif that was developed by the tradition, by Epiphanios of Salamis, for example, with his notion of isolated cells of monks. Jerome comments critically on this tradition (cf. Prologue to the Pentateuch, Jerome, Qu. hebr. Gen. 25–29). The Letter of Aristeas describes a quiet but not isolated house on the seaside. Given the fact that there were 72 scholars living and working there, it could be that the house was – to use our contemporary terms – a larger hotel or conference center. The text does not say where precisely the facility was located, only that the house was found on the northern part of the island and must have been large enough for the entire Jewish community to assemble there after the completion of the translation (Let. Aris. 308–10). 22 This is described by the (Greek) I-narrator Aristeas as a Jewish custom (Let. Aris. 305). This may be a reference to a custom that was widespread but is now unknown to us; if not, this could be an ironic wink by the (likely) Jewish author at the prejudices against allegedly Jewish customs that were regarded as noteworthy by the wider world. 23 Josephus, Ant.. 12.103: “Accordingly, when three days were over Demetrius took them, and went over the causeway seven furlongs long: it was a bank in the sea to an island. And when they had gone over the bridge, he proceeded to the northern parts, and showed them where they should meet, which was in a house that was built near the shore, and was a quiet place, and fit for their discoursing together about their work.” 24 Philo, Mos. 2.34–37.

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When the translation has been finished it is presented to the Jewish community (τὸ πλῆθος τῶν Ἰουδαίων) and the Jewish citizenry (τὸ πολίτευμα) – two distinct expressions – on the island of Pharos (Let. Aris. 308, 310). Demetrius assembles the Jewish community at the place where the translation has been prepared for this purpose, as is explicitly stated in the Letter of Aristeas 308 (cf. Let. Aris. 310). This means that the Jews, no matter where they live in Alexandria, have to come to the island. The translated texts are then transferred from the island to the royal palace and placed before the king. The king acquaints himself with the text and its contents (Let. Aris. 312–16) and bows before the Jewish Law (Let. Aris. 317). Then the Jewish scholars are bid farewell and they return to Jerusalem (Let. Aris. 318–21).

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2.5 The Daily Visits of the Scholars to the King The Letter of Aristeas states that the Jewish scholars would leave their lodgings on the island every morning and attend the king. The text states “and each day at the first hour they came into the court, and when they had made salutations to the king, they departed to their own place” (Let. Aris. 304). In this way, the Letter of Aristeas depicts a path, 72 scholars’ commute every day between the royal palace and their lodgings. When the Letter of Aristeas mentions the royal palace complex, we probably can imagine the northeast quadrant of the city in which the “royal quarter” (basileia) lies, if we rely on the later description of Strabo (Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.8; cf. Diodorus 17.52.4).25 The oldest part of the basilea was likely the akra with its palace complex on the Lochias peninsula.26 If so, the 72 scholars, in order to visit the king, each morning went across the island, then across the Heptastadion and through the city, to arrive finally at the royal palace complex. Perhaps Aristeas’ readers imagined that they took the Canopic Way from west to east and then the Palace Street from south to north. The Canopic Way was the grand boulevard and central axis of the city. It was not only the main street in the city but also the stage for the most important public ceremonies and rituals that created a sense of community among the inhabitants; it was the place where the values shared by all of the residents were made visible, and where the kings staged their “theater of power.”27 Many shrines and temples were located along the way. Since the Heptastadion alone is 1,260 meters long, the daily trip to the king was not a short morning stroll. The distance, which ancient readers would know, is again a way of stressing the importance of the daily audience with the king. Pliny later speaks of only one-fifth of the city (Pliny the Elder, Nat. 5.11.26). A plan of the basileia can be found in Grimm, Alexandria, 26–27, based on the plan of the city prepared by Mahmoud Bey el Falaki (1867) and the literary witnesses. 27 So Balbina Bäbler, “Zur Archäologie Alexandrias,” in Tobias Georges et al., Alexandria, 3–27 (7).

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2.6 Conclusions about “Alexandria” in the Letter of Aristeas Any conclusion that one might draw from the description of “Alexandria” in the Letter of Aristeas will seem paradoxical at first glance. The city Alexandria, which is the predominant setting of the Letter of Aristeas, remains in the background of the story. The only locations in the city that are specifically mentioned are the lodgings for the Jewish scholars near the akra and additional lodgings on the island. The royal palace and the library are not mentioned in their own right. They appear, in the case of the library, because the director of the library, Demetrius of Phalerum, is mentioned, or, in the case of the royal palace, they are implied in events that can only take place in the royal palace (audiences, receptions, the preparation of letters and reports, etc.). The name of the island, Pharos, is not mentioned. The name “Alexandria” appears only twice, largely by chance. In other words, if one wished to draw a map of Alexandria based on the Letter of Aristeas, the city would consist of a large and sophisticated working palace, an akra, a library – which, nonetheless, readers would never become acquainted with – and a nearby island reachable by foot either a causeway or a bridge. All other parts of (the real) Alexandria are left out: the city itself with its quarters, the agora, the temple, the streets, the buildings, the sacred sites and other attractions. Moreover, the Jewish quarter is not mentioned at all. How are these facts to be interpreted? If one begins with the paragraph division as a means of measuring the Letter of Aristeas (322 paragraphs total) then approximately two-thirds of the text take place in the royal palace in Alexandria, if one includes the embassy to Jerusalem (Let. Aris. 83–172, 90 paragraphs total) and the actual translation work on the island of Pharos (Let. Aris. 301–11, 11 paragraphs total) as sites mentioned separately. A clear picture emerges of the constructed space. In the Letter of Aristeas the royal palace of Alexandria is the dominant site. Maintaining this level of concentration on the royal palace also means concentrating on the king himself. He is uniformly referred to just as “the king” (ὁ βασιλεύς) in the text. His name, “Ptolemaios” (Πτολεμαῖος) only appears in Letter of Aristeas 35 and 41 (on both occasions at the beginning of official documents). It is likely that Ptolemy II is intended (r. 285 as co-regent, then 283/282–246 BCE). This conclusion is supported by the mention of his father, Ptolemy, son of Lagos (who ruled following the death of Alexander in 323 till 283/282 BCE) in the Letter of Aristeas 13. That this results in anachronisms – Demetrius of Phalerum was after all the librarian under Ptolemy I, not Ptolemy II – is a different matter and is not decisive for the issue of the spatial construct of the story. What is important and should be especially emphasized is the fact that Alexandria flourished during the first two Ptolemies’ reigns, especially in the time of Ptolemy II, during whose reign the Letter of Aristeas is set and who instigated the translation (according to Aristeas). The image that the text gives of Alexandria makes the king, and with him the royal establishment and the

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royal court, dominate everything else that Alexandria has to offer. In the Letter of Aristeas, Alexandria is the royal palace and the king.

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3. Comparing Alexandria with Jerusalem and Judea in the Letter of Aristeas The only other settings besides Alexandria in the Letter of Aristeas are Judea and Jerusalem which appear in the travelogue of the Alexandrian king’s delegation’s visits to Jerusalem (Let. Aris. 83–172). In the beginning, Aristeas as I-narrator informs the reader about Jerusalem and Judea (Let. Aris. 83–120). He begins with a description of the temple (Let. Aris. 84–91), the priests (Let. Aris. 92–95), the high priest Eleazar (Let. Aris. 96–99), the citadel (Let. Aris. 100–4), the city and its streets (Let. Aris. 105–6) and the surrounding countryside (Let. Aris. 107–20). The paucity of description – one might even say the absence of description – of Alexandria as place and space in the Letter of Aristeas becomes even more striking when compared to the extensive description of Jerusalem and Judea. Of the 90 paragraphs (Let. Aris. 83–172) set in Jerusalem, 29 are exclusively devoted to describing the space. In other words, the description of Jerusalem and Judea takes up, both quantitatively and qualitatively, a larger part of the entire Letter of Aristeas, in sharp contrast to Alexandria, of which very little description is provided. Without going into detail, the spatial construct of Jerusalem and Judea is very interesting. It begins with a ring-shaped complex, in the middle of which is the temple, surrounded by three walls (Let. Aris. 83). Everything else is set around the center created by the temple in Jerusalem. Given the well-known geography of Jerusalem and Judea, this presentation of space is quickly revealed to be a construct. It is not a description of its topographical reality. The description, however, is rather conditioned by internal needs. Ideologically the temple, and with it, Jerusalem, are in the center. Everything else is located around it in a circle. Jerusalem is described as a beautiful city of perfect size (Let. Aris. 105), surrounded by rich and fertile land. Sylvie Honigman has pointed out that Jerusalem is presented as the ideal city as defined in Aristotle’s Politics 7.28 In addition, Kai Brodersen has noted the temple is presented as an ideal Hellenistic temple.29 The I-narrator Aristeas may be

28 Cf. Honigman, “La description,” 73–101; see also Michael Tilly, “Geographie und Weltordnung im Aristeasbrief,” JSJ 28 (1997): 131–53; and Erich S. Gruen, “The Letter of Aristeas,” in Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, ed. Louis H. Feldman et al., 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2013), 3:2711–68 (2734). 29 Cf. Kai Brodersen, “Der Jerusalemer Tempel als hellenistisches Heiligtum: Die Heiligtumstexte bei Aristeas,” in Heiliger Raum: Exegese und Rezeption der Heiligtumstexte in Ex 24–40, ed. Matthias Hopf, Wolfgang Oswald and Stefan Seiler, Theologische Akzente 8 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2016), 113–31.

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understood as a tourist,30 who recounts his visit to Jerusalem and Judea as a character within the narrative and relates the peculiarities and curiosities of the visited sites. However, Aristeas is not an eyewitness account.31 It is an idealized literary report, a “utopian geography.”32 Therefore, the section on Jerusalem and Judea should be compared to a modern tourist brochure that promises a lot rather than a (helpful) tourist guidebook. The idealized description of Jerusalem and Judea – that is not transmitted in Josephus and Eusebius’ account of the translation of the Septuagint – seems to be a construct of the ‘other’, a foreign, exotic, ideal space. The function of this construct of two distinct spaces is to point out similarities and contrasts besides the explicit synkrises of both cities in Let. Aris. 109–111.33 Both cities are presented as “the city” (ἡ πόλις). The name “Jerusalem” (Ἱεροσόλυμα) appears only in the Letter of Aristeas 32, 35 and 52; otherwise, Jerusalem – analogously to Alexandria – is always referred to only as “the city” (ἡ πόλις; Let. Aris. 83, 91, 100, 105, 107, 113, 114).34 In the Letter of Aristeas, in other words, Jerusalem is, next to Alexandria, the only other city. Both cities have one main place with one protagonist. In Alexandria, it is the palace with the king, and, in Jerusalem, it is the temple with the high priest. Each protagonist is surrounded by related persons (by the administration and by the priests, respectively). The link between the two cities is established through ‘virtual’ visits by letters exchanged between the protagonists and through real visits by their subordinates. The Alexandrian delegation visits Jerusalem for a while, and the 72 scholars stay and work in Alexandria. After having fulfilled their tasks, both groups return home.

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4. Alexandria and Jerusalem Whereas Alexandria is almost not described in the Letter of Aristeas, the text does have a detailed description of Jerusalem and Judea that is shaded by strong ideological coloring. If one assumes that descriptions are needed only when something is unfamiliar, then one can draw the conclusion from the description of space in the Letter of Aristeas that the audience for the text was Alexandrian, i.e., a readership that was intimately familiar with Alexandria.35 30 Cf. Daniel Barbu, “Aristeas the Tourist,” Bulletin der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Judaistische Forschung 23 (2014): 5–12. 31 Cf. Honigman, “La description,” 74. 32 Wright, Aristeas, 196. 33 Hadas, Aristeas, 50, 143. 34 The other mentions of “city” in the Letter of Aristeas are in plural form and serve only as general points of comparison, without referring specifically to a particular city (Let. Aris. 108 and 109, 152, 182, cf. 275). 35 See Kai Brodersen, Aristeas: Der König und die Bibel (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2008), 18.

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Precisely because Alexandria was familiar to the readers of the Letter of Aristeas, no detailed descriptions of places in Alexandria, the palace, the island, etc., were needed. The readers know all of these places and need only a catchword, “the city,” “the library,” “the akra,” “the island,” of which the readers already have a clear picture in mind. Only a few hints or references are sufficient for the ancient reader to call to mind scenes and familiar images. Modern readers unfortunately do not share this knowledge. What did the readers who were familiar with Alexandria know about Jerusalem and Judea? We do not know. Either they knew nothing or very little about Jerusalem and Judea and/or enjoyed the idealized description. Perhaps they were even amused reading that Jerusalem was even better and more ideal than Alexandria. The construct of space in the Letter of Aristeas is therefore coded in a binary. The story world of the Letter of Aristeas consists of Alexandria and Jerusalem. Interestingly, the placement of characters in the Letter of Aristeas follows the construct of space. Each character of the Letter of Aristeas (e.g., the king, high priest, Aristeas or Philocrates), as well as groups are clearly assigned to one of the two spaces. Any exchange between the two spaces is transitory. There is only one ‘figure’ of the text that crosses the border permanently, which is the Jewish ‘nomos.’36 In Jurij M. Lotman’s space theory, the nomos is therefore the only ‘hero’ of the text because for Lotman the ‘hero’ is the one who crosses borders permanently and is transformed deeply in this way.37 The nomos comes from Jerusalem to Alexandria together with the 72 scholars, is translated in Alexandria into Greek, is accepted by the king and the local Jewish community and then stays as Greek nomos in Alexandria. This is a deep transformation of the nomos in Alexandria marked in the realm of space. The nomos now is duplicated: a Hebrew nomos in Jerusalem and a Greek nomos in Alexandria, “the first city of the civilized world” (Diodorus 17.52.5).

36 Cf. the analysis of the boundaries in the Letter of Aristeas and the analysis of Jurij M. Lotman, The Structure of the Artistic Text (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan), 1977; see Barbara Schmitz, “Space, Borders and Boundaries in the Letter of Aristeas,” in Borders: Terminologies, Ideologies, and Performances, ed. Annette Weissenrieder, WUNT 366 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 142–54. 37 For recent reception of Lotman cf. Edna Andrews, Conversations with Lotman: Cultural Semiotics in Languages, Literature, and Cognition (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003); Andreas Schönle, ed., Lotman and Cultural Studies: Encounters and Extensions (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2006); Susi K. Frank, Cornelia Ruhe and Andreas Schmitz, Explosion und Peripherie: Jurij Lotmans Semiotik der kulturellen Dynamik revisited (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2012); Albrecht Koschorke, Wahrheit und Erfindung: Grundzüge einer Allgemeinen Erzähltheorie, 4th ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2017).

Religious Violence and the Library of Alexandria CHRISTINA HARKER …when I seriously compute the lapse of ages, the waste of ignorance, and the calamities of war, our treasures, rather than our losses, are the object of my surprise. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire1

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Borges’s narrator does not tell us what happens when a librarian is born, only that the entire population are librarians. They live in an infinite library of hexagonal galleries, filled with books with every possible combination of the twenty-two-character alphabet.2 Some of these librarians search endlessly for a book that explains the nature of the library: its shape, holdings, meaning, and purpose or lack thereof. Others discard books into the central well, never to be seen again. Essentially, The Library of Babel considers how the librarian should direct their limited time and ruminates on the paradoxical promise and futility of a universe filled with books to read. It is only at the end of Borges’s story that a reader begins to suspect the truth, that what they are reading is in fact the Holy Grail, the text that explains the nature of library itself.3 The text surmises that in an infinite universe filled with books limited by a twenty-two-character alphabet, the books will inevitably begin to repeat since they cannot be infinite.4 Whatever books have been lost in the past will also exist in minor variant copies somewhere else, waiting to be found. Exact copies sit on random shelves outside terrestrial reach, waiting for some “eternal traveller” (eterno viajero) to find them. This notion of copies outside his own reach comforts Borges’s librarian narrator. It soothes his existential anxiety by suggesting answers await future bookworms, not that answers will never be found.

1 Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London: Strahan and Cadell, 1788), 5:344. 2 This would be a toroidal, or doughnut, shaped universe, mooted by both physicists Alexei Starobinski and Yakov B. Zel’dovich in 1984 and more infamously by Homer Simpson in 1999–to the late Stephen Hawking’s approval. 3 Or the text could be one of the countless holdings that comes very, very close except for a typo or single mistake; something also hypothesized within the text itself. 4 I would argue this is a “mistake” in the text. The 22 characters can always be repeated in different combinations in increasingly long sequences. This might be the mistake that points to our text being one of those close copies of the true Grail mentioned above.

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Throughout, there is a sense that the embarrassment of riches in the “Library of Babel” is deeply personal for Borges. Borges, like his narrator, was a librarian and, like his father, went blind as he aged. He famously said he “had always thought of Paradise/In form and image as a library,” and his love and longing for this ideal library is clear when he bemoans his blindness. In “Poema de los dones,” he observes that God with “splendid irony/Gave me books and darkness in one pass”: In vain the day Lavishes its infinite tomes on [these eyes], As indecipherable as the unreadable volumes Which perished in Alexandria.5

We may conclude that the appeal of an infinite library is limited by the mortal nature of its patrons. As scholars we often take comfort in the narrating librarian’s notion of an “eternal traveller” too, someone who might benefit from having the time to read every text, or a future version of ourselves who might enjoy more texts and answers from antiquity than we do, ones that will perhaps be offered up by archaeology or future technologies. However, like Borges, perhaps we also sense the self-abnegation lurking in that wish. We are left in the unenviable position of hoping for either our own obsolescence or that there is nothing new to read in our fields after we are done.

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1. “Τhe Muses’ Bird-Cage” It has been common to lament the loss of books and the knowledge they represent since the 1850s. The Library of Alexandria stands out as the most resonant cenotaph to this sort of loss, and dutiful scholars mourn all of the unknown ancient books that, by rights, should have populated stacks across the world, were it not for the wanton destruction of some long-dead philistines. But the destruction of books – a form of ideological and, often, religious violence – has an equally rich recent history. Those moderns who did endorse and rebuild the library (in a manner of speaking) did not fill their new buildings with books.6 This is true for both the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina – 5 Also quoted by Jon Thiem, “The Great Library of Alexandria Burnt: Towards the History of a Symbol,” JHI 4 (1979): 507–26 (525n55), though this is my own translation. 6 In 2013, ISIS burned the libraries and archives in Mosul. Ten years earlier, American negligence saw the Iraqi National Library and Archives looted and burnt, with accusations from British archaeologists that this was allowed to happen so that American collectors could drain the flooded antiquities market that followed. The Germans destroyed the library of Louvain, which was founded in 1627, in WWI and then again in WWII (hence the slur “Hun” because the rest of the world called it barbaric). This massive cultural destruction was seen on

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which does not have enough funding for adequate acquisitions – and for the first modern “library” architects, who filled their 18th century imitations with objects and animals instead of texts.7 Both examples show how the symbolism of libraries as an institution surpasses the value of any actual contents in the public imagination.8 What we often think of as the library project (the preservation of all knowledge) has not always been the goal of libraries, librarians, readers or writers. More to the point, our expectations around this powerful contemporary value may lead us to look for a motive behind the “criminal” destruction of the Library of Alexandria. In reality, there may never have been a crime or a criminal, much less a motive. Books have always been subjected to religious, political and ideological violence and Western intellectuals have sometimes overlooked or even welcomed their destruction. Cabet’s 1839 Voyage en Icarie features a utopian society that burns books. When a visitor compares it to “ferocious Omar burning the library of Alexandria,” a utopian citizen tells him that “we do in favour of humanity what its oppressors did against it: we have made a fire to burn bad books while brigands or fanatics set fire to pyres in order to burn innocent heretics.”9 all sides of WWII, with Louvain and Monte Cassino, Dresden and Coventry being twinned. The Nazis, however, remain a special case because they made cultural destruction one of their specific goals (in addition to their crimes against humanity). 7 For the former, see, for example Beverley Butler, Return to Alexandria: An Ethnography of Cultural Heritage, Revivalism, and Museum Memory (Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, 2007), and see Paula Young Lee, “The Musaeum of Alexandria and the Formation of the Muséum in Eighteenth-Century France,” The Art Bulletin 79.3 (1997): 385–412 (407) for the latter. 8 This trend had certainly already started before a flurry of books about the destruction of the library appeared in the 1800s by, among others, Parthey (1838), Klippel (1838), Ritschl (1838), and Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1881) (Thiem, “The Great Library,” 520). 9 See Thiem, “The Great Library,” 519, for more on Cabet. Rousseau despised the suggestion, implicit in the legend and explicit among his contemporaries, that the Muslim Caliph ʿUmar ordered the destruction because of his religion or his origins. He wrote: “Our learned men have cited this reasoning as the height of absurdity. However imagine Gregory the Great in place of Omar, and the Gospel in place of the Koran, the library would still have been burned, and it would be perhaps the finest deed in the life of that illustrious pontiff.” (Rousseau, The First and Second Discourses, 61, and Discours, 155–56, cited by Thiem, “The Great Library,” 518). At the same time, Rousseau also rejected ancient literature and knowledge. As Jon Thiem puts it, Rousseau “not only opposes [the learning of antiquity], but also modern empirical science, and particularly the enlightened dogma that encyclopedism – the spread of simplified learning among the people – would result in moral progress. Thus he disapproves of ‘compilers of works who have indiscreetly broken down the door of the sciences and let into their sanctuary a populace unworthy of approaching it” (Rousseau, The First and Second Discourses, 62 and Discours, 157–58, cited by Thiem, “The Great Library,” 519).

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Even Edward Gibbon, an aspirational compiler if ever there was one, is of two minds about burning books. He defends “the ferocious Omar” (Caliph ʿUmar), who Gibbon’s contemporaries thought burned the library, by saying The rigid sentence of Omar is repugnant to the sound and orthodox precept of the Mahometan casuists: they expressly declare that the religious books of the Jews and Christians, which are acquired by the right of war, should never be committed to the flames; and that the works of profane science, historians or poets, physicians or philosophers, may be lawfully applied to the use of the faithful.10

But he goes on to suggest that since all the holdings were destroyed in the 4th century anyway, whatever was produced after that and, however implausibly, burned by ʿUmar would be worse than worthless in any case. Gibbon applauds the idea that all knowledge can be applied to the “use of the faithful” while still holding that “if the ponderous mass of Arian and Monophysite controversy were indeed consumed in the public baths, a philosopher may allow, with a smile, that it was ultimately devoted to the benefit of mankind.”11 The idea that some books have no or negative value was not new in Gibbon’s time. Timon of Phlius was the first to shrug off the Library of Alexandria itself as the locus of arrogance and intellectual vanity, crowded with “cloistered papyrus-warblers” in the “Muses’ bird-cage.”12 Seneca shared Timon’s evaluation: Forty thousand books were burned at Alexandria; let someone else praise this library as the most noble monument to the wealth of kings, as did Titus Livius, who says that it was the most distinguished achievement of the good taste and solicitude of kings. There was no “good taste” or “solicitude” about it, but only learned luxury.13

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From that point until the ideological passion for knowledge that has gripped us for the last 150 years,14 the library sometimes operated symbolically within discourses that, rather than mourning cultural loss, instead rejected what was thought of as excessive publication and past brilliance in favour of presentday or potential future innovation. This formed a pattern within liberalism of Gibbon, The History, 5:343. Gibbon, The History, 5:344. 12 According to Athenaeus 1.22d: “Numerous cloistered papyrus-warblers are fattened in Egypt with its many peoples, quarrelling endlessly in the Muses’ bird-cage.” 13 Seneca, Tranq. 9.5. 14 This vogue gripped medieval thinkers as well. Thiem cites Boccaccio and quotes Richard de Bury’s Philobiblon, the earliest book on librarianship in English, as an example of medieval thinkers horrified by the library’s loss: “Who would not shudder at such a hapless holocaust… where ink is offered up instead of blood, where the glowing ashes of cracking parchment were incarnadined with blood, where the devouring flames consumed so many thousands of innocents in whose mouth was no guile, where the unsparing fire turned into stinking ashes so many shrines of eternal truth?” (Thiem, “The Great Library,” 512). 10

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a scorched earth perspective on innovation. On the one hand, there was the idea that there was simply too much being written for anyone to master it (the persistent ghost at the scholarly feast) and, on the other hand, there was the idea that truly new thought required an intellectual ground clearing first. Intellectuals could not innovate with the past at the forefront of their minds. The scorched earth view emerged from a named insecurity, a sort of anxiety of influence avant la lettre.15 This was the knotty heart of the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes. In contrast, what we now call the Library of Alexandria was actually part of a Museion, and its supposed construction by the Ptolemies is sometimes linked to their alleged desire to position themselves as new heirs to Alexander the Great and to all of Greek culture.16 Their anxiety was, instead, being cut free from past brilliance. This manoeuvre, using the curation and preservation of knowledge to elevate one’s own status in terms of culture, was repeated in the library’s reincarnation in the construction of museums in France after 1700. The construction of these buildings marks a turning point away from any bibliophobic skepticism seen earlier towards the insatiable humanist Enlightenment values around discovery, knowledge, and production. The library of Alexandria was interpreted, at least within the cultural stream of architecture, as the palace of knowledge. The opportunity to imitate it allowed the creators of modern museums to present themselves as New Ptolemies, new arbiters of taste and culture. This connection has faded from public consciousness, particularly in European societies increasingly concerned with the ethics of appropriating colonized cultures. Nonetheless, during the French Revolution, the lost Alexandrian library was intellectually resurrected to house curiosities collected from across the French Empire. Timon’s “Chicken Coop of the Muses” had become a different kind of chicken coop altogether: its imitation, the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, housed the rescued Versailles menagerie and other exotic specimens.17

15 The humanist Louis LeRoy is the first to revive Seneca’s complaint and inaugurates a change of attitude. His idea becomes “a European commonplace” (cf. Thomas Browne, Jacob Burckhardt, Bernard Shaw). Browne remarked, “I think there be too many [books or libraries] in the world, and could with patience behold the urne and ashes of the Vatican [library], could I with a few others recover the perished leaves of Solomon” (Thiem, “The Great Library,” 513–17). 16 The building was called a Museion, because it was directly linked to the muses (hence our words Musée and Museum etc.). For the use of Alexander for cultural cachet see Andrew Erskine, “Culture and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Museum and Library of Alexandria,” Greece & Rome 41.1 (1995): 41–45. 17 Lee, “The Musaeum,” 408.

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2. “They Are Pernicious and Ought to Be Destroyed” Today, the Library of Alexandria is seen as a cultural inheritance in Egypt and throughout the Arab world more generally. When a new library on the same grounds was proposed in the 90s – now completed18 – the Saudi Arabians and Shayk Zayid of the UAE, among many others, made huge contributions to the new Biblioteca Alexandrina.19 Its appeal across the Arab world is easily explained by its allure to everyone as something they, as individual nations and ethnic groups, could identify as a shared birthright.20 They, rather than the cultural West, could claim this heritage after centuries of other groups presenting themselves as new Romans and new Greeks, and occupiers of literal and abstract Alexandrias. This regional attitude is in contrast to one of the more striking stories of religious violence and the Library of Alexandria, already mentioned, that Caliph ʿUmar I (‫ﻋﻤﺮ ﺑﻦ اﻟﺨﻄﺎب‬, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb) ordered the library’s destruction around 640 CE.21 Gibbon summarised this in 1788 for his readers:

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I should deceive the expectation of the reader, if I passed in silence the fate of the Alexandrian library, as it is described by the learned Abulpharagius. The spirit of Amrou was more curious and liberal than that of his brethren, and in his leisure hours the Arabian chief was pleased with the conversation of John, the last disciple of Ammonius, and who derived the surname of Philoponus from his laborious studies of grammar and philosophy. Emboldened by this familiar intercourse, Philoponus presumed to solicit a gift, inestimable in his opinion, contemptible in that of the barbarians; the royal library, which alone, among the spoils of Alexandria, had not been appropriated by the visit and the seal of the conqueror. Amrou was inclined to gratify the wish of the grammarian but his rigid integrity refused to alienate the minutest object without the consent of the caliph; and the wellknown answer of Omar was inspired by the ignorance of a fanatic. “If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious and ought to be destroyed.” The sentence was executed with blind obedience; the volumes of paper or parchment were distributed to the four thousand

At the time, concerns were raised that the new library was built on the old in a manner that may have “obliterat[ed] for all time the archaeological record beneath the ground” and scholarly organizations attempted to apply pressure for a full archaeological excavation before building began. See Birger A. Pearson, “The New Alexandria Library: Promise or Threat?” BA 56.2 (1993): 106. 19 Donald M. Reid, “Cromer and the Classics: Imperialism, Nationalism and the GrecoRoman Past in Modern Egypt,” Middle Eastern Studies 32.1 (1996): 1–29 (22). 20 It is not uncommon to find others outside the region, especially in the intellectual West, claiming that the library represents a birthright for everyone, even if just as an ideal. 21 For the Arab world’s rejection of this story of Caliph ʿUmar burning the library, and Judge Qasim Asim potentially being the first to do so, see Reid, “Cromer and the Classics,” 13, 27n71. 18

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baths and such was their incredible multitude that six months were barely sufficient for the consumption of this precious fuel.22

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Gibbon states that he does not believe this story (although he gives it more space than competing ones).23 He rejects the story because it appeared 600 years after what it claims to report, and the story contradicts his understanding of Muslim principles and practice. Most modern scholars do not believe the story either. This version of the destruction became popular because of the emerging fetish in Europe for all things Oriental after the Renaissance, as well as a vogue skepticism about both human nature and revealed religion.24 Before the 1700s the story associating the destruction of the library with Caesar’s attack in 47 BCE was much more popular, but the ʿUmar story is picked up by Pope, Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, Isaac D’Israeli (father of the future Prime Minister) and, of course, Gibbon in his historical compendium.25 The story made its way into anglophone literature after the creation of Arabic and Islamic studies in the Western academy. The first Arabist in England was William Bedwell (1562–1632). He was followed by Abraham Wheelocke at Cambridge from 1632 and the more famous Edward Pococke at Oxford from 1636.26 Like their continental peers, they mostly wanted to combat Islam, to convert its adherents, to connect with Syrian and Egyptian Christians and to use knowledge of Arabic to better understand Hebrew and the biblical text.27 In addition, Arabic was considered the last barrier between scholars and a motherlode of untapped historical material. European historians thought the Arabic sources contained hidden knowledge from Greece and Rome; not just in sciences like medicine, astronomy and mathematics but also in history. They thought Arabic historians recorded the history of the “Hebrews, Chaldees, Persians, Greeks and Romans,” and some claimed Livy’s lost works were waiting to be discovered in Arabic.28 The new field of Arabic essentially came into being to poke around the library of the Golden Age of Islam, which, ironically, led Western historians to lay the destruction of the Library of Alexandria at the feet of ʿUmar.

Gibbon, The History, 5:342–43. Gibbon, The History, 5:342–43. 24 Thiem, “The Great Library,” 510. See Edward Said for further examples of Orientalism. 25 Thiem, “The Great Library,” 509. 26 Peter M. Holt, “The Study of Arabic Historians in Seventeenth Century England: The Background and the Work of Edward Pococke,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 19.3 (1957): 444–55 (444). 27 Holt, “The Study,” 446. 28 Holt, “The Study,” 447. 22

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Pococke’s Specimen Historiae Arabum (Oxford 1650) – the source Gibbon footnotes29 – translates Abulpharagius’s30 History of the Dynasties (written before 1286) from Arabic.31 Jon Thiem notes that there are two earlier accounts: Abd al-Latīf al-Baghdādī (before 1231) and Ibn al-Kifti (aka al-Qiftī) (before 1248).32 Al-Latīf is the earliest source for the ʿUmar story but is still six centuries later.33 However, it is al-Qiftī’s version, which is only a little later than al-Latīf, that became standard. It included the stories about (1) the humble Christian John the Grammarian (Yahia al-Nahwī) who requested the books after teaching the military commander, ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAs, about Christianity, (2) ʿAmr’s loyalty to his leader, (3) ʿUmar’s answer, and (4) the flaming baths that sparked both Gibbon’s readers’ interest and the whole debate over the end of the library for 250 years.34 The story is implausible for more reasons than Gibbon gives. Alfred J. Butler pointed out in 1902 that John the Grammarian is likely John Philoponus (the person that Gibbon names but not al-Qiftī), someone who lived and wrote a century too early.35 In addition, Qassem Abdou Qassem notes that it is unlikely that major historians from 800–1000 CE would have omitted the library and its destruction when they wrote about the Arab conquest of Egypt, leaving it to their 13th century successors to write the story down for the first time. Qassem mentions Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, al-Balādhurī, al-Ṭabarī and al-Kindī, and he also notes that John of Nikiû, an Egyptian coptic Bishop who was hostile to Muslims, does not mention the story either and was alive Gibbon, The History, 5:343n116. Abulpharagius is much better known today as Gregory Bar Hebraeus. He was a Jewish convert to Christianity who wrote in Syriac and Arabic. Gibbon uses the alternate spelling “Abulfaragius.” 31 It is even possible that this text was one from Pococke’s own manuscript collection or one he secured for the chancellor of Oxford, William Laud. The collections of both men were donated to the Bodleian after their respective deaths. (Holt, “The Study,” 450). See Thiem, “The Great Library,” 509, although he cites Parsons’s flawed book, Edward A. Parsons, The Alexandrian Library, Glory of the Hellenistic World: Its Rise, Antiquities, and Destructions (London: Elsevier Press, 1952). 32 Thiem, “The Great Library,” 509. Compare Holt, “The Study,” 452–53, where it appears al-Qifti was not an Oxford holding by this date (otherwise he did not make Holt’s list of important manuscripts). Regardless, Gibbon got the story from Abulpharagius via Pococke (see note 30 above). 33 Qassem Abdou Qassem, “The Arab Story of the Destruction of the Ancient Library of Alexandria,” in What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?, ed. Mostafa ElAbbadi and Omnia Mounir Fathallah (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 207–12 (207). 34 Qassem, “The Arab Story,” 208. 35 Alongside Butler, other early 20th century critics of the story include: Victor Chauvin (1911), Paul Casonova and Eugenio Griffini (both in 1923). See Bernard Lewis, “The Arab Destruction of the Library of Alexandria: Anatomy of a Myth,” in El-Abbadi and Fathallah, What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?, 213–18 (214). 29

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at the time of the conquest.36 All of this makes the story less and less likely to be true.37 As Bernard Lewis notes, anyone defending this version of the destruction has to explain away the story’s absence in contemporary sources from Jews, Christians, and Muslims for some 600 years.38

3. “They Reckoned Their Sacrilege and Impiety a Thing to Glory in” In any case, if Paulus Orosius (c. 375–after 418) is to be believed, there was nothing left of the library by 416, further undermining the story about the Caliph ʿUmar (c. 584–644). The Christian Orosius instead blames “our own men in our time.”39 This particular group of stories about the library’s destruction is especially muddled. There are four different stories of the destruction of the Alexandrian Library in the 3rd or 4th century and three of these destructions are attributed to Christians.40 But are any plausible? In order to understand what follows it is important to know that scholars often operate on the assumption that there were two libraries: a main library within the Museion in the palace district41 and another, daughter library, in the Serapeum. The evidence for this is slim and late, like most evidence about the library.42 No evidence relates to the destruction of both the “mother” and Qassem, “The Arab Story,” 209. Why would al-Qifti invent this story? Qassem suggests it was to rehabilitate the reputation of al-Qifti’s patron, Saladin, after he sold off treasures in order to pay off war debts, since selling cultural heritage is infinitely preferable to simply destroying it out of ignorance. See Qassem, “The Arab Story,” 210–11. I am not convinced by this explanation since it appeals to a modern notion of cultural treasures and values which it is not clear operated in antiquity (or, indeed, even in the modern period; see above). Lewis proposes a variation on this hypothesis: that selling off a library’s holdings was justified simply because the Caliph ʿUmar did it. 38 Lewis, “The Arab Destruction,” 215. 39 Hist. adv. pag. 6.15. 40 There are some additional stories, but they are late or flimsy. Diana Delia suggests damage occurred from an earthquake and persecution under Diocletian (303), but her sources are rather late and vague: John of Nikiû (fl. 680-690), John Moschus (c. 550–619), and the Suda (a 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia). Cf. Diana Delia, “From Romance to Rhetoric: The Alexandrian Library in Classical and Islamic Traditions,” AHR 97.5 (1992): 1449–67 (1463). She also cites Sozomen, HE 6.2 as evidence of earthquake damage, but the account appears to be an aetiological myth. 41 This is according to Strabo, one of our earliest sources (Strabo, Geogr. 17.7–9). 42 Roger Bagnall takes pains to highlights scholars’ overreliance on the untrustworthy John Tzetzes, a medieval writer Richard Bentley called a “man of much rambling learning.” See Alexander Dyce, ed., The Works of Richard Bentley, D.D. (London: Francis Macpherson, 1836), 1, 89. Bagnall also reminds us that the evidence for two libraries originates in the late 36

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“daughter” libraries. None of these sources tell us whether the Serapeum (daughter) library even held books when it was destroyed, whether it was created as an annex to or expansion of the Main Library, or whether it was just another library that happened to be created in the same city. Furthermore, the alleged 3rd and 4th century destructions are linked to the Serapeum’s library or to the neighborhood the larger library was in,43 but none of the sources describe the destruction of the Main Library itself in the 3rd or 4th century. The evidence comes from several Christian and polytheist sources that date from the late 4th century to the turn of the 5th century. Compounding the fact that they do not clearly address our question, some also appear to use one another as sources. The Christian sources include Tertullian (c. 155–240), Epiphanius (c. 310–403), Socrates Scholasticus (c. 380–439/440) and Sozomen (c. 400–450). The polytheist sources include the emperor Julian (c. 330–363), Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330–after 391), Eunapius (c. 4th–5th century) and Libanius (c. 314–392/393). Some scholars have suggested, using the Historia Augusta and Ammianus Marcellinus, that the Main Library disappeared during Aurelian’s reign (r. 270–275). They propose the destruction occurred when the entire Bruchteion quarter that supposedly contained the main library was destroyed while Aurelian reclaimed the city from the Palmyrenes or during civil conflicts in 272. The former option, that Aurelian destroyed the library while reclaiming the city from the Palmyrenes, appears to be based on the dubious Historia Augusta. In addition to the unreliability of the Historia itself, the three Historia Augusta passages that are often cited do not discuss the library or libraries or any physical destruction in Alexandria.44 The second option, that the main library was destroyed during some kind of civil violence, emerges from a circumspect passage in Ammianus Marcellinus:

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But Alexandria herself, not gradually (like other cities), but at her very origin, attained her wide extent; and for a long time she was greviously [sic] troubled by internal dissensions, until at last, many years later under the rule of Aurelian, the quarrels of the citizens turned

Christian author Epiphanius who lived in the 4th century and died in 403 CE. See Epiphanius, Weights and Measures 11 and Roger S. Bagnall, “Alexandria: Library of Dreams,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 146.4 (2002): 348–62 (358). 43 The larger library is sometimes called the Mother Library. 44 Bagnall mentions a growing consensus behind this idea, citing Lionel Casson as an example. Casson, in turn, cites Ammianus Marcellinus 22.16.15 and Delia, “From Romance to Rhetoric,” 1463, who cites the Historia Augusta Aurelian 32, Thirty Pretenders 30.3, and Firmus 3, and the same passage in Ammianus Marcellinus. None of the Historia Augusta passages speak about the library. In addition, while the Historia Augusta cannot be dismissed prima facie because of its well-known problems, the relevant sections cannot be thoroughly vetted here without a great deal more analysis than this space allows.

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into deadly strife; then her walls were destroyed and she lost the greater part of the district called Bruchion, which had long been the abode of distinguished men.45

Note that Ammianus does not specifically tell us that the library was destroyed. That has been suggested by scholars who believe the Main Library was in the heavily damaged palace district, the “Bruchion” or Bruchteion, based on Strabo (Geogr. 17.8). Under this theory, the Library did not survive the destruction in its neighborhood, but again, Ammianus does not tell us that explicitly. Ammianus does not even confirm that the main library still existed in the 3rd century or discuss it. Instead, before this section, Ammianus suggests that the 700,000 books gathered by the Ptolemies were burned by Caesar in the Serapeum during the Alexandrian War (History 22.16.12). Here he is allocating the Main Library holdings (with an inaccurate total) to the Serapeum.46 Several texts describe the destruction of the Serapeum (which supposedly housed the second, smaller “daughter” library according to Epiphanius) at the hands of different Christians in either 361 or 391 CE during waves of religious violence. The first date is tied to a Christian uprising under George of Cappadocia, an Arian, who succeeded Athanasius as bishop and operated under Constantius but later died in 361 CE. Sozomen, a Christian author, tells us the pagans’ reasons for hating George: George had insulted both their statues and their shrines and temples, prohibited sacrifice and other rituals, and when Constantius gave a Mithraeum to the Alexandrian Church, George paraded and mocked the idols and special ritual tools found inside, causing the polytheists to retaliate violently.47 Socrates Scholasticus gives more details and alleges that humans were sacrificed to this “Mithra” [sic]. He says that in the process of clearing a neglect45

Ammianus, Hist. 22.16.15. In his article, Bagnall also discusses some archaeological work on the Serapeum and M. Rodziewicz’ conclusion that the spaces that might have possibly served for book storage were “destroyed in the early Roman period.” If nothing else, this archaeological evidence would fit with what Ammianus Marcellinus tells us about the destruction of the Serapeum and its books under Caesar – although since he lived from around 330 and died after 391, this also rather late. He was a contemporary of Epiphanius, who described the two separate libraries. Tertullian, on the other hand, lived from 155–240 and says that Ptolemy’s books are “displayed” (exhibentur) “to this day in the temple of Serapis” (Hodie apud Serapeum Ptolemaei bibliothecae cum ipsis Hebraicis litteris) (Tertullian, Apol. 18.8), lending some credence to Ammianus’s claim that books were housed in the Serapeum, although he has his own agenda for claiming the Ptolemaic antiquity of the Ptolemaei bibliothecae. Essentially, Tertullian is focused on increasing the credibility of Christianity by virtue of the Ptolemies’ desire for copies of the Hebrew Bible, which Christians also claimed. He does not corroborate the extraordinary number of holdings that Ammianus would give later. 47 Sozomen, HE 5.7. In addition, we also know that George probably exiled at least one prominent polytheistic philosopher, Zeno, who was invited back by the emperor Julian. (Julian, Epist. 17).

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ed temple, the Christians found the skulls of human haruspicy victims whose entrails were used for enchanting “the souls of men.” The Christians paraded what they found and were met with violence. Socrates adds that the pagans tied George to a camel, tore him to pieces, and burnt him and the camel together.48 Neither of these two sources makes explicit reference to the library and it is unclear what the religious violence would have meant for the building or its holdings since no location is given for any of the religious clashes. Our earliest source about this conflict, however, is Julian the Apostate, a polytheist emperor who died in 363 CE. His letter to the Alexandrians on the subject tells us, instead, that the Serapeum was stripped by the pro-Christian general Artemius (whom Julian later had executed for his offenses). George, meanwhile, was torn “in pieces as dogs tear a wolf.”49 Julian excoriates the Alexandrian citizens for taking the law into their own hands:

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For tell me, in the name of Serapis, what were the crimes for which you were incensed against George? You will doubtless answer: He exasperated against you Constantius of blessed memory; then he brought an army into the holy city, and the general in command of Egypt seized the most sacred shrine of the god and stripped it of its statues and offerings and of all the ornaments in the temples. And when you were justly provoked and tried to succour the god, or rather the treasures of the god, Artemius dared to send his soldiers against you, unjustly, illegally and impiously, perhaps because he was more afraid of George than of Constantius; for the former was keeping a close watch on him to prevent his behaving to you too moderately and constitutionally, but not to prevent his acting far more like a tyrant. Accordingly you will say it was because you were angered for these reasons against George, the enemy of the gods, that you once more desecrated the holy city, when you might have subjected him to the votes of the judges.50

Here, among Julian’s reprimand for lynching George, there is a smattering of details about the temple (presumably Serapis’s from the context of the letter) and how it was “stripped” of statues, offerings, and “all the ornaments.” This text, then, comes close to describing the destruction of the Serapeum’s contents, the supposed daughter library, although it does not explicitly mention the destruction of any books. Later, in 391 CE, the Alexandrian bishop Theophilus attempted to convert a temple into a church, which led not only to an outcry but more violence in the streets. After he appealed to the emperor, Theodosius I, he was granted permission to convert every temple into a church. At this point, the Christian mob allegedly ransacked and destroyed the Serapeum. Eunapius tells us the story in connection to the death of Antoninus in 390 CE, the son of Eustathius of Cappadocia and his genius wife, Sosipatra of Ephesus. The son, Antoni48 Socrates Scholasticus, Hist. eccl. 3.2. Ammianus Marcellinus tells us that, on the contrary, it was two other officials’ bodies that were tied to camels before being burned on the shore and their ashes being thrown into the sea. (Ammianus, Hist. 22.11.10). 49 Julian, Letters 21. 50 Julian, Letters 21.

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nus, predicted the fall of the Serapeum would come after he died (Lives of the Philosophers 472). It is hard to reconcile all of these accounts of destruction. In order to harmonize them, we must believe that (1) there were two libraries, (2) there were at least two waves of civil and religious violence in the late 200s, (3) the main library was destroyed by Roman/Palmyrene conflict or civil conflict, (4) the Serapeum was gutted by 300, and (5) then it was gutted again by more Christians a century later (Eunapius says they took everything but the floor stones, which were too heavy). Beyond all of these considerations, recent archaeological work shows that the spaces in the Serapeum that might have served for book storage were “destroyed in the early Roman period” – scuppering most views that the Serapeum library survived until the destruction of the Serapeum itself.51 Even if we could settle on a date for the temple’s destruction among these options, its holdings could have been gone centuries earlier. In addition, questions around the Serapeum’s destruction and the spaces that could have been used for book storage only enter into the issue of whether the Library of Alexandria was destroyed through religious violence if we believe that it was related to the Library of Alexandria itself.

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4. “A Shameful Memory, Let It Burn” There is one final popular explanation for the destruction of the Library of Alexandria: Julius Caesar accidentally burned it along with the harbour area of the city in the 1st century BCE. Historians of all stripes have wrung their hands over this possibility – that “so eminent a man of letters as Caesar had, in a single stroke, annihilated the ancient world’s most outstanding monument to intellectual achievement.”52 But, like the other options discussed above, the proposition that Caesar burned down the historic palace of knowledge is more complicated than it first appears. As it turns out, the anxiety that the real Caesar might be have crowed over burning “the shameful memory” of all humanity – in the way Bernard Shaw’s Caesar does – has little evidence to support it.53

See footnote 44. Delia, “From Romance to Rhetoric,” 1461. It should be noted that this assessment ignores the existence of city libraries in Asia Minor and elsewhere, as well as the question of precisely what the library housed. See below. 53 George B. Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra, Act II. Given Shaw’s approval of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin it is hard to know whether he approves or condemns his own vision of Caesar here (Thiem, “The Great Library,” 521). 51

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Nonetheless, there is no doubt there was a fire in 47 BCE and that it was caused by Julius Caesar.54 What is in doubt is what the result of the fire was.55 There are essentially four scholarly opinions on whether this fire destroyed the library: (1) the fire did not burn any books, (2) the fire destroyed the library, (3) the fire destroyed something else or (4) the fire only destroyed copies being kept elsewhere. There is no need to create a taxonomy of scholars who ascribe to one view or another here because the main difficulties for all these theories are the same. Most of the texts that say or suggest Caesar set fire to the library postdate the event significantly. None of Caesar’s own contemporaries refer to burning the library when they document his battle in Alexandria, nor does he in his own memoirs.56 Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) refers to the books being burnt (but no agent of destruction). Plutarch appears to be the first to say it was specifically Caesar’s fire that burned the library, writing some 100 years later. Strabo (63 BCE–c. 24 CE), however, pre-empted Plutarch when he commented on the layout of the Museum as if it still existed at the turn of the century, after the battle.57 Strabo also mentions active “men of learning” operating in the Museion who might have continued the philological work there. In addition, Suetonius (c. 69 to after 122) says Domitian replaced burnt books in Roman libraries by sending copyists to Alexandria – suggesting that there was still something in Alexandria to copy after Plutarch was writing.58 Overall, then, even if we accept that no one wrote about the fire during Caesar’s lifetime in order to avoid his ire, we would also need to explain

54 It would be odd for Caesar to brag about it otherwise (in his typical 3rd person voice): “If they seized these, taking away Caesar’s fleet, they were going to have the harbor and the sea as a whole in their power and prevent Caesar from getting supplies and reinforcements. So the struggle was consistent with the stakes, since one side saw that a swift victory was at issue in this action, the other that their lives were. But Caesar met his objective. He also burned all of the enemy ships, plus the others in the boatyards, because he could not guard so much territory with his small corps, and immediately landed troops near the lighthouse” (Caesar, Bell. civ. 3.11). 55 See the later variations: Seneca, Tranq. 9.5; Lucan, Pharsalia 10.488–505; Plutarch, Caes. 49; Florus, Epit. 2.13.59–60; Aulus Gellius, Noct. att. 7.17.3; Cassius Dio 42.38.2; Ammianus, Hist. 22.16.13; and Orosius, Adv. 6.15.31. 56 See Caesar, Bell. civ. 3.111. 57 “The Museum is also a part of the royal palaces; it has a public walk, an Exedra with seats, and a large house, in which is the common mess-hall of the men of learning who share the Museum. This group of men not only hold property in common, but also have a priest in charge of the Museum, who formerly was appointed by the kings, but is now appointed by Caesar” (Strabo, Geogr. 17.8). 58 Suetonius, Dom. 20.

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references shortly afterward to ongoing work at the library.59 It is possible the library was rebuilt, but that has no literary evidence to support it. While the religiously motivated destruction attributed to ʿUmar is implausible and evidence about Christian and polytheist rioting in the 200s or 300s is imprecise, implausible, or incoherent at best, we cannot easily blame the library’s destruction on Caesar either.

5. Conclusion

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As muddled as the history of the library’s destruction may be, that characteristic is in keeping with other important aspects of its history. The size of its holdings,60 the method for book acquisitions,61 its origins and the players involved62 are subject to circuitous – and apparently endless – debate. The 59 Admittedly, this could be done if one believed the referenced library was the Serapeum and not a destroyed Main Library, although the archaeological evidence mentioned above (see footnote 47) stands against this. 60 Our ancient sources list 40,000 and 700,000 scrolls (Seneca, Tranq. 9.5; Aulus Gellius, Noct. att. 7.17.3 and Ammianus, Hist. 22.12) and John Tzetzes gives almost 500,000 in the 12th century. The higher numbers are simply too large to be reasonable given most modern libraries did not reach 500,000 volumes until 1850. Bagnall shows this by arguing that the 450 authors we know of before about 300 CE would have had to have written 31,250 rolls each in order to add up to the supposed contents of Alexandria’s library. Most could not be expected to write more than 50 or even 100. Therefore, either we only know of 10% of writers from antiquity or the Ptolemies stored over ten copies of everything (a start on the infinite copies in Borges’s “Library of Babel”). Even so, how could Callimachus’s catalogue of the holdings, the Pinakes (itself lost), have listed all that material in just 120 books including author biographies? As Bagnall puts it: “it is reasonably obvious that the ancient sources thought the libraries were enormous but had had no good figures to work with” (Bagnall, “Alexandria,” 352, 356). 61 Some scholars believe the claim that the Ptolemies shopped the book markets abroad, and raided boats in their harbour for books and gave the owners back copies. Most appear to draw from Fraser on this point, who cites Galen (Galen, Hipp. Epidem. 3) and Athenaeus, Deipn. 1.3b. See Peter M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 1:325. 62 The earliest surviving mention of the library is from the unreliable Letter of Aristeas which associates Demetrios of Phalerum with the library’s construction (cf. Diogenes Laertius 5.75–85). Pseudo-Aristeas is treated as a reliable source by several scholars writing on the library’s origins. In examining the scholarship, Bagnall notes the overriding concern is harmonization: “Everything reported must be kept in some fashion. So, almost unanimously, the reaction has been to suppose that Ptolemy I was the real founder of the Library, assisted by Demetrios, while Zenodotos was either a subordinate or came to the fore after Philadelphos came to the throne. The only real basis for such a view, other than a desperate desire not to abandon the sources, is a statement of Strabo that Aristotle taught Ptolemy the formation of a library” (Bagnall, “Alexandria,” 350–51).

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treatment of the sources ranges from the credulous to the downright cynical, and the cynics likely hold the higher ground. Key questions remain open and may be irresolvable given we only have conflicting information and relatively few sources. It is simply not possible to give a convincing, unified theory of the library’s construction, size, and destruction that could appeal to a preponderance of the evidence. Attempts to harmonize all the evidence, on the assumption that most if not all of it is good, result in absurd chronologies where two libraries are destroyed at different times and one of them twice.63 It has led to what Roger Bagnall has described as “a whole literature of wishful thinking…in which scholars – even, I fear, the most rigorous – have cast aside the time-tested methods that normally constrain credulity, in order to be able to avoid confessing defeat.”64 While schoolchildren have always been taught that the library was burned due to Christian or Muslim religious violence or in Caesar’s war, that is no longer indisputable. In fact, it has grown increasingly plausible that the library suffered a fair more banal demise: neglect. The lifetime of papyrus is limited to around 300 years at best, and Alexandria, sitting as it does on the Mediterranean, does not provide optimal conditions for papyrus’ longevity.65 With no record of any efforts to copy and preserve the texts, Bagnall, for one, argues that the library’s holdings simply disintegrated.66 He is right to suggest that speculating on the cultural loss the Library of Alexandria represents is to misunderstand its story: the library, as an institution and even just as an edifice, could never have safeguarded its contents for a society that no longer prioritized preserving the library itself. That too is, nonetheless, a kind of ideological violence on par with the religiously motivated destruction of the Mayan libraries recorded by Diego de Landa and the lost Catholic Monastic libraries “dissolved” by Henry VIII. Yet neglect is a far more disquieting narrative than a single mythologized villain, ideologue, or mob because neglect never sleeps – or dies, for that matter. Religious and political fanaticism are embodied in living, breathing avatars who can be confronted through protest or even conflict. Neglect is neither a political position that can be debated nor is it a flamethrower carried by a soldier. It is not a tidy or confined villain; it is an expression of a society’s values. So, when historians look for the fanatical criminal behind the library of Alexandria’s demise in order to reassure ourselves a similar disaster is impossible, we reassure ourselves of nothing but humanity’s own unreThiem, “The Great Library,” 508. Bagnall, “Alexandria,” 348. 65 Bagnall, “Alexandria,” 359. 66 This argument, however, must suffer from the silence of our otherwise cacophonous sources, even if it might go some way to explaining their disagreement.

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liability as stewards. What the Ptolemies valued was not considered worth preserving a few hundred years later. It is not for nothing that we now prize manuscripts discarded as sacred rubbish into the Cairo Genizah 2,000 years ago. Perhaps the only solution is a kind of absurd bibliomania: technology may soon allow us to preserve cherished, worn-out, and seemingly worthless material indiscriminately. Even if, like Borges’s librarian, we will never have the time to read everything or, like Gibbon, sneer at some holdings ourselves, we may soon be able to make sure that they will be ready when some eternal traveller passes through our library, excited to read our own consecrated garbage.

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Was Demetrius of Phalerum the Founder of the Alexandrian Library? MARIA SOKOLSKAYA 1. The Sources and Their Value At the entrance of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, a super-modern complex built in 2002 under the patronage of UNESCO in the Ptolemaic metropolis of knowledge, visitors are greeted by a statue of the ancient founder of the library – Demetrius of Phalerum. That this honor is due to him, the designers of the new Alexandrina could have learned from many standard reference books. Doubts arose now and again among historians, but to this day the posterity is not ready to dispense with the radiant founding figure. The latest Handbuch der griechischen Literatur der Antike of 2014 describes the current consensus as follows:

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The most important institution directly connected with the research activities of the scholars working at the Alexandrian Museion is the library, which Ptolemy I sought to equip with all works of the literary past. According to testimonies available to us, Ptolemy I relied for the realization of his plan on Aristotle’s student Demetrios of Phaleron as a mentor and supporter. However, the completion of the library foundation falls into the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (283–246 BC).1

But do we really have testimonies available about the preliminary founding of the library by the productive cooperation of the first Ptolemy and Demetrius? As a matter of fact, there exists only one ancient passage that links Ptolemy I Lagu with the founding of the library,2 and Stephanos Matthaios refers to it in a footnote: “Ptolemy I’s intentions are described by Irenaeus (Haer. 3.21.2) in a section handed down by Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.8.11.”3 Now, Irenaeus of Lyons, the Christian apologist of the second half of the 2nd century, was hardly a person who knew or was interested to know anything about intentions of the first Ptolemy nearly half a millennium before 1 Stephanos Matthaios, “Philologie,” in Die Literatur der klassischen und hellenistischen Zeit, vol. 2 of Handbuch der griechischen Literatur der Antike, ed. Bernhard Zimmermann and Antonios Rengakos (Munich: Beck, 2014), 502–53 (504) (translations mine). 2 Cf. Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 127–28. 3 Matthaios, “Philologie,” 504n6.

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him in distant Alexandria. As a matter of fact, Irenaeus does not care about “all writings of the literary past,” but ascribes to Ptolemy an ambition to furnish his library with “writings of all people of the earth, as far as these books are worthy”; as a result, the king in the narrative of Irenaeus requested in the same sentence “from the Jerusalemites their writings translated into Greek.” Obviously, we are dealing here with a version of the Septuagint legend in the context of the polemic on the famous Isaiah prophecy. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.8.9–10 says about Irenaeus as an introduction to the passage: Moreover, he has made mention of Justin Martyr and Ignatius, making frequent quotations from their writings…. Hear also, word for word, what he writes about the interpretation of the inspired Scriptures according to the Septuagint! “So God became man, and the Lord Himself saved us, giving us the sign of the virgin, but not as some say, who at the present time venture to translate the Scriptures: ‘Behold a young woman shall conceive and bear a son!’, as Theodotion from Ephesus translated it, and Aquila from Pontus, both of them Jewish proselytes.

The Testimonium itself then looks as follows (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.8.10– 14):

Irenaeus builds on the Septuagint legend, which most likely has its starting point in the so-called Letter of Aristeas; especially the goal “κοσμῆσαι τοῖς πάντων ἀνθρώπων συγγράμμασιν ὅσα γε σπουδαῖα ὑπῆρχεν” calls to mind a phrase in Let. Aris. 9, where Demetrius is said to have received large sums from the king to “collect all the books in the world” (ἅπαντα τὰ κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην βιβλία), while the next sentence points to “the Jewish laws that

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After a little he [sc. Irenaeus] goes on thus: “For before the Romans established their government, while the Macedonians still possessed Asia, Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, being very anxious to adorn the library, which he had founded in Alexandria with all the best extant writings of all men, asked from the inhabitants of Jerusalem to have their Scriptures translated into Greek. They, for they were at this time still subject to the Macedonians, sent to Ptolemy seventy elders, the most experienced they had in the Scriptures and in both languages, and God thus wrought what he willed. But Ptolemy, wishing to make trial of them in his own way, and being afraid lest they should have made some agreement to conceal by their translation the truth in the Scriptures, separated them from one another and commanded them all to write the same translation. And this he did in the case of all the books. But when they came together to Ptolemy, and compared each his own translation, God was glorified and the Scriptures were recognized as truly divine, for they all rendered the same things in the same words and the same names, from beginning to end, so that even the heathen who were present knew that the Scriptures had been translated by the inspiration of God….” So much says Irenaeus.4

4 English translation in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 2 vols., trans. Kirsopp Lake, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959), 1:459–61.

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are worthy of a translation and of your library” (τῶν Ἰουδαίων νόμιμα μεταγραφῆς ἄξια καὶ τῆς παρὰ σοὶ βιβλιοθήκης).5 In a new French edition of Aristeas, accompanied with other “ancient and medieval testimonies” of the Septuagint legend, it is suggested that Irenaeus had before him excerpts from Aristeas.6 In any case, he does not follow the story as told by Aristeas slavishly; he is the first author known to us to introduce the motive of the suspicious king and of intentional separation of translators with the aim to check the accuracy of the translation by comparing the independently created versions. The phrase τῶν πάντων τὰ αὐτὰ ταῖς αὐταῖς λέξεσιν καὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς ὀνόμασιν ἀναγορευσάντων ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς μέχρι τέλους, ὥστε καὶ τὰ παρόντα ἔθνη γνῶναι ὅτι κατ᾿ ἐπίπνοιαν τοῦ θεοῦ εἰσιν ἑρμηνευμέναι αἱ γραφαί (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.8.14) shows that Irenaeus’s Vorlage also had integrated Philo’s version of the legend.7 But an anti-Jewish tendency is also distinct: unlike the story as the Alexandrine Jews (both Aristeas and Philo) told it, in Irenaeus the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not respond willingly to the king’s decree because they consider it good and a sign of God’s providence, but simply because they must: “they were then subject to the Macedonians” (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.8.12). Accordingly, the king is not full of benevolence and reverence towards the translators, but rather suspicious and more or less violent.

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2. The Ptolemeans, Alexandria, and Athens This is a remarkable turn in the history of Bible reception. But why does this text, which obviously belongs to the history of Jewish-Christian polemics, within a long line of similar Christian retellings of the legend, and which can by no means be considered an independent testimony about the early Ptolemaic period, gain such importance in the context of the Handbuch der griechischen Literatur der Antike? Anyone familiar with the scholarly controversy about Demetrius’s role in the founding of the Library will find the answer easily: it is due to the mention of Ptolemy I Lagu. This mention is welcome by those who want to see in Demetrius the first librarian, for it resolves a contradiction which, according to a widespread opinion, is the only obstacle to accepting the history of Aristeas as a historical account on this 5 The phrase ὅτε δὲ Πτολεμαῖος, ὁ Αἰγυπτίων βασιλεύς, βιβλιοθήκην κατεσκεύαζε καὶ τὰ πάντων ἀνθρώπων συγγράμματα συνάγειν ἐπειράθη in Justin, 1 Apol. 31.2, is likely to have been the immediate source for Irenaeus. Eusebius confirms this suspicion. 6 Laurence Vianès, ed., Naissance de la Bible Grecque: Pseudo-Aristée, Lettre d’Aristée à Philocrate, suivi d’Epiphane de Salamine, Traité des poids et mesures, et de témoignages antiques et médievaux (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2017), 97. 7 Philo, Mos. 2.26–43, esp. 2.37: τὰ δ’ αὐτὰ πάντες ὀνόματα καὶ ῥήματα, ὥσπερ ὑποβολέως ἑκάστοις ἀοράτως ἐνηχοῦντος.

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point. Aristeas claims that Demetrius was appointed the head of the king’s library under Ptolemy II (Philadelphus), and in this capacity he took care of procuring the text of the Jewish law. Thus, the Jewish edificational text collides with the information about Demetrius in the “pagan” tradition. A biography of the famous statesman and pupil of Theophrastus, which Diogenes Laertius8 has compiled from the older sources (he names expressly the peripatetic biographer Hermippus of Smyrna), tells us that Demetrius fled to Egypt to Ptolemy I around 297 BCE after the death of his Macedonian patron Cassander and that he was held by the king in Alexandria in great honor. He consulted the King on various occasions and recommended him to appoint as heir to the throne a prince other than the future Ptolemy II. That is why Ptolemy II, once king, banished Demetrius from the capital to the countryside, where the latter died shortly thereafter from a snake bite. Humphrey Hody, at the end of the 17th century, used this discrepancy (noticed already by Scaliger) as a proof that the author of Aristeas, a Hellenistic Jew, does not tell a real story, but invents freely and poorly informed a fairy tale with the goal of conferring a greater authority upon the Greek translation of the Pentateuch.9 This argument has long been unchallenged. In recent times, however, doubts have come up. The scholarship is now less concerned with chronology than with ideology: It seems not so clear which specific Jewish purpose should have been served by the introduction of Demetrius as a librarian, if he was not otherwise known in this capacity.10 “The main question we have to Diogenes Laertius 5.75–85. Humphrey Hody, Contra historiam Aristeae de LXX interpretibus dissertatio (Oxford: Leon Lichfeld, 1684), 46–47. 10 Cf. Edward A. Parsons, The Alexandrian Library: Glory of the Hellenic World – Its Rise, Antiquities, and Destructions (London: Elsevier Press, 1952), 94: “What earthly reason, being a Jew, did he have for making Demetrios of Phaleron the hero of his story,” and his answer to this question, ibid., 95: “Now assuming that the writer was a Jew, with the perfectly reasonable desire to exalt his own people and their divine writings, what possible reason could he have had for ‘building up’ Demetrios of Phaleron. He could have had but one motive, and that was that he found ample and perfectly sound authority recording the achievements of Demetrios in making the great book collections, and his work in advising old Ptolemy in founding the Library and Museum and even initiating or suggesting the translation of the Hebrew Books.” The question is good and calls for investigation. But the answer is based on an amateurish handling of the sources. Parsons, an American lawyer and bibliophile, was only a hobby historian; cf. a contemporary review of his book by David M. Jones, review of The Alexandrian Library, by Edward A. Parsons, The Classical Review 3,3/4 (1953): 217–18. The reviewer points out that “he [sc. the author] is handicapped by his ignorance of Greek and Latin….” Not every specialist in biblical studies today is aware of this, so that Parsons̕ book is often quoted quite seriously as a standard reference book to the topic ‘the Alexandrian Library’; e.g. Benjamin G. Wright, The Letter of Aristeas: ‘Aristeas to Philocrates’ or ‘On the Translation of the Law of the Jews’, CEJL (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 113: “Ps.-Aristeas seems also to designate Demetrius as the head of the royal library, an assignment that many 8

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answer,” says a recent commentary to Aristeas, “is why would Ps.-Aristeas connect Demetrius with Ptolemy II?”11 As the most convincing answer to this question, he cites Sara Raup Johnson: Demetrius’ status lends enormous weight to the respect that he is made to express for the Jewish Law, at least in the eyes of Aristeas’ Greek-speaking Jewish audience…. By placing the project in the hands of the very founder of the Alexandrian Library and assuring us that distinguished intellectual’s respect for the Law and his concern for its accuracy, Aristeas means to offer historical proof of the Septuagint’s authenticity. 12

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But this status of “the very founder of the Alexandrian Library” – is it not the invention of the same Aristeas? There is not a single testimony linking Demetrius to the library which is independent of the Septuagint narrative. This motive is clearly restricted to the Jewish tradition (and the Christian one based on it). To appreciate this correctly, one must first of all realize how rich the “pagan” tradition about Demetrius is. It is worth taking a look at the collections of the Testimonia and Fragmenta of Demetrius, be it the older one by F. Wehrli13 or the newer one with an English translation by W. Fortenbaugh and E. Schütrumpf.14 Demetrius was a very prominent figure, both politically and intellectually. Apart from the above-mentioned Vita in the 5th book of Diogenes Laertius, we have plenty of ancient testimonies, including so reliable and wellinformed ones as those of Cicero, who saw in him something of a predecessor or at least a kindred spirit. At the same time Demetrius was an active politician, for 10 years governor at Athens under the Macedonian rule, and a prominent Peripatetic who left many writings. The description in Cicero’s De finibus sounds very personal: Demetrius, unjustly expelled from his homeland, went to Alexandria to King Ptolemy. Being a most learned and gifted man, he modern scholars dispute. Almost universally they agree that Demetrius, as advisor to Ptolemy I, was the driving force first behind the founding of the Mouseion in Alexandria and subsequently the Library and the initial collecting of books,” referring in a footnote first to Parsons; second to Peter M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 1:306–7. Fraser says merely: “It seems probable – of Demetrius we may regard it as certain – that these men played a part in developing Soter’s ideas as to how Alexandria might most effectively be developed as a cultural centre, and laid the foundations of the institutional patronage of the next generation” – a very cautious statement, as can be expected of a professional historian in such a case, so much so that it has almost no significance at all. 11 Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 116. 12 Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 117, the quote is from Sara R. Johnson, Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity: Third Maccabees in its Cultural Context (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 37–38. 13 Fritz Wehrli, Demetrios von Phaleron, vol. 4 of Die Schule des Aristoteles (Basel: Schwabe, 1968). 14 William W. Fortenbaugh and Eckart Schütrumpf, eds., Demetrius of Phalerum: Text, Translation and Discussion (London: Transaction Publishers, 1999). The authors wish their publication to be referred to as SOD.

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had written many excellent writings in this enforced leisure, not for gain, but because philosophy was the food of his soul, an inner need15 – just as Cicero did during his forced otium under Caesar. Saying this, the Roman asserts positively that Demetrius was a private scholar in Egypt, with no public activity. Demetrius was Cicero’s hero: there were always many great statesmen who were only moderately educated, as well as many great scholars who did not achieve much in politics. But is it easy to find one besides Demetrius, who had shown such excellence in both areas that he must be given first place both in scholarship and among the heads of state?16 (Obviously, Cicero hopes it will not escape his readers how well this description fits another one, namely himself). Cicero also discusses Demetrius’s stay in Egypt and his learned activity there. Therefore, it seems to me rather unreasonable to speak in this case dismissively of an argumentum e silentio,17 especially since there is none among 200 fragments collected by Wehrli, as well as among the 161 accepted by Fortenbaugh and Schütrumpf, which would mention a connection between Demetrius and the library without being directly related to the Septuagint legend. When Rudolf Pfeiffer searched through the available sources for his masterful History of Classical Scholarship, this circumstance did not escape him. He states: There is not one word about Demetrius’ assistance to Ptolemy I in cultural matters either in this [sc. in Hermippus / Diogenes Laertius, Lives 5.78] or in the other ample biographical literature. In addition to this, there is complete silence about Demetrius in the scanty, but apparently reliable, tradition on the king’s greatest foundations for scholarship.18

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He concludes his chapter The Rise of Scholarship in Alexandria as follows: In the course of this chapter the question of Demetrius’ contribution to the scholarship in Alexandria has been discussed. Of the only two sources, Aristeas and Tzetzes, Tzetzes turned out to be partly, although indirectly, dependent on Aristeas, and chronological confusion in both of them were obvious. The necessary conclusion is that the vulgate version of Demetrius’ key position rests on very poor evidence. Nevertheless, on general grounds we may believe in the probability that, by his advice to the king, he furthered the new scholarship and brought to it the influence of his great master Aristotle … we must now try to turn away from those uncertain modern reconstructions….19

15 Cicero, Fin. 5.53 (Wehrli, Demetrios, frag. 62) “multa praeclara in illo calamitoso otio scripsit non ad usum aliquem suum, quo erat orbatus, sed animi cultus ille erat ei quasi quidam humanitatis cibus.” 16 Cicero, Leg. 3.14 (Wehrli, Demetrios, frag. 72) “Qui vero utraque re excelleret, ut et doctrinae studiis et regenda civitate princeps esset, quis facile praeter hunc (sc. Demetrium) inveniri potest.” 17 As, e.g., Parsons, Alexandrian Library, 104. 18 Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, 96. 19 Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, 103.

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Having said this, Pfeiffer abandons Demetrius of Phalerum to his fate and turns relieved to the first librarian, who is actually referred to in the tradition as such,20 and whose activities mentioned in the sources correspond better to this office than the endeavor to translate the Jewish law. Pfeiffer apparently had already wondered how it came to the widespread notion of Demetrius as the founder of Alexandrina, given the eloquent silence of the sources. He remarks somewhat abruptly: “Demetrius was always a great favourite with Wilamowitz who represented him as having ‘das universale Museion in Alexandria gestiftet’ … and even as the first head of the library.”21 In the beginning was thus the enormous authority of the former Pope of classical studies. But why did Wilamowitz want so badly to ascribe to Demetrius the founding of the museum and its library? It is hard to imagine that he was so attached to the Septuagint legend and its Jewish and Christian proponents that he accepted their testimony without examination. Luckily, the great philologist used to lay open the ideological motives of his historical convictions with all desirable clarity. So we read in an excursus at the end of his Antigonus of Karystos: Die wichtigste nachfolge Platons fällt außerhalb des kreises der philosophie … es muss aber mit einem worte darauf hingewiesen werden, dass Demetrios von Phaleron wie das peripatetische Museion in Athen so das universale in Alexandria gestiftet hat, dass hier, soweit es möglich war, die gedanken Platons den verhältnissen, die alle neu zu schaffen waren, eingeordnet sind, und die initiative des größten philosophen in dem größten wissenschaftlichen institute fortgewirkt hat … Ptolemaios und Demetrios bewiesen eben auch hier ihr ganz bewunderungswürdiges organisatorisches talent: aber der weltüberschattende baum der alexandrinischen gelehrsamkeit ist doch nur ein reis von dem heiligen ölbaume am Rosshügel zu Athen.22

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At stake is, thus, a clear derivation of all that is valuable in the “Alexandrian erudition” from the radiant Athenian classic: Demetrius, an Athenian, becomes a link between Plato and Alexandria. In this excursus Wilamowitz gives no references to sources. We have to wait until his much later work, 20 Ada Adler, ed., Suidae lexicon, Pars II: Δ–Θ, Lexicographi Graeci I, 2 (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1967), 506, s.v. 74 Ζηνόδοτος: Ζηνόδοτος, Ἐφέσιος, ἐποποιὸς καὶ γραμματικός, μαθητὴς Φιλητᾶ, ἐπὶ Πτολεμαίου γεγονὼς τοῦ πρώτου, ὃς καὶ πρῶτος τῶν Ὁμήρου διορθωτὴς ἐγένετο καὶ τῶν ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ βιβλιοθηκῶν προὔστη καὶ τοὺς παῖδας Πτολεμαίου ἐπαίδευσεν; cf. Erich Bayer, “Demetrios Phalereus der Athener,” Tübinger Beiträge 36 (1942): 107–8. 21 Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, 99: “The sources we have examined so far are silent about Demetrius.” Pfeiffer adds in a footnote (ibid., 99n4): “This statement was taken over by Susemihl I 7 f. …. It was repeated word for word by Müller-Grappa in his very useful and comprehensive article ‘Museion,’ RE XVI (1933) 801 f. and it became commonplace in almost every modern book.” 22 Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Antigonos von Karystos, Philologische Untersuchungen 4 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1881), 291.

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Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos. We read there in the section on Ptolemy Soter: Ebenso konnte nicht ausbleiben, dass der neue Herrscher [sc. Ptolemy II] es die Männer des Hofes fühlen ließ, die seiner Nachfolge widerstrebt hatten. Das traf (vielleicht erst nach Soters Tode 283/82) den Demetrios von Phaleron, dessen Einfluss auf Ptolemaios I. von der größten Bedeutung ist, beiden zur höchsten Ehre. Dieser Mann, gebildet in der Schule des Aristoteles und der bedeutendste Redner seiner Zeit, der Athen zwölf Jahre friedlichen Gedeihens in dieser wilden Zeit bereitet und damit eine Probe auf seine politischen Theorien abgelegt hatte, ist nicht nur der Berater des Soter bei seinen wissenschaftlichen Unternehmungen gewesen, vor allem bei der Gründung der Bibliothek, deren erster Vorstand er gewesen ist, sondern hat auch an der Gesetzgebung teilgenommen.23

In the footnote to this passage, he finally reveals his warrants: Aelian, V[ar]. H[ist]. 3.17. Bibliothekar heißt er bei Aristeas 9, und es ist bare Willkür, dies für eine Schwindelei des Juden zu halten. Auch bei Tzetzes, S. 19 Kaibel, wird er noch einmal genannt, obgleich dort alles auf die entscheidende Organisation des Philadelphos gestellt ist, die auch bei Aristeas darin wirksam ist, dass Demetrios den Philadelphos berät, was freilich der Wahrheit widerspricht. Auch die Anekdote in den plutarchischen Apophtegmen 189d setzt die Tätigkeit des Demetrios für die Bibliothek voraus.24

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The passus in Aelian refers to the legislation,25 for the library Wilamowitz has thus only Aristeas with his Christian successors, taken at face value. Hardly anyone would claim today that the anecdote handed down under Apophtegmata Regum et Imperatorum presupposes an activity for the library – the text suggests this conclusion in no way.26 Here apparently the wish was 23 Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos, 2 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1924), 1:22. 24 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hellenistische Dichtung, 1:22n2. However, as soon as Wilamowitz in the same book moves on to the description of the Library, he names Zenodotos the first librarian, exactly as the sources do. The speculations about Demetrius are then presented in the subjunctive mood: “Wie gross ist der Gedanke, den gesamten literarischen Nachlass der Vorzeit” – now we have found the origin of the collocation “all works of the literary past,” which Matthaios, “Philologie,” 504, ascribes to Irenaeus! – “zu sammeln und zu erhalten; man fühlte, dass eine ganze Periode abgeschlossen war. Diesen Gedanken wird Demetrios gefasst haben; es steckt aristotelischer Geist darin” (ibid., 165). With more confidence, see ibid., 160: “Es schmälert seinen [sc. of Ptolemy Soter] Verdienst nicht, dass die organisatorischen Gedanken von Demetrios stammten, den er gewähren liess und die Mittel zur Verfügung stellte” – the last statement is simply taken from Aristeas. Cf. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, 99n4. 25 Cf. Wehrli, Demetrios, frag. 65; SOD (Fortenbaugh and Schütrümpf, Demetrius), frag. 40: καὶ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ δὲ συνὼν τῷ Πτολεμαίῳ νομοθεσίας ἦρξε. 26 Δημήτριος ὁ Φαληρεὺς Πτολεμαίῳ τῷ βασιλεῖ παρῄνει τὰ περὶ βασιλείας καὶ ἡγεμονίας βιβλία κτᾶσθαι καὶ ἀναγινώσκειν· ἃ γὰρ οἱ φίλοι τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν οὐ θαρροῦσι παραινεῖν, ταῦτα ἐν τοῖς βιβλίοις γέγραπται (Wehrli, Demetrios, frag. 63 = SOD, frag. 38). Already Edgar Martini, “Demetrios von Phaleron,” RE 4,2 (1901): 2817–41 (2837–38), commented on this under the heading ‘Angedichtetes’: “Ps.-Plut. Apophth. 189 d berichtet, D[emetrius]

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the father to the thought,27 that is, the desire to ascribe to Demetrius the greatest possible merit in the history of humanity. It seems that for Wilamowitz, as for Cicero at the time, the Phalerean was a projection of his own feelings towards the world around him, a state-minded aristocrat in an out-ofjoint time, a preserver of old values in a deranged world. In Aristoteles und Athen he describes the beneficial effect of Aristotelian philosophy on the elimination of democracy and stabilization of the situation in Athens at the end of the 4th century: ganz besonders aber hat Athen die praktische anwendung der aristotelischen Politik erfahren. sein Freund Antipatros schlägt die demokratie nieder; sie hatte ihn selbst zu dieser execution gezwungen.… stätigkeit kommt erst in die verhältnisse, als Demetrios von Phaleron den staat in die hände bekommt.… so über Athen zu herrschen hat Demetrios bei Aristoteles gelernt: er ist der νομοθετητικὸς ἀνήρ, den die Politik erzogen hat. Gerade in Athen hat sie ihre praktische Probe bestanden. wüssten wir nur mehr über die verfassung und verwaltung des Demetrios, so würden wir das noch in einzelnem verfolgen können, aber für jeden, der nicht durch phrasen geblendet ist oder auf ein modernes politisches credo eingeschworen, gibt die würdelosigkeit des volkes und seiner demagogen, die vor den füßen des Demetrios Poliorketes hündisch schwänzeln, der schmutz, mit dem der elende Demochares das gedächtnis des Platon und Aristoteles bewirft und das elend der neunziger jahre eine folie ab, dunkel genug, dass sich auch beim trüben lichte unserer überlieferung die segensreiche verwaltung des Demetrios deutlich abhebt.28

The backgrounds of such judgement have been forgotten, but the traces they have left in reference works and general depictions of the Ptolemaic era continue to this day.

3. The Role of Jewish Studies

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In the meantime, however, a new powerful trend arose, which got unexpectedly mixed up with the fruits of Wilamowitz’s mob-aversion. The growing interest in the Judaism of the Second Temple, Jewish Studies as a rapidly evolving discipline alongside traditional biblical scholarship, brought the Septuagint and Aristeas into the focus of scholarship once again, with other habe dem Ptolomaios Lagu den Rat gegeben, sich Werke über die Königsherrschaft anzuschaffen und zu lesen; denn – so motivierte er seinen Vorschlag – was die Freunde den Königen zu sagen sich nicht getrauten, das stände in den Büchern geschrieben. Diese Erzählung, die durchaus nichts Unglaubhaftes enthält, darf für wahr hingenommen werden. Freilich ist es nicht erlaubt, auf Grund derselben D[emetrius] zum geistigen Vater der großen alexandrinischen Bibliothek zu stempeln.” Cf. Bayer, “Demetrios Phalereus,” 104. 27 Cf. Bayer, “Demetrios Phalereus,” 105 (on Demetrius’s relation to the libraries in Alexandria): “Nachdem Martini jede Beziehung bestritten und Wilamowitz alles, was immer nur anging, geglaubt hatte….” 28 Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aristoteles und Athen, 2 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1893, repr. 1985), 1:362–63.

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accents than at the time of the Christian interdenominational quarrels about the priority of a particular version of the Old Testament. People increasingly asked about the nature of Hellenistic, pre-Christian and pre-Babylonian Judaism and, among other things, the relationship between the Jewish “heartland” of Palestine and the so-called diaspora, especially in its Hellenistic metropolis of Alexandria. Particularly for Jewish scholars in the 20th century the question of the intrinsic value of diaspora Judaism was of particular relevance in context of the discussions around the Zionistic movement. The question of the Septuagint creation was then re-examined, especially by Elias Bickerman. Already in 1930, he spoke in favor of the historicity of the narrative framework in Aristeas,29 in 1950 he made his reasons for that explicit – without a real attempt to prove anything,30 in 1959 followed then a detailed presentation of the argument: The Alexandrian tradition about the origins of the Septuagint became challenged after the Reformation for confessional reasons and, then, disproved by historical scepticism. The scholars generally agreed that the version was not made at command of Ptolemy II, but produced by the Alexandrian Jews who no longer knew enough Hebrew in order to satisfy their religious needs. This hypothesis, however, is anachronistic. It is hardly necessary to argue that the Greek Torah was not intended for private reading. The custom of public reading of the Law … was not known in the third century B.C.E. …. The continuous reading is not attested before the middle of the second century C.E. …. It is most likely that in the Alexandrian synagogue a dragoman standing beside the reader translated the lesson into Greek. It is again probable that a written rendering into Greek existed for select passages … to help the dragoman. But under the conditions of book making in antiquity it would be a phantastic waste of money and labor to translate, copy and recopy the whole Pentateuch in order to provide help for an occasional oral translation of isolated passages of the Torah. … On reflection, the traditional account is confirmed by the intrinsic probabilities of the case. Ancient governments sometimes undertook extensive translation works.… On the other hand, Ptolemy II was interested in books as he was in exotic animals.… Ptolemy II had every reason to add Moses’ work to his collection. The Torah was the sole written source of the law of his subjects in Judaea and the sole authority on their history. About the same time, when the ‘Seventy’ pursued their task, a Babylonian priest composed a history of his country in Greek and a ‘high priest and scribe of the sacred shrines of Egypt’ compiled that of the Pharaohs. Like the ‘Seventy’, Manetho worked for Ptolemy II, why the Babylonian Berossus dedicated his composition to Antiochus I of Syria, contemporary and rival of Philadelphus. Thus, between roughly 280 and 260 B.C.E., under royal auspices, representatives of Oriental peoples endeavoured to provide the Greek

29 Elias J. Bickerman, “Zur Datierung des Pseudo-Aristeas,” ZNW 24 (1930): 280–98, reprinted and translated as idem, “The Dating of Pseudo Aristeas,” in Studies in Jewish and Christian History, ed. Amram Tropper, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 1:108–33. 30 In an earlier edition, see Elias J. Bickerman, “Some notes on the transmission of the Septuagint,” in Studies in Jewish and Christian History, ed. idem, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 1:137–66 (143): “Modern critics, wrongly, as I think, suppose that the Greek version of the Torah originated in the Jewish community of Alexandria to satisfy the needs of the Jews who had lost the knowledge of the Hebrew.”

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public with authentic information in order to supersede the current Greek fables about the Orient. Three volumes of Berossus and five books of Manetho corresponded to five scrolls of the Greek Torah, the Pentateuch.”31

My justification for the overly long quote is that these arguments, perhaps except for the last, hopefully not completely serious arithmetic exercise, have gained great popularity and even 70 years later are included in many introductions to the Septuagint. Thus, we read in S. Kreuzer: Die Tradition von der Initiative eines heidnischen Königs für die Übersetzung der heiligen Schrift der jüdischen Gemeinschaft ist überraschend und ungewöhnlich und erschien später problematisch. Gerade wenn man annimmt, dass die Septuaginta aus rein innerjüdischen Gründen und Bedürfnissen entstand und verwendet wurde, ist es kaum erklärbar, warum man eine Initiative des heidnischen Königs erfunden haben soll.32

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Bickerman was not a specialist in Biblical Studies, he did not know Hebrew.33 The quoted passage is not a presentation of scientific results (if I had quoted the three pages in full including footnotes, it would be even more obvious), but a firework of more or less interesting and witty ideas without any serious foundation. But they do hit exactly on sore points of Septuagint research: today we still do not really know from what need the translation of the Torah was created and where and by whom it was used. The remark that it was hardly intended for the private reading of ordinary people ignorant of Hebrew deserves serious consideration. Bickerman’s work provoked unbridled enthusiasm in Martin Hengel who was fighting for a reassessment of the relationship between “Hellenism” and “Judaism,” or for contradicting their alleged opposition – which led to a veritable Bickerman renaissance, especially through the new edition of Bickerman’s relevant work in English in 2007 (the articles in [flawed] German and French have now been translated 31 Elias J. Bickerman, “The Septuagint as a Translation,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 28 (1959): 1–39 = in Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 1:163–94 (171–75). 32 Siegfried Kreuzer, “Entstehung und Überlieferung der Septuaginta,” in Einleitung in die Septuaginta, vol. 1 of Handbuch zur Septuaginta, ed. idem (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2016), 29–88 (42 with n19). This attitude is characteristic for the editors and contributors of the Septuaginta Deutsch; cf. Heinz-Josef Fabry, “Neue Aufmerksamkeit für die Septuaginta,” in Im Brennpunkt: Die Septuaginta. Studien zur Entstehung und Bedeutung der Griechischen Bibel, ed. idem and Dieter Böhler (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2007), 3:9–26 (10): “Es besteht ein gewisser Konsens darüber, daß die Entstehung der Septuaginta mit dem hellenistischen Programm zusammen gesehen werden muß, das mit dem Namen des Rhetors und ersten Bibliothekars der Bibliothek von Alexandria, Demetrios von Phaleron, verbunden wird.” Similarly Wolfgang Orth, “Ptolemaios II. und die Septuaginta-Übersetzung,” in Fabry and Offerhaus, Im Brennpunkt, 2:97–114 (110–11). The word “consensus” seems to me an exaggeration. 33 Cf. Albert I. Baumgarten, Elias Bickerman as a Historian of the Jews: A Twentieth Century Tale, TSAJ 131 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 222.

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into a correct English). Two impressive volumes with a somewhat hagiographical preamble of Hengel are widely read. Undoubtedly fertile was Bickerman’s approach to the history of Judaism in Ptolemaic and Roman times as a case study of the history of Hellenism in general, not as a field in itself, where special laws apply. The literary legacy of Hellenistic Judaism urgently needed a contextualization – this explains the success of the idea that the Septuagint was somehow in line with Berossus and Manetho – which is, as a matter of fact, not a particularly productive idea. The plausibility of a royal initiative for the translation stands for Kreuzer in the context of the polemic against Folker Siegert, who stated in his introduction to the Septuagint (2001) that the Jewish community “had at no time a discernible contact”34 with the Alexandrian education. This claim, as Kreuzer notes, “is thus no more tenable.”35

4. Why Demetrius?

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Kreuzer is correct, but founding historical contextualization on the narratives of Aristeas is no solution.36 The present article does not discuss the question of the Ptolemaic initiative for translation versus the needs of the Jewish community, but only a small part of it, namely: is a reasonable answer to the question asked by Parsons and Kreuzer possible? That is, what could have led Aristeas to make Demetrius the first librarian and even involve him in Septuagint history, if it is not simply historical truth? In other words: 1. What do we know about Demetrius from the non-Jewish tradition that could be relevant to Aristeas? 2. Whether anything in the description of Demetrius at Aristeas could give us an idea why this figure could seem particularly fitting to the author for his purposes. An interesting idea was recalled after a long period of oblivion in a recent introduction to the “Jewish-Hellenistic religious literature” by André-Marie Denis.37 Denis, speaking of the sources that researchers have been able so far to identify in Aristeas, states that to those we can probably add the narratives 34 Folker Siegert, Zwischen Hebräischer Bibel und Altem Testament: Eine Einführung in die Septuaginta (Münster: LIT, 2001), 32, translation mine. 35 Kreuzer, “Entstehung und Überlieferung,” 37n10. 36 This idea was strikingly compromised by Nina L. Collins, The Library in Alexandria and the Bible in Greek, VTSup 82 (Leiden: Brill, 2000). The book attempts to prove the historicity of the whole story as told in Aristeas. For reactions, see the review of David J. Wasserstein, Scripta Classica Israelica 22 (2003): 318–20. Cf. Tessa Rajak, Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 28n7. 37 Albert-Marie Denis, Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénistique, 2 vols. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000).

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by Demetrius of Phalerum on the miracles of Sarapis, the god of healing, whose cult was introduced by the first Ptolemies. Two stories from this work or works by Demetrius can be recognized at the end of Aristeas (Let. Aris. 314–16, the writers Theopompus and Theodectus, both struck by God), of course, “transposed into Jewish-Hellenistic shape.”38 Denis refers to the old (1942) book by Erich Bayer,39 which is mostly disregarded in the recent, especially English-speaking, research on Aristeas. Bayer, examining the sources, remarks that all the different recorded stories and mentions point to the fact that Demetrius was very close to Ptolemy I in the late years of his reign and possessed much influence at the court, and that his era ended with the accession of Ptolemy II. Nehmen wir diese Stellung und die Persönlichkeit des Demetrios zusammen, so ist damit eine Möglichkeit der Einflussnahme auf die innere Gestaltung des Ptolemaierreiches gegeben, welche fest zu umreißen, ja abzuschätzen wir heute nicht mehr in der Lage sind.40

Following up the few traces of this influence, Bayer encounters the link between Demetrius and the cult of Sarapis, firmly established in the tradition. Two sources report it. First, a miraculous healing is reported in the Vita by Diogenes Laertius: He is said to have lost his eyesight in Alexandria and to have retrieved it from Sarapis, which is how he came to compose those paeans which are still sung to this day. 41

Secondly, Artemidorus reports in his Oneirokritikon: But it is not possible to describe dreams that had come true and their outcome in a handbook on interpreting dreams and in instructions for observation. Nor do these strike me as convincing, even though Geminus of Tyrus, Demetrius of Phalerum and Artemon of Miletus in works of three, five and twenty-two books respectively have produced records of numerous dreams, particularly of instructions and cures provided by Sarapis.42

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Taken together, these two pieces of information seem to indicate that Demetrius was active in the propaganda of the new Sarapis cult newly created by the first Ptolemies, and wrote both cultic songs (paeans) to the new deity and its aretalogy (probably in prose), including first and foremost its miraculous Denis, Introduction, 2:943. See note 27 above. 40 Bayer, “Demetrios,” 100. 41 Diogenes Laertius, Lives 5.76: λέγεται δ’ ἀποβαλόντα αὐτὸν τὰς ὄψεις ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ, κομίσασθαι αὖθις παρὰ τοῦ Σαράπιδος· ὅθεν καὶ τοὺς παιᾶνας ποιῆσαι τοὺς μέχρι νῦν ᾀδομένους (SOD, frag. 1), with the English translation quoted here. 42 2.44: Ὀνείρους δὲ ἀποβεβηκότας καὶ τὰς ἀποβάσεις αὐτῶν οὐκἐνεδέχετο γράφειν ἐν τέχνῃ ὀνειροκριτικῇ καὶ ὑποθήκαις θεωρημάτων. οὐδέ μοι πιθανὰ ἐδόκει ταῦτα, καίτοι Γεμίνου τοῦ Τυρίου καὶ Δημητρίου τοῦ Φαληρέως καὶ Ἀρτέμωνος τοῦ Μιλησίου τοῦ μὲν ἐν τρισὶ βιβλίοις τοῦ δὲ ἐν πέντε τοῦ δὲ ἐν εἰκοσιδύο πολλοὺς ὀνείρους ἀναγραψαμένων καὶ μάλιστα συνταγὰς καὶ θεραπείας τὰς ὑπὸ Σαράπιδος δοθείσας (SOD, frag. 86), English slightly revised. 38

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healings, in the manner of the Greek Asclepius.43 The “biographical” anecdote in Diogenes is probably nothing more than a very common projection of a literary work on the life of the author. The information that Demetrius wrote 5 books about fulfilled dreams, especially about instructions for regaining health given by Sarapis in dreams, or miraculous healings taking place immediately while dreaming44 allows a new look at his speech in the abovementioned final paragraphs of Aristeas (Let. Aris. 314–16). There, Demetrius reports to the king two miraculous healings. In both cases, an author had written or was going to write something unwelcome to the deity, and was punished or warned with mental confusion or physical blindness; after questioning the deity about the causes of the illness and repenting the transgressor is miraculously healed – an old Greek motif, one only has to think of Stesichorus and his Palinode. In Aristeas, of course, the deity is the one true Jewish god. The offense that had angered him is the reckless use of the sacred text in an unauthorized version. However, the retelling of the Scriptures as a transgression against God does not fit the Jewish way of dealing with the sacred text. The Torah is not a mystery text – nowhere else do we hear that the contents of the Jewish law cannot be retold. Αristeas refers to “earlier misleading translation” (τινὰ τῶν προηρμηνευμένων ἐπισφαλέστερον ἐκ τοῦ νόμου), but it seems more than likely that the Vorlage spoke of divulging a divine mystery or insulting the deity – both motives are common in the Greek literature. It seems quite conceivable, as Bayer (and now also Denis) suggests, that Theopompus and Theodectus – both names that must be familiar to the real Demetrius and had a good chance of being mentioned in his works – come into the Aristeas story straight out of his On dreams. Of course, there the punishing and redeeming deity was not Yahweh, but Sarapis. In support of his thesis, Bayer introduces a parallel with certain pieces from the Alexander Romance.45 There, as Friedrich Pfister has already demonstrated in 1914, a legend about the founding of Alexandria, or, more precisely, about the introduction of the new cult of the city-god by Alexander, is presented in two versions. In both versions, the deity reveals himself as the supreme god of the universe, but in Versio A his name is Sarapis, whereas in Versio C he is left nameless, being identifiable by certain epithets as the God of the Old and New Testament.

Bayer, “Demetrios,” 101–2. About the distinction between instructions and instant healings during an incubation, cf. Otto Weinreich, Antike Heilungswunder: Untersuchungen zum Wunderglauben der Griechen und Römer (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1969), 119–20. 45 Versio A: Versio Vetusta, vol. 1 of Historia Alexandri Magni (Pseudo-Callisthenes), ed. Wilhelm Kroll (Berlin: Weidmann, 1958), 28–37; Versio C: Der Griechische Alexanderroman, Rezension Γ, Buch II, ed. Helmut Engelmann (Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1963), 230. 43

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Under the Christian layer, a former Alexandrian Jewish one is recognizable. The author of Aristeas is also keen to present the Jewish God as the only true God of all mankind and suggests to the king his identity with Zeus, named so because he is the life-giver and creator of the entire world.46 In Jewish-Hellenistic literature the divine miracles are an important proof of divine pronoia and omnipotence. The same can be said about Sarapis – the newly created god had no old mythology, but only the growing aretalogical literature, which propagated his miracles, especially miracles of healing – and at the beginning of this literature our sources clearly put Demetrius of Phalerum. About Demetrius’s connection with the Sarapis cult as well as about possible echoes of the Sarapis aretalogies in the Jewish-Hellenistic literature the last word is certainly not spoken yet.47 But for explaining his role in Aristeas this connection seems to me absolutely central. Aristeas is clearly a work of religious propaganda, and we may expect its author to look for inspiration in the religious literature of his time. The author is hardly concerned with the prestige of Homeric philology48 or literary studies in general – and even if he had been, Demetrius was not the right paragon to exemplify this kind of interest. Much more plausible seems to me in the context of this work the aim to overwrite, so to speak, a new universalistic cult in Alexandria with the name of the Jewish God. It seems to be at least a partial answer to the above-mentioned question, what could have led a Jewish author to ascribe to Demetrius of Phalerum such a large role in the dissemination of in Jewish law in the Greek-speaking world.

Let. Aris. 16. An important argument for Demetrius̕ strong connection with the cult of Sarapis could be his statue found in the sanctuary of Sarapis in Memphis. But it is still undecided whether Lauer und Picard had really proven beyond doubt the identification of the badly mutilated statue in the Serapeion of Memphis as an image of Demetrius of Phalerum (if rightly identified, he stood there beside Pindar, apparently as an author of important cultic poems). Cf. Jean P. Lauer and Charles Picard, Les statues ptolémaïques du Sarapeion de Memphis, Publications de l’Institut d’Art et d’Archéologie de l’Université de Paris 3 (Paris: Presses Universitaire de France, 1955), 69–89. Nobody, as it seems, has proposed till now a better identification. 48 Pace Maren Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 46

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II. Egyptian and Hellenistic Identities

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Alexandria in the New Outline of Philosophy in the Roman Imperial Period and in Late Antiquity CHRISTOPH RIEDWEG

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The completion of volume 5 of the series Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (Begründet von Friedrich Ueberweg, völlig neu bearbeitete Ausgabe),1 which is dedicated to the Philosophy in the Roman Imperial Period and in Late Antiquity,2 allows a revealing insight into the role Alexandria as a cultural and intellectual hub played in this socially, politically and intellectually exciting era, in which the foundations were laid not only of the Western and Byzantine, but also of the Islamic thinking. To be sure, the renowned Egyptian city on the mouth of the Nile was not the only place where “philosophy,” in all its increasingly diverse forms and realizations,3 was at home. The whole Roman οἰκουμένη, including border regions, formed its theatre: As a profoundly globalized habitat it widely offered excellent conditions for philosophers to freely move and to settle down in one of the many urban centers around the Mediterranean, among them Antioch, Apamea, Athens, Caesarea Maritima, Constantinople, Ephesus, Rome, and others. But there is hardly any doubt that, apart from Athens, Alexandria remained one, if not the most important intellectual hub throughout the first seven centuries CE. How does this fact show up in the tripartite work Philosophie der Kaiserzeit und der Spätantike, to which more than 50 specialists from all around the world have contributed and which covers the pagan as well as the Jewish and the Christian traditions? On the highest level of organization, i.e., in the titles of the 16 main chapters,4 no corresponding entry is to be found, yet in a 1 Edited by Helmut Holzhey until January 2018, since then by Laurent Cesalli and Gerald Hartung, and published by Schwabe in Basel. 2 Christoph Riedweg, Christoph Horn and Dietmar Wyrwa, eds. Philosophie der Kaiserzeit und der Spätantike, vol. 5,1 of Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, ed. Helmut Holzhey (Basel: Schwabe, 2018). 3 For the multiplication of the term “philosophy” in this period cf. Christoph Riedweg, Philosophia in der Konkurrenz von Schulen, Wissenschaften und Religionen: Zur Pluralisierung des Philosophiebegriffs in Kaiserzeit und Spätantike – Akten der 17. Tagung der Karl und Gertrud Abel-Stiftung vom 16. Bis 17. Oktober 2014 in Zürich, Philosophie der Antike 34 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017). 4 I. Allgemeine Einleitung; II. Fortführung der hellenistischen Schulen; III. Kaiserzeitlicher Aristotelismus; IV. Philosophiegeschichtsschreibung, Doxographie und Anthologie;

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sub-chapter of XI., Philosophy among the Christian Authors in the Heyday of Patristic Literature, Alexandria makes its first, still cautious appearance: Greek-speaking Authors: 1. Continuation of Alexandrian Traditions under the Institutional Circumstances of the Imperial Church. A different picture results from the table of contents on the more specific level of individual thinkers, as the following list illustrates which includes rather marginal as well as absolutely central figures (explicit references to Alexandria are highlighted with italics): II. Fortführung der hellenistischen Schulen 1. Die Sextier und Potamon § 8. Quintus Sextius und seine Schule; Potamon von Alexandrien (Gretchen Reydams-Schils) 3. Kyniker § 21. Der Kynismus bis Maximos von Alexandrien und Salustios aus Syrien (Aldo Brancacci) III. Kaiserzeitlicher Aristotelismus § 31. Beginn der kaiserzeitlichen Kommentierungstradition 3. Apollonios von Alexandrien (Inna Kupreeva) VI. Mittelplatonismus und Neupythagoreismus § 72. Kelsos (von Alexandrien?) (Irmgard Männlein-Robert)

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VII. Philosophie im hellenistischen Judentum § 75. Aristobulos, Ps.-Aristeas, Ps.-Phokylides (Roberto Radice) 1. Philosophiegeschichtliche Situierung von Aristobulos 2. Lehre 3. Die Bedeutung des Werks des Aristobulos 4. Andere Stimmen des alexandrinischen Judentums: Ps.-Aristeas und Ps.Phokylides § 76. Philon von Alexandrien (David Winston unter Mitwirkung von Dietmar Wyrwa) VIII. Philosophie im frühen Christentum der vornizänischen Zeit 5. Das Alexandrinische Christentum und sein weiteres Einflussgebiet § 97. Überblick (Dietmar Wyrwa) § 98. Clemens von Alexandrien (Dietmar Wyrwa) § 99. Origenes (Marco Zambon unter Mitwirkung von Dietmar Wyrwa) § 100. Gregor Thaumaturgos (Marco Zambon) § 101. Dionysios von Alexandrien (Marco Zambon) V. Philosophienahe Fachwissenschaft; VI. Mittelplatonismus und Neupythagoreismus; VII. Philosophie im hellenistischen Judentum; VIII. Philosophie im frühen Christentum der vornizänischen Zeit; XI. Hermetische und Orphische Literatur, , Theosophien; X. Der Neuplatonismus vom 3. Jahrhundert bis zum zweiten Drittel des 4. Jahrhunderts; XI. Philosophie bei den christlichen Autoren in der Blütezeit der patristischen Literatur; XII. Der Neuplatonismus vom letzten Drittel des 4. bis zum 7. Jahrhundert; XIII. Philosophie der späteren christlichen Autoren im Osten; XIV. Philosophie der späteren lateinischen Autoren am Übergang zum Mittelalter; XV. Philosophie im rabbinischen Judentum; XVI. Philosophie im syrischen Sprachbereich.

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§ 102. Pamphilos (Marco Zambon) § 103. Methodios (Marco Zambon unter Mitwirkung von Dietmar Wyrwa) XI. Philosophie bei den christlichen Autoren in der Blütezeit der patristischen Literatur § 124. Athanasios von Alexandrien (Wolfram Kinzig) § 134. Kyrill von Alexandrien (Christoph Riedweg) XII. Der Neuplatonismus vom letzten Drittel des 4. bis zum 7. Jahrhundert § 146. Überblick: Die neuplatonischen Schulen von Athen und Alexandrien (Damian Caluori und Adolf Martin Ritter) 1. Geschichte der Schule von Athen (Damian Caluori) 2. Geschichte der Schule von Alexandrien (Damian Caluori) 3. Die Schule von Alexandrien und das Christentum (Adolf Martin Ritter) 4. Der Schulbetrieb in Athen und Alexandrien (Damian Caluori) § 148. Hierokles von Alexandrien (Neuplatoniker) (Christoph Helmig) § 156. Hermeias von Alexandrien (Matthias Perkams) § 159. Heliodoros von Alexandrien (Matthias Perkams)

It is more than obvious that these explicit references to Alexandria, which surface in the table of contents, are at least partly due to the hazards of scholarly tradition which randomly tends to sometimes integrate the home town and/or teaching place into the common name of a philosopher, sometimes not. The above listed references therefore represent only the top of the iceberg. As emerges already from the General Introduction (chapter I.), three huge clusters regarding Alexandria stick out in the whole book:

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a) the Jewish-Hellenistic Philosophy (chapter VII.), which dates back to the Hellenistic period and is a thoroughly and almost exclusively Alexandrian phenomenon, including the Greek version of the Old Testament, the so-called Septuagint¾an absolutely seminal text,5 which also serves as the New Testament’s exclusive reference point for Biblical predictions¾, the famous Wisdom of Solomon, the early Jewish philosopher and allegorist Aristobulus (middle of the 2nd century BC), and in particular Jesus’s contemporary, Philo of Alexandria (25/20 BC–c. AD 45), an extremely well-trained Platonist and “church-father honoris causa,”6 to which Jewish-Alexandrian imitations of Orphic verses may be added (cf. chapter IX., 1185–86). b) the Early Christian continuation of this tradition, first in the 2nd century Gnosticism (VIII.3., §§ 90.–91.:7 Basilides, perhaps also Valentinus?), and then, particularly important, in Alexandrian Christianity and Its Larger 5 Cf. also Felix Albrecht, “Die alexandrinische Bibelübersetzung: Einsichten zur Entstehungs-, Überlieferungs- und Wirkungsgeschichte der Septuaginta,” in Alexandria, ed. Tobias Georges et al., COMES 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 209–43. 6 David T. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey, CRINT III,3 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 3. 7 Cf. also Winrich Löhr, “Christliche ‘Gnostiker’ in Alexandria im zweiten Jahrhundert,” in Georges et al., Alexandria, 413–33.

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Sphere of Influence (VIII.5., §§ 97.–103.): from Pantaenus (second half of the 2nd century) over the outstanding Christian intellectuals Clement of Alexandria (140/150–c. 220) and Origen (c. 185–254) – the latter perhaps being identical with the homonymous Platonist and pupil of Ammonius (Saccas)8 – to Gregory the Thaumaturge (210/213–270/275), Dionysius of Alexandria († 264/265) and even Pamphilus of Caesarea (c. 250–309), who originated from Beirut and seems to have been trained in Alexandria (having become an enthusiast of Origen’s thinking, he then moved to Caesarea Maritima, where he became the teacher of Eusebius and died as a martyr during the Diocletian persecution).

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c) the Neoplatonic School in late antiquity, which rivalled with its Athenian sibling (chapter XII., §§ 146–67): founded by Plutarch of Athens (c. 350–c. 432), it counts Proclus (410–485) among its protagonists with the strongest impact, but also includes the highly elusive and intriguing female philosopher Hypatia, dreadfully murdered by a Christian mob in 415/416, and her pupil Synesius of Cyrene (c. 370–after 412), a figure quite emblematic for the thorough osmosis between Platonism and Christianity, and later on also John Philoponus († c. 574), the famous Christian philologist, philosopher and theologian, who engaged in a multifaceted controversy with Aristotle and Proclus on the hotly disputed issue of the eternity of the world. All three clusters have been extraordinarily influential over the centuries, be it as models to be emulated, be it as boogeymen from which one tended to distance oneself (as was the case with Origen later on).9 But even these three clusters are far from being the whole story. There are, first of all, to be noted remarkable interactions between the Neoplatonic schools of Athens and Alexandria in late antiquity:10 Hierocles from Alexandria (probably first half of the 5th century) studied with Plutarch in Athens, but then went back home to Alexandria to teach there (similarly later Hermeias [c. 410–c. 460] and his sons; already Synesius of Cyrene, who studied with Hypatia in Alexandria, had passed some time also in Athens); Syrianus († before 439) originated from Alexandria, but then in 432 became the successor of Plutarch as head of the Athens school where he had studied; he intended to marry his pupil Proclus to a relative of his from Alexandria (Aedesia [5th century], who in the end got married with Hermeias); Proclus himself, who was born in Byzantium, studied first in Alexandria, before changing to Plutarch and Syrianus in Athens; among Proclus’s pupils there were the 8 Cf. Christoph Riedweg, “Das Origenes Problem aus der Sicht eines Klassischen Philologen,” in Origenes der Christ und Origenes der Platoniker, ed. Balbina Bäbler and HeinzGünther Nesselrath, SERAPHIM 2 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 13–39. 9 Cf. also Peter Gemeinhardt, “Glaube, Bildung, Theologie – Ein Spannungsfeld im frühchristlichen Alexandria,” in Georges et al., Alexandria, 435–73. 10 Cf. § 146. (Damian Caluori and Adolf Martin Ritter, “Überblick: Die neuplatonischen Schulen von Athen und Alexandrien.”)

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sons of Hermeias and Aedesia, Ammonius (435/445–517/526) and Heliodorus (c. 440/450–510), both of whom later taught in Alexandria; Isidorus (second half of the 5th–first quarter of the 6th century), another pupil of Proclus, originating from Alexandria, switched more than once between the two cities for various reasons, and so forth. Second, many other intellectuals are in one way or the another linked to Alexandria, or have at least passed some time in the Egyptian capital: a) Aristotelians (chapter III., §§ 28. and 37.; chapter X., § 118.): Xenarchus of Seleucia (teacher of Strabon and perhaps also of the commentator of Aristotle Aristo of Alexandria, friend of Augustus); Apollonius of Alexandria (second half of the 1st century); Aristocles of Messene (second or middle of the 1st century?); Anatolius (contemporary of Porphyry, first teacher of Iamblichus), probably of Alexandrian origin. b) Stoics (chapter II., § 9.): Areius Didymus of Alexandria (Augustus’s teacher). c) professional scientists closely related to philosophy (chapter V., § 44. and 46.; chapter XII., § 150., 1892–95):11 Ptolemy from Alexandria (c. 100–after 160); Pappus of Alexandria (c. 300); Theon of Alexandria (4th century, father of Hypatia); Paulus Alexandrinus (4th century). d) Middle Platonists (chapter VI., §§ 49., 55., 65, 72.): Eudorus of Alexandria (second half of the 1st century BC); Severus (probably second half of the 2nd century), who was working for the Alexandrian library; Ps.-Pythagorean writings (of different dates), which at least partly may have been produced in Alexandria; Celsus (the anti-Christian Platonist), whose Ἀληθὴς λόγος possibly was written in Alexandria.

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f) Christian intellectuals (chapter XI., §§ 122.–125., 128., 131., 134.; chapter XII., § 160.; chapter XIII., §§ 169.–171., 174.; chapter XIV., § 187.; chapter XVI., §§ 194., 196., 198.): Arius (260–336), who had been living in Alexandria from 303, and his local antipode, the bishop Alexander of Alexandria (c. 250–328); the protagonists of Neo-Arianism Aëtius (c. 313–c. 365/366), who was trained as a doctor in Alexandria, and his pupil and secretary Eunomius

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e) transition from Middle to Neoplatonism (chapter X., §§ 113.–116., 118.): Ammonius (Saccas, end of the 2nd–first half of the 3rd century) and his pupils, including Herennius, Origen and Plotinus (204/205–269/270), but also Heraclas († 247/248) and Longinus (c. 212–272);12 Alexander of Lycopolis (second half of the 3rd century), who most likely studied in Alexandria; Alypius of Alexandria (colleague of Iamblichus).

11 Cf. also Dorit Engster, “Wissenschaftliche Forschung und technologischer Fortschritt in Alexandrien,” in Georges et al., Alexandria, 29–63. 12 Cf. Ilinca Tanaseanu-Döbler, “Philosophie in Alexandria – der Kreis um Ammonios Sakkas,” in Georges et al., Alexandria, 109–26.

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(c. 325–c. 396/397); Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 295–373); Didymus of Alexandria, also called Didymus the Blind (310/313–398); Gregory of Nazianzus (325/327–c. 390), who passed some time studying in Alexandria; Epiphanius of Salamis (310/315–403), who moved to Alexandria in 325/330, where he met Athanasius; Cyril of Alexandria (c. 378–444); Aeneas of Gaza (c. 450–c. 518), who moved to Alexandria to study rhetoric, philosophy and law; Procopius of Gaza (c. 465–526/530), who also spent some time in Alexandria for study reasons; Severus of Antioch (c. 456–538), who studied grammar as well as Greek and Latin rhetoric in Alexandria; Zacharias Scholasticus (c. 465–before 553), who was a co-pupil of Severus; Boethius (c. 480–524), whom Courcelle thought to have studied in Alexandria (but clear evidence for this is lacking);13 John Philoponus, a pupil of Ammonius Hermeiou, who was born in Alexandria and lived there; Sergius of Rēš‘ainā († 536), a Syrian contemporary of Philoponus who for some time was reading philosophy and medicine in Alexandria; Probus/Proba, a medical doctor and archdeacon in Antioch, who may be identical with the homonymous theologian who accompanied Patriarch Peter in 581/582 to Alexandria; Jacob of Edessa (c. 633–708), a universal scholar and bishop of Edessa, who had been at least partly trained in Alexandria. This is certainly rather heavy name-dropping. Yet the impressive parade, which reads like a philosophical “Who is who,” allows an informative glimpse of the immense significance of Alexandria as one of the most important intellectual centers of the whole Graeco-Roman world, down to the end of Antiquity. Such a general assessment is amply confirmed when we finally take a look at literary criticism and textual hermeneutics. It is in fact to Alexandria that Classicists, scholars of Hellenistic Judaism and Biblical as well as Patristic scholars owe their basic research tools, and this till today. To be sure, Alexandria, for its part, owed an enormous debt of gratitude to its predecessors in this realm: the Presocratics, the Sophists, Plato and – more than anyone – Aristotle, whose importance for the development of a typically Alexandrian philology has recently been stressed, against Pfeiffer’s reticence,14 by Elsa Bouchard.15 But there is no doubt that the art of textual criticism and literary analysis has been fully developed and systematized mostly in Hellenistic Alexandria. Comments on Alexandria’s importance as a center for philological and exegetical learning are made particularly in the introductory chapter I, where Cf. § 187 (Siegmar Döpp, “Boethius,” 2345). Rudolf Pfeiffer, A History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968). 15 Elsa Bouchard, Du Lycée au Musée: Théorie poétique et critique litteraire à l’époque hellénistique (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2016); cf. already Nigel Wilson, “Scholiasts and Commentators,” GRBS 47 (2007): 61–62. 13

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the catchword Alexandria/Alexandrian crops up 94 times. In fact, how could one talk about the Availability of Philosophical Literature for the Authors of the Roman Imperial Period and Late Antiquity (§ 2.) without mentioning the famous Library of Alexandria created by Ptolemy I Soter16 and its daughter in the local Serapeum? And, pondering over the Institutional Framework (§ 4.), references to the Museion and the Catechetical School are clearly mandatory, but also other aspects of Alexandrian philosophical infrastructure and history are actually dealt with in this subchapter (e.g. the lecture halls discovered in Kom el-Dikka and forms of teaching philosophy; the plurality of centers of learning, including Christians, which distinguished Alexandria from the Neoplatonic School of Athens; Athanasius of Alexandrias’ Life of Anthony as a founding text for Egyptian monachism; the compromise between the pagan Neoplatonic school and the Alexandrian Patriarchate after 480, which evidently had the positive consequence that the shutdown of the Athenian Academy in 529 by a Justinian law seems not to have affected the Alexandrian Neoplatonists; the conquest of Alexandria in 619 by the Sassanids which seems to have been facilitated by the betrayal of a former student of Alexandrian philosophy, Peter of Qatar; and, last but not least, the transfer of knowledge from Alexandria to Bagdad,17 mediated by Sergios of Rēš‘ainā and others). The same is true for the Applicability of Philosophical Concepts to Jewish, Christian and Gnostic Theology (§ 7.), if one thinks of the ideal environment which Alexandria offered already to the Jewish Hellenistic community for getting in touch with and assimilating pagan ways of thinking. Especially relevant in this regard is, however, § 6., where the Main Literary Genres of Philosophical Knowledge Transfer are discussed (with commentaries and scholarly treatises as particularly important literary vessels for learned arguments), but also the basic Methods of Textual Analysis and Interpretation, developed and classified mainly in Alexandria, are outlined.18 They include: textual criticism (διόρθωσις), rhetorical and stylistic analysis (λέξις [“diction, style”], ἐκλογὴ/σύνθεσις τῶν ὀνομάτων [“selection/composition of words”] etc.), and hermeneutics, with “Explaining Homer from Homer” (Ὅμηρον ἐξ Ὁμήρου σαφηνίζειν), “Solution [sc. of a difficulty] from the 16 Aristotle’s library seems to have served as a model, cf. Andrew Erskine, “Culture and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Museum and Library of Alexandria,” GR 42 (1995): 38– 48; cf. also Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, “Das Museion und die Grosse Bibliothek von Alexandria,” in Georges et al., Alexandria, 65–107. 17 Cf. also Hinrich Biesterfeld, “Von Alexandrien nach Bagdad,” in Georges et al., Alexandria, 477–90; in general Ulrich Rudolph, Rotraud Hansberger and Peter Adamson, eds., Philosophy in the Islamic World, vol. 1: 8th–10th Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2017), expanded ET of idem, in collaboration with Renate Würsch, eds., Philosophie in der Islamischen Welt, vol. 1: 8.–10. Jahrhundert (Basel: Schwabe, 2012). 18 Cf. on this topic also Maren R. Niehoff, “Jüdische Bibelintepretation zwischen Homerforschung und Christentum,” in Georges et al., Alexandria, 341–60.

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person [sc. who is talking]” (λύσις ἐκ τοῦ προσώπου), and a rigorous consideration of the main “aim” of a text (σκοπός) as guiding principles. The most important tool, however, and the exegetical method κατ’ ἐξοχήν was undoubtedly the allegorical exegesis which had been developed by the Presocratics and further systematized by the Stoics, and which had been eagerly taken over already by the Hellenistic Jewish thinkers (with Aristobulus of Alexandria as an early representative and Philo of Alexandria as a first culminating point of biblical allegorizing)19 and then particularly by the Christian intellectuals of Alexandrian stamp.20 To sum up, any attempt at writing a history of the occidental – and also of the Byzantine and the Islamic – intellectual traditions, whose foundations have been laid in the first seven centuries AD, is completely inconceivable without due and detailed consideration of the pivotal role which Alexandria has played in this respect throughout the centuries. The number of outstanding thinkers, pagan as well as Jewish and Christian, which this city in the Nile Delta has produced and hosted respectively, is just breathtaking, as is the wealth of intellectual stimuli which the world owes to this hub of the ancient world. It comes hardly as a surprise therefore that “Alexandria” figures among the largest entries in the subject index of the New Outline of Philosophy in the Roman Imperial Period and in Late Antiquity.

Cf. also Niehoff, “Jüdische Bibelintepretation.” For allegory as an intellectual weapon in the controversies between pagans and Christians cf. Christoph Riedweg, “Exegese als Kampfmittel in der Auseinandersetzung zwischen Heiden und Christen: Zum ‘Sündenbock’ von Lev 16 bei Julian und Kyrill von Alexandrien,” ZAC 16 (2012): 439–76.

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Bottom Up or Top Down: Who Initiated the Building of Temples for Augustus in Alexandria and Upper Egypt? STEFAN PFEIFFER In 2001 the former Turkmen President Niyazov, the Turkmenbashi – the father of all Turkmens – ordered his subjects to be more modest in praising him.1 At first sight this seems to be curious for a president who ordered that a gigantic golden statue of himself to be erected that turns with the sun, and who also has renamed months of the year after his family. The impetus of Niyazov’s statement is nevertheless obvious: The father of all Turkmens wanted to show that the veneration of his person comes from the subjects and is not imposed on them. This consensus universorum is verified by election results of 99.5%. Therefore it was to be expected that the employees of the Central Bank of Turkmenistan wrote to him in 2003: “The almighty Allah has donated us the fortune to live in a spectacular era – the golden era of eternal great Saparmurat Turkmenbashi.”2 Hearing such praise, the Ancient Historian feels strongly reminded of provincialii who praise Augustus nearly the same way in the famous Priene calendar inscription3 or in Egypt, where an epigram on a statue of Apollo from Alexandria reads:

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Caesar calmed the storm of war and the clash of shields … and came rejoicing to the land of the Nile, heavy laden with the cargo of law and order and prosperity’s abundant riches, like Zeus, the god of freedom.4

“Turkmen leader scorns media praise,” BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/ monitoring/media_reports/1136599.stm. 2 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 04.11.2006, no. 257, 6. 3 OGIS II 458; cf. Robert K. Sherk, Roman Documents from the Greek East: Senatus Consulta and Epistulae to the Age of Augustus (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1969). 4 Denys L. Page, Literary Papyri, Poetry, Select Papyri 3 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941), 113. Maybe a reference to the following might be useful: Jan N. Bremmer, “Augustus and the Lord of Actium: a hymnic epigram of the 1st century,” in Hymnes de la Grèce antique: approches littéraires et historiques – Actes du colloque international de Lyon, 19–21 juin 2008, Collection de la Maison de l’Orient méditerranéen ancient, Série littéraire et philosophique 50 (Lyon: Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux, 2013), 151–65. 1

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When Augustus once came to Puteoli, merchants from Alexandria were also praising him: [They] lavished upon him good wishes and the highest praise, saying that it was through him that they lived, through him that they sailed the seas, and through him that they enjoyed their liberty and their fortunes.5

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We see that Augustus was indeed considered as a veritable god by the Egyptians and Alexandrinians – at least according to literary sources. If one asks on whose initiative the cult for the living emperor was established in Egypt, one has to face a debate of modern historiography that goes deep into the question of how the Romans tried to rule their empire: Did they avoid direct cultural and religious interventions or was there a firm grip of Rome on the everyday-life of local societies? This question is closely related to the question of how Roman rule was perceived by its subjects: were the provincialii loyal and willing followers that wanted to become Romans or did the subjects follow Roman directives because there was no alternative for them at all?6 I think that both views are correct to a certain point. There was resilience and resistance as well as collaboration and acceptance. There is also the fact that the attitudes of subjects and local societies also changed during the long Roman rule. These factors mean that the longer the Roman peace lasted, the more the provincialii wanted to become Roman. Concerning the emperor cult one can observe that there were as many possibilities to honor the Roman emperor as there were religions in the empire, and no one had to ask if and how he could venerate the emperor in private, in an association, or in his polis – this was altogether bottom up in the best sense. However, there was also a cult for the Roman emperor organized by the council of the province and here the case of bottom up or top down is not so easy to decide. As one might expect from the literary sources, every cult for Augustus in the Roman provinces was a cult established by the subjects: The provincial councils sent embassies to the emperor,7 asking him to establish temples for him, which the emperor – like the Turkmenbashi – reluctant-

Suetonius, Aug. 98. Cf. Greg Woolf, Becoming Roman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); David J. Mattingly, Imperialism, Power, and Identity: Experiencing the Roman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013); Neville Morley, The Roman Empire: Roots of Imperialism (London: Pluto, 2010); Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Oakland: University of California Press, 2000); Gil Gambash, Rome and Provincial Resistance (London: Routledge, 2015). 7 For the establishment of an emperor cult in Asia, cf. Jürgen Deininger, Die Provinziallandtage der römischen Kaiserzeit von Augustus bis zum Ende des dritten Jahrhunderts n. Chr. (Berlin: Beck, 1965), 16–19; Babett Edelmann-Singer, Koina und Concilia: Genese, Organisation und sozioökonomische Funktion der Provinziallandtage im römischen Reich (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2015), 86–94. 5

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ly allowed at the end under the circumstance that the dea Roma was also included in the cult.8 This is well known not only for the case of Asia,9 but also for western provinces like Hispania Ulterior, where the council asked Tiberius (petentibus Hispanis) to permit the building of a temple according to the Asian precedence. As reported by Tacitus, this also became the role model for other provinces.10 Even the cult of Augustus and Roma in Lugdunum (modern Lyon), the emerging cult center of later tres Galliae was according to Strabo established on 1st August 12 BCE by the envoys of all Gallic tribes.11 As it was built in typical Roman architectural traditions, Clifford Ando thinks that the tribes used Roman architecture as a way to flatter the Roman administration.12 Christian Witschel thinks that one might assume independent and unconstrained activity of the Gallic elites concerning the establishment of an emperor cult in Gallia.13 The subjects – especially the local elites – seemingly had the strong wish to venerate Augustus and his successors as gods and the emperor only tried to prohibit a too extensive veneration of his person.14 By venerating the emperCf. Suetonius, Aug. 52; sometimes the emperor, like Tiberius (Cassius Dio 58.8.4), Claudius (Cassius Dio 60.5.4), and even Caligula (Cassius Dio 59.4.4) prohibited the emperor cult at the beginning of their rule in form of a recusatio. 9 Cassius Dio 51.20.6–8. 10 Tacitus, Ann. 4.37.1 and 1.78.1; cf. Cassius Dio 51.20.7. 11 Strabo, Geogr. 4.192; Livy, Per. 139; Suetonius, Claud. 2. Cf. Deininger, Die Provinziallandtage, 22n4; Manfred Clauss, Kaiser und Gott: Herrscherkult im Römischen Reich (Stuttgart: K. G. Saur, 1999); cf. Suetonius, Claud. 2.1: “Claudius natus est Iullo Antonio Fabio Africano conss. Kal. Aug. Luguduni eo ipso die quo primum ara ibi Augusto dedicata est.” 12 Ando, Imperial Ideology; Gambash, Rome and Provincial Resistance, 313: “The people who designed the altar must have looked to Rome for an appropriate vehicle through which to express their loyalty toward Augustus. … Even the altar was erected by a wealthy elite in order to flatter their Roman overlords.” 13 Christian Witschel, “Die Wahrnehmung des Augustus in Gallien, im Illyricum und in den Nordprovinzen des römischen Reiches,” in Augustus – Der Blick von außen: Die Wahrnehmung des Kaisers in den Provinzen des Reiches und in den Nachbarstaaten – Akten des Internationalen Kolloquiums Mainz 2006, ed. Detlev Kreikenbom et al. (Wiesbaden: Harassowitz, 2008), 41–119 (43, 47, 46): “aber es scheint mir aus diesen (den Quellen) nicht ganz so klar hervorzugehen, ob die Initiative wirklich einseitig auf Seiten des Kaiserhauses lag”; against Pierre Gros, “Un Programme Augustéen: Le Centre Monumental de la Colonie d’Arles,” JDAI 102 (1987): 339–63; idem, “Nouveau Paysage Urbain et Cultes Dynastiques: Remarques sur l’Idéologie de la Ville Augustéenne à partir des Centres Monumentaux d’Athènes, Thasos, Arles et Nîmes,” in Les villes augustéennes de Gaule – Actes du colloque Autun 1985, ed. Christian Goudineau and Alain Rebourg (Autun: Soc. Eduenne des Lettres, Sciences et Arts, 1991), 127–40; Edwin S. Ramage, “Augustus’ Propaganda in Gaul,” Klio 79 (1997): 117–60. 14 Suetonius, Aug. 52; Cassius Dio 58.8.4; 59.4.4; 60.5.4.

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or, the elites had a clear benefit in mind: He in return was obliged to behave as a god and grant them privileges.15 However, ancient sources may ultimately draw a picture that was adjusted to imperial ideology and one should keep in mind that for the Roman emperor it was of utmost importance that he was venerated voluntarily as peace bringer and god: a cult borne of coercion would have been viewed as tyrannical.16 Considering such ideological problems, there are historians who think that an official cult for the Roman emperor in the provinces was established by Rome itself. In this view, the official emperor cult of the province, celebrated by the provincial councils, was a selective measure of Roman rule to create a means for the provincial elites to bind them to Rome by letting them take over important functions in the ruler cult. This is especially clear for the cult of Augustus and Roma in Lugdunum: It is rather unlikely that the 60 tribes of Gallia just at 12 BCE had the unanimous idea to establish a provincial cult at Lugdunum and to use even Roman architecture to conduct this cult. Thus, for Fishwick, the architecture points to a Roman installment of the cult:17 “this is a Roman monument set up by the imperial authorities in celebration of Roman imperial rule.”18 Edelmann-Singer has argued further that the provincial councils – who were the main agents of provincial cults – were installed by the Romans themselves and were not newly created corporations by the provincial elites out of free will: “Sie dienten der Durchsetzung römischer Interessen, der Integration einheimischer Eliten und der Stabilisierung der Provinz

15 Simon R. F. Price, Rituals and power: The Roman imperial cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 66–67; Anne Kolb and Marco Vitale, “Provinzen und ihre Kaiserkulte – Quellen, Probleme und Ergebnisse,” in Kaiserkult in den Provinzen des Römischen Reiches: Organisation, Kommunikation und Repräsentation, ed. idem (Berlin: Oldenbourg, 2016), 1–20 (3); cf. Pausanias. 8.2.4–5. 16 See Jesper M. Madsen, “Who Introduced the Imperial Cult in Asia and Bithynia? The Koinon’s Role in the Early Worship of Augustus,” in Kolb and Vitale, Kaiserkult in den Provinzen, 21–36 (32). 17 Duncan Fishwick, The Imperial Cult in the Latin West, Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire Part 1, ed. idem (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 102–3, 187; idem, “Coinage and Cult: The Provincial Monuments at Lugdunum, Tarraco and Emerita,” in Roman Coins and public Life under the Empire, ed. George M. Paul (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 59–121; idem, “The dedication of the Ara Trium Galliarum,” Latomus 55 (1996): 87–100. 18 Duncan Fishwick, The Imperial Cult in the Latin West, Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire 3, ed. idem (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 116; cf. Edelmann-Singer, Koina und Concilia, 107–9.

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als ökonomische Größe.”19 Thus, they were a measure of rule which helped to give the provincial elites a compensation for the loss of real power.20

1. The Situation in Egypt Having laid the foundation for this discussion, we can take a closer look at the province of Egypt, a province whose administrative status in the Roman Empire is under discussion in research. For a long time Egypt was thought of as a personal domain of the Roman emperor, but actually there are scholars who contend that Egypt was a normal province like the other ones of the empire. For example, in 2015 Eich wrote, “That Egypt was a special province has been claimed for a long time…. After more than two decades of publications … such an approach is no longer viable.”21 Jördens even thinks that we can take Egypt as model for other provinces.22 Contrary to this opinion, I am inclined to view the province of Egypt as a special case, 23 although it was nevertheless a Roman province in the full sense of the word and not a private domain of the emperor. Augustus had set apart its status in comparison with other provinces by installing a Roman equestrian as praefectus Aegypti. The special status of Egypt that surely is related to its geopolitical and economical importance also can be seen by the fact that it had no provincial council like nearly every other province.24 For our research question concerning the imperial cult, this means that an official provincial cult for the emperor in a comEdelmann-Singer, Koina und Concilia, 138. Edelmann-Singer, Koina und Concilia, 105, 139: “Die Zusammenschau der Befunde aus allen Provinzen lässt aber kaum Zweifel daran, dass die Einrichtung der Landtage eine dezidiert proaktive, römische Herrschaftsmaßnahme war.” 21 Peter Eich, “The Common Denominator: Late Roman Imperial Bereaucracy from a Comparative Perspective,” in State Power in Ancient China and Rome, ed. Walter Scheidel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 90–145 (119); Alan K. Bowman and Dominic Rathbone, “Cities and Administration in Roman Egypt,” JRS 82 (1992): 108; Andrea Jördens, Statthalterliche Verwaltung in der römischen Kaiserzeit: Studien zum praefectus Aegypti (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2009), 53–58, 515–16; Thomas Kruse, Der königliche Schreiber und die Gauverwaltung: Untersuchungen zur Verwaltungsgeschichte Ägyptens in der Zeit von Augustus bis Philippus Arabs (30 v.Chr. – 245 n.Chr.) (Munich: Saur, 2002), 10. 22 See Jördens, Statthalterliche Verwaltung, 515–23, 516: “Trotz der geringen Kenntnisse über den Verlauf dieses Prozesses (i.e. der Anpassung Ägyptens an die veränderten Erfordernisse) in den anderen Provinzen wird er mutatis mutandis letztlich überall ähnlich wie in Ägypten vonstatten gegangen sein.” 23 Theodor Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1887), 2:859n2; Edelmann-Singer, Koina und Concilia, 136: “Zum anderen darf man nicht vergessen, dass Ägypten keine Provinz wie jede andere war. Politisch stand sie unter der direkten und ausschließlichen Kontrolle des Augustus.” 24 Edelmann-Singer, Koina und Concilia, 134–37. 19

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parable way to other provinces was not possible and even not wanted by Rome. I myself therefore have supported the hypothesis that besides the cults of individuals and non-governmental organizations, there was also an official cult for Augustus instituted by the Roman administration and centered at the temple of Augustus in Alexandria under the supervision of a Roman archpriest belonging to the ordo equester, the archiereus Alexandriae et Aegypti. This means, in my view, that there was a top-down instituted imperial cult in Egypt. The concrete priests in the 40 nomes of Egypt were naturally members of the local elites. As the nome-elites of Egypt did not want to come to Alexandria every year to celebrate the emperor cult, every Egyptian nome had its own ruler cult temple. There was harsh criticism of this hypothesis by the papyrologist Jördens, who stated that there is no hint at all of an officially imposed or even promoted of the Roman emperor in Egypt.25 In the following, I want to look at this discussion again by analyzing the archaeological remains of three temples attributed to the cult of Augustus that were dedicated in the first two decades of Roman rule: The temples in Alexandria, Thebes, and Philae. 1.1 The Temple of Augustus in Alexandria

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Let us start with the capital of Egypt, Alexandria,26 which was of such importance that the Roman prefect of Egypt was officially called praefectus Alexandreae et Aegypti.27 The Romans minimalized nevertheless the status of the Alexandrinian citizenship, as Augustus interdicted the existence of the boule, the most important body of autonomous administration every Greek city in the Roman empire used to have.28

25 Andrea Jördens, “Priester, Prokuratoren und Präfekten: Die Tempelverwaltung im römischen Ägypten,” Chiron 44 (2014): 119–64 (152). 26 It is highly improbable that Nikopolis, founded 6 km away from Alexandria by Augustus, was established to replace Alexandria as Norbert Dörner, Feste und Opfer für den Gott Caesar: Kommunikationsprozesse im Rahmen des Kaiserkultes im römischen Ägypten der julisch-claudischen Zeit (30 v. Chr. – 68 n. Chr.) (Rahden: Marie Leidorf, 2014), 202–3, thinks; Strabo just mentions the Augustan foundation without giving it much interest. Since it had an amphitheater, one would think that it was a city for the legions of Egypt; on Nikopolis cf. Cassius Dio 51.18.1; Kurt Wachsmuth, “Zur Geschichte von Alexandria,” RHM 35 (1880): 448–51; Ann E. Hanson, “Juliopolis, Nicopolis, and the Roman Camp,” ZPE 37 (1980): 249–54. 27 Cf. Bowman and Rathbone, “Cities and Administration,” 115: “If under the Ptolemies there had been a significant gap in status and privilege between Alexandria and the rest of Egypt, under the Romans it was widened into a gulf, symbolized in the official title of the Roman governor of Egypt.” 28 Cassius Dio 51.17.2; it is in my view hardly likely that Alexandria lost its council already under Ptolemy VIII.

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The Alexandrian temple of Augustus is well known from literary and archeological evidence. We have learned that the temple originally was already started by Cleopatra either for Julius Caesar29 or for Mark Antony.30 After the conquest of Egypt it was re-dedicated to Augustus and completed. It was situated at the emporium part of the great harbor.31The Jewish sage Philo of Alexandria gives an extensive description of the precinct: For there is no sacred precinct of such magnitude as that which is called the temenos of Augustus, and the temple erected in honor of the disembarkation of Caesar, which is raised to a great height, of great size, and of the most conspicuous beauty, opposite the best harbor; being such an one as is not to be seen in any other city, and full of offerings, in pictures, and statues; and decorated all around with silver and gold; being a very extensive space.32

According to Philo, there were porticoes (στοαῖς), libraries (βιβλιοθήκαις), banqueting-halls (ἀνδρῶσιν), sacred groves (ἄλσεσι), gateways (προπυλαίοις), open terraces (εὐρυχωρίαις), and courtyards (ὑπαίθροις) inside the precinct.

John Malalas 217.12; Cassius Dio 51.15.5; Heinz Heinen, “Vorstufen und Anfänge des Herrscherkultes im römischen Ägypten,” ANRW 2.18.5 (1995): 3152–55; Duncan Fishwick, “The Temple of Caesar in Alexandria,” American Journal of Ancient History 9 (1984): 131– 34. 30 Suda, s.v. ἡμίεργον; Géza Alföldy, Der Obelisk auf dem Petersplatz in Rom: Ein historisches Monument der Antike (Heidelberg: Winter, 1990), 45n88; see for the archeological excavations in the temple precinct now Jean-Yves Empereur, “Alexandrie: Le Césaréum et la fouille du cinema Majestic,” in Alexandrie, Césaréum: Les fouilles du cinéma Majestic – La consommation céramique en milieu urbain à la fin de l’époque hellénistique, ed. idem, Études Alexandrines 38 (Paris: De Boccard 2017), 1–11. 31 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.9: εἶτα τὸ Καισάρειον καὶ τὸ ἐμπόριον καὶ ἀποστάσεις, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα τὰ νεώρια μέχρι τοῦ ἑπτασταδίου; on the Caesareum, see Peter M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 1:24–25; Heidi Hänlein-Schäfer, Veneratio Augusti: Eine Studie zu den Tempeln des ersten römischen Kaisers (Rome: Bretschneider, 1985), 203–5; Dörner, Feste und Opfer, 205–15. 32 Philo, Leg. 22: ἀλλ’ ὅτι καὶ πᾶσα ἡ οἰκουμένη τὰς ἰσολυμπίους αὐτῷ τιμὰς ἐψηφίσαντο. 150 καὶ μαρτυροῦσι ναοί, προπύλαια, προτεμενίσματα, στοαί, ὡς ὅσαι τῶν πόλεων, ἢ νέα ἢ παλαιά, ἔργα φέρουσι μεγαλοπρεπῆ, τῷ κάλλει καὶ μεγέθει τῶν Καισαρείων παρευημερεῖσθαι, καὶ μάλιστα κατὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν Ἀλεξάνδρειαν. 151 οὐδὲν γὰρ τοιοῦτόν ἐστι τέμενος, οἷον τὸ λεγόμενον Σεβαστεῖον, ἐπιβατηρίου Καίσαρος νεώς, ἀντικρὺ τῶν εὐορμοτάτων λιμένων, μετέωρος ἵδρυται μέγιστος καὶ ἐπιφανέστατος καὶ οἷος οὐχ ἑτέρωθι κατάπλεως ἀναθημάτων, [ἐν] γραφαῖς καὶ ἀνδριάσι καὶ ἀργύρῳ καὶ χρυσῷ περιβεβλημένος ἐν κύκλῳ, τέμενος εὐρύτατον στοαῖς, βιβλιοθήκαις, ἀνδρῶσιν, ἄλσεσι, προπυλαίοις, εὐρυχωρίαις, ὑπαίθροις, ἅπασι τοῖς εἰς πολυτελέστατον κόσμον ἠσκημένον, ἐλπὶς καὶ ἀναγομένοις καὶ καταπλέουσι σωτήριος; Achille Adriani, Repertorio d’arte dell’Egitto greco-romano, Ser. A I–II (Rome: Fondazione Sicilia, 1961), 215; Klaus Tuchelt, “Zum Problem ‘Kaisareion-Sebasteion’: Eine Frage zu den Anfängen des römischen Kaiserkultes,” IstMitt 31 (1981): 167–86 (169–70, 173); Hänlein-Schäfer, Veneratio Augusti, 217–18.

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As we can estimate from this description, the holy precinct of Augustus was not only just a temple, but rather a vast building complex that comprised many other facilities of religion and leisure besides the temple of Augustus, and even a separate temple of Venus (aedes Veneris marmoreae), as we learn from an inscription.33 Instead of the Senate, the mythological mother of the Julian imperial dynasty was included into the cult of Augustus. All in all this description makes the assumption of Tuchelt in my view quite plausible, that the concept of construction of this precinct should be viewed in comparison with the urban Roman precedents of a porticus. This is especially convincing if one looks at Vitruvius’s description of such a porticus: princely vestibules must be provided, lofty atria, and spacious peristylia, groves, and extensive walks, finished in a magnificent style. In addition to these, libraries, pinacothecæ, and basilicæ, of similar form to those which are made for public use, are to be provided.34

Being a description of the dwelling place of a private person one might estimate how magnificent an official porticus was built. Therefore in my view the whole precinct in Alexandria may have looked like a Roman forum of imperial times. The concrete building site of the Alexandrian Sebasteion can be detected with no problem: Up until the 1870s two obelisks, one still standing, the other one prostate on the ground, marked the precinct’s position just in the middle of the mole that formed the eastern harbor of Alexandria. Thereafter, Mahmoud Aly donated these two so-called ‘needles of Cleopatra’ to the British and the US-American governments.35 They are now erected in New York and London. Commonly one might assume that the two obelisks originally were positioned in front of the temple precinct, flanking its entrance like one would

ILS 9059.2.8–9 = W.Chr. 463. Tuchelt, “Zum Problem,” 173–74; Vitruvius 6.5.2: nobilibus vero qui honores magistratusque gerundo praestare debent officia civibus, faciunda sunt vestibula regalia alta, atria et peristyla amplissima, silvae ambulationesque laxiores ad decorem maiestatis perfectae, praeterea bybliothecae pinacothecae basilicae non dissimili modo quam publicorum operum magnificentia comparatae, quod in domibus eorum saepius et publica consilia et privata iudicia arbitriaque conficiuntur. ET: “But for nobles, who in bearing honours, and discharging the duties of the magistracy, must have much intercourse with the citizens, princely vestibules must be provided, lofty atria, and spacious peristylia, groves, and extensive walks, finished in a magnificent style. In addition to these, libraries, pinacothecæ, and basilicæ, of similar form to those which are made for public use, are to be provided; for in the houses of the noble, the affairs of the public, and the decision and judgment of private causes are often determined.” 35 For the obelisks, see Barbara Takaczow, The Topography of Ancient Alexandria: An Archeological Map (Warsaw: Zaklad Archeologii Śródziemnomorskiej Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 1993), 128–29. 33

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expect from an Egyptian temple.36 However, as we learn from Pliny, this could not have been the case because the obelisks were inside the temple precinct: in Caesaris templo.37 Furthmore, the evidence indicates that we should not even consider this edifice erected in a prominent location of the Greek city to be Egyptian temple.38 This is not so much because of the positioning of the obelisks inside the precinct but also because of the fact that there are places of leisure and that the temple site was open to society, which was not the case with Egyptian temples. Thus one should suppose that the two needles, which according to Roman knowledge were symbols of the sungod Sol,39 have been incorporated in another way into the precinct, eventually flanking the central temple of Augustus itself and linking the emperor to his tutelary god Sol-Apollon. There are further reverences to this sun god: Both obelisks were not erected on typical Egyptian pedestals but on bases built with spoliae. Four bronze crabs, of which two still remain and are now in New York, were positioned at the corners of the base of the obelisk that was still standing.40 In Egypt the symbol of the crab was not used in combination with obelisks, but in the Graeco-Roman world it is the sign for the astrological constellation of Cancer.41 Cancer stood in close relation to the sun itself and therefore was perfectly fitted to complement the obelisk: The constellation was the place of solstice, the deepest south, or as Macrobius put it, “Cancer and Capricorn got their names because the crab is an animal that moves backward and at an angle – just as the sun is accustomed to begin its backward and oblique course in that sign.”42 Eventually the other obelisk had the Capricorn on its base, the zodiacal sign of Augustus’s birth. That Augustus himself used such zodiacus implications in connection with the obelisks can be seen by the solarium Augusti in Rome, which had calendrical functions, explained by a

See Alföldy, Der Obelisk, 48. Pliny the Elder, Nat. 36.69: “et alii duo sunt Alexandreae ad portum in (!) Caesaris templo, quos excidit Mesphres rex, quadragenum binum cubitorum.” 38 Even “ägyptische Konventionen” as Dörner, Feste und Opfer, 213, supposes, can be excluded. 39 Cf. Pliny the Elder, Nat. 36.64: “obeliscos vocantes Solis numini sacratos.” 40 Cf. Henry H. Gorringe, Egyptian Obelisks (New York: Putnam, 1882), tabl. IV and V; Augustus C. Merriam, The Greek and Latin Inscriptions of the Obelisk-Crab in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (New York: Harper, 1883). 41 Glen W. Bowersock, “The Pontificate of Augustus,” in Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and his Principate, ed. Kurt A. Raaflaub and Mark Toher (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 380–94 (385). 42 Macrobius 1.17.63: “ideo autem iis duobus signis, quae portae solis vocantur, Cancro et Capricorno, haec nomina contigerunt, quod cancer animal retro atque oblique cedit eademque ratione sol in eo signo obliquum ut solet incipit agere retrogressum.” 36

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zodiacus on the floor, where the shadow of the obelisk pointed to the seasons and the zodiacal signs.43 What in my view is now most important is the bilingual Greek and Latin inscription on one of the named bronze crabs, as it helps us to contextualize not only the obelisk in the broader context of Roman imperial representation but also shows who was in charge of erecting the objects. The translation of the Latin inscription reads: 18th year of Caesar. Barbarus, the prefect of Egypt, erected this, Pontius being the architect.44

Now we know that in 13/12 BCE the Roman prefect was in charge for the temple. Since the solarium Augusti in Rome was planned at nearly the same time, I think that it is plausible that both building projects, especially the dislocation of all in all 4 obelisks from Heliopolis, were in some way interrelated.45 One should furthermore keep in mind that the prefect was the governor of Augustus in Egypt, who would have done this according to the orders of the emperor. In addition to the two needles of Cleopatra, there was another obelisk in some way connected to the temple. Currently, it can be found on St. Peter’s place in the Vatican, but originally it was set up in Alexandria, as we know from its Latin dedication: By order of Imperator Caesar, son of God, Gaius Cornelius Gallus, son of Gnaeus, the praefectus fabrum of Caesar, son of god, has built the Forum Iulium.46

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The major problem is the identification of the named forum Iulium, which at first sight could be everywhere in or even outside Egypt.47 We know for sure 43 Cf. Stefan Pfeiffer, Griechische und lateinische Inschriften zum Ptolemäerreich und zur römischen Provinz Aegyptus (Münster: LIT, 2015), 225–28. 44 CIL III Suppl. I 6588 = Pfeiffer, Griechische und lateinische Inschriften, no. 46: A[n]no XVIII Caesaris Barbarus praef(ectus Aegypti posuit archtectante Pontio. 45 Cf. Paul Rehak, Imperium and Cosmos: Augustus and the Northern Campus Martius, ed. John G. Younger (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007), 89: “Since the Horologium obelsik was dedicated in 10/9 and the Ara Pacis was founded in 13 and dedicated in 9, the construction of the Horologium must have been planned also by 13 or 12. But plans for the two monuments could have developed even earlier. If so, the planners of the Horologium must have been provided adequate time.... I suggest that the decision to move all four obelisks from Heliopolis was made by the princeps years earlier. A good date would be 17.... According to this hypothesis, we should view the transport of the first pair of obelisks to Alexandria and their erection in front of the Caesareum as a “dry run” for the larger and far more difficult project ... in Rome.” 46 AE 1964, 255 and CIL VI 882 (cf. CIL VI 31191); Pfeiffer, Griechische und lateinische Inschriften, no. 43: Iussu Imp(eratoris) Caesaris Divi f(ili) | C(aius) Cornelius Cn(aei) f(ilius) Gallus | praef(ectus) fabr(um) Caesaris Divi f(ili) | forum Iulium fecit. 47 Cf. the possibilities named and commented by Alföldy, Der Obelisk, 38–39; Rehak, Imperium and Cosmos, 87.

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that the named forum must have been completed already shortly after Octavian’s invasion of Egypt, since Gallus, who became prefect of Egypt in the same year, is still in the position of Octavian’s praefectus fabrum, a position he held only for a short time in the war against Cleopatra.48 Thus identification of the forum Iulium with a place outside of Egypt should be excluded. Since the obelisk’s inscription is something like a “Bauurkunde,” one should rather expect that the place was built within the short time between the victory over Cleopatra and the advancement of Gallus to the position of prefect, which means during the few weeks of autumn 30 BCE. It is clear that there were not many places which could be built so quickly – the Roman foundation of Nikopolis therefore can be excluded.49 For this reason the forum Iulium should, as Alföldy has convincingly argued, lay in Alexandria.50 Furthermore, since we know that the temple of Augustus was a re-dedication of a temple that was begun by Cleopatra, it is quite likely that the forum Iulium was established in context with this temple and in reality represented the completion of an already existing building site. According to Alföldy, it is furthermore plausible that the forum Iulium was renamed into forum Augustum, the well-known Alexandrinian Σεβαστὴ ἀγορά,51 after 27 BCE and Octavian’s assumption of the title of Augustus. Since the forum was in Alexandria, it should therefore either be identified with the Augustus precinct or with a place in front of it. Concerning the initiative of the temple of Augustus in Alexandria, we can summarize that there is no clear evidence for Roman intervention, but as Gallus and Barbarus were both the most important Roman functionaries in Egypt and have dedicated obelisks, I think that there was a clear connection between the temple and the Roman administration. 1.2 The Temples of Upper Egypt

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Having seen that the precinct of Augustus in Alexandria was one of the biggest and most important emperor cult temples in the whole Roman empire, we now can look at Egypt itself, the so-called chora and go to upper Egypt.

Alföldy, Der Obelisk, 40. Alföldy, Der Obelisk, 41. 50 Alföldy, Der Obelisk, 41–42; François Kayser, Recueil des inscriptions grecques et latines (non funéraires) d’Alexandrie impériale (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1994), 5. 51 BGU IV 1079, l. 39 (41 CE): [ἀπόδος εἰς] Ἀλεξά(νδρειαν) εἰς Σεβα(στὴν) Ἀγορά(ν); P.Mich. 7.433; 3.166; Peter M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 2:96–97n218. 48

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1.2.1 The Temple with Podium of Karnak The former center of Egyptian religion, the magnificent temple of Karnak, was also famous among the Greeks and the Romans. In the times of Augustus, the dromos that led to the front of the first Pylon was refurnished.52 And during this period a temple of Roman style with podium was erected close to the entrance.53 It was a typical Roman temple, its architectural design was hitherto unknown in Egypt. Inside this temple, 14 bases of statues were found, some of them still bearing inscriptions that all point to Roman emperors. Two can be attributed to Augustus as Zeus Eleutherios, two to Claudius, and one to the “god Titus.” It is quite likely that this is not the original conception of the interior of the temple but an arrangement of later times, eventually late 1st or early 2nd century.54 The situation can be compared to the temple of Augustus at Narona in modern Croatia, where Publius Cornelius Dolabella, the legatus of the province, established the cult of Augustus.55 Inside the temple of Narona, nearly complete statues of the Roman emperors and members of their family were found. Although in the case of Karnak no building inscription is left, it is highly likely that because of the statues it was a temple already built for the cult of Augustus. Concerning the standing of the emperor cult in Egypt, it is important that this temple was on the one hand built outside the holy precinct of Karnak, but on the other hand was situated at precisely the place where everyone had to enter the temple of the Egyptian gods. The dromos of an Egyptian temple had the same function like the agora of a Greek city. In this way, the cult of Augustus was incorporated into the processions of the Egyptian gods that passed the dromos to enter the holy precinct of Karnak and was also set up at the most conspicuous public place of the town.

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1.2.2 The temple with Podium on Philae Island At the southern frontier of Egypt, on the island of Philae, in 13/12 BCE (the same year the needles of Cleopatra in Alexandria were set up) a Roman temple with podium was erected on the island. Fortunately, we still have the building inscription that has the reading:

Agnes Cabrol, Les voies processionnelles de Thèbes (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 133–34. Henri Chevrier, “Rapport sur les travaux de Karnak (1938-1939),” ASAE 39 (1939): 553–70 (557–58). 54 Cf. the re-edition in Stefan Pfeiffer, “Die griechischen Inschriften im Podiumtempel von Karnak und der Kaiserkult in Ägypten,” Cahiers de Karnak 16 (2017): 303–28. 55 Marija Buzov, “The Imperial Cult in Dalmatia,” Classica et Christiana 10 (2015): 66– 96 (70–71, 77). 52

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Dedicated to Imperator Caesar Augustus, savior and benefactor, year 18, under Publius Rubrius Barbarus.56

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The sanctuary is situated on the northern side of the island, outside the south oriented temple precinct of Isis – in contrast to Karnak not in front of the temple but on its backside, looking to the North.57 It was a little bit larger than the temple of Karnak and had four Corinthian columns at the front with a doric frieze.58 The archeologist Schenk compares it with the Augustan arch of his Parthian triumph in Rome.59 Concerning the technique of construction, the building researchers point out that there must have been a Roman architect in charge of its construction.60 Again concerning the emperor cult in Egypt, it is important that the temple is situated outside the Isis sanctuary, which is orientated to the south, the Nubian frontier of Egypt. The emperor cult temple instead was set up in the so-called city of Philae and is oriented to the north, which means to the Roman province Aegyptus. Not only this, it is the marker of the entrance to the island for the travelers of the north: Every Egyptian who came to Philae from Egypt comes from the north, passes Syene, and then has to set over by boat to the island. The first thing he now had to pass by was the temple of Augustus.61

56 OGIS II 657 = I.Philae II 140: Αὐτοκράτορι Καίσαρι Σεβαστῶι σωτῆρι καὶ εὐεργέτῃ, (ἔτους) ιη ἐπὶ Ποπλίου Ῥοβρίου Βαρβάρου; cf. Stefan Pfeiffer, Der römische Kaiser und das Land am Nil: Kaiserverehrung und Kaiserkult in Alexandria und Ägypten von Augustus bis Caracalla (30 v. Chr. - 217 n. Chr.), Historia Einzelschriften 212 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010), 241–42; Friederike Herklotz, Prinzeps und Pharao: Der Kult des Augustus in Ägypten, Oikumene: Studien zur antiken Weltgeschichte 4 (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Antike, 2007), 273–75; Ulrike Fauerbach and Martin Sählhof, “Kaiserkult am Katarakt: Der Augustustempel auf Philae,” in Bericht über die 46. Tagung für Ausgrabungswissenschaft und Bauforschung vom 12. bis 16. Mai 2010 in Konstanz, ed. Koldewey-Society (Dresden: Thelem, 2012), 65– 80 (49–69). 57 Ludwig Borchardt, “Der Augustustempel auf Philae,” JdI 17 (1903): 73–90; HänleinSchäfer, Veneratio Augusti, 219–23; Françoise Dunand, “Culte royal et culte impérial en Égypte: Continuites et ruptures,” in Das römisch-byzantinische Ägypten: Akten des internationalen Symposions, 26–30 September 1978 in Trier, ed. Günter Grimm, Heinz Heinen and Erich Winter (Mainz: von Zabern, 1983), 47–56 (48–49). 58 Fauerbach and Sählhof, “Kaiserkult am Katarakt,” 73. 59 Ralf Schenk, Der korinthische Tempel bis zum Ende des Prinzipats des Augustus (Espelkamp: Leidorf, 1997), 142–43; Elisabeth Nedergaard, “Zur Problematik der Augustusbögen auf dem Forum Romanum,” in Kaiser Augustus und die verlorene Republik: Eine Ausstellung im Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 7. Juni – 14. August 1988, ed. Mathias Hofter (Mainz: von Zabern, 1988), 224–39. 60 Fauerbach and Sählhof, “Kaiserkult am Katarakt,” 73: “Die Verantwortung für den Bau trug sicherlich ein römischer Bauleiter.” 61 Cf. Fauerbach and Sählhof, “Kaiserkult am Katarakt, ” 78: “Der Bezugspunkt war sehr wahrscheinlich die Straße, die von Syene kommend in dem dortigen Wadiausgang mündete.”

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2. Evaluation

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Towards the goal of evaluating the evidence, I now want to pick up my question on the initiative of the cult of Augustus in Egypt. The first thing to state is that the three temples were most probably built in the time of Augustus.62 From papyrological evidence we know that at least from the 2nd century onwards in every nome of Egypt there was a ruler-cult-temple, and in my view one can assume that this was the case also in the 1st century.63 Furthermore, it is almost certainly the case that the emperor cult in Egypt, like in every Roman province, was organized by the local elites. However, is it really obvious that there is, as Jördens argues, no archeological, papyrological, or epigraphical hint for a cult established by the Roman administration of Egypt?64 Who for example built the temples in Alexandria and Egypt? A question that can be correlated to the question of the establishment of the ara trium Galliarum in Lyon (see above). Norbert Dörner, for example, postulates that the temple of Augustus was built by the city of Alexandria itself, who wished to be put in charge of the whole province of Egypt.65 In my view, this assumption is problematic because there was no official city council there who could have been in charge with such a project: Augustus had forbidden this common feature of every Greek city in the Hellenistic world. Every change of emperor cult that embassies of Alexandria wanted to establish had to be permitted by the Roman emperor as we learn from Claudius’s famous letter.66 If one instead views the problem from a top-down perspective, other problems that are posed by the archaeological and epigraphical remains can much easier be solved. Let us start with the Sebasteion of Alexandria. If one argues that the obelisks were not established by the Roman administration, one has to interpret it as private engagements of the prefects (e.g., Jördens)67 or understand them as an addition added by a subsequent administration, because Alexandria had run out of funds for the project during the construction of the precinct (e.g., Dörner).68 I cannot exclude that this was the case, nevertheless 62 Dörner, Feste und Opfer, 245, surely is wrong with his assumption that the temple might have been built later. 63 Cezary Kunderewicz, “Quelques remarques sur le rôle des Kaisareia dans la vie juridique de l’Egypte romaine,” JJP 13 (1961): 113–29; Adam Łukaszewicz, Les édifices publics dans les villes de l’Égypte romaine: Problèmes administratifs et financiers (Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 1986). 64 Jördens, “Priester, Prokuratoren,” 150: “Archäologisch ist … ebenso wie epigraphisch und papyrologisch keinerlei Beweis für einen von staatlicher Seite installierten und dazu allgemeinen Kaiserkult zu führen.” 65 Dörner, Feste und Opfer, 211, 457. 66 P.Lond. 6.1912 = CPJ II 153 = Sel.Pap. II 212. 67 Jördens, “Priester, Prokuratoren,” 149n146. 68 Dörner, Feste und Opfer, 212.

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I think it is rather implausible. For example, the forum Iulium, later forum Augustum (see above) was – as we learn from the Gallus-inscription – built at the order of Octavian himself. A private dedication of the two needles of Cleopatra is, if one considers the symbolic importance of the two obelisks and the costs that they incurred, also unlikely. Therefore, for me, it is much easier to explain the whole complex as a Roman administrative measure, which would correlate quite well with the fact that its architectural form has its exemplars in Rome and not in the Hellenistic or Egyptian world. The unEgyptian appearance of the temple leads me directly to the two archeological documented temples with podium in the Egyptian chora. To estimate the relevance of these temples, one has to take into consideration that the Greeks who came to Egypt did not normally build Greek temples but followed the indigenous tradition. The architectural style of the two temples of the imperial cult is nevertheless neither Egyptian nor Greek! It is the typical Roman podium temple, which differs from Greek temples because it only can be ascended via the staircase at its front. Although there are cases of such temples in Hellenistic Asia Minor,69 it is a typical Roman style of temple.70 If one attempts to find the initiators of such temples in Egypt, in my view, it would be prudent to look at other contemporary temples of Augustus. In Asia Minor the temples of Augustus and Roma had diverging styles. They could be typical Greek ones, like in Ankara, as well as in podium style, like in Antioch of Pisidia or in Alexandria Troas.71 In the western part of the empire, emperor cult temples were exclusively Roman in style, like in Colonia Iulia Herculanea Pollentia, modern Pula in Croatia, and in Austrian Magdalensberg.72 In a country like Egypt, where local forms of the ruler cult were established 300 years previously – forms that local elites could have assimilated without hesitation as precedence – I think it is telling if someone chose to take a Roman podium temple – a style of temple that is totally inorganic for 69 See Hans Lauter, Die Architektur des Hellenismus (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1986), 299. 70 Jördens, “Priester, Prokuratoren,” 27, is wrong, when she writes: “Weit davon entfernt also, für einen römischen Kult als typisch zu gelten, orientierten sich die ägyptischen Podiumtempel zudem an ganz anderen Vorbildern, die sich Naerebouts sorgfältiger Untersuchung zufolge weder in Italien noch in Rom, sondern im südöstlichen Mittelmeerraum fanden.” 71 Hänlein-Schäfer, Veneratio Augusti, 43; Kutalmis Görkay, “A Podium Temple at Alexandria Troas,” AMS 33 (1999): 5–26; Kutalmy Görkay, “An Early-Imperial Podium Temple at Alexandria Troas,” in Patris und Imperium: Kulturelle und politische Identität in den Städten der römischen Provinzen Kleinasiens in der frühen Kaiserzeit, Kolloquium Köln 1998, ed. Christof Berns (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 217–32; Lutgarde Vandeput, “Frühkaiserzeitliche Tempel in Pisidien,” in Berns, Patris und Imperium, 205–15; Daniela Pohl, Kaiserzeitliche Tempel in Kleinasien unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der hellenistischen Vorläufer (Bonn: Habelt, 2002), 197–210. 72 Hänlein-Schäfer, Veneratio Augusti, 16–17.

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Egypt.73 In my opinion, this temple points to the fact that it was inherent for the new cult to show that a new god has come to Egypt, that was not part of the Egyptian temple world but stood apart from it and began a dialogue with the Egyptian gods. Thus, I think it is more likely that this god was introduced by the Roman administration itself, who forwarded his veneration to the local elites.74 This brings us back the fact that Augustus was, as already stated above, venerated as Zeus liberator throughout Egypt. If we take a look at the question, what exactly was considered as liberation and why Augustus was considered as such a god, it is obvious that the new lord of Egypt himself tried to gain acceptance of his rule and therefore propagated his rule as the beginning of a new golden area. However, the new subjects were not convinced of their liberation. The stela of Cornelius Gallus tells us that already in the first year of Roman rule the prefect had to subdue a great rebellion in the Thebaid.75 Strabo relates that another rebellion in the Delta was caused by taxes imposed by Roman rule the same year.76 And also Ammianus Marcellinus tells us that the prefect exhausted the Thebaid.77 The insurrections had nevertheless no chance and afterwards graveyard peace was established in Egypt or as Cassius Dio put it, “Thus was Egypt enslaved. All the inhabitants who resisted for a time were finally subdued.”78 It is therefore significant that a temple of Augustus was built just in front of one of the most important temples of Egypt, in the center of Egyptian rebellions, and that Augustus was venerated there as Zeus the liberator. One gets the feeling that the veneration of Augustus as liberator in an alien temple was not as a voluntary enterprise as it was supposed to be. In conclusion, I would like to stress that the emperor cult in Egypt was a creative dialogue between the Egyptians, the Greeks, and Romans. Within this dialogue, there are many movements from the bottom up, involving different forms of veneration of the emperor bound to different cultural and religious contexts. Nevertheless, concerning the importance of Egypt and its 73 Wrongfully interpreted by Dörner, Feste und Opfer, 199–202. Dörner contends that this cannot be evidence of a cult because it would set the emperor (as was the king in Ptolemaic times) on the same level with the gods. Instead, it is a matter of worshiping the emperor and asking for his welfare in the gods, as could happen to functionaries. This again corresponded to the pre-Ptolemaic forms of worship of the Pharaoh, where temple offerings “for the life, salvation and health of Pharaoh” were given. Cf. Stefan Pfeiffer, Herrscher- und Dynastiekulte im Ptolemäerreich: Systematik und Einordnung der Kultformen (Munich: Beck, 2008), 94. 74 Pfeiffer, Der römische Kaiser, 254–57. 75 Friedhelm Hoffmann, Martina Minas-Nerpel, and Stefan Pfeiffer, Die dreisprachige Stele des C. Cornelius Gallus: Übersetzung und Kommentar (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009). 76 Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.53. 77 Ammianus Marcellinus 17.4.5. 78 Cassius Dio 51.17.4.

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multicultural and rebellious population, I think that Rome was not so stupid as to have a laissez faire approach to its government. Instead, they provided the population with religious ties and commitments to the broader empire, which were used as a method of subduing and subordinating the province: the Romans came as conquerors, who extracted as much revenues as possible out of Egypt. Therefore, I cannot believe that the cult of Augustus can be explained entirely as a bottom-up phenomenon: rather, it was intended to look as if it were established from the bottom up.

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The Shifting Definition of Greek Identity in Alexandria through the Transition from Ptolemaic to Roman Rule

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SYLVIE HONIGMAN In ancient societies, state policy and the specifics of place are (arguably) prominent factors in shaping collective identity, and even more so when it comes to social elites. Moreover, they are relatively easy to trace in the evidence or to reconstruct by inference – even though the inquiry will unavoidably involve a degree of speculation. In this article I examine how the two factors of place and state policy interacted to shape Greek elite identity respectively in both Alexandria and the Egyptian chora under Ptolemaic rule, and subsequently under the Roman provincial authorities of early imperial times. More precisely, I will examine how this interaction affected both the elite Greeks’ discourse of selfrepresentation and their relationship with the non-Greek environment around them, and how these aspects came to the fore in the literary production of their time. Two time periods in particular are brought to light by the literary evidence. First, early Ptolemaic times are primarily documented by the contemporary Alexandrian poetry that was produced by Alexandrian circles gravitating around the royal court, to which we may add several prose texts, including primarily Strabo’s famous description of Alexandria. Next in chronological order are texts from the first and second centuries CE. These texts highlight the turmoil between 38 and 41 CE that started with the inter-ethnic clashes between Alexandrian citizens and the city’s Jewish residents, and to a lesser extent cover the Jewish revolt of 115/6–117. In terms of genre, these texts form a varied corpus, including Philo’s treatises related to the riots and the Jewish embassy to Caligula; Apion’s and Chaeremon’s rewritings of Manetho’s Egyptianizing Exodus story; the Acta Alexandrinorum (or Acts of the Pagan Martyrs); 3 Maccabees; and the Jewish and Egyptian oracular literature, in particular texts affiliated with the tradition of the Potter’s Oracle. In this article I will deal with each period separately, with a view towards stressing the connections that emerge between the social realities of each one and their relative contemporary literary production. At the same time, I will point out the changes and continuities discernible between the periods. As we shall see, one major constant was that Greek identity in Egypt assimilated

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local elements. While today this Egyptian Greek identity might be termed “hybrid,” for the social agents of the time it was simply a new mode of being Greek that suited their place of living. The discussion here will begin with the Ptolemaic era.

1. Greek Identity under the Ptolemies Thanks in part to the increasing use of Demotic papyri, recent studies of Ptolemaic society tend to see it as relatively open in terms of inter-ethnic relations. As Christelle Fischer-Bovet recently argued, this openness was to a large extent dictated by pragmatic considerations, and demography in particular.1 In my survey of Ptolemaic society I move from social aspects and the crystallizing of a specifically Ptolemaic Greek identity in the Egyptian chora to the Alexandrian library and poetry.

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1.1 The Social Status of Greeks in Egypt under the Ptolemies: Selected Aspects According to Christelle Fischer-Bovet, the newcomers formed about five percent of the population. An overwhelming majority of this percentage were military cleruchs, and geographically speaking they were heavily concentrated in specific areas. Except for the population of three poleis (Alexandria in the Delta and Ptolemais in Upper Egypt) and the garrisons of the Delta and Upper Egypt, most of the newcomers were settled in the Fayum, an oasis of Middle Egypt that was reclaimed from the sands. By allotting land parcels to his mercenaries there, Ptolemy I secured himself a stable reservoir of soldiers at low cost, while avoiding any repossession of Egyptian villages.2 The high social status of the immigrants as a colonial minority – along with their low number and a likely gender imbalance – encouraged intermarriage between the newcomers and Egyptian families, as early as the 3rd century, perhaps even before. Wisely, the Ptolemies were careful not to impose any legal or fiscal restrictions to hamper such conjugal bonds. However, intermarriage was not the only mechanism by which Egyptians with some social standing could made their way into the colonial elites. From the very outset of Greek presence in Egypt, the royal administration relied heavily on local scribes, whose employment was indispensable for a variety of reasons. On the 1 Christelle Fischer-Bovet, “Counting the Greeks in Egypt: Immigration in the First Century of Ptolemaic Rule,” in Demography and the Graeco-Roman World: New Insights and Approaches, ed. Claire Holleran and April Pudsey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 135–54. 2 On the Ptolemaic army, see Christelle Fischer-Bovet, Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

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one hand, as just noted, most immigrants were needed as soldiers, and consequently the remaining number of Greek settlers skilled enough to carry out complex administrative operations must have been limited. On the other hand, the country abounded in competent Egyptian scribes, and they were quick to make the switch from Aramaic to Greek as their second language.3 Starting with Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the royal administration took positive steps to divert Egyptian scribes from serving the gods to serving the king in the royal bureaus, which in some cases were actually located in the temple precincts.4 With time, individuals whose ancestors had served as temple personnel and had turned to the service of the king came to fulfill administrative and military functions of high rank. These individuals and their families adopted aspects of the Greek way of life and formed a culturally mixed social elite.5 Recent studies have argued that the army itself was considerably more open to Egyptian recruits – and from a far earlier date – than scholars used to believe. Indeed, literary sources attest their incorporation as early as the 3rd century BCE, and starting in the 2nd century BCE, persons born into Egyptian families could become katoikoi (cavalry-cleruchs) by adopting a Greek name and a military ethnic label, such as “Macedonian.”6 Given the lack of any clear evidence, the vexing question remains as to whether and to what extent the fiscal policy of the Ptolemaic state was discriminatory in terms of ethnicity. On the one hand, the administration imposed controls on how people used ethnic labels, which suggests that this element of identity had fiscal implications.7 On the other hand, numerous case-studies show that individuals could officially use different ethnic labels The fact that the administrative tasks continued to be carried on by Egyptian scribes was established through the examination of handwritings and slight language incorrections. See, for instance, Willy Clarysse, “Egyptian Scribes writing Greek,” Cd’É 68 (1993): 186–201. 4 See Gilles Gorre, Les Relations du clergé égyptien et des Lagides d’après les sources privées, Studia Hellenistica 45 (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 557–603; and Gilles Gorre, “Les élites sacerdotales d’Hermopolis et le pouvoir gréco-macédonien,” in Élites et pouvoir en Égypte ancienne, ed. Juan-Carlos Moreno Garcia, CRIPEL 28 (Lille: University of Lille, 2010), 359–72. 5 Gilles Gorre, “Self-Presentation and Identity of Egyptian Priests in the Ptolemaic Period,” in Shifting Social Imaginaries in the Hellenistic Period, ed. Eftychia Stavrianopoulou (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 99–114. 6 See Fischer-Bovet, Army and Society, 160–66, 177; and Sandra Scheuble-Reiter, Die Katökenreiter im ptolemäischen Ägypten, Vestigia 64 (Munich: Beck, 2012), 5–6. 7 Dorothy J. Thompson, “Hellenistic Hellenes: The Case of Ptolemaic Egypt,” in Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, ed. Irad Malkin, Center for Hellenic Studies Colloquia 5 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 301–22; Anne-Emmanuelle Veïsse, “Statut et identité dans l’Égypte des Ptolémées: Les désignations d’Hellènes et d’Égyptiens,” Ktèma 32 (2007): 279–91; and Katelijn Vandorpe, “Persian Soldiers and Persians of the Epigone: Social Mobility of Soldiersherdsmen in Upper Egypt,” Archiv für Papyrusforschung 54 (2008): 87–108.

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– either simultaneously according to their social context; or successively, for instance when soldiers were shunted from one military unit to another. As noted above, when they enrolled in the army, ethnic Egyptians received a (Greek) ethnic label and assumed a Greek personal name, accordingly. Likewise, ethnic boundaries were to some extent blurred by another fiscal policy that aimed at encouraging the development of Greek literacy, and which seemingly was initiated in the 260s BCE (under Ptolemy Philadelphus). As part of this policy, various categories of people were exempted from the salttax: according to a letter relating to Alexandria (P.Hal. 1), these were

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[teachers] of letters (διδἀσκαλοι γραμμἀτων, that is, school teachers), masters of gymnastic and [performers of] the rites of Dionysos and victors in the [Alexandrian contest] and in the Basileia and Ptolemaia.8

However, bilingual tax-rolls from the second half of the 3rd century BCE relating to the Arsinoite nome (administrative district, covering the Fayum) show that “Egyptian teachers” (διδἀσκαλοι Αἰγύπτιοι) were among the beneficiaries.9 Altogether, it appears that the ethnic labels in these tax-rolls denoted fiscal categories, and not ethnicity as such. As we see, although under Ptolemaic rule the fiscal statuses coincided with ethnic ascriptions, they remained fluid. Moreover, we may surmise that the acquisition of a new ethnic label impacted the way the said individual perceived and described himself or herself, in particular when this change signaled a social promotion. This must have been particularly true for Egyptians acquiring their first (Greek) ethnic label. At the same time, the somewhat comfortable picture outlined above was not without its more gloomy aspects. Under Ptolemy II, the more senior, socially entrenched families that had headed the Egyptian temples for generations fade out from the evidence, and it seems that they were replaced with temple families of lower social status who readily offered their loyalty to the king.10 It is tempting to ascribe the Egyptian apocalyptic texts datable to Ptolemaic times – in particular the Potter’s Oracle – to these deprived priestly circles. Perhaps originally composed in the 2nd century BCE, this work rages against Alexandria, the city to which the gods of Memphis were “unjustly” transferred, and it prophesies the arrival of a “king descended from Helios.”11

P.Hal. 1, ll. 260–65. See Thompson, “Hellenistic Hellenes.” Willy Clarysse and Dorothy J. Thompson, Counting the people in Hellenistic Egypt, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 2:125–33. The authors (at 127 and 129) suggested that these Egyptian teachers were Egyptians who taught Greek as a foreign language through the medium of Egyptian. 10 Gorre, Les Relations du clergé égyptien, 495–502, 579–86. 11 Ludwig Koenen, “Die Apologie des Töpfers an König Amenophis oder das Töpferorakel,” in Apokalyptik und Ägypten: Eine kritische Analyse des relevanten Texte aus dem 8

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Likewise, recurrent troubles in the Delta and Middle Egypt in later Ptolemaic times hint at spreading social and economic discontent.12 Altogether, the evidence regarding Ptolemaic state regulation of status and inter-ethnic relationships remains too sketchy to allow any conclusions. That said, as the corpus of evidence grows – and in particular is supplemented by the Demotic papyri – the overall picture begins to controvert the claims of systematic ethnic discrimination that prevailed a few decades ago.13 Ethnic labeling was fluid, and as long as such changes were not merely a ruse for evading taxes, the Ptolemaic administration was relatively unconcerned.14 A consequence – and perhaps a function – of this fluidity was to constantly maintain a fair overlap between the segment of the population that Ptolemaic state policy identified as “Greeks” and the social elites of the country – both those who descended from the colonial minority, and descendants of families who used to serve as temple cultic and administrative personnel who married into it. This social profile explains how these elites defined Greek identity in Egypt. 1.2 The Creation of a Greek Identity in Egypt under Ptolemaic Rule

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The colonial society that burgeoned in Ptolemaic Egypt in the late fourth and third centuries BCE was composed of immigrants from all over the Mediterranean, meaning from various parts of the Greek world and Macedonia, and from non-Greek regions such as Thrace and Judea, alike. A new Greek identity progressively emerged out of the homogenization of this population which, albeit ethnically composite,15 enjoyed a similar, privileged status, and to a large extent shared a common fate. This Greek identity was specifically Ptolemaic in that it was socially conditioned by the status of the immigrants as a colonial minority, and culturally by their encounter with Egypt. It crystallized around a set of elements, of which the most prominent were their service to the king, as soldiers and administrators; their linguistic assimilation into a common Greek dialect, the koine, and a common stock of personal names;16 griechisch-römischen Ägypten, ed. Andreas Blasius and Bernd U. Schipper (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 139–87. 12 Anne-Emmanuelle Veïsse, Les ‘révoltes égyptiennes’: Recherches sur les troubles intérieurs en Égypte du règne de Ptolémée III Evergète à la conquête romaine, Studia Hellenistica 41 (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 7–10, 28–36, 110–12. 13 Koen Goudriaan, Ethnicity in Ptolemaic Egypt (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1988). 14 Vandorpe, “Persian soldiers.” 15 By this I mean not only Thracians and Judeans, but also Macedonians vs. Cyreneans, Cretans, Caunians, and the like. 16 See the homogeneous community of Cyreneans settled in Egypt that maintained its Doric dialect for some time discussed in Willy Clarysse, “Ethnic Diversity and Dialect among the Greeks of Hellenistic Egypt,” in The Two Faces of Graeco-Roman Egypt: Greek and Demotic and Greco-Demotic Texts and Studies Presented to P.W. Pestman, ed. Arthur M. F. W. Ver-

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their Greek way of life; their identification with tokens of loyalty to the king, in particular through the ruler cult (which was often linked to gymnasia), but also the use of personal names such as Ptolemaios and Berenike; and the worship of deities that were also endorsed by the king, in particular Sarapis. Of course, this list of defining items was open to internal contests. It is unclear whether immigrants coming from old Greek poleis, like Athens or Cyrene, were happy to share the label of “Greeks” with Macedonians, Thracians, and Judeans; whereas the Judeans would presumably have been happy to elide the cult of Sarapis from the above-mentioned list. More decisively, the homogenizing of the colonial minority (or perhaps, more simply, the passage of time) led to an increasing emphasis on the topical dimension of its Greek identity. In so far as descent was a defining feature in early Ptolemaic times, what was stressed was the settlers’ foreignness, which was signaled by the very fact that they had an ethnic label, unlike the autochthonous Egyptian population. By late Ptolemaic and early imperial times, Greek theophoric names advertised sundry relations with local cults, and no longer the individual’s foreignness.17 Similarly, in a fascinating case-study Dorothy Thompson analyzed how two brothers originating in military circles read Greek literature through their daily-life experience.18 Moreover, the Greek literate culture in the chora incorporated Egyptian elements. By this I do not mean school education – although we cannot rule out that the archaizing selection of authors that they quoted (Homer and the Athenian tragic playwrights) imitated, rather than simply paralleled, the curriculum of contemporary Egyptian schoolbooks.19 Rather, the incorporation of Egyptian scribes in the Ptolemaic administrative bureaus prompted the hoogt and Sven P. Vleeming (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 1–13. With the conspicuous exception of Judean names, all epichoric names, including Thracian ones, vanish out by the late 3rd century BCE. 17 Roger S. Bagnall, “The People of the Roman Fayum,” in Portraits and Masks: Burial Customs in Roman Egypt, ed. Morris L. Bierbrier (London: The British Museum Press, 1997), 7–15. Note that the use of ethnic labels decreased from the 2nd century BCE on. See Christelle Fischer-Bovet, “Official Identity and Ethnicity: Comparing Ptolemaic and Early Roman Egypt,” Journal of Egyptian History 11 (2018): 208–42 (220). 18 Dorothy J. Thompson, “Ptolemaios and the ‘Lighthouse’: Greek Culture in the Memphite Serapeum,” PCPS 213/33 (1987): 105–21. Cf. Susan A. Stephens, “Posidippus’s Poetry Book: Where Macedon Meets Egypt,” in Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece, ed. William V. Harris and Giovanni Ruffini (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 63–86 (66). 19 Those used Hieratic texts, while ignoring Demotic literature. See Emmanuel Tassier, “Greek and Demotic School-Exercises,” in Life in a Multi-Cultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and beyond, ed. Janet H. Johnson, SAOC 51 (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1992), 311–16 (313–14). The Hieratic script reflected old Egyptian, whereas the Demotic was closer to spoken language. On Greek schoolbooks, see Raffaela Cribiore, Writing, Teachers and Students in Graeco–Roman Egypt (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996).

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translation of Demotic legal documents on the one hand, and sapiential texts on the other.20 It has been argued that the Septuagint originated in these bureaus as well, and that the translation method from Hebrew to Greek owed much to the method worked out to translate Demotic documents into Greek.21 As we can see, Ptolemaic society was characterized by a striking fluidity in the administrative way of ascribing identity, and by the topical slant of Greek identity within it, resulting both from inter-ethnic mingling and from local cultural influences. Unsurprisingly, while the elite definition of Greek identity in Alexandria differed, it was not completely out of tune with the social and cultural life that developed in the Egyptian chora. 1.3 The King’s Side: The Royal Library as a Compromise between Variegated Cultural and Political Imperatives

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Alexandria was the interface between Egypt and the Mediterranean. In working out their indispensable cultural policy in their capital, the Ptolemies, as pharaohs and Greek kings fostering imperial ambitions, were guided by multiple imperatives: to emphasize their distinct, Macedonian identity, and in particular their links to Alexander the Great; to serve as a pole of identification to the Greeks in Egypt; to be accepted by the Egyptian temple elites, whose social ascendency over the Egyptian population remained powerful; and in conjunction with their Mediterranean ambitions, to boost their credentials as cultured Greeks in a way that could be accepted by Greeks outside Egypt. The creation of the Mouseion and its library may be seen as addressing all these imperatives at once.22 Although the explicit sources concerning the Alexandrian library are notoriously scant, they may be supplemented, I believe, by indirect and circumstantial evidence provided by the comparison with Egyptian temple libraries on the one hand, and by internal analyses of the Alexandrian poetry on the other.23

20 Dorothy J. Crawford, “The Good Official of Ptolemaic Egypt,” in Das ptolemäische Ägypten: Akten des internationalen Symposions, 27.–29. September 1976 in Berlin, ed. Herwig Maehler and Volker M. Strocka (Mainz am Rhein: von Zabern, 1978), 195–202 (196– 97). 21 James K. Aitken, “The Septuagint and Egyptian Translation Methods,” in XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, ed. Wolfgang Kraus, Michaël N. van der Meer and Martin Meiser (Munich: SBL Press, 2016), 269–94. 22 Of course, the Ptolemaic soft-power policy had additional facets, such as the possession of Alexander’s tomb; the diffusion of the cult of Sarapis and Isis, the divine patrons of the dynasty, both in Egypt, and the Ptolemaic imperial possessions; and Panhellenic games, the Ptolemaia. 23 Alexandrian poetry is dealt with in section 1.4 below. The following discussion summarizes my discussion in Sylvie Honigman, “The Library and the Septuagint: Between Repre-

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According to Strabo’s well-known statement (Geogr. 13.1.54), Aristotle … is the first man, so far as I know, to have collected books and to have taught the kings of Egypt the arrangement of a library.24

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This assertion is the basis of the modern view that the royal library of Alexandria was a royal adaptation of Aristotle’s Lykeion.25 However, Strabo’s testimony likely documents not the actual origins of the library, but how the Greeks – and maybe primarily the Ptolemies and the library scholars to whose writings Strabo was so heavily indebted – chose to represent it to themselves and memorialized these origins.26 Given that the library was sponsored by a dynasty that advertised itself as Greek, collected Greek books, and hired Greek scholars, its founding myth perforce had to depict its origins as rooted in a Greek precedent. Hence Strabo logically stressed the parallels between Aristotle’s Lykeion and the Alexandrian Mouseion. However, a closer look reveals telling differences between the two. The scholars were invited by the king, meaning that they did not necessarily form a cohesive philosophical school, and moreover they enjoyed a full stipend. Likewise, the books were acquired by the king, and the collection was presumably conceived as serving multiple purposes. Conversely, some striking parallels with Egyptian libraries may be pointed out. Egyptian libraries were tied either to temples or palaces; as institutions, they ideally stored all the fields of knowledge, and as such served to shape the cultural memory of the social communities that were linked to them; institutionally, the temple and palace scribes linked to the Egyptian libraries lived off prebends, although a major difference with the Alexandrian Mouseion was that their positions were largely hereditary; recent studies comparing the scholarly methods of Egyptian scholars and those of the Alexandrian ones point to similarities, and argue that the direction of influence was from the Egyptian to the Greek tradition, and not the other way round.27 Finally, there may be architectural similarities between Egyptian temple libraries and the Alexandrian one.28 In sum, the Ptolemies’ very idea of collecting books and hiring scholars was in all likelihood prompted by their need to vie with Egyptian temples sentations and Reality,” in The Library of Alexandria: A Cultural Crossroads of the Ancient World, ed. Christophe Rico and Anca Dan (Jerusalem: Polis Institute Press, 2017), 45–79. 24 As quoted in Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 99. 25 This tradition is widely endorsed in modern narratives about the origins of the Alexandrian library. See, for instance, Peter M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 1:320. 26 Honigman, “The Library,” 62–73. 27 Kim Ryholt, “Libraries in Ancient Egypt,” in Ancient Libraries, ed. Jason König, Katerina Oikonomopoulou and Greg World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 23– 37. 28 Honigman, “The Library,” 71–72.

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(and to their status as pharaohs) in terms of their control of knowledge. At the same time, as a dynasty emphasizing its Greekness, the Ptolemies naturally endeavored to gather the first collection of Greek books that could rival with, and outdo Egyptian collections. Alongside the ruler cult, the Panhellenic celebration of the Ptolemaia, and the Serapeion, the new collection of books created a focus of Greek identity under royal patronage for the citizens of Alexandria in particular, and the Greeks of Egypt at large. The new edition of Homer that was prepared by the scholars of the Mouseion was critical to this purpose, although it achieved its desired effect only with the publication of Aristarchus’s commentary, ca. 150 BCE.29 Moreover, the book collection lent the Ptolemies a position of cultural leadership in the Greek Mediterranean, setting Alexandria as the new Athens. The Homeric edition was critical to this effect, as well.

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1.4 The Alexandrian Authors’ Side: The Creation of a Ptolemaic Greek Identity in Literature The notion that the Alexandrian library was a Greek transposition of a fundamentally Egyptian institution despite the ancient witnesses (especially Strabo) attributing it an exclusively Greek genealogy is further supported by the analysis of two sets of literary works originating in Alexandria: Strabo’s well-known description of Alexandria, and the Alexandrian poetry of the third and second centuries BCE. Strabo’s description of Alexandria (Geogr. 17.1.6–10) impresses on its readers – both ancient and modern – the image of an admirable, characteristically Greek polis, were it not for its unusual scale. The same is true of all the Greek literary references to Alexandria.30 Thanks to modern archaeological discoveries, our understanding of the cityscape underwent a complete overhaul, the moment that the statues of Ptolemaic kings in Pharaonic style and architectural items reused from Pharaonic sites that were retrieved from maritime excavations revealed to us its thoroughly Egyptianized aspect. In the light of these findings, it appears that the evident presence of Egyptian architectural items in the Alexandrian cityscape comprise a sort of “blind spot” in the ancient Greek descriptions of the city. One is at first tempted to interpret this oversight as a disingenuous attempt on the part of the Alexandrian Greek elites to “blot out” Egypt from their subjective view of the world. However, on the strength of my survey of Ptolemaic society above, I propose that these descriptions be read in the opposite way. But before elaborating further, let us first turn to what I see as similar features in the Alexandrian poetry. 29 On the Alexandrian scholarship on Homer, see Pfeiffer, Classical Scholarship, 105– 115, 173–77, 212–17. 30 For additional sources, see Honigman, “The Library,” 62.

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In the same way as the Greek identity of the Egyptian chora resulted from disparate populations that progressively morphed into a culturally unified whole, the Alexandrian poets gave birth to an innovative form of Greek literature that eclectically borrowed from the literary traditions of the Greek world. At the same time, like Alexandria’s cityscape, the god Sarapis, and the library itself (as a collection of Greek books that took inspiration from Egyptian models), the Alexandrian poets surreptitiously blended elements of their Egyptian environment with their Greek heritage. The numerous allusions to Egyptian themes borrowed from the Pharaonic royal ideology that Callimachus and Theocritus inserted in some – if not most – of their major works, are now widely acknowledged.31 Likewise, the composite structure found in some poems may borrow from the compositional device of juxtaposing set pieces of various literary genres bookended in a type narrative framework that was a hallmark of Demotic literature.32 Theocritus’s Idyll 15 (Syracusan Women) and 22 (Dioscuri) come to mind in this respect.33 Thirdly, in a detailed analysis of the 112 epigrams attributed to Posidippus that were recovered from a roll of papyrus discovered in 1993, Susan Stephens showed that the collection contained a political undertow, which was overtly displayed in some parts, and in others conveyed through subtle literary devices.34 This political content comes to the fore both in the praise of the Ptolemies and the queens, and in allusions to the Ptolemaic imperial possessions. Stephens further aired the idea that the rest of the Alexandrian poets may have woven similar political concerns into their poetry.35 What happened was that only the works with universal appeal continued to be copied, whereas the pieces that voiced more topical concerns were eventually discarded. A last poem worth mentioning is Lycophron’s Alexandra – composed in the 2nd century BCE – because of the astounding number of hapax words it 31 See, for instance, Susan A. Stephens, Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria, Hellenistic Culture and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 32 See John Tait, “Egyptian Fiction in Demotic and Greek,” in Greek Fiction: The Greek Novel in Context, ed. John R. Morgan and Richard Stoneman (London: Routledge, 1994), 203–22 (206–7) and, for instance, the Myth of the Sun’s Eye. For such compositional influence in the Letter of Aristeas, see Sylvie Honigman, “Literary Genres and Identity in the Letter of Aristeas: Courtly and Demotic Models,” in A Question of Identity: Social, Political, and Historical Aspects of Identity Dynamics in Jewish and Other Contexts, ed. Dikla Rivlin Katz et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019), 223–44. 33 The frame story of Syracusan Women is a mime featuring two female friends setting out to the city. It enshrines a short ekphrasis (Theocritus, Id. 15.80–87) and a dirge to Adonis (Theocritus, Id. 15.100–143). Id. 22 (Dioscuri) juxtapose two parts, the first imitating Homeric style, and the second written in Ptolemaic koine. 34 Stephens, “Posidippus’s Poetry.” 35 Clarysse, “Ethnic Diversity,” suggested that the reference to the Dorian dialect in Theocritus’s Syracusan Women (Theocritus, Id. 15.89–95) was a nod to the distinctive dialect that was spoken at the Alexandrian court, and which was close to Dorian.

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displays. Most of those come from Homer, but quite a few terms are from Greek dialects, and foreign languages.36 However, most of them can be traced to Greek authors of pre-Hellenistic times, and we may assume that this was true for the whole list.37 On the face of it, it appears that dialectical and foreign words were legitimate only insofar as they were mediated by the Greek classical tradition – a classicism precisely created in Alexandria. At the same time, we may read Lycophron’s poem as a statement about the Alexandrian Greek identity. As noted above, I see Strabo’s description of Alexandria and the various features of Alexandrian poetry just summarized as modulations of an overall quite coherent statement of collective identity. Far from being blind to the Egyptian component of their identity, the Greek Alexandrian authors claimed that hybrid Greekness was full-fledged, genuine Greekness. In the same way as the cityscapes of the Greek poleis of Sicily and southern Italy were adorned with temples having Doric capitals and metopes, the Siphnian treasure in Delphic had Ionic capitals and an Ionic frieze, and the Erechtheion in Athens had Caryatids, the statues in Alexandria had a Pharaonic look. Likewise, Egyptian literary motifs and foreign words merely enriched the repertoire of Greekness. To conclude: Greek identity in Ptolemaic Egypt on the one hand, and in Alexandria on the other, was not a given, but was created out of multiple sources, mixing Greek inherited traditions, borrowings from the local Egyptian culture, and outright innovations. The Alexandrian poets linked to the court needed to define what being Greek in Egypt meant, firstly for themselves, the court, and the Greeks in Egypt, and secondly for the rest of the Greek world beyond Egypt. We may wish to read Alexandrian poetry as the product either of imperial arrogance, especially in the works written in the heydays of Ptolemaic thalassocracy; or of a cultural quest tinged with anxiety about their Ptolemaic Greek hybridity. In light of Polybius’s derogatory comments about the Alexandrian population when he visited the city (Polybius 34.14.1–5, ap. Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.12), that anxiety may well have been justified.38 However, it might as well be taken as a manifestation of relaxed confidence. Whatever the case, the contrast with the literary production of Roman times is easily discerned. 36 Antonios Rengakos, “Lykophron als Homererklärer,” ZPE 102 (1994): 123–25. The foreign words are listed in Gérard Lambin, L’Alexandra de Lycophron (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2005), 269. 37 The four Egyptian words are known from Aeschylus, Herodotus and Euripides; one (probably) Lydian is used by Aeschylus and Hipponax; an Iranian one was found in Xenophon, and borrowed by Callimachus and Apollonius of Rhodes. 38 See Andrew Erskine, “The View from the Old World: Contemporary Perspectives on Hellenistic Culture,” in Stavrianopoulou, Shifting Social Imaginaries in the Hellenistic Period, 338–63 (346).

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2. Greek Identity of Egypt under Roman Rule 2.1 The Reforms in Personal Statuses in Imperial Times

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Over the few decades that followed the provincialization of Egypt in 27 BCE, the imperial administration imposed extensive changes in the social and administrative structures of Egypt. The Ptolemies ruled Egypt through a centralized administration – whereby the territory was controlled through officials appointed either by the king or by high-ranking officials – and not through self-administered cities. Under Roman rule, the metropoleis – that is, the central towns of the nomes (administrative districts of Egypt) – were transformed into municipal centers devised to support the local administration. This change was correlated with the overhaul of the social structures of the country through the institution of new tax categories that defined personal statuses.39 From 24/23 BCE on at the latest, an annual poll-tax (laographia) applying to persons aged between fourteen and sixty-two was introduced, with differences in payment formalized through the definition of four basic personal statuses.40 While the Roman citizens and the citizens of the three poleis (Alexandria, Ptolemaïs, and Naucratis) were exempted outright, the inhabitants of rural settlements were liable to the full tax-rate, while the metropolites paid a lower rate. In 4/5 CE comprehensive lists of citizens and of metropolites respectively were drawn up, and with time these lists became the basis for the creation of a hereditary status. To enjoy the privileged fiscal status of citizen and metropolite respectively, before reaching the age of fourteen adolescents of both sexes had to submit a formal declaration proving that both parents descended from persons who had been included in the census lists of 4/5.41 The gymnasia played a crucial part in the definition of these privileged statuses, both in Alexandria and in the metropoleis, indicating a link between privileged social status and Greek culture.42 In Alexandria citizenship was acquired through admission to the ephebate.43 In the metropoleis, the classes of the gymnasia classes constituted urban elites within the fiscally privileged class of the met-

39 The present summary is based on Alan K. Bowman and Dominic Rathbone, “Cities and Administration in Roman Egypt,” JRS 82 (1992): 107–27. 40 Bowman and Rathbone, Cities and Administration, 112. 41 Bowman and Rathbone, Cities and Administration, 120, with further bibliography, n70. 42 Bowman and Rathbone, Cities and Administration, 121. 43 On Alexandria, see Bowman and Rathbone, Cities and Administration, 115, 118. On the civic role of the gymnasia, see further Richard Alston, “Philo’s ‘In Flaccum’: Ethnicity and Social Space in Roman Alexandria,” G&R 44 (1997): 167–69.

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ropolites.44 To judge from some of the names – the “6,475 Greek men from the Arsinoite nome” katoikoi (cavalry-cleruchs), and “those of the gymnasion” – these metropolitan elites were eager to stress their cultural identity, and claimed descent from the earliest Greek settlers of Ptolemaic times.45 The remainder of the population liable to the full tax-rate was deemed to be of “Egyptian” stock, and all other ethnic labels were discontinued.46 Current understanding of the (inherited) social composition of this new status and tax category has been improved by recent studies on the Ptolemaic army by Sandra Scheubel-Reiter and Christel Fischer-Bovet, respectively. Contrary to the accepted view that by the 1st century BCE the cleruchs and katoikoi had assigned Egyptian peasants to farm their land-lots, and had moved to live in the nomes’ urban centers, both authors have argued instead that these Greeks involved in the army continued to live in villages.47 The obvious inference is that a substantial segment of the population of Egypt that in late Ptolemaic times belonged to the social elite underwent a form of social downgrade. Rural gymnasia were closed, and by 4/5 CE the prospects of any formal promotion of status must have seemed bleak to many.48 As several scholars have argued, these reforms in personal status were a major factor in the tensions that grew between the Alexandrian citizens and the Jewish community of Alexandria, and which climaxed in the outbreak of inter-ethnic violence in 38 CE. The citizens were keen to protect their newly acquired, privileged status, while at the same time resenting the Roman authorities for not being granted in full what they held as their due (in particular, a civic boule); notably, the city’s Jews refused to come to terms with their newly demoted status. This episode is well known and does not need rehearsing here.49 Rather, in what follows I will focus on how the social consequences of these reforms reverberated in the literary output of early imperial times. It will come as no surprise that particular attention will be given to the texts relating to the wellknown events of 38–41 CE – that is, the inter-ethnic riots, the two embassies 44 I follow Alston’s reconstruction, Alston, “Philo’s ‘In Flaccum’,” rather than Bowman and Rathbone, “Cities and Administration.” 45 Jane Rowlandson and Andrew Harker, “Roman Alexandria from the Perspective of the Papyri,” in Alexandria, Real and Imagined, ed. Anthony Hirst and Michael Silk (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 79–111 (82). 46 See Joseph Mélèze-Modrzejewski, “Entre la cité et le fisc: Le statut grec dans l’Égypte romaine,” in Symposion 1982. Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte (Santander, 1.–4. September 1982), ed. F. J. Fernánde Nieto (Köln: Böhlau, 1989), 241–80. 47 Scheuble-Reiter, Die Katökenreiter, 11–55; and Fischer-Bovet, Army and Society, 238– 99. 48 See Bowman and Rathbone, “Cities and Administration,” 121, on rural gymnasia. 49 For diverging interpretations, see Sandra Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots of 38 C.E. and the Persecution of the Jews: A Historical Reconstruction (Leiden: Brill, 2009); and Alston, “Philo’s ‘In Flaccum’.”

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that pleaded their respective sides before Caligula, and Claudius’s edict that brought the episode to an end, but left all parties discontented.50 That said, I propose to tackle these events from a slightly less familiar angle. It is remarkable that the sources of the two first centuries CE apprehended the disruptive consequences of the Roman domination upon the province’s elites through the lens of the clashes between Greeks and Jews. The underlying issues that this focalization raises – and which relate to the imperial context specifically – have been unduly obscured by the tendency of certain modern scholars to read it as one manifestation of alleged Egyptian “antisemitism,” whose origins are traced back to Manetho (or to the priests of Khnum destroying the Yaho temple in Elephantine around 407 BCE) through a papyrus of late Ptolemaic times (CPJ I 141).51 I will first review the contrasted ways in which the troubles of 38–41 CE came to be memorialized by the different segments of Egypt’s social and cultural elites, and will subsequently discuss what these texts disclose about Greek identity, and in particular Alexandrian Greek identity in early imperial times. 2.2 The Events of 38–41 CE in the Literary Production of Egypt The list of literary and sub-literary sources that refer to the events of 38–41 CE is impressive, owing to (the composition and) survival of critical Jewish works through manuscript copying on the one hand, and on the other to the more recent retrieval of key works on papyri.52 Let us begin with an inventory of the extant documents. As per usual, the two (Greek and Jewish) embassies to Caligula comprised the finest rhetors and philosophers of each side (Apion and Philo), along with their most prestigious representatives (Isidoros, the Alexandrian gymnasiarch).53 These players and other Alexandrian rhetors took to writing accounts in varying modes that are ultimately complementary. The first mode was For a comprehensive narrative, see, for instance, Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots. See, for instance, David Frankfurter, “Lest Egypt’s city be Deserted: Religion and Ideology in the Egyptian Response to the Jewish Revolt (116–117),” JJS 43 (1992): 203–20. CPJ I 141 is a private letter whose context is unknown. 52 In Andrew Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence in Roman Egypt. The Case of the Acta Alexandrinorum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 127–28, the author aired the possibility that repeated outbreaks of violence between Greeks and Jews in Antioch led to “the Antiochenes developing a similar literature to the Acta Alexandrinorum and to the Alexandrian Greeks taking an interest in it” (Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence, 128). If he is right, it is striking that we hear of no Jewish author or text engaging with these events. Either our lack of knowledge is an accurate mirror of reality, or it is the result of the overrepresentation of Alexandria in the corpus of extant Jewish texts. Either way, this lack indirectly reflects the status of Alexandria as an intellectual center of intense literary production. 53 Apion: Josephus, Ant. 18.257; Isidoros: Philo, Legat. 355; and CPJ II 156, col. 2, ll. 2– 3. 50

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Greek rhetoric which, while purporting to be a realistic way of accounting for reality, was effectively tinged with biases, distortions, and telling omissions. Philo offers two accounts of the events of 38 CE and of the embassy in his In Flaccum and Legatio ad Gaium. We do not know whether Apion did the same. The second mode was mythical transposition. Chaeremon and Apion, respectively, penned their own versions of the Exodus story.54 As Ian Moyer has cogently argued, when composing the first Egyptianized version of the Exodus story according to the Typhonian mythical pattern in the 3rd century BCE, Manetho himself was not motivated by hostile feelings against the Jews.55 However, this reinterpretation of the story paved the way for subsequent polemical uses.56 Presumably, Chaeremon and Apion identified the motif of impiety (impurity) foregrounded in the Egyptianized Exodus story as an apt counter-point to the Alexandrians’ claim that the Jews were unworthy of privileges in the city because of their rejection of the Alexandrians’ gods and of the imperial cult, a claim which the Alexandrians enacted by erecting statues on the Jews’ proseuchai (Philo, Flacc. 41). As Beatrice Wyss reminds us in this volume, Philo’s De vita Mosis may be his response to these hostile Exodus stories. A fragmentary papyrus (PSI VIII 982 = CPJ III 520) paleographically dated to the 3rd century CE attests that the Typhonian myth was brought into play against Jews once again in the context of the Jewish revolt of 115/6–17 CE. However, this text drew from the literary tradition of the Potter’s Oracle, not the Exodus story, and mixed its apocalyptic orientation with the injunction to “Attack the Jews!” (l. 4).57 The milieu of production of CPJ III 520, and the extant versions of the Potter’s Oracle dating to the second and third

54 Josephus, C. Ap. 1.288–92 (Chaeremon); and 2.10–27 (Apion). We do not know when Lysimachus (Josephus, C. Ap. 1.305–11) wrote. On the Exodus stories in the Contra Apionem, see John M. G. Barclay, Flavius Josephus, Against Apion: Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 341–42. 55 Ian S. Moyer, Egypt and the Limits of Hellenism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2011, 84–141. According to Moyer, Manetho aimed “to teach the Ptolemies and other Greeks a court to read Egyptian history in an Egyptian fashion,” ibid., 141. To this end, he synchronized Greek stories that were floating in an indeterminate time into his Egyptian kinglist and reinterpreted them in the light of the Egyptian ethical conception of history distinguishing between good and bad kings. Manetho probably borrowed the Exodus story from Hecataeus of Abdera (ap. Diodorus Siculus 40.3), synchronized it with the reigns of kings from the late Eighteenth Dynasty (in particular, Amenophis), and reshaped it according to the Sethian (Typhonian) mythical matrix indexing “bad reigns.” 56 On the workings of the Typhonian mythical matrix in polemical contexts, see Frankfurter, “Religion and Ideology.” On its original function of normative matrix by means of which to represent and give meaning to history, see Moyer, Egypt and the Limits of Hellenism, 130. 57 On the origins of the Potter’s Oracle, see above.

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centuries CE, point to Egyptian priests from the chora, not Alexandria.58 Consequently they disclose a properly Egyptian side to the inter-ethnic tensions of the country under Roman rule. Alongside these instances of rhetoric and myth, the events of 38–41 were also fictionalized in various ways. On the Greek side, they spawned the genre of the Acta Alexandrinorum (the Acts of the Pagan Martyrs), which continued to flourish through the 3rd century CE.59 The Acta genre comprised subliterary texts offering fictionalized versions of the minutes of trials, some of them genuine. In particular, the Acta Alexandrinorum recorded the trials and executions by Roman emperors of Alexandrian official representatives who came to Rome as official ambassadors. As Andrew Harker notes, a constant theme in these texts is their celebration of the glorious city of Alexandria and the dignity of its institutions, and there are strong insinuations that these dignified representatives who bravely defend their beloved city were unjustly condemned by emperors who, owing to their ignorance and low birth, have mistakenly allied themselves with the Alexandrians’ enemies.60 Although most emperors from Augustus to Caracalla are represented, the corpus affords ample space to the events of 38–41, and moreover is pervaded with antiJewish notations. According to Harker, the most recurrent pattern in the Acta is the Alexandrian ambassadors facing a hostile emperor supporting the enemies of the Alexandrians, and frequently, these adversaries are the Jews.61 On the Greek side, Harker suggested that the troubles of 38–41 also made their way into the genre of the mime.62 The Jewish fictional memorializing of these events was 3 Maccabees.63 Not only is the issue of the massacre central to the work’s plot, but allusions to the massacre of 38 CE abound in it. Alongside the well-known reference to the laographia (3 Macc 2:28), we may note the Jews’ gathering in a single place (Schedia, 3 Macc 4:11; cf. 58 For this interpretation, see Frankfurter, “Religion and Ideology,” 215–20. On this fragment, see further Rowlandson and Harker, “Roman Alexandria,” 100–102; also Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence, 122–24. Frankfurter, “Religion and Ideology,” 218; and Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence, 120–22, who further discuss sections from the bearing of the Sibylline Oracles on the Egyptian events, either from the Jewish or the Egyptian standpoint. 59 Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence, 9–10. 60 Rowlandson and Harker, “Roman Alexandria,” 94–95; Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence, 1–8. 61 Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence, 9–47. 62 Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence, 119–20. 63 Most scholars date 3 Maccabees to Hellenistic times. See Sara R. Johnson, Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity: Third Maccabees in Its Cultural Context, Hellenistic Culture and Society 43 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 129–41. For new arguments supporting the date advocated here, see Sylvie Honigman, “Between History and Fiction: 3 Macc and the events of 38–41 CE in Alexandria,” in Tra politica e religione: I Giudei nel mondo greco-romano. Studi in onore di Lucio Troiani, ed. Livia Capponi, Antiquitas 30 (Bologna: Jouvence, 2019), 127–44.

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Philo, Flacc. 55–56) and then in the hippodrome where they were trampled by drunken elephants (3 Macc 4:11; an allusion to the role of the theater in the troubles of 38, Philo, Flacc. 41); and their being forced to participate in a pagan cult (the reference to Dionysus’s cult in 3 Macc 2:29, transposing the forced erection of statues on the proseuchai, Philo, Flacc. 41).

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2.3 Aspects of Alexandrian Greek Identity in this Literary Production As Jane Rowlandson and Andrew Harker demonstrated, the Acta Alexandrinorum were read not only by Alexandrian citizens, but also by metropolites and Hellenized Egyptians living in villages, whose means and advanced Greek education situated among the country’s social and cultural elites.64 Therefore, we can deduce various reasons for the popularity of the Acta evidenced in the number of copies discovered scattered throughout the country. As regards Alexandrian citizens, the causes for the texts’ popularity may include frustrations about what they (to some extent legitimately) perceived as an unjust gap between the continued economic and cultural importance of the city, and its demoted status under the Romans: Alexandria was after all the ancient capital of the Ptolemies – second only to Rome in terms of population – a prominent supplier of staples to the Roman plebs, and moreover home of a world-famous temple of Sarapis, and a thriving cultural and literary center. The Roman poets of Augustan times mined the Alexandrian poets of Ptolemaic times, Alexandrian rhetors such as Apion pursued brilliant careers in Rome, and meanwhile students from all over the Mediterranean flocked to the Alexandrian schools. However, despite all this – and despite their statues and temples to Augustus, and additional demonstrations of goodwill – Claudius rejected their request to the city’s boule, while compelling the Alexandrian citizens to bear the separate religious traditions of the Jews in their city.65 As Harker has suggested, the Acta Alexandrinorum appear to have been useful to Hellenized Egyptians as well: “Reading stories containing positive descriptions of Alexandria and its heroic citizens was a vehicle for socially ambitious Egyptians to lay a claim on a Greek identity which subsequently allowed them to gain status and prominence in their local communities.”66 There are three remarks I would like to add to Rowlandson and Harker’s perceptive discussions. To start with a cultural note, the overview of Ptolemaic times provided above emphasized the dynamic inter-ethnic relations on the one hand, and the incorporation of Egyptian motifs in the Alexandrian poetry on the other. These social and cultural aspects provide the long-term perspecRowlandson and Harker, “Roman Alexandria,” 96–100; and Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence, 112–19. 65 See Claudius’s Letter to the Alexandrians (P.Lond. 6.1912 = CPJ II 153). 66 Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence, 119. 64

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tive on the cultural connivance between Alexandrian citizens and Hellenized Egyptians in their consumption of the Acta Alexandrinorum. For their part, Chaeremon and Apion supply an additional benchmark: as Hellenized Egyptians who had received the Alexandrian citizenship, they were able to coopt Manetho’s Egyptianized Exodus story into the Alexandrians’ struggle against the city’s Jews. By “able” I mean not only that they had the cultural competence to continue Manetho’s work at the intersection between Greek and Egyptian literary traditions, but moreover that the established Alexandrian citizens felt comfortable with weaponizing the Typhonian imagery against the Jews. While the Egyptian literary traditions were an object of reflection in the Alexandrian poetry of the 3rd century BCE, their assimilation into the Alexandrian cultural heritage in the Julio-Claudian era was a matter of fact. My second observation concerns the obsessive attention to the Jews in the Acta Alexandrinorum. Even though Rowlandson and Harker point out that Alexandrian citizenship was within reach of metropolites and Hellenized Egyptians, its access was nevertheless limited. In this social context, the fact that the Jews in 38 CE had dared to claim privileges barred even to the metropolites, and that the Romans tolerated their presence in the city despite their religious separatism, readily fermented the resentment of the “deprived” Greeks. Finally, I wish to compare the Acta Alexandrinorum, the Potter’s Oracle, and 3 Maccabees, as three texts (and three genres) qualifying as resistance literature. It appears that the three social groups respectively related to these texts narrativized their mutual resentments in very different ways. In 3 Maccabees, those who eventually perish are the enemies of the Jews, whereas the Jews are saved. Not only that, but the king – who is at first foolish and fickle – eventually comes to his senses and acknowledges that his most loyal and trustful subjects are actually the Jews, not the Greeks. Likewise, the Potter’s Oracle predicts the eventual destruction of the “City of the Girdle-Wearers.” These wishful and revengeful fictionalized compensations for a more dire reality seem to me typical of social groups resigned to the conviction that their status in society is inferior. In contrast, the Acta Alexandrinorum recycle the morbid topos of the heroic death, depicting Alexandrian gymnasiarchs being led to their execution by ignorant emperors who ally themselves with the inferior enemies of the Greeks, notably the Jews. While the topos of the noble death has a long history outside Alexandria, I see it as expressing the slow-burning rage of the elite minority, which on the one hand perceived itself as being unjustly mistreated (and presumably cherished the memory of a more glorious past), but on the other enjoyed relative superiority in its society.67 67 Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence, 141–72, traces the theme from Socrates’s trial, through the Roman Stoics, to the Christian martyrs.

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3. Conclusions

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As we have seen, between Ptolemaic and imperial times the once-fluid official definition of the personal status of individuals in Egypt became inflexible. An even more critical change was under way, however. Whereas under the Ptolemies a broad overlap existed between those belonging to the social elite and those formally defined as “Greeks” (meaning the privileged status), under the Romans the privileged class intersected with only a minority within the social elites of the province, a fact that potentially exacerbated the underlying social tensions. The focalization in the literary output of imperial times on questions of personal status on the one hand, and on the Jews on the other, is a direct echo of this social change. A comparison between the Alexandrian poetry and the texts engaging with the events of 38–41 CE brings to light numerous subtle formal differences, not least in their mode of transmission. Nonetheless, one more aspect may be singled out. Notably, the absorption of Egyptian literary material by the Alexandrian poets of early Ptolemaic times started in a reflective way, but eventual became natural. Ultimately, under the Romans the divorce between status and culture widened dramatically, with the results outlined here.

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Cultural Rivalry in Alexandria The Egyptians Apion and Chaeremon BEATRICE WYSS 1. Introduction This article will explore the cultural rivalry that existed in Alexandria, beginning with the riot in 38 CE,1 a historical reality recorded by many of those involved: Among them were Philo of Alexandria (In Flaccum, Legatio ad Gaium, Hypothetica),2 Apion, Chaeremon, and Isidorus. Although each of these authors experienced the events of the Alexandrian riot and left behind written artefacts pertinent to the event, the scope of this study will be limited to cross-cultural figures. For this reason Isidorus, who stylized himself a Greek according to Acts of the Pagan Martyrs,3 and not as an Egyptian, will be excluded from this essay. While a body of literature remains in the works of Apion, Chaeremon, and Philo, it is important to note that a number of difficulties exist in the treatment of this literature. First, since the figures Apion and Chaeremon and the texts they wrote are preserved only in citations

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See Jan N. Bremmer in this volume, and Sandra Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots of 38 C.E. and the Persecution of the Jews: A Historical Reconstruction (Leiden: Brill, 2009). On Alexandria in Philo’s lifetime, see Eleanor G. Huzar, “Alexandria ad Aegyptum in Julio-Claudian Age,” ANRW 2.10.1 (1988): 619–68; and Dorothy Sly, Philo’s Alexandria (London: Routledge, 1996). 2 Pieter W. van der Horst, Philo of Alexandria: Philo’s Flaccus – The First Pogrom: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2003). E. Mary Smallwood, Philonis Alexandrini Legatio ad Gaium: Edition, Translation, Commentary, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1970), Gregory E. Sterling, Philo and the Logic of Apologetics: An Analysis of the ‘Hypothetica’, SBL.SP 29 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 1990), 412–30. Greek texts: Leopold Cohn et al., Philonis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt, 7 vols. (Berlin: Reimer, 1896–1926). 3 Mention of Isidorus: Philo, Flacc. 20, 126, 135–37, 141–42; Legat. 355. Isidorus’s part in the riots: Gambetti, Alexandrian Riots, passim; van der Horst, Philo of Alexandria, 207–19. Isidorus was later sentenced to death; he is a main character in the so-called Acts of the Pagan Martyrs (Acta Alexandrinorum): Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs: Acta Alexandrinorum - Edition with Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1954; 2nd ed., 2000), 18–26, 117–40; the slander against Isidorus was that he was a slave and son of an actress (Rec. A, col. iii 9–10 (Musurillo, Acta Alexandrinorum, 19): ἐγὼ μὲν οὔκ εἰμι δοῦλος οὐδὲ μουσικῆς υἱός).

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and paraphrases, reconstructing and interpreting their contributions will be rather tricky. In addition to this, the cultural heritage/identity of these actors is difficult to establish: although they wrote in Greek, have Greek or Egyptian-Greek names, and tackle subjects of Greek ethnography or Greek philosophy, they seem to align themselves with the Egyptians. In reality, they moved between two cultures. Within this essay, I will address issues pertaining to culture as a means of the self-promotion of an ethnic group within the context of a multi-cultural environment. But before I begin, it is necessary to make a number of preliminary remarks about the terminology and the challenges this study faces. First, the relationship between “ethnic” and “cultural” needs to be elucidated. In my view, the term “ethnic group” should not be defined according to the essentialist view, which sees it as a designation of ethnic origin, racial belonging, or of “common blood.”4 After all, now that 2,000 years have passed, we can no longer say anything about the ethnicity of the people living in Egypt. There is evidence of families who lived in Egypt, in which family members had both Greek and Egyptian names. But were these families Hellenized Egyptians or acculturated Greeks?5 Or is this question entirely wrongheaded? It seems clear to me that ethnicity is a construction and is in no way absolute, because ethnic boundaries can be crossed and ethnic identities can be altered and manipulated according to the situation.6 In this vein, Coussement writes, “Ethnicity is therefore not to be connected with race but with social relationships.”7 Having addressed some of the issues related to ethnicity and determined that it should not be connected with race but rather social relationships, we now turn to the matter of culture. When speaking of culture, I omit questions of ethnicity and focus on aspects of personal identity and group-identity which can be grasped even after 2,000 years, especially in cases where individuals left written texts. Particularly relevant to this task are the literary 4 Sandra Coussement, ‘Because I am Greek:’ Polyonymy as an Expression of Ethnicity in Ptolemaic Egypt (Leuven: Peeters, 2016), 5. She takes ethnicity as a paradox, “since it can be used to create borders and to cross these at the same time” (ibid., 139). She shows how bilingual polyonymy helped military, administrative, and priestly officials moving between largely separated ethnic contexts to negotiate their ethnic identity according to a certain space or context. 5 Examples are known for a long time, e.g. Alexander Fuks, “Notes on the Archive of Nicanor,” The Journal of Juristic Papyrology 5 (1951): 207–16 (207). (This article is very useful for another topic, the economic engagement of Philo’s nephew Marcus Iulius Alexander, see ibid., 211, 214–16). Coussement, Because I am Greek, 131, 147–207; Yanne Broux, Double Names and Elite Strategy in Roman Egypt (Leuven: Peeters, 2015), 196, 202, 204. 6 Coussement, Because I am Greek, 6–8. 7 Coussement, Because I am Greek, 6.

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remains of Apion and Chaeremon, both individuals I interpret as advocates of Egyptian culture. Accordingly, throughout this article, I will refer to both of these characters – as a sort of shorthand expression – as the Egyptians, Apion and Chaeremon, without pretending that they were Egyptians by ethnic origin. Having established the relationship between ethnicity and culture to be used in this essay, particularly with relation to Apion and Chaeremon, it is important to make one further qualification about “culture” before analyzing the fragments that remain of these two authors: There is no such thing as a static, unalterable culture, come down as it were from heaven. Culture is a construct and may change over the course of time. Therefore, my question when reading Apion and Chaeremon is, “How do they present Egyptian culture to a non-Egyptian public?” Why should the concentration of this study focus upon Apion and Chaeremon? Both lived in Alexandria at the same time as Philo. Like Philo the Jew, they used the Greek language and methods of Greek scholarship. Finally, in drawing attention to Apion and Chaeremon, one sees clearer how culture was used as a means of rivalry between different groups of population. This cultural rivalry is to be seen against the general background of the transformations brought about in Egypt by Roman rule and against the nearer background of terrible tensions in Alexandria between two groups in 38 CE: Egyptians and Greeks on the one side and Jews on the other.8 Monson demonstrated how Roman rule in general and in the long term would have a positive impact on Egyptian agriculture. “Augustus’s fiscal reforms created a broad spectrum of privileged urban residents and landowners in the Nome capitals of Egypt.”9 Roman and Alexandrian citizens ranked above Egyptians Andrew Monson, From the Ptolemies to the Romans: Political and Economic Change in Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 184–91 (fiscal reform of Roman Egypt), 236–46 (Roman compulsory services), 262–82 (status and privilege). Monson mentions briefly (ibid., 252) riots in Alexandria in Ptolemaic times (viz. 204, 169, 145, 131, 107, 80, 59, 45 BCE). He does not mention the riots in 38 CE. On the changes Roman rule brought to the Judean communities in Egypt, see Sylvie Honigman, “The Ptolemaic and Roman Definitions of Social Categories and the Evolution of Judean Communal Identity in Egypt,” in Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in the Roman World, ed. Yair Furstenberg (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 25–74. On Judean Settlements in Ptolemaic Egypt (a topic Monson does not mention), see Sylvie Honigman, “Jewish Communities of Hellenistic Egypt: Different Responses to Different Environments,” in Jewish Identities in Antiquity: Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern, ed. Lee I. Levine and Daniel R. Schwartz (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 117–35. 9 Monson, From the Ptolemies to the Romans, 208. See also Broux, Double Names and Elite Strategy in Roman Egypt, 31–32. Monson draws heavily on an edict of Tiberius Iulius Alexander, Philo’s nephew and prefect of Egypt, against Flaccus, prefect of Egypt during the riots in Alexandria Philo describes, in determining the date of the crucial change in the tax system (ibid., 187–88, 190).

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in legal status.10 But Alexandrian citizens in the 30s CE did not benefit from the change in fiscal system. On the contrary, as Sandra Gambetti states, Alexandria “[h]aving sided with the Ptolemies in all the phases of the Roman intrusion into Egyptian affairs … became a civitas dediticia.”11 This meant “[f]or the citizens, the obliteration of the city’s civic institutions, with the exception of a gerousia with honorary duties….”12 As a consequence, Alexandrian citizens were excluded from every decision-making process regarding their own city. Gambetti continues, “[T]he Alexandrian citizenship was maintained, but it had no political meaning. The only privilege for the Alexandrian citizens was tax and liturgies exemption.”13 The Jews suffered legal downgrading; they sided under Roman rule with the Egyptians and had to pay the poll-tax:14 Thus, being Egyptian or being Greek had legal and political implications. We do not know when Apion, Chaeremon, and Philo wrote their works, whether they wrote them before or after the riot in 38 CE.15 Whereas Philo mentions Isidorus,16 he never mentions Apion or Chaeremon. That he did not know them seems to me implausible because Apion was part of the Alexan10 Monson, From the Ptolemies to the Romans, 262; Broux, Double Names and Elite Strategy in Roman Egypt, 36–56. 11 Gambetti, Alexandrian Riots, 240. 12 Gambetti, Alexandrian Riots, 240. 13 Gambetti, Alexandrian Riots, 240. See also Honigman, “Ptolemaic and Roman Definitions,” 59–70; Broux, Double Names and Elite Strategy in Roman Egypt, 51. We know (if Josephus is correct, C. Ap. 2.29) that Apion became citizen of Alexandria (i.e., he was not born as a citizen of this city); we know nothing about Chaeremon’s legal status. According to Claudius’s letter to the Alexandrians, his father was Leonidas, a Greek name (CPJ II 153, ll. 36–55 [39]). Concerning Philo’s legal status, there is consensus that he was Roman citizen (David T. Runia, “P 150 Philon d’Alexandrie,” DPA Va [2012], 362–90 [364]); this is due to the identification of an Egyptian land-owner Caius Iulius Alexander with Alexander the Alabarch, Philo’s brother (CPJ II 420, ll. 200–203). The sons of Alexander and hence Philo’s nephews Marcus Iulius Alexander (CPJ II 419, ll. 197–200) and Tiberius Iulius Alexander (CPJ II 418, ll. 188–197) were Roman citizens, as the tria nomina and the latter’s career in Roman administration indicate. Broux, Double Names and Elite Strategy in Roman Egypt, 55 treats him under the heading “new” Romans. 14 On the poll-tax (laographia), see Monson, From the Ptolemies to the Romans, 265– 72; Broux, Double Names and Elite Strategy in Roman Egypt, 30–31 (without any mention of the situation of Jews). On the poll-tax and the loosing of privileges, see John J. Collins, “Anti-Semitism in Antiquity? The Case of Alexandria,” in Ancient Judaism in its Hellenistic Context, ed. Carol Bakhos (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 9–29 (16); Honigman,“The Ptolemaic and Roman Definitions of Social Categories,” 65. 15 Pieter W. van der Horst, “Who was Apion,” in Japheth in the Tents of Shem: Studies on Jewish Hellenism in Antiquity, ed. idem (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 208, thinks that Apion got the leadership thanks to his anti-Jewish writings, although the possibility that the events took place in reverse order cannot be ruled out, as he admits. 16 See above n3.

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drian embassy to Gaius, the counter-enterprise to the embassy of the Jews Philo headed,17 and because Chaeremon participated in the Alexandrian embassy in 41 CE to Claudius.18 But I think there must have been an atmosphere of suspicion and hatred before and after, because the violence was so heavy that there seems to have been a long during period of tension, suspicion, contempt, and hate both before the riots broke out and also afterwards.19 Now, let us see how the Egyptians Apion and Chaeremon construct Egypt?20 Which pre-existing images of Egypt do they use? Which Grecoroman values do they proclaim for themselves?

2. Apion

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We begin with Apion. He is a well-known participant in the intellectual life of the 1st century CE.21 Scholars of Second Temple Judaism are well aware of his anti-Jewish slanders, against which Josephus wrote Contra Apionem (esp. 2.1–144).22 Scholars of Church-History may know him, especially when they 17 On Apion and Philo as head of rival embassies in 40 CE, see Josephus, Ant. 18.257– 60. Erich Gruen, “Greeks and Jews: Mutual Misperception in Josephus’ Contra Apionem,” in Bakhos, Ancient Judaism in its Hellenistic Context, 31–51 (46), supposed that the rhetorical exchange between the two embassies must have been a heated one (cf. Philo, Legat. 355–67, esp. 359). 18 CPJ II 153, ll. 36–55; Josephus mentions upheavals after Gaius’s death and the edict of Claudius (Josephus, Ant. 19.278–85). 19 See, e.g., Philo’s polemic against Egyptians in Flacc. 17, 29 and Legat. 139, 166, the negative influence of an Egyptian slave on Gaius (Legat. 66–77). Philo sides the Alexandrians Isidorus, Dionysius, and Lampo (Flacc. 20) with the Egyptians to insult them (Collins, “Anti-Semitism in Antiquity?” 12–13). Josephus constructs Apion as an Egyptian to refute him, Kenneth R. Jones, “The Figure of Apion in Josephus’ Contra Apionem,” JSJ 36 (2005), 291–302. 20 As far as I know, there is no comprehensive study about Egyptian literature in Roman period; for Ptolemaic times, see Jacco Dieleman and Ian S. Moyer, “Egyptian Literature,” in A Companion to Hellenistic Literature, ed. James J. Clauss and Martine Cuypers (Oxford: Blackwell 2010), 429–47. 21 The fragments are collected by Felix Jacoby, FGH 3C, nr. 616; and Guido Scheppens, Felix Jacoby: Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker Continued 4 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), nr. 1057, 22–27. Still missing in The New Jacoby are three fragments identified by Christos Theodoridis, “Drei neue Fragmente des Grammatikers Apion,” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 132 (1989): 345–50. I Mem 71 (André Bernand and Étienne Bernand, Les inscriptions grecques et latines du Colosse de Memnon [Paris: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1969], 164–65). Amin Benaissa, “Copy of an Inscription for Apion,” in The Oxyrhinchus Papyri Volume LXXXIX, ed. W. Benjamin Henry and Peter J. Parsons (London: The Egypt Exploration Society, 2014), 125–38. 22 John M. G. Barclay, Flavius Josephus: Against Apion, Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2007); Folker Siegert, ed., Flavius Iosephus: Über die Ursprünglichkeit des

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work on Tatian, Clement of Alexandria, the Pseudo-Clementines, or Julius Africanus.23 Scholars of Classical Philology tackling the history of their own discipline know Apion as a grammarian and philologist. Whoever read Pliny, Aulus Gellius, Aelian, or Athenaeus may stumble on his name. Because Apion is a well-known figure, I will not repeat what is already written.24 I will present Apion as a figure who crosses cultural boundaries, and I will focus on the fragments of his work Aigyptiaka (freely translated: All you want to know about Egypt). 2.1 The Aigyptiaka

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The Aigyptiaka, a work on Egypt in 5 volumes,25 was quite popular in the first and second centuries as quotes by Aulus Gellius and Claudius Aelianus show. Anti-Jewish polemic was included in this work (as part of book 3 and 4),26 but the Roman and Greek pagan authors citing the Aigyptiaka are not interested in these aspects of the work.27 Judentums, Contra Apionem (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2008). Another view is presented by Erich Gruen, “Greeks and Jews” and Kenneth Jones, “The Figure of Apion in Josephus’ Contra Apionem.” Literature about the general topic of “ancient anti-Semitism” is very broad. Here, I mention only Collins, “Anti-Semitism in Antiquity?” 28: “Prejudice against Jews was not more widespread than prejudice against Egyptians.” 23 On Apion’s afterlife in the Pseudoclementines, see Jan N. Bremmer, Maidens, Magic and Martyrs in Early Christianity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 251–65, ch. 16: “Apion and Anoubion in the Homilies,” esp. 256–64. On Tatian, Clement, and Julius Africanus, see Jones, “The Figure of Apion in Josephus’ Contra Apionem,” 310–15. 24 Leopold Cohn, “Apion,” in Paulys Real-Encyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft: Neue Bearbeitung, ed. Georg Wissowa (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1894), 1:2803–6; Franco Montanari, “Apion,” DNP 1 (1996), 845–47 (a survey about Apion’s scholarly career); van der Horst, “Who was Apion,” 207–21 (containing a succinct overview for nonspecialist about Apion’s Homerikai glossai, ibid., 215–21); John Dillery, “Putting Him Back Together Again: Apion Historian, Apion grammatikos,” CP 98 (2003): 383–90 (he shows how Josephus criticized Apion on the field of grammatike techne – philology); Barclay, Flavius Josephus, 170–71n7; Siegert, Flavius Iosephus, 25–27, Benaissa,“Copy of an Inscription for Apion,” 129–38; Bremmer, Maidens, Magic and Martyrs. 25 Tatian, Or. Graec. 38 = Eusebius, Praep. ev. 10.11.14 mentions 5 volumes. – The work On Apis (περὶ Ἄπιδος), mentioned in the Etymologicum Magnum 26.8, is also part of the Aigyptiaka (Cohn,“Apion,” 2805). 26 E.g., Josephus, C. Ap. 2.8 and the Christians (see next note). Cf. Cohn,“Apion,” 2804; Montanari, “Apion,” 846; Siegert, Flavius Iosephus, 26. I am aware of the opinions of Jones (“The Figure of Apion in Josephus’ Contra Apionem”) and Gruen (“Greeks and Jews”) who downplay the anti-Jewish intention of Apion, but I do not agree. 27 The existence of the work Against the Jews (κατὰ Ἰουδαίων), mentioned by Clement (Strom. 1.21.101.3–4), and Iulius Africanus, Chronogr. T 47.9 (Martin Wallraff, ed., Julius Africanus: Chronographiae – The Extant Fragments [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007]), Ps.-Justin (Coh. ad Graec. 9), is questioned. Cohn, “Apion,” 2805, takes it for a mistake; Jones, “The Figure of Apion in Josephus’ Contra Apionem,” 310–315, for Clement’s misunderstand-

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Although Pliny the Elder never mentions the title Aigyptiaka, he mentions Apion (whom he knew personally; cf. Nat. 30.18) in connection with information concerning Egypt.28 There is the scarabaeus (Nat. 30.99), the dungbeetle, that rolls little pellets. According to Apion, the greater part of Egypt worships it as one of its deities. He “infers that this creature resembles the sun and its revolutions, seeking to find an excuse for the religious customs of his race.”29 In Nat. 30.99, he says: scarabaeus qui pilulas volvit. Propter hunc Aegypti magna pars scarabaeus inter numina colit, curiosa Apionis interpretation, qua colligat Solis operum similitudinem huic animali esse, ad excusandos gentis suae ritus. The beetle that rolls little pellets. Because of this beetle the greater part of Egypt worships the beetle as one of its deities. Apion gives an erudite explanation: he infers that this creature resembles the sun and its revoutions, seeking to find an excuse for the religious customs of his race.30

Pliny counts Apion among the authors who wrote about pyramids (Nat. 36.79). The list is worth quoting: Qui de iis (sc. Pyramidibus) scripserunt – sunt Herodotus, Euhemerus, Duris Samius, Aristagoras, Dionysius, Artemidorus, Alexander polyhistor, Butoridas, Anthisthenes, Demetrius, Demoteles, Apion – inter omnes eos non constat a quibus factae sint. The authors who have written about them, namely Herodotus, Euhemerus, Duris of Samos, Aristagoras, Dionysius, Artemidorus, Alexander Polyhistor, Butoridas, Antisthenes, Demetrius, Demoteles and Apion are not all agreed as to which kings were responsible for their construction.31

Herodotus was the first Greek to mention the pyramids and after him, pyramids became a topic in Greek literature, written by Greeks. Apion, in working on pyramids, places himself within this long tradition of Greek writers. Another topic are the colossal statues about which Pliny writes in Nat. 37.75:

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Apion cognominatus Plistonices paulo ante scriptum reliquit esse etiam nunc in labyrintho Aegypti colosseum Serapim e smaragdo novem cubitorum.

ing; Jacoby (ad FGH 616 F 2) tried to harmonize the titles by suggesting that Against the Jews was the 4th book of Aigyptiaka; and Bremmer, Maidens, Magic and Martyrs in Early Christianity, 262, seems inclined to accept its existence based on the passage in The Clementine, Homilies 5:2, where it is written that Apion hated the Jews and wrote many books against them. 28 Cynthia Damon, “Pliny on Apion,” in Pliny the Elder: Themes and Contexts, ed. Roy K. Gibson and Ruth Morello (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 131–45. 29 Trans. Pliny the Elder, Nat. (Jones, LCL, vol. 8). 30 Trans. Pliny the Elder, Nat., vol. 8 (Jones, LCL). 31 Trans. Pliny the Elder, Nat., vol. 10 (Eichholz, LCL).

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Apion, surnamed Plistonices, or ‘the Cantankerous’, has lately left on record the statement that there still exists in the Egyptian labyrinth a large statue of Serapis, nine cubits high, made of ‘smaragdus.’32

The beginning of the paragraph is once again worth noting (Nat. 37.74): Theophrastus tradit in Aegyptiorum commentariis reperiri….

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Theophrastus records that in Egyptian records are to be found statements….33

Theophrastus then goes on to mention statues and obelisks in Egypt. Here we have a Greek philosopher tackling Egyptian statues and obelisks, based on Egyptian records. Apion once more inserts himself into a Greek discourse on Egyptian characteristics. Apion, viewed through Pliny’s eyes, is a Greek polymath as Theophrastus or Alexander Polyhistor were. Aelian, active in the 2nd century, mentions Apion twice (Nat. an. 10.29; 11.40). Once in a chapter on the ibis, where he writes that, according to Apion, the ibis is immortal, as the priests of Hermopolis witnessed. Aelian concludes, “Yet even he considers that this is very far from the truth, and to me it would seem to be an absolute falsehood (Nat. an. 10.29).” In Nat. an. 11.40, he writes that “Apion says – unless he is romancing – that the stags in certain districts have four kidneys. And the same writer states that in the time of Atothis (c. 3140 BCE) son of Menis, there appeared a crane with two heads, and that there was prosperity in Egypt; and in the reign of another King there appeared a bird with four heads, and the Nile overflowed as never before and the fruits were abundant and the crops flourished marvelously.”34 Max Wellmann argued long ago, based on similarities in Aelian, Pliny, and Aulus Gellius, that far more of Aelian’s Egyptian material stems from Apion’s Aigyptiaka than the two mentions actually testify.35 Aelian is interested in the marvels of Egypt, as is Aulus Gellius, the next figure to be discussed. In Noctes Atticae, Aulus Gellius mentions Apion’s narration of the story of Androkles’s lion. The setting for this story is in the circus, where the lion did not attack the condemned Androkles because he recognized him as the man who removed a thorn from his paw (Noct. att. 5.14.1–29).36 Aulus Gellius also cites a story from the 5th book of Apion’s Aigyptiaka about a dolphin who fell in love with a beautiful boy. This boy whom the dolphin loved sudTrans. Pliny the Elder, Nat., vol. 10 (Eichholz, LCL). Trans. Pliny the Elder, Nat., vol. 10 (Eichholz, LCL). 34 Trans. Aelian, Nat. an., vol. 2 (Scholfield, LCL). 35 Max Wellmann, “Aegyptisches,” Hermes 31 (1896): 221–53, taken over (without mentioning his own article): Max Wellmann, “11. Claudius Aelianus,” in RE 1 (1894): 486–88. 36 Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius: An Antonine Scholar and his Achievement, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 11–26 (life and date), 321 as a reader of Apion’s Aegyptiaka. Stories about tame lions tell Aelian, Nat. an. 7.44; Pliny the Elder, Nat. 8.56; Seneca, Ben. 2.19. 32

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denly died, and the dolphin, shortly thereafter, died of lovesickness. Both the boy and the dolphin were buried in the same tomb (Noct. att. 6.8). In both stories, Apion pretends that he was an eye-witness; however, both stories were otherwise well known.37 In one place, Gellius recounts Apion’s explanation that there is a nerve from the fourth finger that leads directly to the heart (Noct. att. 10.1), a tradition modern peoples still follow today when wearing their wedding rings on their fourth finger. Additionally, Gellius mentions the work De Alexandri regis laudibus, which was written by Apion (Noct. att. 7.8).38 But what do we do with such a range of topics? Aulus Gellius seems to be correct, when he says in Noct. att. 5.1–2: 1 Apion qui ‘Plistonices’ appellatus est, litteris homo multis praeditus rerumque Graecarum plurima atque varia scientia fuit. 2 Eius libri non incelebres feruntur, quibus omnium ferme, quae mirifica in Aegypto visuntur audiunturque, historia comprehenditur.

Apion who was called Plistonices, was a man widely versed in letters and possessing an extensive varied knowledge of things Greek. In his works, which are recognized as of no little repute, is contained an account of almost all the remarkable things which are to be seen and heard in Egypt.39

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Gellius’s evaluation of Apion’s learning and achievement is significant in many aspects: he admits that Apion was “widely versed in letters,” that means, he was a good scholar, a good grammarian, trained in working with books, and it also means that he had an “extensive knowledge of things Greek.” So far, Apion is a good example of a learned Greek, a type of man as they were famous a century later in the second sophistic.40 But Gellius continues and mentions “all the remarkable things” of Egypt. Mirifica is the key: One could also speak of mirabilia (marvels, wonders): Gellius classifies Apion’s Aigyptiaka in the genre of the mirabilia (I think correctly). To write mirabilia, one must not be an Egyptian because writing mirabilia was a preoccupation of Greek authors. Apion, in Gellius’s assessment, is a learned 37 Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius, 166n43. On ancient Dolphin tales, see HolfordStrevens, Aulus Gellius, 271n47; Pliny the Elder, Nat. 9.25–28, Aelian, Nat. an. 6.15. I found the parallel passages in René Marache, Aulu-Gelle: Les nuits attiques, tome II, Livre V–X, Texte et traduction (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1979), 196, 203. 38 van der Horst, “Who was Apion,” 214, questions the existence of an independent work about Alexander. He is inclined to see this as a chapter of the Aigyptiaka. 39 John C. Rolfe, trans., ed., The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966). 40 E.g. Glen W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969); Simon Swain, Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World A.D. 50–250 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); Graham Anderson, The Second Sophistic: A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman Empire (London: Routledge, 1993); Tim Whitmarsh, The Second Sophistic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Daniel S. Richter and William A. Johnson, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).

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Greek, writing marvels of Egypt, and Gellius himself is only interested in the marvels and fanciful stories Apion told. Pliny the Elder also implies that Apion’s work has to count among the literature on marvels. Twice Pliny speaks of marvels or wonders in the context of information he gained from Apion (Nat. 32.21: discat in nulla parte naturae maiora esse miracula – “he has to learn that in no sphere does Nature show greater marvels”; Nat. 33.19 quod magis miremur – “to increase our wonder”). As we have seen, in topics concerning Egypt, Apion inserts himself into a tradition of Greek scholars working on these topics, namely the marvels and wonders of Egypt. Actually, Pliny, like Gellius, is only interested in the most wonderful or astonishing stories Apion told.

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2.2 The Multifaceted Image of Apion according to the Sources Let us put aside Apion’s difficult personality41 and turn to the image he presents of Egypt. Apion, the learned polymath (Aulus Gellius, Noct. att. 5.14.1– 2), provided a multifaceted image of Egypt, its history, and its characteristics within his work Aigyptiaka. He inserted himself into a long tradition of Greek scholars, beginning with Herodotus and Theophrastus via Euhemerus, Duris of Samos, Alexander Polyhistor (to mention only a few) by discussing the characteristics of Egypt. The Christians Tatian and Eusebius mention Apion without any polemic as a witness of how to reconcile the chronologies of Greek mythological past, Egyptian history, and the past of the Israelites described in Genesis. Clement of Alexandria does likewise, but his works reflect a knowledge of Apion’s anti-Jewish polemic.42 Josephus mentions the anti-Jewish slanders Apion made first on behalf of the migration of the Judeans from Egypt in mythical time. Second he mentions the polemic against the Judeans who lived in Egypt. These slanders were aimed at removing the Judeans who resided in Alexandria and centered on charges he made against their rituals practiced in the temple and other supposed infractions (C. Ap. 2.6–144). Josephus’s interest in Apion’s Aigyptiaka was solely his anti-Jewish polemic, showing no interest whatsoever in the wonder-tales that piqued the interest of the Romans. According to the Roman authors Pliny, Aulus Gellius, and Aelian (though writing in Greek, he lived in Italy), Apion presents Egypt as a fairy-talecountry where miracles and wonders take place, even in the here and now. That far away countries are depicted as places where wonders are real, is not 41 E.g., Seneca, Ep. 88.40, Pliny the Elder, Nat. praef. 25 (cymbalum mundi – and Jones, “The Figure of Apion in Josephus’ Contra Apionem,” 285n29), Aulus Gellius, Noct. att. 5.14.3; Cohn, “Apion,” and Siegert, Flavius Iosephus, tackle their subject Apion hostily. 42 A very good source-critical work is done by Jones, “The Figure of Apion in Josephus’ Contra Apionem,” 310–15 to establish the dependencies: Tatian is first, then Clement depends on Tatian, Julius Africanus on Clement.

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new. This is comparable to how India is depicted in the Greek literature dealing with Alexander’s campaign, and how Flavius Philostratos will depict it at the beginning of the 3rd century. But India is not the only far-away country where miracles happen: In Hist. 2.35.1, Herodotus wrote,43 “I am going to talk at some length about Egypt, because it has very many remarkable features and has produced more monuments which beggar description than anywhere else in the world.” Reading with the eyes of Pliny, Gellius, and Aelian, one gets the impression that Apion wants to surpass the number of marvels of Egypt Herodotus gave. To be sure, writing about Egypt was a task of Greek polymaths such as Theophrastus, Alexander Polyhistor, and others. In writing about Egypt, Apion includes himself in this tradition of Greek scholarship on Egypt. Second, in Apion’s lifetime and later, in 1–2 c. CE, literature on Mirabilia (miracles, astonishing things) was very popular:44 Thus, Apion wants his readers and hearers to believe that Egypt is the land where everything is more wonderful, more astonishing, more enigmatic, more dangerous (Egypt as the home town of wizards), where the wild lion is a boy’s best friend, and even the small dung-beetle represents a deeper meaning, the movement of the sun. Maybe due to the fragmentary status of his work, we cannot tell much about the content and how Apion tried to bridge the gap between GrecoRoman culture and the Egyptian culture. There is only the short remark on the dung beetle imitating the movement of the sun, a sort of allegorizing nature: maybe Apion was more serious in explaining Egyptian customs than our sources allow us to see. Otherwise, our ancient authors are mainly interested in the curious items they found in Apion’s Aigyptiaka, which they eagerly included in their own work. So, they only chose aspects of the image of Egypt Apion was presenting, those aspects that fit their prejudice about Egypt (i.e., Egypt as the country of countless miracles as Herodotus has presented it). Otherwise, Apion accepted the Roman belief that Egypt is “alien,” a country not like Italy or Greece, that Egypt is the ultimate “other.” He provided “information” about Egypt of the kind he was sure his audience in Rome or Greece would easily accept as dealing with Egypt: Egypt was quite en vogue in the 1st century. For example, Seneca included many items on Egypt in his Naturales quaestiones, and walls in Pompey show scenes of Isis and of her cult-persona.45 43 Robin Waterfield, Herodotus: The Histories – A New Translation (Oxford: University Press, 1998). 44 Kai Brodersen, Phlegon von Tralleis: Das Buch der Wunder und Zeugnisse seiner Wirkungsgeschichte – Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2002); Alexander Giannini, Paradoxographorum graecorum reliquiae (Milan: Istituto ed. Italiano, 1967). 45 Sarah Pearce, The Land of the Body: Studies in Philo’s Representation of Egypt (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 45–53. Michael Erler and Martin Andreas Stadler, eds., Platonismus und spätägyptische Religion: Plutarch und die Ägyptenrezeption in der römi-

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2.3 A Non-Literary Source about Apion If we leave the Aigyptiaka and have a look at a non-literary source about Apion, the image of this author changes once more. There exists a copy of an inscription for Apion, found on a papyrus, conveniently available with text, translation, and pertinent commentary by Amin Benaissa.46 Here we found a long list of victories won by Apion in Actium (30), in the Isthmian, Nemean, Olympian, and Pythian games (31–32) and honors bestowed on him.47 And we learn that Apion was active as a poet (2) and wrote a tragedy, for which he won a prize (5). Through the fragmentary state of the papyrus we catch a glimpse of Apion, wearing a gilded crown entering in triumphal procession on a white four-horse chariot the city where he obtained a public maintenance in the prytaneum (city-hall): Here he is indeed a figure of Greek paideia. The papyrus shows Apion as a “greatest winner,” an active and successful participant in the high-competitive culture of the Roman Empire.48

3. Chaeremon

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Now, let us turn to Chaeremon, the stoic philosopher and Egyptian priest. From his many works nothing has survived but quotations and paraphrases, collected and translated by Pieter W. van der Horst.49 Chaeremon, son of Leonidas, was a member of the Alexandrian Embassy in 41 CE to Claudius, and he was well enough known in Rome that Martial wrote a mock epigram against him (Martial, Epigr. 11.56, Test. 10 [van der Horst]). Chaeremon wrote a History of Egypt, containing an Egyptian version of the Exodus story Josephus criticizes (C. Ap. 1.288–92). Chaeremon wrote on comets, hiero-

schen Kaiserzeit (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017); and esp. Martin A. Stadler, Ägyptenrezeption in der römischen Kaiserzeit, 21–42. 46 Benaissa, “Copy of an Inscription for Apion.” 47 Wreaths (5, 7, 10, 11), statues (18, 22, 25, 27, 32, 33), triumphal procession (8), public maintenance in the prytaneum (9). Jones, “The Figure of Apion in Josephus’ Contra Apionem,” 295: “Apion located himself culturally among Greeks.” For literature concerning Greek culture, see n40. 48 Argeia (4), Syrakus (4, 32), Rome (26). See also Seneca, Ep. 88.40; Aulus Gellius, Noct. att. 5.14.2. 49 Pieter W. van der Horst, Chaeremon: Egyptian Priest and Stoic Philosopher, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill 1987). Michael Frede, “Chairemon der Stoiker,” ANRW 2.36.3 (1989): 2067–103. The name Chaeremon is widespread in Egypt with more than 1,500 attestations but is hardly attested in the rest of the Greek world (Broux, Double Names and Elite Strategy in Roman, 155).

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glyphs, and astrology.50 As a hermeneutical tool he used allegoresis.51 Eusebios pretends with Chaeremon as a witness that “the Egyptians believed in nothing prior to the visible world nor in any other gods than the planets and the other stars, and that they interpreted all things as referring to the visible parts of the world and nothing in reference to incorporeal and living beings.”52 3.1 Porphyry’s De abstinentia I will focus on a lengthy paraphrase in Porphyry’s De abstinentia, where he relies upon Chaeremon’s description of Egyptian priests.53 I have chosen this text because of the striking similarity of Chaeremon’s description of Egyptian priests with Philo’s description of the Therapeutae he gives in his treatise On the contemplative life; the similarities have been known for a long time.54 Before we have a closer look at Chaeremon’s account, a word is necessary concerning the literary genre. There existed a kind of “Accounts of sages of primitive or ancient people” that were widespread in imperial and later times.55 Apart of Philo’s Therapeutae and Chaeremon’s Egyptian priests, there are Josephus’s, Philo’s, and the Elder Pliny’s description of the EsComets: Origen, Cels. 1.59. Hieroglyphs: Suda χ 170 = Test. 1–2 (cf. Test. 6 and frag. 13). Astrology: Porphyry, Aneb. 2.15 (= frag. 8; cf. Iamblichus, De myst. 8.4 = frag. 9). 51 Allegoresis: Porphyry, Christ. 6F (Matthias Becker, Porphyrios, Contra Christianos [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016], 164) = Test. 9; Tzetzes, Ex. in Il. 1.193 = Test. 12; Tzetzes Ex. in Il. 1.97 = frag. 12. 52 Eusebius, Praep. ev. 3.9.15 = frag. 6, trans. van der Horst, Chaeremon. (Cf. Porphyry, Aneb. 2.12–13 = frag. 5). If this is correct, then a fundamental gap separates Egyptians and Stoics from Jews and Platonists in ontology, namely monism vs. dualism. 53 Porphyry, Abst. 4.6–8 = frag. 10. The whole passage is from Chaeremon: Porphyry begins 4.6 with Χαιρήμων ὁ στωικός, and at the end of 8 he says τοιαῦτα μὲν τὰ κατ’ Αἰγυπτίους ὑπ’ ἀνδρὸς φιλαλήθους τε καὶ ἀκριβοῦς ἔν τε τοῖς στωικοῖς πραγματικώτατα φιλοσοφήσαντος μεμαρτυρημένα – “Such are the things testified about the Egyptians by a man who was a lover of truth and an accurate writer, and who was among the Stoics a very clever philosopher” (trans. van der Horst, Chaeremon). Albeit Porphyry does not mention Chaeremon by name in 8, it is clear that he means the same stoic philosopher as in 6, because there are no other stoics mentioned in the passage in between. See also Jerome, Jov. 3.13 = frag. 11, an epitome of Porphyry, Abst. 4.6–8 (van der Horst, Chaeremon, 67n1). 54 Since Paul Wendland, Die Therapeuten und die philonische Schrift vom beschaulichen Leben, Jahrbücher für classische Philologie, Supplementband 22 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1896), 695–770 (754–56). André-Jean Festugière, “Sur une nouvelle édition du De Vita Pythagorica de Jamblique,” Revue des Études Grecques 50 (1937): 470–94 (476n1); van der Horst, Chaeremon, 56; see also Gregory E. Sterling, “Platonizing Moses: Philo and Middle Platonism,” Studia Philonica Annual 5 (1993): 103–5. 55 See Festugière, “Sur une nouvelle édition,” 476–78.

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senes,56 Flavius Philostratus’s wonder-tales about the Brahmans of India (Vit. Apoll. 3.10–50) and the Gymnosophists of Ethiopia (Vit. Apoll. 6.6–22), and Iamblichus’ Life of Pythagoras. These accounts share common features: all the sages live apart from other people,57 prefer white clothes,58 have contempt for wealth and money,59 live in self-chosen frugality and choose a communal life.60 After examining these texts, the majority of similarities (some of which are verbal) are found between Philo’s Therapeutae and Chaeremon’s Egyptian priests, and there are close thematic parallels between Josephus’s account of the Essenes (B.J. 2.119–66) and Iamblichus’s Life of Pythagoras.61 3.2 Chaeremon’s Egyptian Priests and Philo’s Therapeutae

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Chaeremon, according to Porphyry, presents the Egyptian priests as philosophers who chose the temples as places to philosophize.62 They lived close to the shrines and this gave them security because of the reverence for the divine, since all people honored the philosophers as if they were a sort of sacred animal. They lived quietly and met only with common people at assemblies and festivals. They renounced every employment and human revenues and devoted their whole life to contemplation and vision of the divine. For to be always in contact with the divine knowledge and inspiration keeps them far from all kinds of greediness, represses the passions, and incites them to live a life of understanding. They practiced frugality and restraint, selfcontrol and endurance. During the time of the so-called purifications and fasts, they did not even have contact with their nearest kinsmen except with those who were pure and fasted together with them for the necessary duties. They did not associate with anyone who stood wholly outside their religion. They were always near the gods or rather their statues either carrying or preceding them in a procession or setting them up with order and dignity. These acts were no empty gesture but an indication of some allegorical truth. Their 56 Pliny the Elder, Nat. 5.73, Josephus, Ant. 18.18–22; B.J. 2.119–61. Philo describes two Jewish ascetic groups, the Essenes (Prob. 75–91) and the Therapeutae. On similarities between these two groups, see Gregory E. Sterling, “Philo,” in Lawrence Schiffman and James VanderKam, eds., Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 663–69 (664–66); and C. T. Robert Hayward, “Therapeutae,” in Schiffman and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls, 943–46 (944–45). 57 Chaeremon frag. 10 = Porphyry, Abst. 4.6; Philo, Contempl. 21–23; Prob. 76; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 3.13, 6.6; Pliny the Elder, Nat. 5.73 gens sola. 58 Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. 149; Philo, Comtempl. 38; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 3.15. 59 Chaeremon. frag. 10 = Porphyry, Abst. 4.6; Josephus, B.J. 2.122; Philo, Contempl. 13; Prob. 76; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 3.15. 60 Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. 168; Josephus, B.J. 2.122; Philo, Prob. 86. 61 See Wendland, Die Therapeuten und die philonische Schrift, 754 and Festugière, “Sur une nouvelle édition,” 478–94. 62 The whole section is from Porphyry, Abst. 4.6.

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way of walking was disciplined and they always had a quiet look, they never laughed, only smiled, they always kept their hands within their dress. Their diet was frugal and simple. For as to wine, some did not drink it at all, some drank only very little of it. In periods of purification and fasting, they did not eat bread. Outside these periods, they took bread with hyssop. They abstained from oil too. They ate vegetables but no fish. In periods of purification, they used no eggs.63 Many of them abstained from meat, others abstained from meat of a certain kind. (There was a long list of animals and birds they do not eat.) Before performing the sacred rites, they spent a number of days in preparation. During this time, they abstained from all animal food, from all vegetables, and above all from sexual intercourse with women (they never have intercourse with males). They wash themselves three times a day with cold water. Their bed was woven from the branches of the palm-tree, and a semicylindrical piece of wood was their pillow. They exercised (ἤσκουν) themselves in enduring hunger and thirst, lived with a scarcity of food throughout the entirety of their lives, and lived without disease. They took upon themselves many burdens in the performance of their religious rites and many services which required more than ordinary strength.64 They divided the night for the observation of the heavenly bodies and sometimes for rituals, and the day for the worship of the gods in which they sang hymns to them three or four times. The rest of time, they spent with arithmetical and geometrical speculations, always busy with the pursuit of learning. They were not allowed to touch foods or drinks that were produced outside Egypt. It was considered by them to be most ungodly (ἀσεβέστατον) to sail away from Egypt. There was, indeed, a strong reason for them to remain faithful to the ancestral customs, for if they were convicted of trespassing even in a minor matter, they were excluded from the priesthood. Chaeremon’s description of the Egyptian priests (according to Porphyry), has strong and strange parallels to what Philo writes about the Therapeutae in De vita contemplativa: In this work, Philo gives a description or rather an encomium, of the Therapeutae, a community of Jews living outside Alexandria near Lake Mareotis. He contrasts this encomium with the excesses of eating and drinking and violence at an Italian-style symposium and in contrast to the symposia about which Plato and Xenophon had written.65 Philo speaks of the Therapeutae’s holy philosophy (Contempl. 26), says that they

Porphyry, Abst. 4.7. Porphyry, Abst. 4.8. 65 Italian-style symposium Philo, Contempl. 40–56, the philosophers’ symposium Contempl. 57–64. 63

64

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philosophize (Contempl. 28, 30), and depicts them as excelling in ascetics (Contempl. 34–35). Now I turn to the similarities between the description of the Egyptian priests and the Jewish Therapeutae: Chaeremon’s Egyptian priests are philosophers like Philo’s Therapeutae (Porphyry, Abst. 4.8; Philo, Contempl. 2), they are always occupied with things divine, either with statues, temples and shrines in the case of the Egyptian priests (Abst. 4.6), or with the Bible in the case of the Therapeutae (Contempl. 25); the priests are heroes of atyphia and enkrateia like Philo’s Therapeutae (Abst. 4.6; Contempl. 39), both practice science together with mystic vision: ἀπέδοσαν ὅλον τὸν βίον τῇ τῶν θείων θεωρίᾳ καὶ θεάσει … τὸ γὰρ ἀεὶ συνεῖναι τῇ θείᾳ γνώσει καὶ ἐπιπνοίᾳ … διεγείρει δὲ πρὸς σύνεσιν τὸν βίον (Abst. 4.6). devoted their whole life to contemplation and vision of the divine … for to be always in contact with divine knowledge and inspiration … incites them to live a life of understanding (Translated by Pieter W. van der Horst). τὸ δὲ θεραπευτκὸν γένος βλέπειν ἀεὶ προδιδασκόμενον τῆς τοῦ ὄντος θέας ἐφιέσθω καὶ τὸν αἴσθητον ἥλιον ὑπερβαινέτω … 12 οἱ δὲ ἐπὶ θεραπείαν ἰόντες … ὑπ’ ἔρωτος ἁρπασθέντες οὐρανίου καθάπερ οἱ βακχευόμενοι καὶ κορυβαντιῶντες ἐνθουσιάζουσι μέχρις ἂν τὸ ποθούμενον ἴδωσιν (Contempl. 11–12).

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But it is well that the Therapeutae, a people always taught from the first to use their sight, should desire the vision of the Existent and soar above the sun of our senses … 12 And those who set themselves to this service … carried away by a heaven-sent passion of love remain rapt and possessed like bacchanals or corybants until they see the object of their yearning (trans. Colson, LCL, vol. 9).

Both the Egyptian priests and the Therapeutae preach at sunrise, sing hymns, and behave with dignity.66 They always keep their hands within the dress (Abst. 4.6; Contempl. 30), they seldom laugh (Abst. 4.6; cf. Contempl. 66). The precepts for purification and fasts in preparation of the rituals are very similar: diet of bread, salt, hyssop, and water; no meat, no fish, no wine, no sex, no contact with other people.67 Both groups do not care for earning a living, they are not interested in economy and business, wealth does not matter to them.68 They live a very frugal life: the Therapeutae each alone in his or her cell (Contempl. 25–28) and the priests have only a hard bed of palmleaves with a pillow of wood (Abst. 4.7). There are differences too: The Egyptian priests lived in or nearby the temples (Abst. 4.6). The Therapeutae lived outside Alexandria at Lake Mareotis (Contempl. 21–22). In adding that “they are pursuing solitude in gardens and Porphyry, Abst. 4.6, 8; Philo, Contempl. 27, 29, 30. On diet, see Porphyry, Abst. 4.6; Philo, Contempl. 37, 81; no sex, see Porphyry, Abst. 4.7; on the separation of sexes, see Philo, Contempl. 32–33, 68, 69; on little or no contact with other people, see Porphyry, Abst. 4.6; Philo, Contempl. 21–24. 68 Porphyry, Abst. 4.6, 8; Philo, Contempl. 13–18.

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66

67

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places outside the city” (Contempl. 20), one thinks of Plato’s Academy, Aristoteles’s Lykeion, and even Epicurus’s Garden, all of which were situated outside Athens. Thus, the Therapeutae are like Greek philosophers, living outside the city. Allegory matters in both groups, but in a different way: The Egyptian priests’ acting in the procession and carrying the statues of the gods is to be interpreted allegorically (καὶ σύμβολόν γε ἦν ἑκάστῳ τῆς τάξεως ἐμφαντικόν, Abst. 4.6). The Therapeutae use allegory in their explanation of the Bible. On this, Philo says, “The exposition of the sacred scriptures treats the inner meaning conveyed in allegory” (Contempl. 78: αἱ δὲ ἐξηγήσεις τῶν ἱερῶν γραμμάτων γίνονται δι’ ὑπονοιῶν ἐν ἀλληγορίαις). Another difference is the preoccupations of the priests and the Therapeutae: whereas the priests do arithmetic and geometry (Abst. 4.8), the Therapeutae only meditated on the Bible (Contempl. 28): The mention of arithmetic and geometry by Chaeremon has a striking parallel, as Pieter W. van der Horst shows (n52), in Isocrates’s Essay on Busiris 23,69 where he says that the younger priests in Egypt practice astrology, arithmetic, and geometry. The strife for self-control and self-mastering, too, has a close parallel in Isocrates’s Busiris 21: Chaeremon seems to cloth his priests in the well-known Egyptian clothes Isocrates used in the 4th c. BCE. Isocrates, to be sure, was one of the most read classics in Egypt, evidenced by the fact that many pieces of papyrus contain fragments of his works.70 To summarize, there are many similarities between these two groups, and there are also some differences. Both Chaeremon and Philo use classical Greek patterns and content to describe their heroes of asceticism. Both Philo and Chaeremon were contemporaries, lived in Alexandria, and wrote an encomium on a specific group of their own religion. This does not seem to be a coincidence. Accordingly, there have been speculations that Philo depends on Chaeremon’s account and vice versa. But it is impossible to prove any form of dependence. Both use the pattern of foreign sages who excel in knowledge and asceticism.71 Since Hellenistic times, often in works by authors living in Alexandria, there have been groups of foreign sages, for example, the Brahmans of India, the Gymnosophists of Ethiopia, the Magi of Persia, and the Druids of Celtic people. All these peoples have the pedigree of being very old, and according to the ancient beliefs, old means good. The older the bet69 The rhetorician Isocrates of Athens (436–338 BCE) stays always in the shadow of his younger contemporary Plato; but in antiquity, his works were part of the curriculum in rhetoric. Isocrates was one of the 10 Attic orators each student in rhetoric had to read and learn. 70 Isocrates was well-known in Egypt as the papyri containing his writings show (Basilius Mandilaras, Isocrates: Opera Omnia [Munich: Saur, 2003], 1:177–86 [92]), dating 1–2 c. C.E., contains parts of the Busiris. 71 In this, I am now following the work of André-Jean Festugière.

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ter.72 Old people still have wisdom concerning things divine. These are the positive prejudices concerning groups in far-away countries. Now, Philo and Chaeremon use these positive prejudices and try to include their own heroes in the well-known groups of old and wise people: not only the Brahmans in India or the Gymnosophists in Ethiopia or the Magi in Persia, but also the priests in Egypt and the Jewish Therapeutae belong to the old and wise people. There is a second aspect, concerning philosophy: the Therapeutae and the Egyptian priests are called philosophers and both are constantly occupied with things divine: that philosophy also tackles things divine is no surprise in this era. It also comes as no surprise that the ethical values both groups espouse are well trained in temperance and self-restraint. Temperance and selfrestraint are common values in Greek philosophy, but the performance of them, fasting, the avoidance of meat and wine, the purifications, the singing and preaching, the seclusion from community, and the renunciation of wealth are not common features of Greek philosophy. Only the Pythagoreans practiced vegetarianism. This kind of asceticism only pleased a small minority of the population; it was never a main-stream endeavor. But there have been people who were somehow critical against their own culture and yearning for a better life, a better life in this case means a more ascetic, pious life, away from city and luxury, a live that goes “back to nature.” Such a philosophy is embodied in, for example, the Therapeutae, ascetic groups in early Christianity, and Cynics preaching in the streets of the city.

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4. Conclusion In conclusion, the Egyptians Apion and Chaeremon wrote about Egypt in a very different manner. Apion inserted himself in the tradition of Greek polymaths writing about Egypt, but his Roman readers chose the image of Egypt as “other” because it fit their prejudices regarding Egypt. Thus, the image of Egypt Apion gave in his Aigyptiaka resembles, according to his Roman readers, the fairy-tale country his audience knew from Herodotus and other Greek writers. Charemon took a different approach. He used patterns and the contents of Greek rhetoric and literature to bridge the gap between the exotic, Egyptian priests and his Greek or Roman audience. He especially used the pattern of the old, foreign groups of sages like the Brahmans and the Gymnosophists, both of which were well known in historiographical-ethnographical works. Second, he presented the priests as philosophers somehow like the Pythagoreans, as Egyptian sages in the same vein as Isocrates described them. EssenGeorge Boys-Stones, Post-Hellenistic Philosophy. A Study of its Development from the Stoics to Origen, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 72

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tially, he made them compatible with Greek culture and education. To be sure, in Chaeremon’s view, the Egyptian priests are not like Greeks; they are better than Greeks, they are the outstanding heroes in asceticism (in this case, one has to be convinced that asceticism is of high value). Philo adopted the same strategy and the same rhetorical patterns in his presentation of the Jewish Therapeutae as Greek philosophers of a Pythagorean-platonic brand, as heroes of asceticism and piety, and as surpassing the Greek philosophers. Though the groups described are different and the authors were hostile to each other, the result is of striking similarity.

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When Syrian Politics Arrived in Egypt 2nd Century BCE Egyptian Yahwism and the Vorlage of the LXX SANDRA GAMBETTI This article will discuss how the 2nd century BCE political trends that developed in Seleucid Syria1 coalesced in Egypt to affect the life of the groups who recognized themselves in the religious cult of Yahweh and/or in the culture and tradition that such a cult represented.2 Questioning the legitimacy of the scriptural scrolls these groups had brought along from the Levant when they first arrived in Egypt represents the culmination of this political dynamic.3 Among the sources which support the argument of this article, the most important are: the Satrap Stela (311 BCE), P.Anastasi 3 (13th century BCE), Josephus, Ant., books 12 and 13, the papyri from Elephantina (5th century BCE), P.Berl. 13615 (6th century BCE), the Letter of Aristeas, and the archaeogical evidence from Mt. Gerizim in Samaria.

1. Yahwism in Egypt

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A Yahwistic community was present on the island of Elephantine in Upper Egypt since the 26th dynasty, when soldiers from Judah manned the local

1 References to this period come from Maurice Sartre, D’Alexandre à Zénobie: histoire du Levant antique (Paris: Fayard, 2001), 200–1, 305–70. 2 In this article I distinguish between Yahwism, Samaritanism, and Judaism. These distinctions are based on Steve Mason, “Jews, Judaean, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,” JSJ 38 (2007): 457–512; Diana V. Edelman, “Editor’s Note,” in The Triumph of Elohim, ed. eadem (Kampen: Pharos, 1995), 7; Reinhard Pummer, The Samaritans in Flavius Josephus, TSAJ 129 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 4–8. I do not necessarily follow all the conclusions of these scholars. 3 I have already dealt with this topic on two previous occasions: Sandra Gambetti, “The Jewish Community of Alexandria: the Origins,” Henoch 29 (2007): 213–39; and Sandra Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots of 38 C.E. and the Persecution of the Jews: A Historical Reconstruction, SJSJ 135 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 23–29. In this article I intend to focus and expand on some details which I previously overlooked.

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garrison.4 Although the existence of the cult is well documented,5 its influence for the diffusion of Yahwism in Egypt in later times must be downplayed. There is no evidence of scripture from the site, and it is quite clear that there was no priest to administer the cult, a circumstance that limited the community’s ability to perform full ritual.6 Traces of Yahwists from Elephantine vanish from the beginning of the Hellenistic period, and probably part of the garrison was transferred to the new military post of Alexandria.7 It is quite clear that Alexandrian Yahwism of the Hellenistic period originated from a quite different set of circumstances, which I will now address. The Satrap Stela, a synodal decree by the priests of Buto in the Nile Delta, dated to November 9–December 8, 311 BCE,8 is the earliest extant document about Ptolemy Lagus satrap of Egypt. At its core, this inscription describes the honors and benefactions that Ptolemy bestowed onto the temple of Pe and Dep, after a long period of neglect during the Persian period. Lines 4–5, on Ptolemy’s victorious battle of Gaza against Demetrius Poliorketes for the control of the Levant (312 BCE),9 introduces l. 6, which reads like this: Then he (scil. Ptolemy Lagos) took himself to he grabbed it in a blink of an eye.

;

The orthography of the expression is unprecedented; it refers to foreign land (DET ), and the plural sign may refer to ‘people’ of that land, despite the absence of an explicit determinative for ‘people.’ The phonetic transliteration pA tS n irmA.w10 to be read pa tes en irima.u, has been consistently translated “into Marmarica,”11 a Lybian region of the western Delta known by Dan'el Kahn, “Judean Auxiliaries in Egypt’s Wars against Kush,” JAOS 127 (2007): 507–16; Roberto B. Gozzoli, “La campagna nubiana di Psammetico II e i testi di frontiera saitici,” Discussion in Egyptology 38 (1997): 5–16; Bezalel Porten, The Elephantine Papyri in English (Atlanta: SBL, 2011). 5 Porten, Elephantine Papyri. 6 Angela Rohrmoser, Götter, Tempel und Kult der Judäo-Aramäer von Elephantine (Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2014), 213–23; Gard Granerød, Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 56, 144–50. 7 Gambetti, Alexandrian Riots, 135n125–27. 8 For the most recent reference on this document, see Donata Schäfer, Makedonische und hieroglyphische Stelen (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 31–204. 9 See below for discussion of the historical narrative of Diodorus Siculus 19.85.4–86.1; essential outlines of this war are in Günther Hölbl, A History of the Ptolemaic Empire (London: Routledge, 2001), 18; Werner Huss, Ägypten in hellenistischer Zeit 332–30 v.Chr. (Munich: Beck, 2001), 160–65 (cf. 135 on the chronology of the Satrap Stela which is not followed here); Ian Worthington, Ptolemy I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 119–25. 10 Transliteration and comments in Schäfer, Stelen, 98, 108–10. 11 Kurt Sethe, Hieroglyphische Urkunden der griechisch-römischen Zeit (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1904–16), 1.2. 15; Heinrich K. Brugsch, “Ein Dekret Ptolemaios des Sohnes Lagi, des Satrapen,” ZÄS 9 (1871): 1–13 (3).

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ancient authors as the land of the Marmaridae and soon to become a Ptolemaic province.12 In 1982 Hans Goedicke suggested that irmA.w referred to the Arameans, intended as Aramaic-speaking people. A further connection to the Letter of Aristeas allowed him to identify those Aramaic speaking people with Judaean Jews.13 Daniel von Recklinghausen and Donata Schäfer have later followed in Goedicke’s footsteps with some additional details.14 Before either endorsing or rejecting this interpretation, it is necessary to analyze and discuss all the collateral arguments, consequential ramifications, and possible objections reading this primary source in this manner entails. 1.1 Who Are The irmA.w? The Satrap Stela’s irmA.w is not the only occurrence of this expression.15 P.Anastasi 3 of the time of Merneptah (13th century BCE; verso, l. 5), contains the mention of a town of Merneptah in the district of the Arameans: , pA irʾm.w = “the district of the Arameans.”16 For the geographical location and sources, see Linda Hulin, “The Western Marmarica Coastal Survey, Libya,” JAEI 1 (2012): 14–17. Translations, Gambetti, “Origins,” n13; Schäfer, Stelen, 33. 13 Hans Goedicke, “Comments on the Satrap Stela,” BES 6 (1985): 33–54. 14 Daniel von Recklinghausen, “Ägyptische Quellen zum Judentum,” ZÄS 132 (2005): 147–51; Schäfer, Stelen, 108–10. 15 A mention of = pA irʾm.w from the pedestal of the 14th century BCE statue of Amenhotep III (side D) is excluded here. It is part of a topographical list lacking the narrative, which could provide the rationale for the interpretation of the expression. I follow Edward Lipinski, The Arameans: Their Ancient History, Culture and Religion (Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 32–24, who does not consider this a trustworthy document, but Younger K. Lawson, Jr., A Political History of the Arameans: From their Origins to the End of their Polities (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016), 35–37; and Kenneth A. Kitchen, “Egyptian New-Kingdom Topographical Lists: a Historical Resource with ‘Literary’ Histories,” in Causing His Name to Live: Studies in Egyptian Epigraphy and History in Memory of William J. Murnane, ed. Peter J. Brand and Louise Cooper, CHANE 37 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 129–35, do trust this document, however with different outcomes. For text, transcription, and transliteration, see Elmar Edel, Die Ortsnamenlisten aus dem Totentempel Amenophis III (Bonn: Hanstein, 1966), 28–29 and more recently Elmar Edel and Manfred Görg, Die Ortsnamenlisten im nördlichen Säulenhof des Totentempels Amenhophis’ III (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz in Kommission, 2005), 122–24. 16 British Museum EA 10246, a hieratic text reverted into hieroglyphic by modern scholars; facsimile in Georg Möller, Hieratische Lesestücke für den akademischen Gebrauch (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1935), 3, 27; hieroglyphic text in Alan H. Gardiner, Late Egyptian Miscellanies (Bruxelles: Édition de la Fondation égyptologique Reine Élisabeth, 1937), 20–

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Edward Lipinski has raised the strongest and most articulate objection to this reading in reference to the Arameans. Historically, he maintains that Merneptah did not extend his authority to any region where the Arameans may have been located at the time, and linguistically, he prefers to read either P 'rn or Elim, two locations in the Sinai region.17 Since this document is the only significant precedent for the reading of the Satrap Stela, Lipinski’s objections must be taken seriously and will be challenged below. 1.1.1 P.Anastasi 3: Merneptah’s “District of the Arameans” Linguistic Evidence Does = pA irʾm.w refer to Aram? Since we do not know which original Semitic word the hieroglyphic translates, this question cannot receive a direct answer. Therefore, the linguistic argument can be based only on comparisons with other known Semitic words and their hieroglyphic renderings, from which logical deductions can be drawn. A first observation is about the hieroglyphic group signs used in this document, a system developed in the Middle Kingdom to facilitate vocalic writing.18 Accordingly, the expression can be dissected in the following manner: position

a

1

2

3

4

b

group writing (demonstrative/article)

plural sign

determinative for ‘foreign people’

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Function

34, 32 for this specific line. Transliteration and translations: Edel, Ortsnamenlisten, 28; and Edel and Görg, Nördlichen Säulenhof, 123; cf. James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 1, 258– 59; Ricardo A. Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954), 109; Shmuel Ahituv, Canaanite Toponyms in Ancient Egyptian Documents (Jerusalem: Magness Press, 1984), 35, #66. 17 Lipinski, Arameans, 32–34; Lawson, Political History, 36 considers this document “unhelpful,” and refrains from commenting on it. 18 James E. Hoch, Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 487–504.

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All the group signs in positions 1 through 3 are characteristic of the rendering of Semitic words in Egyptian texts of the New Kingdom up to the end of imperial Egypt.19 A table below will collect the results of this discussion. Position 1: The group writing seems to be interchangeable with = A, which has the phonetic value /a/ in almost 93% of its occurrences. is frequently found in position 1 of Egyptian words of Semitic origins and corresponds mostly to the Aramaic letter ‫א‬, with the phonetic value /a/, but sometimes to ‫ י‬or ‫ ִאי‬with the phonetic value /e/ or /y/.20 Of the twenty-three Canaanite toponyms known from Egyptian texts that begin with group writing , nine have been certainly identified with locations mentioned in Semitic sources, all of which have an ‫א‬ in position one, six of which with the phonetic value /a/. Of the remaining toponyms, most have been tentatively paired with known locations, and others are known only by the one mention in Egyptian texts.21

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Position 2: ʾ Here lies Lipinski’s strongest objection, that hieroglyphic , a sign with the sound /r/, always translates Semitic /l/ and cannot be read with its regular sound /r/. Therefore, other toponyms, like P 'rn or Elim (ylim), are in his opinion better suited.22 Lipinski is right only in part. Ancient Egyptian does translate Semitic /l/ with hieroglyphic /r/ on a regular basis, because hieroglyphics do not have any sign reproducing the sound /l/.23 But it is also true that Semitic /r/ is regularly reproduced by hieroglyphic /r/, and, if generated from a Semitic word, the sound /r/ could come only from the letter ‫ר‬. This seems to be the case here. In fact, when the double strokes on top of are together with the singular stroke , the group acquires a phonetic value /ra/.24 19 Hoch, Semitic Words, 503 (table); hieratic, whose use increased from the Middle Kingdom, kept group writing. This is important to keep in mind, since P.Anastasi 3 is originally a hieratic text. 20 Hoch, Semitic Words, 17–49, = /a/ = ; , 490, 498, 503 (table), 506 (index); 533 for index of Hebrew words in aleph; 563 for index of personal names in . 21 Ahituv, Canaanite Toponyms; this work is cited in Hoch, Semitic Words, 513 (bibliography), which however does not include all of the Canaanite toponyms in its selection. See also Manfred Görg, Untersuchungen zur hieroglyphischen Wiedergabe palästinischer Ortsnamen (Bonn: Selbstverlag des Orientalischen Seminars der Universität, 1974), 3–48. 22 Lipinski, Arameans, 32–34, followed by Alejandro F. Botta, “Outlook: Arameans outside of Syria – Egypt,” in The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria, ed. Herbert Niehr, AOS 106 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 366. 23 Lists of signs: James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 14; Allan H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994 [repr. 2012]), 442–548. 24 Hoch, Semitic Words, 407, 434–35, 498, 501, 503, 509.

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Position 3: Also, this group writing is known to be associated with hieroglyphic words with Semitic origins, and its phonetic value is /ma/.25 The possible Semitic original could therefore be the letter ‫מ‬. Summary: 1

2

3

/a/

/ra/

/ma/

Egyptian transliteration

A

rA*

mA*

primary Semitic correspondent

‫א‬

‫ר‬

‫מ‬

position group sign

Egyptian phoneme

* The group writing cannot define from which sign the sound /a/ may originate since both a and A are possible. For the sake of simplicity rA and mA are used here.

First, the transliteration can be improved: rather than pA irʾm.w, as suggested by the secondary sources consulted so far, pA ArA mA.w seems to be better aligned with the way hieroglyphic translated Semitic words, and leads linguistically to the Semitic *‫ = ארמ‬/aram/. Interestingly, ‫ ארמ‬is the orthography of the earliest mention of the Aramean polities in the Sefire stele 1, l. 5 and 6, of the 8th century BCE,26 the same orthography later adopted in the biblical text (2 Sam 10:6–19; 2 Kgs 13:3; 16:7–9). All this helps us conclude that the location mentioned in P.Anastasi 3 linguistically can indeed refer to Aram and the Arameans.

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1.1.2 P.Anastasi 3: Merneptah’s “District of the Arameans” – Historical Evidence Lipinski maintains that Merneptah did not hold any region where the Arameans may have lived, and therefore rejects the reading “district of the Arameans” on historical grounds. This claim can be questioned as well. Scholars agree that the earliest certain mention of the Arameans cannot be found before the 12th–11th century BCE in Mesopotamia,27 that is, a century or more after the evidence of P.Anastasi 3. However, from cuneiform documents, nomadic and semi-nomadic Aramean tribes are known to have lived at the margins of sedentary societies in Syria and Mesopotamia as early as the 18th

Hoch, Semitic Words, 508. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire (Roma: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1995). 27 Lipinski, Arameans, 36–37; Lawson, Political History, 35–37. 25 26

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century, with some evidence of a proto-Aramaic population in the Syrian region already from the 23rd century BCE.28 Recent archaeological excavations, surveys, as well as material culture and linguistic evidence align with the early cuneiform evidence, and strongly suggest that the Arameans were indigenous populations present in south western Syria already in the Late Bronze Age, and who, after the collapse of the Hittite and Egyptian empires, found space to develop their own polities.29 It is against this historical background that P.Anastasi 3 will be read here. The entire P.Anastasi 3 is the context within which to read the passage “city of Merneptah in the district of Aram,” in verso, l. 5. The papyrus recto is of particular interest. Containing an exercise written by a border trainee, it mentions a king’s envoy “ ... of the foreign lands of Haru (XArw) from Sile to Upi.” These are three widely known toponyms: Haru is the word generally used for the Levant, Sile is a site at the eastern border of Egypt, and Upi is a name for the region of Damascus.30 Although this is certainly not a historical record, it provides nevertheless a clear idea of the geographical terminology in use in border administrative operations at the time of Merneptah, and of the geographical extension of the Egyptian interests in the Levant, stretching up north to Damascus. The non-historical mention of a king’s envoy, whose responsibility allegedly covered the entire region up to Damascus, can be validated by

28 Lipinski, Arameans, 28–31, 50; Lawson, Political History, 36–37; Martti Nissinen, “Outlook: Arameans outside of Syria - Assyria,” in The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria, 273; for the previous discussion, see Manfred Görg, “Aram und Israel,” VT 26 (1976): 499–500; Wolfgang Helk, Die Beziehungen Ägyptens zu Vorderasien im 3. und 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1971), 262; for a more critical position, see Abraham Malamat, “The Arameans,” in Peoples of Old Testament Times, ed. Donald J. Wiseman (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973), 135. 29 Lawson, Political History, 68–70; and Anjelika Berlejung, “Outlook: Arameans outside of Syria - Palestine,” in The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria, 339–40, both reject the Iron Age immigration model which Lipinski, Arameans, adopts throughout his monograph. See Lawson, Political History, 63–68 for a synopsis of such diffusionist models; Wayne T. Pitard, “Arameans,” in Peoples of the Old Testament World, ed. Alfred J. Hoerth et al. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 208–9. 30 Shmuel Ahituv, “Sources for the Study of the Egyptian – Canaanite Border Administration,” IEJ 46 (1996): 219–21; Carolyn R. Higginbotham, Egyptianization and Elite Emulation in Ramesside Palestine (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 48–50. This document is very clear on this geographical definition, something which cannot be said of Egyptian sources of the Middle and New Kingdoms. For discussion on the meaning of Haru, see for example Garth Gilmour and Kenneth A. Kitchen, “Pharaoh Sety II and Egyptian Political Relations with Canaan at the End of the Late Bronze Age,” IEJ 62 (2012): 1–21 (8); Meindert Dijkstra, “Canaan in the Transition from Late Bronze to Early Iron Age from an Egyptian Perspective,” in The Land of Canaan in the Late Bronze Age, ed. Lester L. Grabbe, ESHM 10, LHBOTS 636 (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 61–62.

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the available knowledge about the structure and network of the Egyptian administration of the Levant.31 On the other hand, the verso of the papyrus is a genuine journal of the border station of Sile in year 3 of the reign of Merneptah, which registers the movements of dispatches in and out of Egypt to and from the Levant.32 It is here that the “city of Merneptah in the district of the Arameans” is mentioned. If this “district of the Arameans” is read within the geographical context described in the recto, it must be located between Sile and Damascus. Other references in P.Anastasi 3 and additional external evidence do build a stronger context and background which cement the reading “district of the Arameans.” P.Anastasi 3 (verso, l. 6.4) contains the record of the arrival of an envoy from a location called the “Wells of Merneptah ... which is on the mountain range.”33

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This mention can be connected to “Mayan Mêneptôah,” in Josh 15:9 and 18:15, ‫נפתוח מי מעין‬, with its current translation “Water of Merneptah.”34 The specification “which is on the mountain range” suggests that this site was located on the ridge of Judaea, a location that accords with the context of Josh 18:15 where “Water of Merneptah” indeed defines the south-western border between Judah and Benjamin. Archaeology does confirm this location.35 The geographical

31 For example, in P.Anastasi 1, ll. 21–28; Donald B. Redford, Egypt and Canaan in the New Kingdom (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1990), 198–203; Higginbotham, Egyptianization, 34–36. 32 Ahituv, “Sources,” 221. 33 Gardiner, Late Miscellanies, 31, translated in Caminos, Late Mischellanies, 108, Pritchard, ANET, 258. 34 This reading replaces the traditional “Mayan mê Neptôah” = “the water of Neptôah” (NRSV, 2006, ad loc.; Tanach, Stone edition 1998, ad loc.; LXX-Jοsh., ὕδατος Ναφθω). For this new reading, see Frédéric Servajean, Mérenptah et la fin de la XIXe dynastie (Paris: Pygmalion, 2014), 33–36, who recalls an old article by Franz von Calice, “König Merneptah in Buche Josua?,” OLZ 6 (1903): col. 224 (non vidi). Gary Rendsburg, “Merneptah in Canaan,” JSSEA 11 (1981): 171–72; Frank J. Yurco, “Mernephat’s Palestinian Campaign,” JARCE 23 (1986): 189–215 (211–12); Pritchard, ANET, 258n6, all accept the emendation to the biblical text. 35 Israel Finkelstein and Yuval Gadot, “Mozah, Neptoah and Royal Estates in the Jerusalem Highlands,” Semitica Classica 8 (2015): 227–34, accept this association on archaeological ground. The “Water of Mêneptôah” would be located at the site of Qaluniya, 6 km west of Jerusalem, on the western ridge of the Judaea plateau, where the border between Judah and Benjamin probably was. Higginbotham, Egyptianization, 50, had accepted the identification with Lifta on the basis of surveys available at: “Jerusalem, Lifta, Vol. 120 (2008),” Israel Antiquities Authority, http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id =655&mag_id=114; and “Jerusalem, Lifta, Survey, Vol. 122 (2010),” Israel Antiquities Authority, http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id=1619&mag_id=117; the authors of the survey reject this identification.

When Syrian Politics Arrived in Egypt

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importance of the “Water of Merneptah” becomes evident within the context of extant documents of Merneptah’s time. The so-called “Israel stela,” a document commemorating Merneptah’s victory in the Libyan war of year 2 to year 4 of his reign,36 includes the victory hymn to a Levantine war in the form of a list of geographical locations that Merneptah alleges to have either subjugated or destroyed: Ashkelon, Gezer, and Yeno’am. Ashkelon is a known location in the southern Mediterranean coast of Palestine. Gezer37 is located on the north-east of Ashkelon, on the border of the Shephelah. Yeno’am is a town already known from the military expeditions of Tutmosis III, Ramses II, and of Seti I,38 possibly located between the mouth of the Yarmuk river in Transjordan and the area just south of the Sea of Galilee in Cisjordan.39 When these locations are put on a map, they trace Merneptah’s path from Egypt to Ashkelon on the Mediterranean coast, then to the interior to Gezer along the Shephelah. From here to Yeno’am, the best way would be to proceed along the Judaean ridge and the “Water of Merneptah,” and to Israel, a nomadic or semi nomadic tribe dwelling in the region of the hills in northern Palestine, between Yeno’am and the Sea of Galilee,40 or in

36 On year 5, see Yurco, “Mernephat’s”; Benedict G. Davies, Ramesside Inscriptions: Translated and Annotated, vol. 4: Merneptah and the Late Nineteen Dynasty (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), 10. Whether the Karnak relief represents Merneptah’s expedition to the Levant has been questioned. In favor of this interpretation, see Frank J. Yurco, “3,200Year-Old Picture of Israelites Found in Egypt,” BAR 16 (1990): 20–38; Garth Gilmour and Kenneth A. Kitchen, “Pharaoh Sety II,” 9; against this interpretation, see Anson F. Rainey, “Israel in Merenptah’s Inscription and Reliefs,” IEJ 51 (2001): 57–75 (69). 37 The long series of excavation reports on Tel Gezer will not be listed here. The mention of Merneptah as the destroyer of Gezer in his Nubian victory stela of Amada (Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions IV, 34; Davies, Ramesside Inscriptions, 10) establishes the historical value of the list of the Israel stela against the possibility that it be just a void claim: on this problem, see Ralph Giveon, “Remarks on the Transmission of Egyptian Lists of Asiatic Names,” in Fragen an die altägyptische Literatur, ed. Jan Assman et al. (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1977), 172–78; Higginbotham, Egyptianization, 19, 24. 38 Higginbotham, Egyptianization, 19–23. 39 On Seti I, see Michael G. Hasel, Domination and Resistance: Egyptian Military Activity in the Southern Levant, ca. 1300–1185 BC. (Leuven: Brill, 1998), 146–47, 175 is the list of Ramses II, which is probably a claim based on the list of Tutmoses III; Nadav Na’aman, Canaan in the Second Millennium B.C.E. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 195–97, 237– 41; Gilmour and Kitchen, “Pharaoh Sety II,” 10 with n24; Rainey, “Israel,” 77. 40 Peter van der Veen et al., “Israel in Canaan (Long) Before Merneptah? A Fresh Look at the Berlin Statue Pedestal Relief 21687,” JAEI 2 (2010): 15–25. For Hasel, Domination, 194–215, Israel was a sedentary agricultural ethnic group without a defined political structure living in the Hill Country in Cisjordan; for Reiney, “Israel,” Israel was a pastoralist group at the nomadic stage dwelling in the Hill Country. For discussion on whether Israel is represented in the Merneptah relief of Karnak, see Yurco, “Mernephat’s,” 189–215; and idem, “3,200-Year-Old Picture,” 20–38; in favor, see Hasel, Domination, 194 with

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northern Samaria.41 These northern areas lay in close territorial proximity with those where the Arameans had already settled in the Late Bronze Age. When these geographical considerations are kept in mind, Merneptah’s military and political interests emerge with some clarity, following in the footsteps of his predecessors of the 19th dynasty.42 They extended to the north of Palestine, up to the limits of Uti/Damascus, where Arameans were a demographic reality. It is therefore totally admissible also on historical grounds that a “city of Merneptah in the district of Aram,” mentioned in P.Anastasi 3 verso l. 5, did exist.43 1.2 Conclusions

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Both the historical and the linguistic arguments presented so far indicate that Merneptah’s P.Anastasti 3 can and must be evidence for the use of the word Aram in historical documents for that period. Later Egyptian documents confirm the historical validity of such a geographical nomenclature. One of the locations touched by Shoshenq II’s military expedition in the 10th century BCE,44 and recorded in the inscription on the Bubastide Portal at Karnak,45 is

abundance of references on the discussion; Gilmour and Kitchen, “Pharaoh Sety II,” 9; against this position, see Rainey “Israel,” 69. 41 Ernst A. Knauf, “From Archaeology to History,” in Israel in Transition: From Late Bronze II to Iron IIa (c. 1250–850 B.C.E.), ed. Lester L. Grabbe, ESHM 7, LHBOTS 491 (New York: T&T Clark, 2008), 75; on the basis of Robert B. Coote, Early Israel: a New Horizon (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990). Roads in the southern Levant are described in detail in David A. Dorsey, The Roads and Highways of Anceint Israel (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1991), which of course cannot include the results from more recent archaeological excavation considered in the argument above. 42 On the Levantine policy of the 19 th dyn., see Ian Shaw, ed., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 232–309; Lawson, Political History, 191. More specific studies are Hasel, Domination, 118–77; Dijkstra, “Canaan,” 59–89; Na’aman, Canaan, 232–41; Eero Junkkaala, The Three Conquests of Canaan (Turku: Åbo Akademi University Press, 2006). 43 For Manfred Görg, “Aram,” 499–500, the reference is the Aramean oasis of Damascus. 44 For chronology and itinerary, I follow Israel Finkelstein, “The Campaign of Shoshenq I to Palestine: A Guide to the 10th Century BCE Polity,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 118 (2002): 109–35; for a general historical outline, see Kenneth A. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1986), 287– 302; Karol Mysliwiec, The Twilight of Egypt (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000), 44– 46. 45 Oriental Institute of Chicago - Epigraphic Survey, The Bubastite Portal (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954).

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bt arm,47 this toponym is formed on the called Bit Aram.46 Spelled pattern bit + name, as known from Aramaic polities in Syria and the Levant,48 and is probably to be located on the Carmel Ridge.49 In conclusion, there are toponyms referring to the Arameans in the north of Palestine from east to west from the Late Bronze Age (P.Anastasi 3) to the Iron Age (inscription of Shoshenq): P.Anastasi 3

Inscription of Shoshenq

pA ArAmA.w

bt arm

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Certainly, the Egyptian orthography changes, which is typical of hieroglyphic writing, because it never standardized its signs “palette.” New signs have proliferated through time and were created and used depending on the space available on the stone and on the scribal tradition.50 However, the phonemes remained the same: /a/ /r/ /m/, which, reverted to Aramaic, result in the word *‫ארמ‬, /aram/. There are then two significant hieroglyphic precedents of the Sa= pA ArAmA and trap stela’s pA tS n irmA.w; P.Anastasi 3: Shoshenq’s inscription = bt arm. Linguistically, therefore, the Satrap stela’s claim that indeed Ptolemy went to the land of the Arameans can be supported. The historical value of the Satrap stela’s “land of the Arameans” needs to be discussed now.

46 Hoch, Semitic Words, 569 gives the possibility to read Bit Olim; however, in his catalogue of signs (509) and phonology analysis (399–437) he never lists the recumbent lyon (E23) in group writing as a possible /l/ phoneme. 47 Epigraphic Survey, The Bubastite Portal, 2n36; Kitchen, Third Intermediate, 436–37 for comments. 48 Lawson, Political History, 43–48 49 For a map of this region, see Kitchen, Third Intermediate, 434. In the absence of any archaeological excavation which could determine Bit Aram’s location, the sequence within which it is mentioned in the Karnak relief is the only possible guidance, together with other known toponyms located on both sides of the Carmel Ridge. 50 An example of orthographical variation from MK standards in a Late Egyptian text is in Yekaterina Barbash, The Mortuary Papyrus of Pedikakem, YES 8 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 12–14. In addition to orthography variations, phonetic variation may be possible, depending on dialects, sound perception, and text production; Hoch, Semitic Words, 419; Aimo E. Murtonen, Hebrew in its West Semitic Setting: A Comparative Survey of Non-Masoretic Hebrew Dialects and Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1989–90), 2:20.

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1.3 What Is and Where Is Ptolemy’s Aram? 1.3.1 Aram and Arameans: A Geographical and Political Denotation The 8th century BCE Sefire inscription displays the earliest known use of “Aram” (KAI 222–224),51 which denotes the region in the northern Levant where new political realities from the late Iron Age II A developed. The kingdoms of Arpad, Hamath, Soba, and Damascus, just to mention the most important ones,52 identified themselves as ruling the land of Aram. The later biblical narrative used Aram-Damascus to identify the power who contrasted the northern kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah (2 Sam 10:6–19; 2 Kgs 13:3; 16:7–9). The Sefire inscription (1, A, 6; 1, B, 9–10) also provides some clues on the borders of Aram as perceived by those who redacted the text and commissioned its carving: Aram is the region covering the high territory along the Mediterranean coast from the Litani river, just north of Tyre, and the lowlands just south of the Taurus in the north.53 What would be later known, and historically still is, as Phoenicia is part of Aram.54 The eastern border was physically limited by the Euphrates river and the desert, but the aggressive attitude of the NeoAssyrian empire, the strong power of the time, probably made it very flexible. The southern border, spanning from the Sea of Galilee and the Easter slope of the Carmel, was the result of political and military contrasts with the northern kingdom of Israel.55 However, in the course of several campaigns in the 8th century BCE, the Neo-Assyrian empire obliterated those kingdoms and the political use of “Aram” for the northern Levant. With the exception of some mid-9th century BCE texts of Shalmaneser III, where “Aram” identifies the region of the

Herbert Donner and Wolfgang Rölling, eds., Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1971–2000); Fitzmyer, Sefire; Hélène Sader, “The Arameans of Syria: Some Considerations on Their Origin and Material Culture,” in The Books of Kings: Sources, Composition, Historiography and Reception, ed. André Lemaire and Baruch Halpern, SVT 129 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 276. 52 A complete list and discussion of all the Aramean kingdoms is in Lipinski, Arameans, 77–407; Lawson, Political History, 109–653. 53 David Talshir, “The Relativity of Geographic Terms: A Re-investigation of the Problem of Upper and Lower Aram,” Journal of Semitic Studies 48 (2003): 259–85 (274–76). 54 Despite this geographical claim, the Phoenician cities remained independent and had cultural and commercial trade with the Aramaic kingdoms; see Brian Peckam, “Phoenicians and Arameans: the Literary and Epigraphic Evidence,” in The World of the Arameans: Studies in Honor of Paul-Eugène Dion, ed. Paul-Eugège Dion and P. M. Michèle Daviau (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 2:19–44. 55 Israel Finkelstein, “Israel and Aram: Reflections on their Border,” in In Search of Aram and Israel: Politics, Culture and Identity, ed. Omer Sergi et al., ORA 20 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 17–36.

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Aramaean kingdoms,56 nowhere in the extant Neo-Assyrian official texts or carved images do “Aram” or “Aramean” denote the former kingdoms of the Levant, or any of the Neo-Assyrian provinces organized in the west.57 There is no evidence that later the Neo-Babylonian empire organized the Levant into a province or provinces at all,58 and documents of the period display a use of “Aramean” similar to that found in the neo-Assyrian documents.59 The Persian empire organized the entire Levant as the satrapy Beyond the River, and none of the known provinces which composed it was named after Aram. The Arameans do not feature in the tribute carrying processional relief of Persepolis, and they are not named among the subjected peoples in the inscriptions of Persepolis or Susa.60 By the time Alexander the Great arrived in the region, the memory of a political Aram had vanished. 1.3.2 “Aram” and “Aramean” in Egypt

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It is crucial to discuss the evidence on the use of “Aram” and “Aramean” in Egypt separately because the perception of each and every one of those terms within the historical, political, and linguistic tradition of that country will constitute the background and context of the use of “Aramean” in the Satrap Stela. 56 Ron E. Tappy, The Archaeology of Israelite Samaria, vol 2: The Eighth Century BCE, HSS 50 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992–2001), 601, appendix d. 57 Rather, “Aramean” is reserved for the Aramaic Mesopotamian tribes. Texts consulted: Markus Wäfler, Nicht-Assyrer neuassyricher Darstellungen, AOAT 26 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Butzon und Bercker, 1975); Hayim Tadmor, ed., The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III King of Assyria (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994); Manfried Dietrich, ed., The Babylonian correspondence of Sargon and Sennacherib (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2003); Mikko Luukko, ed., The Correspondence of Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II from Calah/Nimrud (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2012); Simo Parpola, ed., The Correspondence of Sargon II. Part I: Letters from Assyria and the West (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1987). Historical narratives on the Arameans of Mesopotamia are in Lipinski, Arameans, 409–90, and Lawson, Political History, 655–740. 58 David S. Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Babylon in the Latest Prophets, HSS 59 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 90–110; idem, “New Evidence Pertaining to the Transition from Neo-Babylonian to Achaemenid Administration in Palestine,” in Yahwism after the Exile: Perspectives on Israelite Religion in the Persian Era, ed. Rainer Albertz and Bob Becking, STR 5 (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2003), 227–31. 59 Jean-Jacques Glassner, ed., Mesopotamian Chronicles, WAW 19 (Atlanta: SBL, 2004), 193–239. 60 Amélie Kuhrt, ed., The Persian Empire (London: Routledge, 2007), 141–57 (DB, §6: those of the sea[?]); 483 (A?P); 492–97 (DSf, DSz, DSaa, §4: the sealands [?]); for Herodotus’ list of satrapies, which includes “Syria,” see Pierre Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 390–93; Wouter F. M. Henkelman and Matthew W. Stolper, “Ethnic Identity and Ethnic Labelling at Persepolis: The Case of the Skudrians,” in Organisation des pouvoirs et contacts culturels dans les pays de l’empire achémenide, ed. Pierre Briant and Michel Chauveau (Paris: De Boccard, 2009), 300–6.

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Sheshonq’s campaign in the 10th century BCE was the last direct contact Egypt had with the Levant until the 26th Saïte dynasty in the 7th and 6th century BCE. Taking advantage of the peripheral weakness of the neo-Assyrian empire, Psamtik I re-established Egyptian hegemony in the southern Levant,61 and later employed Levantine forces to defend his reunified country from Nubian relentless attack – Judaeans were the most prominent group.62 Psamtik II also made abundant use of foreign forces, including people from Tyre and Sidon, as witnessed by the Abu Simbel graffiti.63 Foreign troops remained an important part of the military organization in Egypt for the rest of the Saïte period, and the Persian empire inherited such practices.64 There is, however, lack of homogeneity in the way in which these Levantine troops are referred to in Egyptian documents. 1.3.3 Egyptian Texts in Hieroglyphic and Demotic

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Of the documents in Demotic and in Hieroglyphic scripts, displaying a good sample of the vocabulary that Egyptian used in the 26th dynasty for the identification of people from Asia,65 P.Berl. 13615 from the time of Amasis (570– 526 BCE) is relevant here: 61 Bernd U. Schipper, “Egyptian Imperialism after the New Kingdom: the 26th Dynasty and the Southern Levant,” in Egypt, Canaan and Israel: History, Imperialism, Ideology and Literature, ed. Shay Bar et al., CHANE 52 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 271–74. 62 Dan'el Kahn, “Judaean Auxiliaries in Egypt’s Wars against Kush,” JAOS 127 (2007): 507–16 (513–14); Philip C. Schmitz, Phoenician Diaspora: Epigraphic and Historical Studies (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 32–42. 63 Kahn, “Judaean Auxiliaries,” 508–9; Serge Sauneron and Jean Yoyotte, “Sur la politique palestinienne des rois saïtes,” VT 2 (1952): 131–36; Serge Sauneron and Jean Yoyotte, “La campaigne nubienne de Psammétique II et sa signification historique,” BIFAO 50 (1950): 157–207. 64 For the Persian garrison of Elephantine, see below. 65 The other documents are: (1) P.Dem.Rylands 9 (TM 47388; http://www.trismegistos.org), Demotic: pA tA xr = the one of Syria, x(A)rw; Günter Vittmann, Der demotische Papyrus Rylands 9 (Wiesbaden: Harassowitz, 1998); (2) Statue Cairo JE 36949, Hierglyphic: Tt aAmw = contingent of Asiatic soldiers; Hermann de Meulenaere, “La statue du général Djed-ptah-iouf-ankh, Caire JE 36949,” BIFAO 63 (1963): 19–32 (23–24). aAmw is used in the Story of Sinuhe for the inhabitants of the northern Levant, an area sometimes called Retjenun in Hieroglyphic; see Janice Kamrin, “The Aamu of Shu in the Tomb of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hassan,” JAEI 1 (2009): 22–36 (24–25), who recognizes the existing disagreement among scholars on the meaning of this word. (3) Statue Louvre A 90, Hieroglyphic: aAmw; sTtw = Asiatics; Karl Jansen-Winkeln, Inschriften der Spätzeit IV: Die 26. Dynastie (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014), 409; Hussein Bassir, “Neshor at Elephantine in Late Saite Egypt,” JEH 9 (2016): 66–95 for the most recent commentary. For aAmw see comment in # 2 above; for sTtw see the Hieroglyphic inscription on the statue of Naples #1035, of the mid-Persian period: Paul Tresson, “La Stèle de Naples,” BIFAO 30 (1930): 369–91. Bezalel Porten, Archives from Elephantine; the Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 15 thinks aAmw and sTtjw mean Judaeans

When Syrian Politics Arrived in Egypt # 4

Document P.Berl. 13615

TM#

Period

Language

Script

Expressions

45693

26th dyn. Amasis

Egyptian

Demotic

a) rmT x(A)rw

179 Translation man of Syria

b) rmT iSwr

man of Assyria

c) rmT stm-mnt

man of Asia

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This document contains three different ways of identifying people from east of Egypt. Despite scholars’ inability to suggested translations which could give credit to the variety of this vocabulary, it is clear that those three expressions are not synonymous, and that the Egyptians had a more articulate perception of the geographical origins of the foreigners living in their country.66 While the meaning of stm-mnt is still obscure,67 harw or haru in table (a) is best known for its use in P.Anastasi 3 and other NK documents, where it refers to the Levant, from the easternmost branch of the Nile delta up to Damascus. That being the case, iSwr in table (b) must refer to a different geographical origin. In the documents from, or relating to, the Neo-Assyrian period, iSwr refers to people east of Egypt, from the region later called Syria – 68 that is, the region extending north beyond Damascus. The deeply Assyrianized tradition of the Persian empire reinforces this reading.69 In the Old Persian text of the trilingual foundation charter from Susa, Darius declares that the cedar from Lebanon was transported to Babylon by the and Arameans; so also Alejandro F. Botta, “Outlook,” in The Arameans in Ancient Syria, Handbook of Oriental Studies (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 366–77; (4) Statuette, Hieroglyphic: sTtjw = foreigners of Asia; Edda Bresciani, “Una statuetta della XXVI dinastia con il cosiddetto ‘abito persiano,’” SCO 16 (1967): 273–80; Jansen-Wilken, Inschriften, 500–1. 66 P.Berl. 13615 was initially published in Wolja Erichsen, “Erwägung eines Zuges nach Nubien unter Amasis in einem demotischen Text,” Klio 34 (1942): 55–61, and later in KarlTheodor Zauzich, “Ein Zug nach Nubien unter Amasis,” in Life in a Multicultural Society, ed. Janet H. Johnson, SAOC 51 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 361–64. This text must now be considered as a part of a much longer text together with P.Berl. 13606 a– b and P.Berl. 15824 a–b (see TM #45693 for basic bibliographical references), which allegedly contains a list of many more people identified as iSr or iSrw. Günter Vittmann, “Arameans in Egypt,” in Wandering Arameans, Arameans Outside Syria: Textual and Archaeological Perspectives, ed. Anjelika Berlejung et al. (Leipzig: Harassowitz, 2017), 234 reports from the updated notes of Zauzich on this document. The final publication has not yet appeared. 67 But see n65 above. 68 Kim Ryholt, “The Assyrian Invasion of Egypt in Egyptian Literary Tradition,” in Assyria and Beyond: Studies Presented to Mogens Trolle Larsen, ed. Jan G. Dercksen (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het nabije oosten, 2004), 490. 69 Simo Parpola, “National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times,” Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies 18 (2004): 5–22 (19).

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Assyrians (DSf 9). The logistics of the transportation strongly suggests that these people could only be those who lived just east of the Lebanon, from what was called Aram before the Neo-Assyrian conquest.70 From Persian Egypt, iSwr, the same word from P.Berl. 13615 is used in the hieroglyphic inscription carved on the base of the statue of Darius found in Susa (DSab 2).71 This toponym is listed before North West Arabia and Egypt, in a sequence familiar to all the geographical lists on the inscriptions from Bisutun, Persepolis, and Susa (DB, DPe, DSe, DSaa). This is the way the Egyptian iSwr refers to the region from the west bank of the Euphrates to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, which includes what was once called Aram. Further confirmation is in Darius I’s order of the Aramaic translation of an Egyptian legal compilation (P.Bibl. Nat. 215, Demotic Chronicle, verso),72 calling it sX iSwr.73 It is clear that Persian documents from Egypt use iSwr to refer to what in the early Iron Age was called Aram. Linguistically, iSwr is mostly found in apposition to a noun, denoting geographical origins. Its translation requires a periphrastic genitival construction, so that sX iSwr in P.Bibl. Nat. 215 can be rendered as “the language of Aram,” and rmT iSwr of P.Berl. 13615 “man of Aram.” 74 70 See Peter Calmayer, “Die sogenannte fünfte Satrapie und die achaimenidischen Documenten,” Transeuphratène 3 (1990): 109–29, who confirms this reading of iSwr and discusses this piece of evidence within the context of the incongruity of the historical geography of Herodotus and the later Greek scholars, a larger problem that does not concern us here. 71 Jean Yoyotte, “Les inscriptions hieroglyphiques de la statue de Darius à Suse,” Cahiers de la Delegation Archéologique Française en Iran 4 (1974): 181–83; 213–14; Kuhrt, The Persian Empire, 478–79. 72 = TM 48875; Wilhelm Spiegelberg, Die sogenannte Demotische Chronik (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1914), 30–31; Janet H. Johnson, “The Demotic Chronicle as an Historical Source,” Enchoria 4 (1974): 1–17; Heinz Felber, “Die Demotische Chronik,” in Apokalyptik und Ägypten, ed. Andreas Blasius and Bernd U. Schipper (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 67–68, who does not however comment on the verso. A later document of the time of Nectanebo I (380– 362 BCE), P.Cairo 3.50153 = TM 46408, contains a similar expression; Wilhem Spiegelberg, Die demotischen Denkmäler III: Demotische Inschriften und Papyri (Fortsetzung) 50023–50165 – Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire (Berlin: Reichsdruckerei, 1932), 113; no transcription or translation is provided, but a photo of the two little fragments of this documents is on pl. 64; Herberth Verreth, Toponyms in Demotic and Abnormal Hieratic Texts from the 8th Century BC till the 5th Century AD (Köln: Trismegistos, 2011), 600–1. 73 Richard C. Steiner, “Why the Aramaic Script Was Called ‘Assyrian’ in Hebrew, Greek, and Demotic,” Orientalia 62 (1993): 80–82. 74 P.Berl. 15808 = TM 46555, a Demotic text from the Persian period, also contains the expression rmT iSrw; Harry S. Smith, “Foreigners in the Documents from the Sacred animals Necropolis, Saqqara,” in Johnson, Life in a Multicultural Society, 295–301. Unfortunately it is not yet completely published, but see Karl-Theodore Zauzich, Ägyptische Handschriften, vol. 2, Verzeichnis Orientalischer Handschriften in Deutschland 19,2 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1971), #169. P.Dem. Saq. 1.27 = TM 56128, l. 1; 21 contains the word xr for Syria: Harry

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1.3.4 Egyptian Texts in Aramaic

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Egyptian texts written in Aramaic show similar classifications. In the letters from Saqqara, dated, according to internal evidence, to Psamtik I, Darius I, or Artaxerxes II,75 and from Hermoupolis,76 some writers identify themselves as Arameans. Some of the Hermoupolis letters, next to Aramaic contain also words in the language and script of Tyre, part of Aram in the Iron Age. The case of Elephantine is more complex. Seat of the southernmost border military post in Egypt at least since the Saïte period, in the Persian period its garrison seems to be divided between the two locations of Syene and Elephantine proper, with some ethnic implications. The Aramaic documents,77 providing information of Judaean and Aramean soldiers and their families, seem to indicate that the Judaean soldiers were stationed only in Elephantine and not in Syene, while Arameans where present in both locations. Confusingly, some individuals style themselves alternatively as being either Judaean or Aramean. Some clarification is possible. In document B 49,78 a text unfortunately heavily damaged, Miptahiah declares to be X from Elephantine, but Y by (military) detachment. The editors integrate X and Y respectively with “Judaean of Elephantine but Aramean by detachment,” on the ground that those were the only integrations the size of the lacunae allowed.79 The general context of the Elephantine documents and the historical background of the Persian period justify those integrations. I read “Judaean” and “Aramean” as geographical identifications, 80 on the basis of the available evidence on the Persian army, whose contingents were organized geographically because of language differences and or tactic and military equipment (Herodotus, Hist. 7.61–100). A still unpublished Demotic text from Saqqara, which S. Smith and John W. Tait, Saqqâra Demotic papyri I (P. Dem. Saq. I) (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1983). 75 Judah B. Segal, Aramaic Texts from North Saqqara (London: Egypt Exploraion Society, 1983), #8, 30b, 35, 77a. 76 Edda Bresciani and Murad Kamil, “Le letter aramaiche di Hermopoli,” AANL 4 (1966): 357–428; a recent bibliography in Jan-Wim Wesselius, “Language Play in the Aramaic Letters from Hermopolis,” Aramaic Studies 4,2 (2006): 243–58 (244n1). 77 Porten, Elephantine Papyri, B 23–45. 78 Porten, Elephantine Papyri, ad loc. 79 Porten, Elephantine Papyri, 258n5 with previous references. 80 Amaury Pétigny, “Des étrangers pour garder l’Égypte aux Ve at IVe siècles av. J.-C.,” in L’armé en Égypte aux époques perse, ptolémaïque et romaine, ed. Anne-Emmanuelle Veïsse and Stephanie Wackenier (Genève: Librairie Droz, 2014), 12–13, maintains that the garrison company was subdivided in centuries and decuries based on different ethnic origins. The possibility that “Judaean” and “Aramean” refer to administrative or geographical identification is hypothesized by Janet H. Johnson, “Ethnic Consideration in Persian Period Egypt,” in Gold of Praise, Studies in Ancient Egypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente, ed. Janet H. Johnson and Emily Teeter (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1999), 216.

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mentions a commander of the Judaeans, pA ts n nA yhytw,81 confirms that the organization of the Persian army in Egypt was not dissimilar from what we know of the rest of the empire. In Elephantine, there were military contingents from Judaea and from Aram. When the same individuals are found to identify themselves either as Judaean or Aramean in different documents, it is not because they switch ethnic identity,82 but because their military detachment changed. 1.3.5 Conclusions Despite the end of the political existence of the kingdoms of Aram in the 8th century BCE, the name Aram never ceased to exist and remained to denote the region from Damascus to the upper-western Euphrates and the Mediterranean sea in the west. Clearly, the Persian documents distinguish the sub-regions Judaea, Samaria, and iSwr/Aram as part of the Levant,83 the satrapy of Beyond the River.84 Documents of the 7th century BCE onward contain the mention of that region either in its original form of Aram, in the Aramaic documents, or iSwr in the Egyptian documents. In Egypt, this practice continued through the Ptolemaic period, as demographic lists carved on the temple walls in Xois, Esna, Komir, and Kom Ombo show.85 1.4 Back to the Satrap Stela

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With the Elephantine documents we are only, on average, a little more than a century before the redaction of the Satrap stela, which uses the same geographical terminology of the documents so far examined. The stela distinguishes two 81 John D. Ray, “The non-Literary Material from Saqqara: A Short Progress Report,” Enchoria 8 (1978): 29–30; Harry S. Smith, “Foreigners in the Documents from the Sacred Animals Necropolis, Saqqara,” in Johnson, Life in a Multicultural Society, 295–301; KarlTheodor Zauzich, “Der Ägyptische Name der Juden,” in In the Shadow of Bezalel: Aramaic, Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Bezalel Porten, ed. Alejandro F. Botta (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 410. 82 Karel van der Toorn, “Ethnicity at Elephantine: Jews, Arameans Caspians,” Tel Aviv 43 (2016): 146–64, stresses that Jews in Elephantine have two ethnic identities: Jews and Arameans, an interpretation not followed here. 83 Contra van der Toorn, “Ethnicity,” 159–62, who believes that the Persian administration calls Aram all the territory from Edessa to Egypt, as in Herodotus, Hist. 2.29. 84 The Elephantine documents confirms that Samaria and Judaea were two provinces of the satrapy of Trans-Euphrates; on this, see Jan Dušek, Les manuscrits arameens du Wadi Daliyeh et la Samarie vers 450–332 av. J.-C. (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 599–600. The available information of the names and number of the satrapies of the Persian empire is incomplete; see Briant, From Cyrus, 390–94. 85 Holger Kockelmann and Alexa Rickert, Von Meroe bis Indien: Fremdvölkerlisten und nubische Gabenträger in den griechish-römischen Tempeln, SSR 12 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2015), passim.

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areas: xArw, where the battle of Gaza takes place (ll. 4–5), and the land of the Arameans (l. 6). At a close examination, this is the same geographical distinction of P.Berl. 13615 between rmT x(A)rw = man of the region between Egypt and Damascus, and rmT iSwr = man of Aram. P.Berl. 13615 Translation Man of the southern Levant (between Egypt and Damascus) rmT iSwr Man of Aram

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Text rmT x(A)rw

Satrap stela, ll. 4–6 Text Translation pA tA nA xArw Region of the battle of Gaza pA tS n irmA.w

land of the Arameans

If we follow this reading, then, after the battle of Gaza, Ptolemy moved north beyond haru, past Judaea, Samaria, and Damascus, into the land of the Arameans. At this point, crosschecking with the Greek narratives becomes useful. According to Diodorus (19.85.4–86.1), after defeating Demetrius Poliorketes in Gaza, Ptolemy proceeded to Phoenicia, Sidon, and Tyre, where he remained for the entire summer of 312 BCE. Geographically, Sidon and Tyre were part of the region of Aram in the Safire stela discussed above. This is “the land of the Arameans” of the Satrap stela.86 Then, there is the question of the deportees. Soon after the mention of the campaign against the Arameans, the stela states that Ptolemy took deportees. The implication is that these were Arameans. The historians do not warrant this sequence. Diodorus (19.93, 97) clearly reports that Ptolemy did not use force in Sidon and Tyre, i.e., the “land of the Arameans” of the stela. Rather, he says that for strategic reasons, in the summer of 311 BCE, he rushed back to Egypt, and on his way south he razed Acre, Joppa, Samaria, and Gaza to the ground – no mention of Sidon and Tyre, i.e the “land of the Arameans,” and of deportees from there. Josephus, Ant. 12.7, rather reports that the deportees were from Samaria, Mt. Gerizim, the mountains of Judaea and locations around Jerusalem. This discrepancy can be explained historiographically. Ptolemy sacked cities and deported people to break-even in a campaign that, dispite its immediate military success, was otherwise a complete failure. The Satrap stela, an encomiastic text that emphasizes Ptolemy’s greatness, has no room for Ptolemy’s defeat, and selectively omits Ptolemy’s retreat and loss of territory,

86 The combined reading of Diodorus and the Satrap stela does not support the suggestions that pA tS n irmA.w refers to locations in Lycia or Nubia, as in Hilmar Klintott and Sabine Kubisch, “Ein lykischer Polisname in der Satrapenstele Ptolemaios’ I,” Chiron 35 (2005): 533–58 and Karola Zibelius-Chen, “Ist ‘der Schakal’ der Feind des Nastes? Ein Problem der napatanischen Geschichte,” Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 35 (2006): 367– 73 (368n9).

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conflating the successful information of the conquest of Aram in 312 BCE with the deportation in 311 BCE. Satrap stela, ll. 4–6 Text Translation pA tA nA xArw Battle of Gaza pA ArA mA.w Ptolemy conquers land of the Arameans deportees

Historians Diodorus 312: Battle of Gaza 312: Ptolemy conquers Sidon, Tyre 311: Retreat and destruction of Acre, Joppa, Samaria and Gaza

Josephus

Deportees from Samaria, Mt. Gerizim, Judaea

The narrative of the historians is to be followed here; Ptolemy did not deport anybody from Aram, but he did so from the southern Levant – to use the language of the Satrap stela, from haru. This conclusion carries important consequences for the rest of the present argument. 1.4.1 God

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The stela says that Ptolemy deported men, women, and (l. 6). The transliteration as nTr.zn, for a translation ‘their god,’ which Goedicke introduced in 1982, has created perplexities for more than one reason. First of all, nTr = god, a very common word in hieroglyphic documents, is overwhelmingly spelled with the sign from every period in the history of ancient Egypt.87 Indeed, the Satrap stela itself uses this sign multiple times in reference to the Egyptian , gods.88 For this reason, scholars have disagreed about the translation of and have proposed different solutions, ranging from horses, to children, to belonging.89 A stronger reading is now possible. Contrary to general belief, = nTr, ‘god,’ is not an hapax, but finds a precedent in a Coffin Texts spell (CT, spell 418, B1bo): = nTr.w = gods.90 Goedicke’s reading “god” must therefore be confirmed: Ptolemy deported a god to Egypt. 87 Adolf Erman and Hermann Grapow, eds., Wörterbuch der Aegyptischen Sprache (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1926–1963), ad loc.; Raymond O. Faulkner, ed., A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1991), ad loc.; Penelope Wilson, ed., A Ptolemaic Lexicon (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), ad loc. 88 Schäfer, Stelen, 56–203 for the parts concerning the reproduction of the hieroglyphic text and the transliteration. 89 Schäfer, Stelen, 113–15. 90 Reference in Dieter Kurth, Einführung ins Ptolemäische: eine Grammatik mit Zeichenliste und Übungsstücken (Hütz: Backe-Verlag, 2015), 1:31; Raymond O. Faulkner, ed., The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1973–1978), 5, 253; the coffin is housed in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: # 20.1822–27. It must be noted

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From the historical point of view, the Stela does not deliver any surprises; deporting a god from a defeated location was the ultimate demonstration of divine abandonment of the conquered people and lands. Evidence of the deportation of gods abounds from the ancient Near East, and the Satrap stela itself (ll. 3–4) claims that Ptolemy repatriated the Egyptian gods previously deported by foreign invaders.91 The problem is now to understand what actually Ptolemy did deport – that is, what kind of consequences the reading , nTr = god, in the singular, carries. It should be clear by now that there was no deportation from the “land of the Arameans,” i.e. Sidon, Tyre, but rather haru, the southern Levant, suffered Ptolemy’s attack. Diodorus defines Ptolemy’s itinerary, and Josephus specifically names the region from where Ptolemy took his deportees: Acre, Samaria, Joppa, Gaza, Mt. Gerizim, the mountains of Judaea, and locations around Jerusalem. The god that Ptolemy took to Egypt came from there. The fact that denotes one god and not many is of utmost importance. If Ptolemy had indiscriminately ransacked all the temples he had encountered on his way back to Egypt, the stela would have probably recorded the deportation of gods, with a plural spelling. But that is clearly not the case. Once all this is interpreted against the background of Ptolemy’s itinerary, the range of possibilities narrows dramatically. When Jerusalem is called out of the question, since clearly Ptolemy did not go there in 312–311 BCE,92 there is only one sacred location from where Ptolemy could have deported a god, and that is Mt. Gerizim in Josephus’s list. 1.4.2 On Goedicke’s Linguistic Reading of “Arameans”

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Goedicke had suggested that the expression “land of the Aramaeans” in the Satrap stela refers to a territory where Aramean was spoken. He included the entire Levant within his interpretation, including Judaea.93 In the light of the discussion articulated above, Goedicke’s interpretation is rejected here. To be sure, at the time of the events discussed so far, Samaria and, to a lesser extent, Judaea had adopted Aramaic as administrative language, in accordance with the policies of the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian empires.94 However, the use of “Aram” that Kurth reproduces the word , with a different sign for the determinative ‘god.’ This variation does not alter either the transliteration or the translation of the word. 91 Mordechai Cogan, Imperialism and Religion: Assyria, Judah and Israel in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries B.C.E., SBLM 19 (Missoula: SBL Press, 1974), 9–41; Jan K. Winniki, “Carrying Off and Bringing Home the Statues of the Gods: On an Aspect of the Religious Policy of the Ptolemies towards the Egyptians,” JJP 24 (1994): 149–90; Schäfer, Stelen, 74–83. 92 On this, Gambetti, “Origins,” and Gambetti, Alexandrian Riots, 23–26. 93 I myself accepted this argument in Gambetti, “Origins.” 94 The use of Aramaic in the southern Levant is evidenced in some scriptural books, letters, inscriptions, and ostraca. For the main discussion on this huge topic, see the following:

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and “Aramean” in the documents so far examined does not denote a linguistic ability but a specific geographic region. Geographically, as seen above, “Aram” does not include either Judaea or Samaria. 1.4.3 What Kind of God?

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What exactly Ptolemy took from Mt. Gerizim can be discussed on the basis of archaeological and textual evidence. Extensive recent excavations on Mt. Gerizim have unearthed the remains of a structure diagnostically dated from the 5th century BCE early Persian period. The archaeological strata related to this period have revealed substantial remains of burnt bones and ashes, evidence of sacrificial practice, but no divine images were found.95 After the necessary reinterpretations of the biblical texts, excavators have connected the origins of this temple to the narrative of Ezra /Nehemiah and the reconstructing efforts at the time of the return of the Judaeans from the Babylonian exile.96 The archaeological evidence invites to extend

Holger Gzella, A Cultural History of Aramaic (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 78–79, 96, 104–226; Klaus Beyer, The Aramaic Language: Its Distribution and Subdivision (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 14–20, 34–37; John J. Collins, Daniel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 13–18; Dušek, Les manuscrits arameens; Lawson, Political History, 189–92, 621–35; Omer Sergi, “The Battle of Ramoth-gilead and the Rise of the Aramean Hegemony in the Southern Levant during the Second Half of the 9th Century BCE,” in Berlejung et al., Wandering Arameans, 81–100; Aren M. Maier, “Can Material Evidence of Aramean Influence and Presence in Iron Age Judah and Israel Be Found?” in Berlejung et al., Wandering Arameans, 53–68; Jan Dušek, Aramaic and Hebrew Inscription from Mt. Gerizim and Samaria between Antiochus III and Antiochus IV Epiphanes (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Jan Dušek, “Aramaic in the Persian Period,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 2 (2013): 243–64 (256); Joseph A. Fitzmyer et al., eds., A Manual of Palestinian Aramaic Texts (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1978); Rocío Da Riva, The Neo-Babylonian Royal Inscriptions (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2008), 89–91; Holger Gzella, “New Light on Linguistic Diversity in PreAchaemenid Aramaic: Wandering Arameans or Language Spread?” in Berlejung et al., Wandering Arameans, 19–33. 95 Izchak Magen, Mount Gerizim Excavations (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2004–2008), 2:117, 148, 160–74. 96 Magen, Mount Gerizim, 1:10–12; 2:151–169; Gary N. Knoppers, Jews and Samaritans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 120–25. For an overview of Cyrus’s policy and the problems concerning the interpretation of the extant sources, see Briant, From Cyrus, 46–48; Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Israel in the Persian Period (Atlanta: SBL, 2011), 1–118; Oded Lipschits, “Achaemenid Imperial Policy, Settlement Process in Palestine, and the Status of Jerusalem in the Middle of the Fifth Century B.C.E.,” in Judah and the Judaeans in the Persian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits, Gary N. Knoppers et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 19–52; David Vanderhooft, “Cyrus II, Liberator or Conqueror? Ancient Historiography Concerning Cyrus of Babylon,” in Lipschits, Knoppers et al., Judah and the Judaeans in the Persian Period, 351–72; Ian D. Wilson, “Yahweh’s Anointed: Cyrus, Deuteronomy’s Law of the King, and Yehudite Identity,” in Political Memory in and after the Persian

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the Persian policy in favor of the re-building of local cults not exclusively to Jerusalem, as the narrative of Ezra/Nehemiah purports, but also to Mt. Gerizim.97 This interpretation certainly disqualifies Josephus’s chronology for the building of the Gerizim temple to the time of Alexander the Great,98 but not necessarily his general narrative (Ant. 11.302–12, 321–25). In a very elaborate story, Josephus narrates that Sanballat, the governor of the Persian province of Samaria, gave his daughter Nikaso in marriage to Manasseh, the brother of the Jerusalem High Priest, to whom he offered, with Darius III’s permission, the High Priesthood at Mt. Gerizim. The deal was solidified when Sanballat approached Alexander the Great upon his arrival in Palestine (Ant. 11.292–324). This story sounds like an overdevelopment of a passage in Neh 13:28, which briefly mentions the expulsion of Joiada, a grandson of the High Priest Eliashib, because of his marriage to the daughter of Sanballat.99 Notoriously, these two passages opened the gate for the discussion of the identity or identities of the Sanballats in question, the one in Josephus living at the time of Darius III and Alexander the Great, and the one in Nehemiah living at the time of Darius II. The discovery of the 4th century BCE Wadi Daliyeh papyri, read together with those from Elephantine, have now clarified that the only historical Sanballat was the one known from Nehemiah’s narrative, at the time of Darius II at the end of the 5th century BCE.100 Based on this set of evidence, the tradition of Nehemiah does retain its overall credibility. It is this story that Josephus apparently recrafts.

Empire, ed. Jason M. Silverman and Caroline Waerzeggers, ANEM 13 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 325–61. 97 Great emphasis on the finds of this excavation and the role that the sanctuary of Mt. Gerizim can now play in the studies on ancient Palestine is in Ingrid Hjelm, Jerusalem’s Rise to Sovereignty (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 212–15; see also Reinhard Pummer, The Samaritans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 74–76. 98 On Josephus and Mt. Gerizim, see Hans G. Kippenberg, Garizim und Synagoge (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971), 48–59; Pummer, Samaritans in Flavius Josephus, 103–55; Pummer, Samaritans, 80–81. 99 Pummer, Samaritans in Flavius Josephus, 104–19 with sources and comments on Josephus’s chronology; Magnar Kartveit, The Origin of the Samaritans (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 90–96 reads this episode historiographically as one of the three stories Josephus submits for the origins of the Samaritans. In the biblical narrative, this episode must be contextualized within the feud between Nehemiah and Sanballat over the building of the temple in Jerusalem and within the prohibition for the returnees to intermarry with the people of the land (Neh 13:23–31), a problem with which Ezra had to deal as well (9–10). 100 Dušek, Les manuscrits arameens, 546–47 (overview of the Sanballat discussion, 517– 28), has replaced, among other studies, the very influential thesis of papponymy of Frank Moore Cross, “Aspects of Samaritan and Jewish History in Late Persian and Hellenistic Times,” HTR 59 (1966): 201–11.

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This story, even if it is read within the framework of Nehemiah or of Josephus’s anti-Samaritan bias, indicates that the temple of Mt. Gerizim, from the time of its foundation in the 5th century BCE, was in the care of a member of the Jerusalem Zadokite family.101 The archaeological evidence of burnt offerings, combined with the tradition on the Zadokite priest, confirms that Mt. Gerizim had full cultic operations.102 However, Mt. Gerizim was probably depending on Jerusalem, similarly to the temple of Elephantine; the Yahwistic colonists of Elephantine do not address any religious authorities on Mt. Gerizim in their petition to rebuild their temple.103 The High Priest of Jerusalem seems to be the only religious authority in the 5th century BCE. The lack of images from Mt. Gerizim excavations strongly suggests that its Yahwistic cult was aniconic. Aniconism104 was an aspect of religious sensibility and / or religious dogma that many polytheistic Levantine cults shared.105 While there is no scholarly agreement on YHWH iconic or aniconic aspects in pre-exilic times,106 consensus coalesces on Yahwistic aniconism after the 101 This is of course a scenario depicted on the basis of Jerusalemite sources and traditions. The Samaritans have developed their own tradition on their Aaronite line of High Priests based on a completely different set of events; Kippenberg, Garizim, 60–68. 102 The presence of the Zadokite priest could have been a conditio sine qua non for a Yahwistic burning sacrificial practice: Knoppers, Jews and Samaritians, 120–25. A development opposed to that of Mt. Gerizim can be read in the fate of the Yahwistic temple of Elephantine in the same period; cf. Jörg Frey, “Temple and Rival Temple – The Case of Elephanitine, Mt. Gerizim, and Leontopolis,” in Gemeinde ohne Tempel: Zur Substituierung und Transformation des Jerusalemer Tempels und seines Kults im Alten Testament, antiken Judentum und frühen Christentum, ed. Beate Ego et al. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 171–203. When the Elephantine colonists received permission from the Persian authorities to rebuild their temple, burnt offering was denied to them. A good reason for that could be that there was no Zadokite priest at Elephantine, where the temple personnel was appointed from among the members of the community; Rohrmoser, Götter, 213–23 and Granerød, Dimensions, 56, 144–50. 103 Porten, Elephantine Papyri, B19, dated Nov. 25, 407 BCE. 104 See Brian R. Doak, Phoenician Aniconism, ABS 21 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 36–40 for a brief survey of the history of aniconism in modern scholarship and on the difficulties to define it. In the present article, “aniconism” is defined as the lack of figurative representation of god; cultic objects that may recall the presence of the divine are not included in this simple (and probably simplistic) definition. 105 Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in its Ancient Near Eastern Context (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1995) is the main study on this subject, which the author reiterated in “Israelite Aniconism: Developments and Origins,” in The Image and the Book, ed. Karel van der Toorn (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 193– 98: West Semitic religions shared aniconism from the Late Bronze Age; discussion about the evidence from Phoenicia is in Doak, Phoenician Aniconism. 106 Mettinger, No Graven Image?, believes that Yahwism has never been iconic; Brian B. Schmidt, “The Aniconic Tradition: on Reading Images and Viewing Texts,” in The Triumph of Elohim, 75–105, on the ambiguity of the scriptural prohibition of divine representation, which probably forbade only anthropomorphic iconography. See Karel van der Toorn, The

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Babylonian exile.107 This conclusion can be extended to the Yahwism of Mt. Gerizim, on the ground that its cult was an off-shoot of the post-Babylonian cult in Jerusalem, as observed above.108 No images of any kind have been found in any archaeological strata at Mt. Gerizim. That is to say that Ptolemy could not have deported any of them from there – so, what did he deport, then? Answering this question first requires asking how a Zadokite priest did administer an aniconic Yahwistic cult at Mt. Gerizim. For Jerusalem, the biblical narrative of Ezra emphasizes the implementation of the Law of Moses for the operation of the Second Temple.109 If the sacrificial cult of Mt. Gerizim was an off-shoot of the one in Jerusalem, similarly to Jerusalem, the priest must have had some scriptural guidance in order to perform the cult correctly. Within this framework, conceivably, Yahwistic scriptures were present on Mt. Gerizim,110 whether they arrived together with the Zadokite priest from Jerusalem, or whether scrolls were there from the pre-exilic time.111 That is the possible description of the cult that Ptolemy may have found on Mt. Gerizim at the end of the 4th century BCE: a sacred location, a sacrificial cult, a priest, and scriptural scrolls – no images. Yahweh could not have had any physical representation, but he could have been signified by his word, which acquired a physical quality in the scriptural scrolls. These, the scrolls, are the only item that Ptolemy could have taken from Mt. Gerizim in 311 BCE, the closest representation of god that an aniconic Yahwistic cult could allow.112

Image and the Book, for essays in favor or against pre-exilic aniconism. Other studies are: Corinne Bonnet and Herbert Niehr, La religion des Phéniciens et des Araméens dans the contexte de l’Ancien Testament (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2014), 365–72; Herbert Niehr, “In Search of YHWH’S Cult Statue in the First Temple,” in van der Toorn, The Image and the Book, 74–79; William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 160–67; Bob Becking, The Fall of Samaria (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 28–31; Christoph Uehlinger, “Anthropomorphic Cult Statuary in Iron Age Palestine and the Search for Yahweh’s Cult Images,” in van der Toorn, The Image and the Book, 100–51; Bob Becking, “Assyrian Evidence for Iconic Polytheism in Ancient Israel?” in van der Toorn, The Image and the Book, 157–72, esp. 167 for Samaritan cults. 107 Van der Toorn, The Image and the Book, passim. 108 The important studies on the Samaritans by Hjelm, Jerusalem’s Rise, and Knoppers, Jews and Samaritans, all discuss this hypothesis on the basis of the combination of pre-exilic biblical account in Joshua and Samaritan late antique and medieval texts. 109 For discussion on the legitimacy of the Mosaic laws within the administrative organization of the Persian Trans-Euphrates province, of which both Judaea and Samaria were part, see James W. Watts, ed., Persia and Torah (Atlanta: SBL, 2001). 110 I refrain at this stage from talking about the Pentateuch. Indeed it is not clear which scrolls were available in the 5th century BCE. 111 See n108 for studies entertaining this hypothesis. 112 Karel van der Toorn, “The Iconic Book: analogies between the Babylonian Cult of Images and the Veneration of the Torah,” in idem, The Image and the Book, 229–48.

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These scrolls containing the Yahwistic scriptures are what the Egyptian scribes of the Satrap stela perceived, rationalized, and lexicalized as nTr, “god.”

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The 2nd century BCE was an eventful period for Egypt and the Levant. In Egypt, the century opened with a new king on the throne, Ptolemy V (reigned 204–180 BCE), who, because of his young age and orphan status, became a bone of contention for a series of courtiers who desired to rule the country in his name. Such a situation did not fare well, especially externally, when the defeat in the Fifth Syrian War in 196 BCE carried the loss of the extra-Egyptian territories in the Levant to the Seleucid empire of Antiochus III.113 The almost contemporaneous deaths of Antiochus III in Syria (187 BCE) and of Ptolemy V in Egypt (180 BCE) carried important consequences. In Syria, problems surfaced during the brief reign of Seleucus IV, but precipitated with Antiochus IV, who inherited a penniless empire which would struggle for years to fulfill the financial obligations that the Roman Empire had imposed on his father at the signing of the peace of Apamea in 188 BCE.114 In Egypt, the child-king Ptolemy VI had a co-regent mother, Cleopatra I, who was both an asset and a liability – an asset, because Cleopatra could secure the throne for her child-son without incurring in court feuds; a liability, because of the dowry she had carried to Egypt at the time of her marriage. Indeed, Cleopatra was the daughter of Antiochus III of Syria, who gave her in marriage to Ptolemy V of Egypt just one year after the latter had lost the Levant to the former at the end of the Fifth Syrian War. As a dowry to the bride, Antiochus relinquished the revenues of those very territories he had just earned militarily, yet maintaining his political sovereignty over them: Judaea, Samaria, Coele-Syria, and Phoenicia (Josephus, Ant. 12.154).115 As daughter of Antiochus III, Cleopatra was therefore also the sister of the newly enthroned Antiochus IV, whose internal financial problems compelled him to reject the

For a historical outline of this period, which included also the loss of control of parts of Egypt, see Hölbl, History, 134–59; Huss, Ägypten, 473–92, 506–13. 114 For the Syrian War and the peace of Apamea, see Erich S. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (Berkely: University of California Press 1984), 620–44. For Seleucus IV’s and Antiochus IV’s financial problem, as reflected on their relation with the temple of Jerusalem, see Sylvie Honigman, Tales of Hight Priests and Taxes (Oakland: University of California Press, 2014). 115 Kaye Noah and Ory Amitay, “Kleopatra’s Dowry: Taxation and Sovereignty between Hellenistic Kingdoms,” Historia 64 (2015): 131–55.

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legitimacy of Cleopatra’s dowry agreement, to seize the Levant’s revenue, and eventually in 169 and 168 BCE to invade Egypt.116 2.1 Antiochus III and the Yahwistic Cultic Centers Upon his victory of the Fifth Syrian War against Ptolemy V in 196, Antiochus III issued a decree outlining a charter for the city of Jerusalem and its temple, including architectural restoration and privileges for its elites. Josephus provides a generous description of this document (Ant. 12.137–44), on which we will not linger here.117 The archaeological excavation at Mt. Gerizim shows that Jerusalem was not the only beneficiary of the king’s euergetic attention. Archaeological diagnostics identify a new architectural phase for Mt. Gerizim, with distinctive evidence of monumental construction that can be dated to the time of Antiochus III.118 An abundant corpus of dedicatory inscriptions stands out among the finds in and around the temple. Among them are inscriptions carved on ashlars that were once a part of the main sacred precinct. The inscriptions appear in Neo-Hebrew, proto-Jewish, and lapidary Aramaic scripts and are dedications to Adonai or Yahweh, the choice of the name depending on the script and language of the texts.119 There is evidence that shows that Mt. Gerizim changed status at the beginning of the 2nd century BCE120 and that it gained administrative independence from Jerusalem. In two inscriptions from Delos, paleographically dated to the 2nd Century BCE, Yahwistic adepts sent tributes to Mt. Gerizim (SEG 32.809– 810).121 Furthermore, Josephus hints at the Samaritans’ assertiveness in this Honigman, Tales, 342–44, with references; for a general narrative, Hölbl, History, 143–48; Huss, Ägypten, 537–59 (occasionally, Huss’s chronology can be questioned). 117 Sartre, D’Alexandre, 310–12. The very influential Frank Moore Cross, “Simon the Righteous,” in Jewish Studies in Memory of Israel Abraham, ed. George A. Kohut (New York: Press of the Jewish Institute of Religion, 1927), 348–64 identifies the Simon praised by Ben Sira 50:1–4 as Simon II “the Just,” who restored and embellished Jerusalem in accordance with the decree of Antiochus III; contra, the chronological table of James C. VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), 137–57, 491–93, which does not specifically signal any High Priest contemporary to Antiochus III, unless some flexibility be allowed for Simon II and Onias III, whose dates are uncertain. 118 Magen, Mount Gerizim, 2:103–8, 118–19, 122–30, 175–78; 1:6–10. 119 None of the inscriptions have been found in situ and the dating is paleographic; Dušek, Aramaic Inscriptions, 59–62 dates these inscription to the Seleucid period; Kartveit, Origin, 209–16 does not discuss any date. 120 On Mt. Gerizim’s new status, see Dušek, Aramaic Inscriptions, 84. 121 Discussion on chronology in Philippe Bruneau, “Les Israélites de Délos et la juiverie délienne,” BCH 106 (1982): 465–504, and Dušek, Aramaic Inscriptions, 75–79; Pummer, Samaritans in Flavius Josephus, 16–17; Magnar Kartveit, “Samaritan Self-Consciousness in the First Half of the Second Century B.C.E. in Light of the Inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim and Delos,” JSJ 25 (2014): 449–70 limits his comments to Samaritan identity.

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period, when he says that, at the time of the High Priest Onias III, the Samaritans and Jerusalem fought over land and slaves (Ant. 12.156). This happened when Ptolemy V had fiscal jurisdiction over the Levant, a situation that caused serious problems to the High Priest of Jerusalem, who acted as tax collector on behalf of the Egyptian king, as Josephus narrates.122 It may well be, as in fact this article is asserting, that Mt. Gerizim, now administratively independent from Jerusalem, was trying to extend or reclaim the control of lands and assets which could secure revenues for the temple, not only to administer a sacrificial cult (hence the tribute from Delos), but also to face the fiscal pressure imposed by the Egyptian king (hence the seizing of land and slaves). 2.2 Palestinian Politics Arrives in Egypt 2.2.1 The First Problem: The Tribute It is in this period that Levantine politics, specifically the friction between the temple of Jerusalem and that of Mt. Gerizim, arrived in Egypt. Josephus reports of a quarrel, within the Yahwistic community of Alexandria, about where to send the contribution for the sacrifices, whether to Jerusalem or to Mt. Gerizim (Ant. 12.10). Josephus does not clarify when this happened, but the 2nd century BCE evidence from the Delos inscriptions offers a solid parallel for the reading of this episode, which should be set chronologically at the same time.

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2.2.2 The Second Problem: The Temples In another passage, which many consider dramatically flawed, if not altogether legendary,123 Josephus says that at the time of Ptolemy VI, the Judaeans and Samaritans of Alexandria asked the king to sit in arbitration about the sacrality of the temple – whether the one in Jerusalem or the one on Mt. Gerizim was sacred. A hearing was organized, with king and retinue set to listen to the arguments of the rhetoricians speaking on behalf of each group. Eventually, however, only the rhetorician of the Judaeans was allowed to speak, which he did so convincingly that the rhetoricians of the Samaritans were not allowed to speak and were put to death (Ant. 13.74–79).124 Josephus overelaborates on this event, which he presents in the form of the well-known folkloric tale of the king’s wise judgment, known in the Yahwistic scriptures in the tale of the

122 Andrew Manson, “The Jewish High Priesthood for Sale: Farming out Temples in the Hellenistic Near East,” JJS 67 (2016): 15–35. 123 So Pummer, Samaritans, 61. 124 A complete commentary on this passage is in Pummer, Samaritans in Flavius Josephus, 187–95.

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Judgment of Solomon.125 However, the core of the story he reports is not fictional, and is given here historical legitimacy. 2.2.3 The Players Josephus defines the people who quarreled before the king in different ways; he introduces them as “the Judaeans and Samaritans in Alexandria” (Ant. 13.74: τοὺς Ἰουδαὶους καὶ Σαμαρεῖς), but later he specifies that the rhetorician in charge of upholding the argument in favor of the temple of Jerusalem spoke on behalf of the Judaeans and the Jerusalemites (Ant. 13.75: ὑπὲρ τῶν Ἱεροσολυμιτῶν καὶ Ἰουδαιῶν). More interestingly, he later on speaks of οἵ ἐν Ἀλεξανδρεὶα τυγχάνοντες Ἰουδαὶοι – and I am focusing here on the verb τυγχάνω. In general, Josephus prefers to use the verb κατοικέω and cognate vocabulary (κάτοικοι, κατοικούντες) for people who live permanently in a settled location. If this logic applies also to the present passage, those Judaeans who τυγχάνοντες, but not κατοικούντες, in Alexandria, were Judaeans who “happened to be in Alexandria,” according to the dictionary basic meaning of this verb – they were not residents but newcomers. So, the dispute did not originate necessarily among and between the Judaeans and Samaritans who resided in Alexandria, but it received an input from outside. 2.2.4 Chronology, Historical Background, and Textual Context

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Josephus only says that the dispute in Alexandria happened under the reign of Ptolemy VI, who reigned by himself only from 163 to 145 BCE. These are the years following the Sixth Syrian war, when Antiochus IV invaded Egypt twice between 169 and 168 BCE to claim control of the country, of the Roman intervention in Egypt by the agency of Popilius Laenas on behalf of Ptolemy VI, and of the internecine fight for power within the royal family, between Ptolemy VI and his two siblings Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra II.126 The textual context narrows the range of chronological possibilities to the 150s BCE. In fact, in the narrative of Ant. 13, Josephus locates this passage soon after the summary of the war between Alexander Balas and Demetrius I

Hermann Gunkel, The Folktale in the Old Testament (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press and Almond Press, 1987), 155–56; Eli Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 29–30; classifications in Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson, The Types of Folktale (Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961), #926; Stith Thompson, Motifs-index of Folk-literature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955–58), #J1170. 126 Ptolemy reigned between 175–168 and 164–145 BCE, sharing the crown for most of this time with his siblings Ptomely VIII and Cleopatra II, but only from 163–145 BCE by himself; Hölbl, History, 143–52, 181–92, and Huss, Ägypten, 537–625.

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in Coele-Syria in 159–152 BCE,127 and the story of the foundation of Onias’s temple at Leontopolis by Ptolemaic grant, generally set in the 150s BCE.128 In his narrative of Coele-Syrian history of the 150s BCE, Josephus reports of Seleucid Demetrius I’s efforts to enroll the support of the Judaeans and Jerusalemites through grants to Jonathan Maccabaeus against Alexander Balas’s similar attempts. Josephus implies that Jonathan rejected Balas’s but accepted Demetrius’s offer, which included part of Samaria to be added to Judaea, so that the entire territory would be subject to Jewish ancestral laws and worship only in Jerusalem.129 Back to the Alexandrian judgment: Josephus says that the Judaean “newcomers” were afraid that someone might bring the temple of Jerusalem to an end. Why such a concern? Demetrius I, according to Josephus, had sanctioned the uniqueness of the Jerusalem temple, and even 1 Macc 10, which is at odds with Josephus’s narrative, upholds the sanctity of Jerusalem, by having Balas appoint Jonathan High Priest. Whichever story one reads, the temple of Jerusalem was not in danger. However, from the point of view of the concerned Jerusalemites, the period 162–152 BCE could be significant. In 162 BCE Antiochus V appointed Alcimus High Priest in Jerusalem, the first non-Zadokite to hold the office, who, in 159 BCE, ordered the demolition of the inner courts of the temple complex (1 Macc 9:54) and died soon thereafter, leaving the temple without a High Priest until Johathan’s appointment in 152 BCE. For several years, between 159 and 152 BCE, the cultic function of Jerusalem was in jeopardy and could have been a source of concern for the Jerusalemites who were now in Alexandria. 2.2.5 The Role of Ptolemy

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Questions can be raised about the judicial role of the king in this story and the historicity of this passage. Since the end of the Fifth Syrian War had brought Egypt’s political control of Coele-Syria to an end, Ptolemy VI’s judgment could sound completely fictitious. However, from Ptolemy VI’s standpoint, this was probably not the case because Ptolemy VI kept claiming his authority on the fiscal jurisdiction of that region on the basis of his mother Cleopatra’s 127 With Jonathan’s appointment to the High Priesthood as its outcome. For an overview of this period, see Kay Ehling, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der späten Seleukiden (164– 63 v. Chr.) (Stuttgart: Steiner 2008), 122–64; Sartre, D’Alexandre, 352–66 128 I prefer to remain vague on this point for the moment. Discussion of the chronology of these events can be found in Erich S. Gruen, “The Origin and Objectives of Onias’ Temple,” SCI 16 (1997): 47–70 and Livia Capponi, Il Tempio di Leontopoli in Egitto (Pavia: ETS, 2007), 39–67. 129 For a historiographical interpretation of this passage, see Seth Schwartz, “The ‘Judaism’ of Samaria and Galilee in Josephus’s Version of the Letter of Demetrius to Jonathan (“Antiquities” 13.48–57),” HThR 83 (1989): 377–91.

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dowry. In an attempt to reassert his power back in Coele-Syria, Ptolemy VI supported the Maccabeans against Antiochus IV in the 160s BCE,130 and between 150 and 147 BCE he politically juggled the marriage of his daughter between Alexander Balas and Demetrius II for the Syrian throne, and eventually militarily he invaded Syria.131 Therefore, the fact that he was called to judge the sanctity of the Yahwistic temples was an appeal to the role that Ptolemy VI claimed. Whoever asked him to sit in that judgment was interested in confirming him in that role. 2.2.6 Who Are These People?

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Who could have had such an interest? There is evidence in the 150s BCE of a Yahwistic group from Jerusalem in Alexandria who could fit that description: Onias IV and his retinue. Josephus’s story about Onias’s arrival in Alexandria is limited to the agreement he reached with Ptolemy VI, who granted him permission to build a Yahwistic temple at Leontopolis (Josephus, Ant. 13.65–71; B.J. 7.427–30).132 However, there is reason to believe the influence he exerted on the king had further repercussions in Egyptian internal and external politics. At the start of the 2nd century BCE, when Antiochus III granted his daughter Cleopatra the fiscal jurisdiction of Coele-Syria as dowry and made Mt. Gerizim independent from Jerusalem, Onias III, father of the Onias VI who fled to Alexandria, was the Jerusalem High Priest. As such, he retained the function of Ptolemaic tax agent, which his family had exercised during the Egyptian rule of the region. However, at some point he could no longer guarantee the tax collection. Josephus is completely vague on this detail (Ant. 12.154–59). Nevertheless, it is clear that the ambiguity of the situation, with the political power in Seleucid hands but the fiscal one in Ptolemaic ones, could not have made Onias’s job easy. The new independent status of Mt. Gerizim is certainly a major problem. Hardly could Onias have collected the taxes from Samaria, now that the Samaritans were fighting the Judaeans for land and slaves. Indeed, Joseph Tobias,133 the new Ptolemaic tax collector to whom Onias III lost his job, as his first move went to visit the Samaritans (Josephus, Ant. 12.168), with whom he 130 According to numismatic evidence: Catharine Lorber, “The Circulation of Ptolemaic Silver Coins in Seleucid Coele-syria and Phoenicia: Implications for the History of Judah,” paper presented at the 9th Enoch-Nangeroni Seminar, The Period of the Middle Maccabees: From the Death of Judas through the Reign of John Hyrcanus (ca. 160–104 BCE), Milan June 11–15, 2018. 131 Hölbl, History, 192–93; Huss, Ägypten, 583–87. 132 On this, see Gruen, “Origin,” and Capponi, Tempio. 133 Josephus’s confusing chronology is redressed in Daniel R. Schwartz, “Josephus’ Tobiads: Back to the Second Century,” in Jews in the Greco-Roman World, ed. Martin Goodman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 47–61; so also Lorber, “Circulation.” On the Tobiads, see Sartre, D’Alexandre, 324–32.

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had traditionally good family connections. If dots are to be connected beyond Josephus’s lack of clarity and anti-Samaritan bias, the scenario might reveal that Onias III was unable to collect the taxes from Mt. Gerizim, while Joseph Tobias was. The fact that the latter could keep his job until his death supports such a scenario. Onias IV arrived in Egypt in the 150s BCE, ostensibly looking for a safe haven, after his father had been ostracized from the High Priesthood and from Jerusalem and had died in exile. The royal grant he received to build the temple of Leontopolis speaks of the favor he found in Egypt. However, Ptolemy VI’s arbitration about the temples, and his political and military action in CoeleSyria in that period, sketch a broader scenario, one of converging interests and mutual alliances between Onias IV and Ptolemy VI. Ptolemy wanted to reacquire Coele-Syria, as his foreign and marriage diplomacy combined with military policy certainly confirms. But he could not do that alone and needed a ready ally from the region. With the Seleucids entering into negotiations with the Maccabeans, Ptolemy VI lost once again contact with Coele-Syria. But the Oniads were now in Alexandria. They had been loyal functionaries of Ptolemy 's family since the 3rd century BCE, and were the only notables from Coele-Syria Ptolemy could count on. He could not have counted on Mt. Gerizim for that. When Egypt was still ruling Coele-Syria, Mt. Gerizim was dependent on Jerusalem and the Ptolemies could have had hardly any direct contact with its hierarchy. Mt. Gerizim earned its administrative independence through Seleucid grant, a move that had put it on a collision course with Jerusalem. Politically, Ptolemy needed Onias, who was now in Alexandria at his service. For Ptolemy, determining the sanctity of the temple of Jerusalem over that of Mt. Gerizim meant to reconnect with the Zadokite hierarchy and virtually re-establish the administrative structure that his ancestors had used to collect the revenues from Coele-Syria, which he would need, should he regain its control. By the same token, Onias IV could have never gone alone back to Jerusalem to reclaim the inheritance of his family and father. He needed Ptolemy VI’s concrete help and outspoken support of Jerusalem, which he received with Ptolemy’s judgement. Onias could not allow the king to support Mt. Gerizim’s claim of equal legitimacy with, if not of altogether supremacy over, Jerusalem, in the 150s BCE, when the temple had no Zadokite High Priest or no priest at all, and the cult was in jeopardy. Onias had all the interest to steer Ptolemy towards Jerusalem and against Mt. Gerizim, which he did successfully. For Onias, determining the sanctity of the temple of Jerusalem over that of Mt. Gerizim meant a hope to return to Jerusalem and take back his family inheritance and High Priest status.

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3. The Alexandrian Yahwistic Scriptures In the 2nd century BCE, the Alexandrian Yahwists had their own scriptures: the scrolls from Mt. Gerizim, which Ptolemy took in 311 BCE,134 and which were translated into Greek already in the 3rd century.135 In the 2nd century BCE, in the same period when the Oniads arrived in Egypt and exerted a major influence on the life of the Alexandrian Yahwistic community, Ps.-Aristeas wrote his Letter, a text that complicates our understanding of the Alexandrian scriptures. This text, dated between 160s and 140s BCE,136 is commonly read as a fictional chronicle of the translation of the Law of the Judaeans into Greek. 137 This article proposes a political reading of the Letter of Aristeas,138 casting it against the background of the division between Samaritans and Judaeans in Alexandria in the 2nd century BCE. As a consequence, the fictional Letter of Aristeas acquires a stronger historical value, and becomes the most important indirect evidence of the politicization of the Yahwistic diaspora in Egypt.

Lack of evidence does not encourage the suggestion that other texts arrived in Egypt from Judaea at later times. Ptolemy I’s ruthless assault on Jerusalem in 301 BCE did not involve the temple, and could not have taken anything from there: Gambetti, “Origins.” Whether individual immigrants brought to Egypt their own scrolls cannot be completely excluded, since it is evident from the Qumran library that, already from the 3rd century BCE, scripture scrolls circulated outside of temple control. However, evidence to that effect is absent as well. The same can be said for the colonists from Elephantine who came to Alexandria at the time of the foundation of the city; see n4 above. 135 John A. L. Lee, A Lexical Study of the Septuagint Version of the Pentateuch (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983); Hayeon Kim, “Multiple Authorship of the Septuagint Pentateuch” (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 2006); Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2012), 131 with recent scholarship. 136 Benjamin G. Wright, The Letter of Aristeas (Berlin: de Gruyter 2015), 21–30. 137 For Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews Amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2002), 69 the Letter is historical fiction; see idem, “The Letter of Aristeas and the Cultural Contexts of the Septuagint,” in Die Septuaginta - Texte, Kontexte, Lebenswelten, ed. Martin Karrer and Wolfgang Kraus (Tübingen: Mohr Seibeck, 2008), 134–56; similar views in Wright, Letter, passim, with references to previous studies. Sylvie Honigman, The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (London: Routledge, 2003), 38–41 and passim, is the most followed interpretation of the Letter as foundational myth of the Greek Pentateuch. The latest contribution to this reading is in L. Michael White and G. Anthony Keddie, eds., Jewish Fictional Letters from Hellenistic Egypt (Atlanta: SBL 2018), who consider the Letter of Aristeas as the foundational example of a fictional genre. For Tessa Rajak, Translation and Survival (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009), 24–91 the Letter of Aristeas preserves a historical core, yet framed through a series of literary paradigms; on this see below. 138 The latest political interpretation is Oswyn Murray, “Aristeas and Ptolemaic Kingship,” JTHS 18 (1967): 337–71, whose thesis is however not accepted here.

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3.1 Evidence of the Samaritan Text in the Letter of Aristeas – The Language The Letter of Aristeas is very clear about the fact that the fundamental problem of the books of the Law of the Judaeans is the master text. Thus Demetrius the librarian addresses the king: 30. τοῦ τῶν Ἰουδαίων βιβλία ... ἀπολείπει. τυγχάνει γὰρ Ἑβραϊκοῖς γράμμασι καὶ φωνῆι λεγόμενα, ἀμελέστερον δὲ, καὶ οὐχ ὡς ὑπάρχει, σεσήμανται, καθὼς ὑπὸ τῶν εἰδότων προσαναφέρεται. ... 31. δέον δὲ ἐστι καὶ ταῦθ᾽ ὑπάρχειν παρὰ σοι διακριβωμένα, κτλ. The scrolls of the Law of the Judaeans ... are missing (from the library). For they are written in Hebrew letters and language, and their meaning is negligently expressed and not as it is appropriate, as those who know report. It is then necessary that you bring to the utmost perfection also these scrolls, etc.139

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There seems to be two reasons for the scrolls of the Law of the Judaeans not to be catalogued in the library. The first one, which lies behind the explicative γὰρ, is that they are not in Greek. The second reason is fully expressed: they are written in the Hebrew letters and language. This is an important clue to the nature of the Alexandrian scrolls. A contemporary of Ps.-Aristeas, the 2nd century BCE epic poet Theodotus uses “Hebrew” for the Yahwists of Shechem (frag. 2; 4).140 If the evidence of Theodotus is extended to the Letter of Aristeas, then the Hebrew language and characters are the language and scripts of the Samaritans. Current linguistic and paleographic research confirms this reading. In the post-exilic period, the use of Hebrew script remained current in Samaria, while Judaea transitioned to a form of Aramaic script, which ancients called Judaean script.141 The Letter 139 Note on the translation: τυγχάνει γὰρ = explicative γὰρ, giving the reason why the books are missing; ἀμελέστερον δὲ = copulative δὲ, as in Moses Hadas, ed., Aristeas to Philocrates (New York: Harper, 1951), 111; André Pelletier, ed., Lettre d’Aristé à Philocrate (Paris: Cerf, 1962), 119, and Francesca Calabi, ed., Lettera di Aristea a Filocrate (Milano: Rizzoli 2002), 61; not as an adversative as in Wright, Letter, 142. 140 Thomas Kuhn, ed., Die jüdisch-hellenistischen Epiker Theodot und Philon (Göttingen: Ruprecht, 2012), 14–18; Francis Fallon, “Theodotus,” in The Old Testament Pseudoepigrapha, ed. James C. Charlesworth (New Heaven: Yale University Press, 1983), 2:790– 92; Michael Daise, “Samaritans, Seleucids, and the Epic of Theodotus,” JSP 17 (1998): 25– 51 argues that this poem was probably composed in a Samaritan cultural environment. It is unnecessary here to discuss Theodotus’s ethnic identity, for which see the works just mentioned and John J. Collins, “The Epic of Theodotus and the Hellenism of the Hasmoneans,” HThR 73 (1980): 91–104; Doron Mendels, The Land of Israel as a Political Concept in Hasmonean Literature (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987), 107–16. 141 For the Judaean script, see Joseph Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet (Leiden: Brill, 1982), 112–24; Joseph Naveh, “Hebrew Texts in Aramaic Script in the Persian Period?” BASOR 203 (1971): 27–32; for a general assessment, see Ada Yardeni, The Book of Hebrew Script (Jerusalem: Carta, 1997), 23–45. Research cannot confirm the claim in Talmud b. Sanh. 21b–22aα, that the Torah of Ezra was given in Assyrian script and Aramaic language, which later was translated back into Hebrew language and Assyrian characters for Israel, but remained in Hebrew characters and Aramaic language for the Samaritans; for comments on

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of Aristeas says from the start that the Alexandrian text was from Samaria and not from Judaea. The language/script problem goes beyond the technicality of translating the scrolls, and extends to the fact that their meaning is quite wrong (ἀμελέστερον ... σεσήμανται). The translation of the verb σεσήμανται is crucial in this case. It is intended here in the sense of “meaning carelessly conveyed because of the language and character in which the books are written,”142 and it refers to the original language, not to the Greek translation.143 Royal patronage is therefore required to correct the problem and to perfect the text to the highest degree (διακριβωμένα). The king requests the High Priest of Jerusalem to send experts who would translate the Hebrew script and language into Greek (Let. Aris. 38: μεθερμηνεθῆναι γράμμασι Ἑλληνικοῖς ἐκ τῶν παρ᾽ ὑμων λεγόμενων Ἑβραϊκοῖς γραμμάτων). The High Priest’s reply, however, goes beyond the king’s request. He specifies that he is sending experts, but that they will bring with them the scrolls of the Law. Indeed, at their arrival in Alexandria, the king stares in awe at these scrolls, written in golden Judaean letters (Let. Aris. 176: ἡ νομοθεσία γεγραμμένη χρυσογραφίᾳ τοῖς Ἰουδαϊκοῖς γράμμασι). Ps.-Aristeas clearly acknowledges the contrast between the Hebrew script of the Alexandrian text and Judaean script of the Jerusalem text. 3.2 The Process

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The High Priest of Jerusalem lays out a very precise agenda for the experts whom he sends to Alexandria: they will transcribe the Judaean scrolls (Let. Aris. 45: ἡ τοῦ ἁγίου νόμου μεταγραφή; 46: οὕς καὶ ἀποστείλαμεν ἔχοντας τὸν νὀμον; ... ὡς ἄν ἡ μεταγραφή γένεται τῶν βιβλιῶν). According to LSJ, for the entire classical and Hellenistic period, μεταγράφω is used specifically for transcribing official records or laws, including amending them. Therefore, μεταγραφή does not mean translations.144 Mεταγραφή / μεταγράφω are therefore two terms chosen by Ps.-Aristeas to identify a very specific work to do prior to the ἑρμήνεια, the translation into Greek.145 Mεταγραφή and ἑρμήνεια are already mentioned as separate phases in Let. Aris. 15, when the omniscient this passage, see Mark Leuchter, The Levites and the Boundaries of Israelite Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 222–25. 142 I read σεσήμανται as relating to the meaning of the text (LSJ, s.v. σημαίνω, A, III, 3), and not just to inaccurate and careless writing, as in Wright, Letter, 142; Pelletier, Lettre, 121; Hadas, Aristeas, 111; Calabi, Lettera, 61. 143 As claimed in Maren Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 33–37 and all previous commentators. 144 The meaning ‘to translate’ is known only from later Roman times with a 2nd century CE use of Lucian. 145 Niehoff, Exegesis, 32 acknowledges the separate meaning of μεταγραφή and ἑρμήνεια but reads them within the context of the Greek translation; Honigman, Septuagint, 45–49 thinks that the Letter of Aristeas uses μεταγραφή and ἑρμήνεια ambiguously.

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narrator has Aristeas ask the king to make the Laws of the Judaeans available by transcribing and translating them (οὐ μόνον μεταγράψαι ..., ἀλλὰ καὶ διερμηνεῦσαι). The Letter of Aristeas treats the two phases separately. It follows the process of transcription closely, and mentions the translation only at the end. 3.3 Transcription The report of the completion of the transcription in seventy-two days is related in Let. Aris. 307: ἐν ἡμέραις ἐβδομήκοντα δυσὶ τελειωθῆναι τὰ τῆς μεταγραφῆς

Let. Aris. 302–7 describes the process of transcription and the discussion among the experts: οἱ δὲ ἐπετέλουν ἔκαστα σύμφωνα ποιοῦντες πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς ταῖς ἀντιβολαῖς

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they completed the work by reaching agreements (σύμφωνα) among themselves on the ἀντιβολαῖς.

Ἀντιβολή is not a very frequently attested word, and means either comparison or collation.146 Whichever meaning we may choose, it does not make sense if we imagine the μεταγραφή to be just a process of copying Judaean text, which would not require any comparison, let alone a collation. But if we consider the possibility that the μεταγραφή entails working on two texts, the Samaritan in Hebrew script and the Judaean in Judaean script, then the ἀντιβολή becomes relevant. If ἀντιβολή means comparison, it would entail for the experts reading both texts, making individual interpretive choices on their respective meanings, and comparing them among themselves in order to select the one reading that, according to their communal judgment, has to be included in the new transcribed text, eventually correcting the faulty meaning of the Alexandrian text in Hebrew characters. If ἀντιβολή means collation, would it entail a rearrangement of the content of the scrolls – of the Alexandrian scrolls in a fashion similar to the Judaean scrolls? In any case, the μεταγραφή produces a new Alexandrian text, the progress on which is promptly recorded by Demetrius at the end of each day (ἀναγραφή: Let. Aris. 307).147 The word ἀντιβολή retains in

146 LSJ, s.v.; Günther Zuntz, “Aristeas Studies II: Aristeas on the Translation of the Torah,” JSS 4 (1959): 109–26 (122), reads ἀντιβολή as collation within the context of the translation; David W. Gooding, “Aristeas and Septuagint Origins: A Review of Recent Studies,” VT 13 (1963): 357–79 (375), criticizes Zuntz for being, in his opinion, ambiguous between original manuscripts and translation; Wright, Letter, 434–34 follows Niehoff, Exegesis, 21 who prefers the reading“comparison” related to Greek translations. A different suggestion is offered by Honigman, Septuagint, 46–47, who mentions reading related to vocalization. 147 ἀναγραφή: LSJ, s.v.

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itself the entire philological and exegetical process applied in literary and intellectual circles in Alexandria at the time.148 3.4 The Translation Only after the completion of the transcription does Let. Aris. 308 mention the translation. There, Demetrius assembled the community to the place where also the translation had been completed: οὗ καὶ τὰ τῆς ἑρμηνείας ἐτελέσθη149

This adverbial καί implies that there was something also accomplished before the translation – the transcription of Let. Aris 307.

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3.5 The End of the Process The process is now complete, and the notion that the Alexandrian scrolls were inadequate (Let. Aris. 30–31), has been addressed. All the philological work of the Jerusalemite envoys, with their comparison and/or collation between the Alexandrian and the Jerusalemite texts, meant to complete the transcription into a new text, undoubtedly written in Judaean script, for the Alexandrian Yahwists, fulfilling the purpose of producing the most accurate text (Let. Aris. 31: διακριβωμένα [βιβλια]). However, two details are worthy of notice. The first one is the fact that those initial observations were not Demetrius’s or Aristeas’s desiderata, but came first from the evaluation of experts in Alexandria, the eidotes of Let. Aris. 30 (καθὼς ὑπὸ τῶν εἰδότων προσαναφέρεται) – who are these experts who disappear from the rest of the text? The second one relates to the use of this new text, because its translation into Greek makes it ready to be housed in the Alexandrian library and to be delivered to the Jewish politeuma of Alexandria. This double purpose of the entire process is already evidenced in the introductory parts of the Let. Aris. 1–30, but becomes clear through the Letter of Aristeas, where consistently the Alexandrian text, whether the original one or the new one, is referred to as a law and is treated as pertaining to the legal sphere of government. The words used to describe the process of textual revision, like τελειόω and τελείωσις of Let. Aris. 307–8 or μεταγραφή, are legal vocabulary. Indeed, the new text becomes the law of the Jewish politeuma of Alexandria (Let. Aris. 308–10). 148 Both Honigman, Septuagint; and Niehoff, Exegesis, work on the idea that Alexandrian philological methodologies were applied to the Alexandria text, but to its Greek translation. 149 The verb τελειόω, also in Let. Aris. 307 with the noun τελείωσις, is not a literary term, but a very specific one relating to the completion of a legal instrument (LSJ, s.v. b). LSJ, s.v. I b, with meaning “execute a legal instrument, make it valid by completing it” from papyri of the 1st and 2nd century CE.

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The mention of the politeuma is anachronistic. As an institution not attested historically before the 2nd century BCE,150 it is out of place in a narrative set in the 3rd century BCE. This detail, together with the mention of the eidotes of Let. Aris. 30, bring the discussion back to the historical level. 3.6 The Letter of Aristeas in the Historical Context of the 2nd Century BCE There is no reason to doubt that the Letter of Aristeas was written in the 2nd century BCE. Understanding its significance within the historical context of that period remains a problem.151 Samaritan Yahwism met sharp criticism, if it was not under open attack, in Alexandria. Such attack first manifested itself by questioning the tribute to Mt. Gerizim, and then by decrying altogether the sacrality of Mt. Gerizim. On the other side, when Ptolemy VI allowed Onias IV, a Zadokite priest, to start a Yahwistic cult of Judaean origins in Egypt, Judaean Yahwism received royal patronage. In the view of this article, these are two sides of the same story, whereby the Oniads were piloting the anti-Samaritan campaign, strong from that royal patronage rooted in the reciprocal Levantine interest both the king and the Oniads shared. This is the historical scenario, to which the following possible scenario can be attached. It is possible that in such a climate also the Alexandrian Samaritan text fell under the wave of anti-Samaritan criticism. What was the Oniads’s reaction to the Alexandrian Samaritan text? If they nullified Mt. Gerizim’s holiness, why not the book’s legitimacy? It is possible that Onias IV, strong from the royal support for his Judaean cultic enterprise, rejected the Samaritan text as a legitimate text for Yahwism in Alexandria. If Onias, or members of his retinue, proceeded against the Alexandrian Samaritan text, a parallel can be drawn between them and the experts, eidotes, of Let. Aris. 30, who call the text inappropriate in terms of script and inaccurate in terms of meaning. This is not the only parallel that can be sketched between the historical/possible scenario and the narrative of the Letter of Aristeas: Historical scenario/possible scenario, 2nd century BCE

Samaritan book

X

X

royal patronage

Ptolemy II

Ptolemy VI

Zadokite priest

Eleazar

Onias IV

text critics

eidotes

Oniads

politeuma

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X

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Letter’s scenario 3rd century BCE

150 151

Gambetti, Alexandrian Riots, 58–59 with all previous references. At present the most extensive discussion on this is Wright, Letter, passim.

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Both the Letter of Aristeas and the historical/possible scenario include a Samaritan text, a royal patronage, the involvement of a Zadokite High Priest, and the politeuma. The only difference is that the Letter of Aristeas retrodates its story by one century. This is when the Letter of Aristeas sounds ambiguous; is it a fictional text, or is it a deceptive historical text, describing a historical situation contemporary to its author, but in chronological disguise? The chronological retrodating is a literary device intended to defend the Samaritan texts from Judaean criticism.152 The apologetic intent of the Letter of Aristeas is evident throughout: despite the fact that the Alexandrian text is described as being written in Hebrew script, it is never called Samaritan. In a climate of bitter rivalry between Jerusalem and Mt. Gerizim and the ongoing attack on Samaritanism in Alexandria in the 2nd century BCE, it would have been indeed absurd of the Letter of Aristeas to admit that its text was from Samaria. If the apology had to be convincing, the Letter of Aristeas had to conceal that important basic information. In the 2nd century BCE, the Letter of Aristeas tries to defend the legitimacy and authority of the Alexandrian scrolls against the attack of the Judaean Oniads, by saying that one century earlier they had already undergone revision by experts under (remote) Zadokite supervision and royal patronage. The Alexandrian Yahwists, who had already lost their battle for the holiness of Mt. Gerizim, tried to salvage their text from the attempt to eradicate Samaritanism in Alexandria and Egypt that the Oniads launched, strong from Ptolemaic patronage.

4. Conclusions

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This historical and political study shows that the basic Alexandrian Yahwistic text was from Samaria and that to this text the Letter of Aristeas refers: this is the Vorlage of the first Greek translation, the Old Greek. These historical conclusions meet the results of recent linguistic and textual research, according to which the present LXX Pentateuch shares a common text with the Samaritan Pentateuch.153 For political reasons, the Samaritan Vorlage was questioned in 152 Giovanni Garbini, History and Ideology in Ancient Israel (New York: Crossroad, 1988), 133–50, similarly thinks that the Letter of Aristeas aims to defend Egyptian Judaism from Jerusalem Judaism, albeit in a different context; Rajak, Translation, 24–91 retains the historicity of the Letter’s 2nd century frame, but does not reject its fictional character. 153 Emanuel Tov, “The Shared Tradition of the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch,” in Die Septuaginta – Orte und Intentionen, ed. Siegfried Kreuzer et al. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 277–93; it would be interesting to see how Tov’s new conclusion is going to affect the solidified notion, which lays at the basis of the entire frame of biblical textual criticism, that the LXX derived from a proto-MT text and that the SP developed from Hellenistic pre-Samaritan texts of the kind found at Qumran (for the pre-Samaritan texts, see Robert T. Andersen and Terry Giles, The Samaritan Pentateuch [Atlanta: SBL Press, 2012],

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the 2nd century BCE, to which the Letter of Aristeas refers, albeit in chronological disguise, defending it. What happened to the original Alexandrian Samaritan text and its Greek translation is difficult to know. From the historical point of view, after the antiSamaritan campaign in Alexandria, after the destruction of Mt. Gerizim on around 112–111 BCE,154 and after the Hasmonean unification of monarchy and High Priesthood, with the final establishment of Jerusalem as the unique center of Yahwism,155 it is difficult to believe that the Alexandrian Samaritan text could have legitimately survived. Philological and textual research, going beyond the present historical limitations, shows that the extant LXX, in the course of time, underwent adjustments to harmonize its content to the Masoretic Text.156 The Jerusalem-oriented Yahwism of Philo of Alexandria is good evidence of that process.157 However, without any pretention of being a philologist or a textual critic, I would like to mention a few surviving Egyptian texts, which may suggest that the Greek translation of the Alexandrian Samaritan text did not vanish. 1) The fragmentary P.Giessen 19 preserves the reference to Mt. Gerizim at Deut 27:4 (αρ?γαριζ[ι]μ); so does the Old Latin of the codex Lugdunensis, considered to be the earliest extant Latin translation of the LXX. Is this an indication of the Samaritan origins of both texts?158

43–69; Tov, Textual, 74–92). This article has submitted historical evidence of the existence of a pre-Hellenistic text in Samaria, a copy of which ended up in Egypt. If this evidence is accepted, the construct on the origins of the SP and its relation with the pre-Samaritan text becomes unnecessary, because the pre-Hellenistic text from Samaria could be the one that the LXX, the SP, as well as the Qumran texts (which would no longer be pre-Samaritan) shared, in accordance with Tov’s new research results. 154 Kartveit, Origin, 100–3 for discussion. 155 On this period, see Eyal Regev, The Hasmoneans: Ideology, Archaeology, Identity (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2013); and more recently Katell Barthelot, In Search of the Promised Land? The Hasmonean Dynasty Between Biblical Models and Hellenistic Diplomacy (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2017). 156 Abundant references on this are in Tov, Textual, 74–147. 157 Both Philo, Mos. 2.25–44; and Josephus, Ant. 12.11–118, summarize and paraphrase the Letter of Aristeas; White and Keddie, Jewish Fictional, 173–201. 158 In current research, P.Giessen 19 is a translation of a text in Hebrew, but not of Samaritan origin: Emmanuel Tov, “P. Giessen 13, 19, 22, 26: a Revision of the LXX?” in The Greek and Hebrew Bible (Atlanta: SBL, 1999), 462, 459–75. Kartveit, Origin, 302–5. For codex Lugdunensis, Adrian Schenker, “Textgeschichtliches zum Samaritanischen Pentateuch und Samaraitikon: zur Textgeschichte des Pentateuchs in 2. Jh. V. Chr,” in Samaritans: Past and Present, ed. Menachem Mor and Friedrich V. Reiterer, SJ 53 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 106–9; overview in Reinhard Müller, “The Altar on Mount Gerizim (Deuteronomy 27:1–8),” in Centres and Peripheries in the Early Second Temple Period, ed. Ehud Ben Zvi and Christoph Levin, FAT 108 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 199–202.

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2) In late antiquity, Origen knew and used a text which he called Samareitikon. Leaving aside for the moment the extensive research on this text,159 may it be possible that Origen knew the Greek translation of the Samaritan Vorlage, which he might have called Samareitikon to distinguish it from the redacted and harmonized LXX already in place at his time?160

The complexity of the studies on this text is best illustrated in Reinhard Pummer, “The Samareitikon Revisited,” in New Samaritan Studies, ed. Alan D. Crown and Lucy Davey (Sidney: Mandelbaum, 1995), 381–455; Reinhard Pummer, “The Greek Bible and the Samaritans,” REJ 157 (1998): 269–358. 160 A note must be made on Tertullian's mention of Jewish texts, in Hebrew and Greek, housed in the library of the Serapeum in Alexandria (Apologeticum, 18.8). No comments on this texts are going to be made here; for skeptical views, see Roger S. Bagnall, “Alexandria, Library and Dreams,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 146 (2002): 348– 62; and Rajak, Translation, 43–46.

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The Apocalypse of Zephaniah and the Tombs of the Egyptian Chora An Archaeological Contribution to B. J. Diebner’s Opinion about the Relation between Clement of Alexandria and the Coptic Tradition of the Apocalypse of Zephaniah MICHAEL SOMMER In Strom. 5.11.77, Clement of Alexandria mentions a prophecy of Sophonias. To show that God’s presence could only be reckoned spiritually, Clement alludes to Plato and quotes five lines of Sophonias’s rapture en pneumati to the fifth heaven. Are not these statements like those of Zephaniah the prophet?

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And the Spirit of the Lord took me, and brought me up to the fifth heaven, and I beheld angels called Lords; and their diadem was set on in the Holy Spirit; and each of them had a throne sevenfold brighter than the light of the rising sun; and they dwelt in temples of salvation, and hymned the ineffable, Most High God. (Translation adopted from AnteNicene Fathers II).

Until the end of the 19th century, this short passage in Stromateis was the only text that could be associated with an Apocalypse of Zephaniah known from medieval apocryphal lists. The situation changed during the 1890s, however, when researchers found a series of manuscripts related to this writing.1 The history of their discoveries is at least as exciting as the texts they found. In 1893, none other than Gaston Maspero himself acquired a bundle of loose papyri from the monastery Amba Shenuda in Sohag. These handwritings belonged to six codices which merchants ripped into pieces (eventually to get a higher price at the black market). A little later, Maspero mentioned in a letter to G. Steindorff that the monks of the monastery considered the papyri to be at best waste. Of course, Masperon’s letter did not hesitate to highlight that the monks were wrong. It turned out that two of the six manuscripts witness texts known only from late-antique quotations. This package of handwritings also contained 14 leaves of an Akhmimic codex of 14.5 cm width 1 More information about the history of the manuscripts is provided by Georg Steindorff, Die Apokalypse des Elias: Eine unbekannte Apokalypse und Bruchstücke der SophoniasApokalypse (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1899), 1–4.

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and 12.5 cm height as well as seven leaves of a Sahidic one with the unusual dimensions 25 cm x 9 cm (the Paris Bibliothèque National still possesses both fragmentary codices). These two manuscripts depict very similar texts. Because one line of the Sahidic leaves contains the phrase Anok Sophonias, it did not take very long until researchers identified both of the fragmentary codices as recensions of the writing that Clement cited.

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S: l. 7: Truly, I, Zephaniah, saw these things in my vision (Sahidic text: Translation Charlesworth)

In a very short period, U. Bouriant and L. Stern, who corrected Bouriant’s careless mistakes, translated and edited the text fragments of both the Sahidic and Akhmimic codices and published them as the Apocalypse of Zephaniah. Only two years after the first edition, the Egyptian Department of the Royal Museums in Berlin received a message from the consulate in Cairo about further manuscript findings from Akhmim that would change the identification of Bouriant and Stern abruptly.2 Eight further leaves and a fragmentary one of the Akhmimic codex were discovered (P.Berl. Staatl.Mus. 1862). Steindorff recomposed the new findings with the old ones and started to question and to refute Bouriant’s and Stern’s identification. He showed that both codices are compilations and contain more than one writing. On the one hand, only one sheet of the Sahidic manuscript mirrors clearly identifiable fragments of the Sophonias Apocalypse (S). On the other hand, the majority of the Akhmimic leaves, in his eyes, does not have the Apocalypse of Zephaniah at all, but testify to the Apocalypse of Elijah. The nine remaining leaves (from now on, they are called Akh) contain an unidentifiable, anonymous apocalyptic writing.3 Eighty years later, B. J. Diebner restarted the debate and brought new material into the discussion. He got access to new photos of the source material and saw connections between the one Sahidic fragment of the Apocalypse of Zephaniah and the nine (in Steindorff’s eyes not identifiable) Akhmimic leaves. According to Diebner’s introduction, these fragments are closely related to the Apocalypse of Zephaniah of S but not identical with it. To cut a long story short, researchers were interested only in the relationship between S and Akh. Until Diebner, it was hardly questioned if Clement used the Apocalypse that is witnessed by the Coptic codices.4 No one really suspected directly that the Hellenistic context of Alexandria was the provenience of Akh and S. Since the 19th century, all editors and commentators believed that the Coptic traditions, and especially Akh, must have been written and read in a milieu in which Hellenistic and Jewish ideas were encountered,

See Steindorff, Apokalypse, 3–4. See Steindorff, Apokalypse, 6–16. 4 See Steindorff, Apokalypse, 20. 2 3

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i.e. in a place like Alexandria.5 They concluded this because the Apocalypse uses the LXX as well as Hellenistic ideas and it lacks strong Jewish identity markers such as circumcision, Sabbath or dietary rules. Researchers had no reason not to believe that Clement could have found such a text in Alexandria. Diebner raised doubts about that, but he was extremely cautious. He believed the picture of God in the few lines of Clement’s quotation differs completely from the theology of the Coptic fragments. Although he found only text-internal hints, he believed that the prophecy of Sophonias, which as read in Alexandria, might not be the same tradition that we can see in the Coptic apocalypse of S and Akh.6 In my opinion, Diebner’s scepticism is correct. Of course, one can only collect clues, but I can hardly imagine that S and Akh circulated in Alexandria and Clement worked with exactly these texts. In this article, I present text-external indications giving Diebner’s opinion a little more evidence. I ask about the text’s provenance and the historical background to collect at least some new arguments concerning the relationship between the text fragments related with the apocalyptic Zephaniah tradition. It is unlikely that Akh circulated among Alexandrian “Christians” because its afterlife concept does not fit into the cultural milieu of the city. Akh narrates a journey to the Netherworld by combining reminiscences of ancient Egyptian underworld books, which simply were irrelevant in Alexandrian discourses. The longest fragment shows considerable parallels to the iconography of tombs in Central and Upper Egypt, where traces of the ancient Book of the Dead survived in the cultural memories until the end of the 2nd century. Akh creates a landscape of Egyptian memories that were relevant for afterlife beliefs of his social environment and combines them at least slightly with allusions to Jewish traditions. Having this in mind and considering Diebner’s observations, I believe that the text’s provenience and cultural background is that of the Egyptian chora and not of Alexandria. If one reads Akh as a document of the 2nd century

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Steindorff writes in Apokalypse, 18: “Die in ihr ausgeführten Schilderungen des Jenseits schließen sich eng an die der jüdischen Apokalyptiker an und sind andererseits auch durch griechische Vorstellungen stark beeinflusst. Unsere Apokalypse steht hierin der Apokalypse des Petrus und der von dieser abhängigen Paulusapokalypse ziemlich nahe.” See also ibid., 20; Albrecht Dieterich, Nekyia: Beiträge zur Erklärung der neuentdeckten Petrusapokalypse (Leipzig: Teubner, 1893); Orval S. Wintermute, “Apocalypse of Zephaniah: A New Translation and Introduction,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth, 2 vols. (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2010), 1:497–515, is a little more careful. Bernd J. Diebner, Zephanjas Apokalypsen, JSHRZ V/9 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2003), 55–60. 6 See Diebner, Zephanjas Apokalypsen, 55–60.

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(which is in my eyes reasonable), then one must put this text into a JewishEgyptian milieu that is a little different from that in Alexandria.7 I argue in three steps: First, I look at the narrative of the Akhmimic fragment and isolate its leitmotifs8 to understand the narrative concept and the logic of the depicted journey to the afterlife. After that, I introduce core motifs of the ancient tradition of the Egyptian underworld. Even from this anachronistic perspective, strong parallels between Akh and ancient Egyptian ideas of the Netherworld undoubtedly are noticeable. In a third step, I highlight a few aspects of the reception history of the Book of the Dead in the first two centuries CE. It is clear that this tradition strongly influenced cultural discourses of Upper and Middle Egypt but not the Hellenistic milieu of Alexandria. Geographical boundaries of the sphere of influence of the Book of the Dead are visible in the 1st and 2nd century. The examples I introduce in this step mirror the same cultural and religious background of Akh.

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1. A Journey into the Underworld and Back – A Look at the Images of the Apocalypse The text9 starts with a funeral scene of people singing psalms while they put the deceased to grave. Out of this scenery, the prophet travels to the underworld (Akh; folio 1 recto [Paris]). In front of his eyes, a spatially structured Netherworld called Noun is unfolded, and he recognizes the fate of the deceased souls (Akh; folio 1 verso [Paris]). It quickly becomes clear that the otherworld exists parallel to the history of the immanent world, but it is uncertain if his journey is physical or spiritual. The text leaves open the question of whether the prophet’s body or his soul has left the earth. Akh has a remarkable angelology. From the beginning, angelic beings have important functions. They are not only guardians at the border between the two worlds but also secretaries of the Pantocrator (Akh 1–2; folio 2 [Paris]). One angel even works as prosecutor at the heavenly court (Akh 10; folio 7 Although I am aware of the problematic of dating the text of Akh, I believe that it was written before the end of the 2nd century because the discourse the text is working with became more and more unimportant after that time. I would like to thank my friend Thomas J. Kraus for his critical view that gave me a challenging idea to write a further article about the dating of Akh. 8 Relevant differences to Z and Sah are noted in the footnotes. 9 Unfortunately, the pages are unnumbered, but it is possible to reconstruct a plausible order of the folios by considering the content. I am following the order of Steindorff’s edition, which is also the order of Diebner’s translation. For further discussion, see Steindorff, Apokalypse, 7–9.

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5 verso [Paris]). Angels of the world beyond take notes about the righteousness of the inhabitants of the earth and provide legworks and preparations for individual trials of the deceased that everyone must pass after life (Akh 3; folio 2 recto [Paris]). They also record each of the lawsuits on lists and transmit the results from the underworld to the Pantocrator in Heaven. God sums up the logs of the angelic law clerks and registrars and writes them down in the book of life (Akh 4; folio 2 verso [Paris]). I would even go so far to call the text a bureaucratic or bureaucratically structured tour of Hell. The prophet himself not only reports what he sees but participates in the well-regulated afterlife proceedings, which is nearly completely managed by angels. He descends into Noun, walks through a place of punishment named Amente, and experiences his own court process (Akh 9–12; folios 5–6 [Paris]). Finally, the judge cannot find anything that speaks against the prophet’s uprightness and honesty. Thus, the seer is rewarded and allowed to move to and reside in the place of righteousness. While he travels to this kind of paradise, he notices the hell in which people declared guilty in the trial are tortured measure-by-measure and receive punishments (Akh 13–16; P.Berl. Staatl.Mus. 1862). In the end of Akh, the perspective changes again and the text describes very shortly the beginning of the day of the lord, which stops abruptly after a few lines (Akh 17–18; folio 7 [Paris]). In my eyes, God’s final judgment over his creation does not play an important role for the text at all. The eschatology of the Akh is interesting, and I would dare say that this apocalypse is not an end-time text. On the contrary, Akh tells us that the fate of the dead is not sealed by God in the end of history but immediately after death. Unlike in the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter or the Revelation of John, the text does not describe a final court scene at the end of history for which all dead people resurrect, but it reveals a concept or, even better, a landscape of an afterlife that exists simultaneously to space and time. Evil deeds are not redeemed after the final judgment day but a long time before. For Akh, the doors of Heaven and Hell are open for the dead although history has not come to an end. Besides the fact that God does not hold the office of a judge in Amente, a few other ideas of the eschatological concept are peculiar. Some of the pictures of Akh are unique and do not appear in other Jewish or Christian apocalypses. Looking at them in greater detail might tell us something about the apocalypse’s provenance: (1) The spatial concept of the Netherworld: The otherworld is clearly structured and divided into different rooms. Large, fire-breathing gates separate these areas spatially from each other (Akh 7; folio 4 [Paris], and each has a different function. The gates are watched by guardian figures. The seer describes them as hybrid creatures looking like feline predators with feminine features. The gatekeepers have sharp teeth and are armed with flaming

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swords (Akh 4–5; folio 2 verso; folio 3 recto [Paris]). They have been commissioned to proof the purity of the arriving dead and grant access to Noun only to those who are untainted (Akh 5–6; folio 3 [Paris]). The prophet is found pure and allowed to enter. (2) The Netherworld as an island surrounded by an ocean: Gates not only mark a border between different spheres but are crucial for the spatial concept of the apocalypse, which is reminiscent of a system of isolated or just slightly connected islands. A sea of fire, pitch, sulphur and faeces surround the underworld and divides spaces from each other (Akh 7; folio 4 verso [Paris]). Its waves flow through Noun and make transitions between different areas visible (Akh 15; P.Berl. Staatl.Mus. 1869). The prophet discovers a road and while walking down it, he reaches another gate to Amente where the court of justice and the place of eternal punishment lies (Akh 6; folio 3 verso [Paris]). (3) The accuser and the protocols of the judgment: The seer enters Amente and the prosecutor inaugurates his trial by reading a multilingual scroll that lists his blasphemous acts. Another scroll lists the prophet’s good works (Akh 11–12; folio 6 [Paris]). The text describes in frightening detail the appearance of the angelic accuser. He looks like a snake, has feminine features like the gatekeepers and a lion’s mane. His huge teeth stand out of his mouth waiting to swallow the prophet (Akh 8; folio 4 verso [Paris]; Akh 10; folio 5 verso [Paris]). (4) The weighing scale: The trial does not end with a judicial verdict. On the contrary, the prosecutor weighs the prophet’s good and evil deeds against each other on a scale. If his bad works are heavier, the seer is sentenced to eternal punishment (Akh 13; P.Berl. Staatl.Mus. 1869). An angel records the result of the weighing and reports the outcome of the trial to the Pantocrator, who lists the prophet’s name in the book of life (Akh 14; P.Berl. Staatl.Mus. 1869; Akh 4; folio 2 verso [Paris]). The large scale and the scrolls are leitmotifs of the judgment scene. (5) The ship-barque: After the weighing, angels lead the prophet to the place of righteousness. To get there, he must cross the ocean of the underworld by ship. The seer describes a departure point, which must be a kind of seaport where angelic seamen prepare him for embarking to paradise. They clothe him with angelic garments and lead him on board to a ship-barque, while the crew sings and prays psalms (Akh 13–14; P.Berl. Staatl.Mus. 1869). Interestingly, the text combines these apparently non-Jewish ideas with Jewish ones. Akh interweaves many reminiscences of Jewish traditions with this narrative framework. For instance, the seer prays to Adonai Zebaoth because he is afraid, and he asks for protection and help (Akh 7–8, folio 4 [Paris]). Thereby, he mentions Israel’s liberation from Egypt as well as Dan 3 and Dan 13–14 (LXX). Further, an angel called Eremiel guides the seer through Amente. He takes him to the court hall, records the trial, and organ-

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izes the embarkation to paradise. Akh describes the appearance of this angelus interpres in detail by alluding to the Scriptures (Akh 9–10; folio 5 [Paris]). Eremiel’s appearance is reminiscent of the description of God in Ezekiel’s merkabah vision (Ezek 1–3) and on the son of men from Dan 7 and 10 as well as on the messianic figure of Rev 1.

2. The Egyptian Underworld Books and Their Leitmotifs

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Although the leitmotifs of the seer’s journey do not stem from Israel’s Scriptures, they are very old and have a long tradition in Egypt.10 The entire motif cluster of the narrative (fire-breathing gates, armed gatekeepers keeping impure people out of the underworld, a courtroom with a weighing scale in the centre, a law clerk who is protocolling and reporting the process of weighing, an accuser with a hybrid appearance [half cat, half reptile] and sharp teeth waiting to swallow the defendant, and a small ship-barque traveling through the sea of the underworld) belongs to the colourful repertoire of ancient Egyptian Books of the Underworld. In his famous introduction to this literature, E. Hornung considers these motifs even to the most important images of Egyptian journeys as belonging to the realm of the dead.11 Their roots go back to the Old Kingdom and since that time many traditions have picked them up and retold them. The Amduat, the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns, and the Book of the Dead are the most prominent examples of such underworld books. Simplified, these are a kind of guide through the Netherworld which were put in tombs at burial ceremonies. They should give the deceased orientation in the life after death. The Amduat, the oldest one, tells that the sun god travels on a sun-barque over the deluge of the Netherworld. In this book, the concept of the afterworld has a clear temporal and spatial structure. Das Buch beschreibt in Wort und Bild die Fahrt des Sonnengottes durch die zwölf Stunden der Nacht, von seinem Untergang bis zu seinem morgendlichen Aufgang. Jeder Stundenabschnitt beginnt mit einer kurzen Einleitung in senkrechten Zeilen, die den Namen der Jenseitsregion, ihres Tores, und den Namen der Nachtstunde nennen; es folgen drei Bildstreifen (Register), von denen das Mittlere stets der Barke des Sonnengottes und seiner Begleitung vorbehalten ist.12

For further information, see John H. Taylor, Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). 11 Erik Hornung, Die Unterweltsbücher der Ägypter (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 2002). 12 Erik Hornung, Das Tal der Könige (Munich: Beck, 2002), 67. 10

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The Book of Gates picked up and extended this idea. It divides the Netherworld into rooms which are separated by fire-spitting doors.13 The sun-barque and its passengers must pass the guardians of the protected gates who control the purity of those wanting to come in. Erstes Tor: Der Name seines Pförtners ist “Mit Gesichtern nach unten, vielgestaltig.” Der Name seines Wächters ist ‘Hitziger’. Der Name dessen, der in ihm anmeldet, ist ‘Brüllstimme’. Von Osiris NN, gerechtfertigt, zu sprechen, wenn er an dieses Tor gelangt: Ich bin der Genosse des Einen – Variante: der Große, der sein Licht geschaffen hat. Zu dir komme ich nun Osiris, daß ich dich anbete! Rein ist dein Ausfluß, der geflossen ist.… Gebt mir, dem Osiris NN, gerechtfertigt, den Weg frei!14

In the beginning of the tradition until the Middle Kingdom, only the pharaoh, members of the royal family, and senior officials had the privilege to take such books as burial objects to the grave. Since the New Kingdom, however, especially the usage of the Book of Dead expanded and spread out at large among Egyptian society.15 According to J. Assmann,16 during this time, the underworld was “democratized” and the tradition of the Book of the Dead grew rapidly to a size of approximately 200 spells to give the owner protection from all kinds of danger while he is traveling the world beyond. Because of the open and receptive character of Egyptian religious thinking, different conceptions of the afterlife arose over thousands of years and were adopted in spite of their apparent inconsistencies. The spells in the Book of the Dead clearly reflect this long process of evolution and compilation, for they enshrine several different ideas about the nature of the afterlife. The Book of the Dead does not seek to guide the deceased to one specific goal; its spells provided help in following several different paths.17

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The Book of the Dead did not have a canonical form but was produced, copied, and sold in different variants. Its content, the quality of the papyrus material, and its outer form depended on the purchase power and the wealth of the buyer. However, a cluster of spells and certain pictures on the vignettes of the papyri appear regularly. One could go so far to call them trademarks or core motifs of the Book of the Dead. These keynotes of the tradition were received Hornung, Tal der Könige, 86. See also John H. Taylor, Spells for Eternity: The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (London: British Museum Press, 2010), especially the chapter “The Landscape of the Hereafter.” 14 P.Cairo CG 24095; Book of the Dead, spell 147; trans. Burkhard Backes; online ed. of the spell: “Spruch 147,” Totenbuchprojekt Bonn, http://totenbuch.awk.nrw.de/spruch/ 147#NachweiseSpruchtext. 15 A more detailed history of research about the Book of the Dead is provided in Burkhard Backes et al., eds., Bibliographie zum Altägyptischen Totenbuch, SAT 13 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009); Burkhard Backes and Matthias Müller, “Aufgerollt: Das altägyptische Totenbuch wird erforscht,” Amun 7 (2007): 20–23. 16 Jan Assmann, Tod und Jenseits im Alten Ägypten (Munich: Beck, 2001), 18–19. 17 Taylor, Spells for Eternity, 106. 13

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in later times and combined into a kind of landscape of an underworld journey. I would like to draw your attention to these leitmotifs. (1) The sun-barque: The sun-barque on which Ra travelled according to the Amduat was stylized and transformed into a transport medium in the Book of the Dead that ships the deceased through the sea of the Netherworld to the place of eternal life. A good example for that is the Papyrus of Ani (British Museum; EA 10470), which was produced in the 19th dynasty. The coloured manuscript, which contains a collection of spells of the Book of the Dead, was found in 1888 by Sir E.A. Wallis Budge in the tomb of Ani in Tomb of Ani in Thebes in Upper Egypt.18 Wallis Budge cut the papyrus into fragments and brought them to the British Museum.19 The vignette of spell 110 depicts Ani sitting in the barque of Ra. He ships to the Field of Offerings, which J. H. Taylor describes as a “location in the sky or within the Netherworld” similar to the idea of paradise or Elysium.20 Another aspect of the idea of the sun-barque can be seen on the Papyrus of Nebseny (British Museum; EA 9900), a papyrus from the 18th dynasty (15th century BCE) written with black and red ink.21 The British Museum acquired the papyrus in 1836. It stems from the 18th dynasty and was caved in Saqqara (Memphis) in Lower Egypt.22 Besides spells 89, 92, 119, and 137b of the Book of the Dead, frame 6 depicts spell 134 together with a vignette. The frame itself has a length of 72 cm and a height of 35.8 cm and in its left corner one can see the barque of Ra and Nebseny wanting for the permission to enter. The spell underneath the vignette wishes the deceased a pleasant voyage.23 (2) The court hall and the weighing of the heart: The Papyrus of Hunefer (British Museum; EA 9901) from the 19th dynasty (c. 1275 BCE) is one of the most important findings of the Book of the Dead.24 The British Museum

18 Ernest A. W. Budge, The Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani in the British Museum (London: British Museum Press, 1895). 19 For more information about the condition of the papyri: “Book of the Dead,” British Museum, http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details. aspx?objectId=113335&partId=1. 20 Taylor, Spells for Eternity, 107. 21 “Book of the Dead of Nebseny,” British Museum, http://www.britishmuseum.org/ research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=114891&partId=1. 22 For further information see Günther Lapp, The Papyrus of Nebseni, vol. 3 of Catalogue of the Books of the Dead in the British Museum (London: British Museum Press, 2004); Irmtraut Munro, Untersuchungen zu den Totenbuch-Papyri der 18. Dynastie (London: Routledge, 1987), 281. 23 See Taylor, Spells for Eternity, 111. A comparable vignette can also be seen on frame 22 of the Papyrus of Ani that depicts spell 134 of the Book of the Dead. 24 For further information, see Alison Roberts, My Heart, My Mother: Death and Rebirth in Ancient Egypt (Rottingdean: Northgate, 2000), 40.

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bought the coloured and well-preserved document in 1852,25 but it is still unknown where the manuscript was found. Hunefer, the owner of the Papyrus, was a royal scribe and probably produced the artificially designed papyri by himself. Frame 3 (EA 9901.3; 45 x 90.5 cm) describes Hunefer’s judgment. It visualizes spell 125 of the Book of the Dead and illustrates what happens before the dead is allowed by Osiris to embark on the sun-boat and to move to the paradisiac Fields of Reeds (spell 126). At some unspecified place within the Netherworld was the hall where the dead underwent judgement by the gods to determine whether or not they deserved to be admitted to the afterlife. This judgement took the form of a review of their past life and an assessment of their conduct to establish whether the individual had lived in accordance with the principles of Maat, the Egyptian concept of order, right and truth. This was the first clear appearance of the notion that a person’s moral character could influence their fate after death.26

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Hunefer must pass the hall of court, where Anubis weighs his heart on a scale against the feather of Ma’at27 and where Toth, the scribe of the gods and the dragoman of the underworld, records the outcome. He writes the result of Hunefer’s trial on a list, which he passes on to Osiris. In front of the Libra sits Ammit, the devourer of the dead. This creature swallows the accused dead in case he is found guilty (spells 30b and 125). Sources describe its appearance differently, but usually the devourer appears as hybrid between a feline raptor, a crocodile, and a lion with sharp teeth. She also has features of a snake and of a hippo.

25 “Book of the Dead of Hunefer,” British Museum, http://www.britishmuseum.org/ research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=114851&partId=1& searchText=weighing+of+the+heart&page=. 26 Taylor, Spells for Eternity, 86. 27 Taylor, Spells for Eternity, 94.

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Figure 1: Papyrus of Hunefer; frame 3 (British Museum; EA 9901.3)28

(3) The gates of the Netherworld: In the Book of the Dead, spells 144, 145, and 147 grant its possessor protection from the terrible gatekeepers of the underworld. The full coloured vignette of frames 11 and 12 of the Papyrus of Ani (British Museum; EA 10470.11–12) explain the spells 146 and 147. They portray seven (frame 12) and ten gates (frame 11) of the Netherworld (spell 147) watched by twelve hybrid creatures armed with swords. If the entering deceased is pure, they cannot harm him.

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3. The Motif Circles of the Book of the Dead in Conceptions of the Otherworld of the First Two Centuries CE The idea of the afterlife of the Book of the Dead was very effective and influenced various Egyptian imaginations of the Netherworld. The tradition did not cease until the end of the 2nd century. Even in a time in which the Book of the Dead was no longer used as a burial object, its ideas formed public opinions about life after death.29 A good example for that is the Egyptian iconography of the 2nd century. Archaeological findings witness how widely Egyptian underworld books contoured public opinions about eternal life. Craftsmen from that time who painted and designed the inside walls of tombs translated motifs of the Book of the Dead into a landscape telling something about the world beyond. Especially in the Egyptian chora, grave paintings and mural reliefs of the 2nd century take up ideas of the Book of the Dead and combine them into a pictorial narrative about the deceased’s journey to the © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. For further information, see Christine Seeber, “Untersuchungen zur Darstellung des Totengerichts im Alten Ägypten,” MäS 35 (1976). 28 29

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Netherworld. Artisans of Central and Upper Egypt integrated into these complex sceneries of motifs Greco-Roman style elements, but the ancient Egyptian origins of these symbioses clearly were dominant.30 The order and the logic of these storylines followed the rules of the ancient Egyptian traditions, but this was a regional phenomenon of the 2nd century and occurred only in Upper and Lower Egypt. In contrast, one cannot observe anything comparable in Alexandria or in Lower Egypt. The conceptions and the iconography of Alexandrian tombs differs from those in Upper and Lower Egypt because the Book of the Dead did not play a huge role in the cultural discourses of the Hellenistic society of Alexandria. Although a trend to integrate Egyptian or Egyptianized motifs in grave paintings existed in 2nd century Alexandria,31 the narratives of Alexandrian tomb iconography remained Hellenistic. Alexandrian grave paintings portray the afterworld in a kind of Greco-Roman style and were designed to remind one of Hellenistic myths.32 According to M. Venit, Alexandrians used Egyptian ideas as a kind of language to express Hellenistic eschatological concepts.33 In Roman Alexandria, we cannot find the great Egyptian narratives that were still alive in the chora: The scenes chosen for representation in Roman-period Alexandrian tombs avoid narratives central to Egyptian beliefs related to the afterlife and other abstractions of the Egyptian religious symbolic system.34

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In addition, Jewish graves from the Nile Delta avoid adopting Egyptian ideas. If Jewish tombs from that region were influenced by “foreign” cultures, it was only by notions of Hellenistic discourses such as Platonic thoughts, the idea of Hades or the Persephone myth.35 The Bonner Totenbuchprojekt, a digitalization project collecting all archaeological and papyrological witnesses of the reception history of the Book of the Dead, confirms these geograph30 Marjorie S. Venit, Visualizing the Afterlife in the Tombs of Graeco-Roman Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 194–95. 31 See Katja Lembke, Cäcilia Fluck, and Günter Vittmann, Ägyptens späte Blüte: Die Römer am Nil (Mainz: von Zabern, 2004), 53. 32 “Alexandrians chose to employ the visual vocabulary of Egypt metaphorically or express their own eschatological aims. They appropriated this venerable visual vocabulary that carried with it the antiquity and authority and regality of Egypt and through its use, devised a new lexicon, and one unique to Alexandria, to express their own expectations for a blessed afterlife” (Venit, Visualizing the Afterlife, 86). Further see Marjorie S. Venit, “Egypt as Metaphor: Decoration and Eschatology in the Monumental Tombs of Ancient Alexandria,” in Alexandria and the North-Western Delta, ed. Damian Robinson and Andrew Wilson (Oxford: Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology, 2010), 5:243–47; Marjorie S. Venit, Monumental Tombs of Ancient Alexandria: The Theater of the Dead (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 146–49. 33 Venit, Visualizing the Afterlife, 86. 34 Venit, Monumental Tombs, 120. 35 Venit, Visualizing the Afterlife, 88–90.

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ical peculiarities. The project highlights that there are no findings in Alexandria or the Nile Delta from the 2nd century. Apparently, the Book of the Dead did not influence the visualization of the Netherworld in Lower Egypt. None of the almost 100 papyri, linen sheets, coffins, and inscriptions from the first two centuries CE that are archived in the database come from there. Most of them stem from tombs of Central and Upper Egypt or from the oases of western Egypt. The more one turns to the North and to the West, the more clearly one recognizes how significant the Book of the Dead was for Egyptian religious beliefs. 3.1 The Oasis of Dakhla

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The first two examples are from the Dakhla oasis. The small oases in the western desert was densely populated in Roman times. Close to the excavations of the Roman settlement Trimithis, archaeologists discovered more than 200 rock tombs of the cemetery Qāret el Muzawwaqa. Unfortunately, most of them were plundered, but the tombs of Petubastis and Petosiris are very well preserved.36 These fully decorated grave chambers depict the transition of the deceased from the world of the living to the world of the dead. Furthermore, they provide insight into how Egyptians understood, interpreted, and used memories of ancient Egyptian notions in the 1st century CE and how they intermingled them with Hellenistic style elements. The craftsmen who decorated the tombs set together leitmotifs of the Book of the Dead to a kind of an Egyptian afterlife narrative having at least some Hellenistic features: (1) The tomb of Petubastis: The tomb of Petubastis (1st century CE) consists of only one room. Its northern wall portrays the burial of the deceased from where his journey to the afterlife begins. The funeral scene depicts the lustration of the corpse and a procession that brings the mummy to the tomb (figure 1).

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Figure 2: Tomb of Petubastis, North Wall (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Cairo, F-18024)

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After Petubastis’s body was put to grave, he passes through a gate into the realm of the dead (lower register). At the judgment hall, his deeds are weighed on the scale of justice (middle register). Toth records the result on a scroll and forwards it to Osiris. The devourer Ammit, pictured here as a feline with a reptilian head, kneels in front of it. The scene continues on the western wall. Obviously, Petubastis won the trial and his journey goes on.

Figure 3: Tomb of Petubastis, West Wall (© Katja Lembke)

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According to Osing, this part of the grave illustrates the spells 100 and 129 of the Book of the Dead (figure 2).37 Both have the intention to grant the deceased entry to the barque: Als tägliche Handlung jeden Tages kann er in die Barke des Re einsteigen. Beim Herausgehen und Einsteigen zählt ihn Thot als etwas wahrhaft Wirksames. Du sollst ihn in schöner Zeichnung in gleicher Weise in die Barke des Re malen. ‘Pulver aus grünem Glasfluß’, das wird zu grünem hsb gesagt, das, womit man das Schriftstück macht. Osiris NN, gerechtfertigt, richtet den Djed-Pfeiler auf und festigt das Tit-Amulett. Er fährt zu dem Ort, den er gewünscht hat.38

The scene of the western wall ends with allusions to spells 144 and 145 which offer magical protection against the gatekeepers who prohibit unclean bodies from entering the interior of the underworld. In the case of the tomb of Petubastis, the guardians have swords in their hands and the gates are fiery and blazing (figure 4). Sei gegrüßt, sagt Horus, erstes Tor des Herzensmüden! Gib mir den Weg frei! Ich kenne dich und kenne deinen Namen und kenne den Namen des Gottes, deines Bewachers.… Ich bin gereinigt in diesem Wasser, in dem sich Re reinigt, wenn er an der östlichen Seite des Himmels enthüllt worden ist. Ich bin mit bestem Koniferenöl gesalbt und in ein Gewand gehüllt. Das ist mein Keulen-Szepter in meiner Hand aus Heti-Holz. ‘So gehe hin! Du bist rein’.39

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Although the iconography is Egyptian and the narrative program of the tomb consists of combined allusions to the Book of the Dead, the artisans decorated the upper registers of the walls with Greek-looking ornaments and painted a Hellenistic zodiac on the sky of the tomb. This archaeological source witnesses that the borderline between Egyptian and Hellenistic discourses was very fluent, but, in the opposite of Alexandrian tombs, the Greek-style elements appear only to be decorative, whereas the cultural heritage of ancient Egypt sets the agenda.40 (2) The tomb of Petosiris: If we look at the tomb of Petosiris from the 2nd century, we see a similar intermingling of Egyptian and Greek discourses.41 37 See Jürgen Osing, “Qāret el-Muzawwaqa: Die Gräber des Petubastis und Petosiris,” in Denkmäler aus der Oase Dachla: Aus dem Nachlass von Ahmed Fakhry, ed. Jürgen Osing et al. (Mainz: von Zabern, 1982), 71–95 (77). 38 P. Turin 1791; Book of the Dead, spell 100/129; trans. Burkhard Backes; online ed. of the spell: “Spruch 100/129,” Totenbuchprojekt Bonn, http://totenbuch.awk.nrw.de/ spruch/100-129#NachweiseSpruchtext. 39 P. Turin 1791; Book of the Dead, spell 145; trans. Burkhard Backes; online ed. of the spell: “Spruch 145,” Totenbuchprojekt Bonn, http://totenbuch.awk.nrw.de/spruch/145# Spruchvorkommen'. 40 Venit, Visualizing the Afterlife, 158–65, provides a detailed introduction to the iconography of the tomb. 41 For further photographic material, see “TM 135165,” Totenbuchprojekt Bonn, http:// totenbuch.awk.nrw.de/objekt/tm135165.

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The concept of this grave is nearly identical with that of Petubastis, although its architecture and iconography are more multifaceted.42 The grave has two chambers; a smaller one as entrance and a larger one as a main grave. The burial chamber tells a compact version of the deceased’s afterlife journey. In the south end of the south wall the mummified body lay in an alcove. The back wall of this niche shows Petosiris’s funeral and the lustration of the corpse. Armed protectors guard the entrance gates to the realm of the dead, and the sun-barque leads the deceased through the Netherworld. The lower register of the south wall unfolds the weighing of Petosiris’s deeds (figure 3). Unlike in the early phase of the tradition, we cannot see the feather of Ma’at on the scales but vases containing good and evil acts of the accused. Toth, whose back is turned against the scale, is handing down his report about the trial to Osiris. Ammit, the devourer, is depicted as a hybrid between a cat, a lion, and a snake.

Figure 4: Tomb of Petosiris, Room II, South wall (© Katja Lembke)

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Room I of the tomb also portrays the judgment of Petosiris, but Ammit looks a little different than in the burial chamber. There the creature stands in front of Osiris and spits those who are unworthy out into a bowl of flaming faeces. This room also contains a picture of Petosiris wearing Greek cloths, and on the sky of each of the chambers one can find a Greek zodiac. (figure 3; more 42 See Venit, Visualizing the Afterlife, 165. For a full description of the iconography, see ibid., 167.

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than a dozen of such zodiac graves have been found in Akhmim.43) As it is the case with the tomb of Petubastis, craftsmen integrate Greek elements into an Egyptian iconographic conception remembering the ancient tradition of the underworld books. 3.2 Tuna El-Gebel: The Sarcophagus of Teuris and the Coffin of the Didyme

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Not only Egyptians visualized the life after dead by combining reminiscences of the Book of the Dead, but Greek citizens of the Egyptian chora also were familiar with this tradition. Very good witnesses for that are two coffins from the area near the necropolis of Hermupolis, which is a field of house tombs close to Tuna El-Gebel built in the Ptolemaic era and expanded in Roman times.44 The sarcophagus of Teuris, a wooden sarcophagus from the 2nd century, stems directly from Hermupolis.45 The inscription of this relict, which is now in the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam (APM 7069), is written in Demotic and tells us the name of the owner.46 In Saujet El-Meitin, which is only 35 km away from where this coffin was found, archaeologists excavated another sarcophagus closely related to the one of Teuris. A Greek inscription identifies its owner as a Greek woman named Didyme, the daughter of Phibion. In his monograph, D. Kurth compared both coffins and their idea about the life after death in detail.47 Both give a picture of an underworld journey that starts at a funeral scene and leads to the hall of judgment, where Ammit waits to devour the deceased and Toth writes a report about the events. In both cases, the pans of the scale are empty (figure 5).

See Venit, Visualizing the Afterlife, 182–95. Lembke, Ägyptens späte Blüte, 59–60. 45 See Totenbuchprojekt Bonn, “TM 112099,” totenbuch.awk.nrw.de/objekt/tm112099. 46 For more information, see Willem van Haarlem, “De sarcofaag van Teuris,” APm 101/102 (2010): 8–11. 47 See Dieter Kurth, Der Sarg der Teüris: Eine Studie zum Totenglauben im römerzeitlichen Ägypten, Aegyptiaca Treverensia 6 (Mainz: von Zabern, 1990). 43

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Figure 5: Sarcophagus of Teuris; left side (APM 7069)48

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Teuris as well as Didyme must pass overseers who want to examine their purity. Finally, both reach the gate to the realm of the dead symbolized by a key49 and guarded by a serpent-headed creature (figure 6). On the coffin of Didyme, there is, according to D. Kurth, a further register on which one can see that the deceased travels through the Netherworld on a barque.

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Figure 6: Sarcophagus of Teuris; foot end of the right side (APM 7069)50

Courtesy of the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam. The figure is a snapshot of a larger picture of the right side. 49 This symbol exists since the reign of Trajan. See Lembke, Ägyptens späte Blüte, 62. 50 Courtesy of the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam. 48

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3.3 Examples from Thebes: The Family of Pollius Soter In 1820, two European researchers discovered in Thebes a tomb from the Pharaonic period. In Roman times, the Pollius Soter used the chamber as a family tomb without any redesign. Inside the grave, archaeologists found nine coffins, a mummy shroud, and a label as well as fifteen papyri documenting the family tree of the deceased. The members of the Soter family had a multicultural background. The owner’s father, Cornelius Soter, was a Roman, his mother was Egyptian, and his wife probably Nubian. Based on these archaeological sources, Katja Lembke argues that Egyptian concepts of the afterlife found wide resonance in the chora.51 Not only Egyptians, but also a wide range of different ethnic groups adopted and interpreted memories of the underworld groups. The illustration of the afterlife contains all elements known from Tuna El-Gebel, Dachla, and Akhmim. The journey into the hereafter begins with the funeral and the lustration of the corpse. In the hall of judgment, Soter’s entire body (and not only his heart) is weighed and he is allowed to transcend into the realm of the dead on the sun-barque. Of course, he must cross the seven gates of the underworld, which are guarded by hybrid creatures testing his purity. It is very interesting that a Greek zodiac ornaments the inside of the sarcophagus as an integral part of the image of the sky goddess Nut. As in the case in the Dakhla Oasis, the archaeological finding proves that Egyptian ideas were preserved in the multicultural background of the Egyptian chora but were intermingled with “foreign” cultural discourses.

The parallels between the narrative of Akh and the iconography of the tombs from Upper and Middle Egypt witnessing beliefs of the life after death in the 1st and 2nd century are astonishing. The first passage of the Coptic apocalypse describes a funeral scene as the starting point of the seer’s journey. The text then unfolds a landscape of an underworld, which is divided by gates. The seer, who is guided by the angel Eremiel, must pass guardian figures granting him access because he is pure. He experiences his trial in the court hall Amente where an accuser weighs his good and evil deeds against each other on a scale. In front of the weighing pan stands a hybrid creature with sharp teeth waiting to swallow the seer in case he is found guilty. Eremiel writes a report about the result of the weighing and brings it to Adonai Zebaoth who puts the seer’s name on a list in the book of life and allows him to move to the place of righteousness. A ship-barque takes him from a kind of haven and

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4. Conclusion

51

See Lembke, Ägyptens späte Blüte, 62–65.

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the seer crosses safely the ocean of the underworld. One could even go so far to say that Akh interprets this Egyptian narrative in a Jewish way. Actually, Akh only changed the names of widespread Egyptian afterlife concepts based on memories of the Book of the Dead. Eremiel takes on the duties and the function of Toth, the interpreter, transcriber, and logistician of the underworld, while the prosecutor in Amente resembles many descriptions of Ammit, the devourer of the dead and Adonai Sebatoth plays the role of Osiris. Further, motifs of Akh like the ship-barque, the guarded gates, the gatekeepers, the weighing-pan, the lists and the spatial conception of the Netherworld seem to be identical with those in the Egyptian memory landscapes. Although Akh incorporates echoes of Israel’s traditions into this storyline, the Egyptian ground narrative is not only clearly visible but strongly dominant. The character and the logic of Akh is more “Egyptian” than “Jewish.” For such an intermingling of discourses, one could think about several ways of interpretation, reaching from a counter-narrative up to a random cultural product. I do not want to deepen that, but I propose that the text’s origin and Akh’s early usage must have taken place in an area where memories of the Book of the Dead remained alive and influenced beliefs about life after death. This was obviously the case in Central and Upper Egypt but not in Hellenistic Alexandria.52 I believe that my observation does at least a little underline what B. J. Diebner said about the reception history of Akh. The Alexandrian tradition of the prophecy of Sophonia is not identical with the apocalypse attested on the Coptic fragment.

52 The parallels between the narrative of Akh and the iconography of Egyptian tombs give reason to set a terminus ad quem of the text. The influence of the Book of the Dead faded in the 3rd century. Thus, I hardly believe that the text was written after the end of the 2nd century.

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III. Jewish Alexandria

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The Letter of Aristeas and the Place of the Septuagint in Alexandrian Judaism BENJAMIN WRIGHT

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In the present volume Barbara Schmitz has looked at the Letter of Aristeas as a witness to what we can know about Alexandria from its testimony. In this article I want to turn in another direction. What can we learn about the Septuagint and its place in Alexandrian Judaism from the way that Aristeas portrays it?1 How does Aristeas theorize the translation, and to what extent does Aristeas’s presentation reflect the Septuagint’s setting in Alexandria? Why might Aristeas have created his construction of the Septuagint’s origins? In the history of Septuagint scholarship, the Letter of Aristeas has played a central role in trying to understand the origins of the Septuagint and its status in the Alexandrian Jewish community that first used it, primarily because it is the earliest and certainly the most detailed account of the translation that survives. One other early notice can be found in the Jewish writer Aristobulus, but his account is much less detailed than the one in Aristeas and likely draws on similar Alexandrian sources as Aristeas’s narrative.2 Later versions of the legend all can be traced back to the Aristeas legend.3 So we must begin with this fascinating text.

1 In this article I use the label “Septuagint” to refer in its narrowest sense to the Greek translation of the Pentateuch, since the Letter of Aristeas almost certainly refers only to the Pentateuch. While other translations might have been made in Alexandria, they were likely executed later than the Pentateuch, and in some cases relied on it for certain lexical equivalents. 2 On the relationship between Aristobulus and Aristeas, see Abraham Wasserstein and David J. Wasserstein, The Legend of the Septuagint: From Classical Antiquity to Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 32–33, who argue that Aristobulus is dependent on Aristeas. Nikolaus Walter, Der Thoraausleger Aristobolos: Untersuchungen zu seinen Fragmenten und zu pseudepigraphischen Resten der jüdisch-hellenistischen Literature (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1964), 88–103; and Benjamin G. Wright, The Letter of Aristeas: ‘Aristeas to Philocrates’ or ‘On the Translation of the Law of the Jews’, CEJL (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 28–30, conclude that the two are independent of one another. 3 The arguments of Nina L. Collins, that certain later versions of the story are independent of Aristeas and thus witness to its basic historicity, fail to convince. See her The Library of Alexandria & the Bible in Greek, VTSup 82 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), ch. 2.

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1. The Letter of Aristeas: Some Basics We do not know what the original title of Aristeas was. The title “Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates” occurs for the first time in a fourteenth-century manuscript (Q, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris 950), although most manuscripts simply call it “Aristeas to Philocrates.” Josephus knows it as “The Book of Aristaios” (Ant. 12.100), and Eusebius in the fourth century calls it “On the Translation of the Law of the Jews” (Praep. ev. 9.38). These are the only titles we find in earlier sources.4 Differing dates have been proposed for the book, but the historical and linguistic evidence converges on a date sometime in the middle to the latter part of the second century BCE (c. 150–110 BCE).5 In its form/genre, scholars have taken two basic approaches. The first takes seriously Aristeas as a letter. This position has been the most popular one, although it is open to the serious objection that the work does not have the proper form of ancient letters. Recognizing its epistolary proclivities, Lutz Doering has compared Aristeas to ancient epistolary scientific and technical treatises that often employ direct address.6 The second approach focuses on the use of the term διήγησις, narrative, in Let. Aris. 1, 8, and 322, understanding it as a generic label for the work as a whole.7 Aristeas, however, relates to both of these generic categories, and thus, it represents a good example of the kind of genre blending that we find in the Hellenistic period. In fact, it employs elements of both genres precisely because they have advantages for the author’s literary goals.8 The work was composed by a Jew who wrote in the voice of a gentile courtier of Ptolemy II Philadelphus named Aristeas who narrates to his “brother” Philocrates the circumstances surrounding the translation of the Jewish law into Greek. Aristeas, then, functions as the pseudepigraphical narrator as well as a character in the text.9 The author, whom I call Ps.See Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 15–16. On the date, see Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 21–30. 6 Lutz Doering, Ancient Jewish Letters and the Beginnings of Christian Epistolography, WUNT 298 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 217–32. 7 See especially, Moses Hadas, Aristeas to Philocrates (Letter of Aristeas), Jewish Apocryphal Literature (New York: Harper & Brothers, 2007), 56–57; Sylvie Honigman, The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria: A Study on the Narrative of the Letter of Aristeas (London: Routledge, 2003), 29–35; and Richard Hunter, “The Letter of Aristeas,” in Creating a Hellenistic World, ed. Andrew Erskine and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2011), 47–60. 8 For more on genre, see Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 43–51. 9 See Barbara Schmitz, “Alexandria: What does the so-called Letter of Aristeas tell us about Alexandria?” in this volume. See also, Benjamin G. Wright, “Pseudonymous Authorship and Structures of Authority in the Letter of Aristeas,” in Scriptural Authority in Early Judaism and Ancient Christianity, ed. Géza Xeravits, Isaac Kalimi, and Tobias Nicklas, DCL Studies 16 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), 43–62. 4

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Aristeas, clearly had a decent Greek education judging by the rhetorical forms, literary devices, and Greek texts that he employs throughout the text. He also reveals knowledge of official Ptolemaic decrees and bureaucratic terminology. In the story, the narrator, Aristeas, functions as “a mouthpiece for Gentile appreciation of Judaism.”10 That is, “Aristeas” represents Alexandrian gentile elites who “get” Jewish law, customs, and practices that might be thought strange or suspicious, such as kosher law, and that might prevent Jews from participating fully in elite Alexandrian society. At the same time, Aristeas’s appreciation of Judaism permits effective monitoring of ethnic boundaries that mark Jews as Jews.11

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2. Aristeas as a Historical Source for Septuagint Origins The story told in Aristeas has occupied a central place in reconstructions of the origins of the Septuagint, largely because it is the earliest and fullest “account.” In Aristeas, the motivation for the translation of the Jewish law originates in Ptolemy II’s desire to have all the books of the world in the Alexandrian library. His librarian, Demetrius of Phalerum, undertakes the project, and as part of the enterprise, the king writes to the high priest Eleazar in Jerusalem requesting that he send translators to Alexandria to do the job. The high priest dispatches 72 translators, who accompany Aristeas back to Alexandria. They are fêted in a series of symposia over which the king presides, and finally they translate the Jewish law into Greek “in seventy-two days, appearing as if this circumstance happened according to some plan” (Let. Aris. 307). Each element of this story – royal patronage, inclusion in the library, and authorized translators from Jerusalem – has been defended at one point or another as historically plausible or likely, even if lip service is paid to the legendary nature of the telling and the historically improbable elements of the story are admitted. The involvement of Ptolemy II and the library project perhaps attracts the most debate and discussion. So, for example, Wolfgang Orth argues that Ptolemy’s and Demetrius’s roles should not be ruled out and that Ps.-Aristeas’s presentation of the pair as the “spiritual fathers” of the translation warrants a revaluation of the history of “the oft reviled ‘Letter’ to Philocrates” on this point.12 Tessa Rajak, while calling Aristeas ‘historical Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 20. On ethnic boundary marking in the Letter of Aristeas, see Stewart Moore, Jewish Ethnic Identity and Relations in Hellenistic Egypt: With Walls of Iron? JSJSup 171 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), ch. 5. 12 Wolfgang Orth, “Ptolemaios II. Und die Septuaginta-Übersetzung,” in Im Brennpunkt: Die Septuaginta. Studien zur Entstehung und Bedeutung der Griechischen Bibel, ed. 10

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myth’ that blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction, takes the possibility of royal patronage seriously because Aristeas comports with what we know of early Ptolemaic Alexandria and especially the reign of Ptolemy II.13 Plausibility becomes likelihood. Sylvie Honigman has suggested a more creative solution to the problem of royal involvement. In short, she claims that Aristeas conflates two different historical times: the translation of the Pentateuch at the time of Ptolemy II and a possible later revision that a Jewish politeuma in Alexandria held to be authoritative in the 160s BCE and afterwards. While the motivation for the translation came from Jews, they secured royal patronage for the project from Ptolemy II. A copy of the translation could have been deposited in the Alexandrian Library after its production or at some later time (or perhaps not at all). After about 160 BCE or so, after a politeuma had been established in Alexandria, the Jews undertook to secure an authoritative version of the Septuagint that was held by the Jewish ethnarch. Thus, in Honigman’s estimation Aristeas was composed “either to support the political step of the proclamation of the copy held in the library as authoritative (or, alternatively, the promulgation of the emended edition), or, more probably, to meet public curiosity aroused by this step.”14 These examples of reconstructions of Septuagint origins try to take specific aspects of Aristeas as containing some historical core or set of historical realities that offer glimpses into the circumstances surrounding the translation of the Septuagint. Yet, when we compare how Aristeas constructs the Septuagint with the translations themselves, the disconnect between the two pushes me to the conclusion that Aristeas provides no firm data on which to make arguments about the Septuagint’s origins. I will return to this issue below.

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3. The Nature of the Septuagint according to Aristeas Assessments of the place of the Septuagint in Aristeas vary among scholars. Some take the story of the translation as little more than a narrative frame that has no real bearing on the rest of the text. So, for example, Erich Gruen writes, “The story of the translation provides a frame for the narrative. But only a frame. It introduces it and closes it. But much transpires within that frame that has little or nothing to do with rendering the Hebrew Bible into Heinz-Josef Fabry and Ulrich Offerhaus, BWANT 153 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2003), 97– 114. 13 Tessa Rajak, Translation & Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 66. 14 For the complete argument and reconstruction, see Honigman, Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship, 130–39. For a discussion and critique of the various arguments for the historicity of Aristeas, see Benjamin G. Wright, “The Letter of Aristeas and the Question of Septuagint Origins Redux,” JAJ (2011): 304–26.

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Greek.”15 On the other hand, Honigman argues that Aristeas constitutes a “charter myth” that establishes the status of the Septuagint as a sacred text and authoritative scripture.16 In her reading, the so-called digressions of Aristeas all contribute to the construction of the Septuagint’s charter myth, and thus, Aristeas is in a way all about the Septuagint. Taking my cues from Honigman, I have argued for an overall reading that converges with hers – that Aristeas is about the Septuagint throughout. The various pieces of the text, the digressions, contribute to a myth of origins the creation of which became necessary as the position of the Septuagint changed over time. At their stage of production, the translations of the Pentateuchal books had a dependent literary relationship to their Hebrew source texts, which were still regarded as the sacred scripture of the Jews, and the translations were intended to point to or be a gateway to the sacred text.17 In the latter part of the second century BCE, at the time of Aristeas, the Septuagint in its reception history achieved independence from the source text, and the translation became sacred scripture for the Jews of Alexandria. It thus replaced the Hebrew text, and the Letter of Aristeas provided the story that retrojected that status back to the time of the translations’ origins.18 Moreover, Gentiles in Aristeas recognize the Septuagint as constituting the law of the Jews, and Aristeas has as a second goal establishing that Gentiles recognized the Jewish law as found in the Septuagint as the law code of a people given by an authoritative lawgiver in much the same way that Greeks had laws given by Solon or Lycurgus. How, then, does Aristeas construct the Septuagint as sacred scripture and the authoritative Jewish law code? The author takes four basic tacks: 1. the Hebrew text on which the Septuagint has the imprimatur of the Jewish high priest and is the best scholarly text available; 2. the Septuagint is presented as a work of high literature in Greek deserving a place in the library, which has the imprimatur of Ptolemy II; 3. the Septuagint shares everything that characterizes the law in Hebrew, and thus, it can serve as an independent replacement for the Hebrew – to prove this point, Ps.-Aristeas rewrites the Exodus Erich S. Gruen, “The Letter of Aristeas and the Cultural Context of the Septuagint,” in Die Septuaginta – Texte, Kontexte, Lebenswelten, ed. Martin Karrer and Wolfgang Kraus, WUNT 219 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 134–56 (141). 16 Honigman, Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship, 8. 17 For the nature of this dependent relationship and its theoretical basis, see below and Albert Pietersma, “A New Paradigm for Addressing Old Questions: The Relevance of the Interlinear Model for the Study of the Septuagint,” in Bible and Computer: The Stellenbosch AIBI Conference, Proceedings of the Association Internationale Bible et Informatique “From Alpha to Byte” University of Stellenbosch 17–21 July, 2000, ed. Johann Cook (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 337–64; and Cameron Boyd-Taylor, Reading Between the Lines: The Interlinear Paradigm for Septuagint Studies, BTS 8 (Leuven: Peeters, 2011). 18 This is the larger argument in my commentary; see Wright, Letter of Aristeas. 15

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story with the Septuagint as the focus; and 4. the Jewish community in Alexandria accepts the Septuagint as its sacred scripture. 3.1 The Hebrew Text Ps.-Aristeas immediately establishes the status of the Jewish law for his Gentile protagonists Ptolemy II and Demetrius. The ostensible motivation for the law to be included in the Alexandrian Library establishes the basis for translation. The law is missing from the library’s collection because it is not in Greek but in the language of the Jews, so Demetrius tells Ptolemy in Let. Aris. 11. The situation gets complicated in Let. Aris. 30–31. In a memorandum to Ptolemy, Demetrius writes:

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As you have commanded, O King, concerning the books that are wanting for the completion of the library, how they are to be collected, and those that have by chance fallen away from proper repair, paying more than incidental attention to these matters, I submit a report to you here. The books of the law of the Judeans along with a few others are wanting. For it happens that they are expressed in Hebrew letters and language, but they have been written (σεσήμανται) rather carelessly and not as is proper, just as it has been reported by the experts. For they have not attained royal curation. Now it is necessary that these books, having been made exact, be with you because this legislation is both very philosophical and uncorrupted, inasmuch as it is divine.

The term σεσήμανται has engendered much scholarly debate as to whether it points to previous Greek translations, as Paul Kahle and others have argued, or to Hebrew manuscripts, the position of Gunther Zuntz and others. I will not rehearse that debate here.19 In the world of the narrative, Ps.Aristeas is making a case that the Hebrew texts already in Alexandria have been carelessly (ἀμελέστερον) copied, since the king, and presumably the scholars in the Alexandrian library, have not overseen their transmission, most likely because they are in Hebrew. As a result, Ptolemy must write to Eleazar not only to request translators but also to have him send an authoritative copy that, as ruler of the Jews, he has ostensibly curated and authorized. The books of the Jewish law that come to Alexandria will be the most reliable and scholarly form of the text possible. Despite the problematic transmission of the Hebrew in Alexandria, Demetrius comprehends the value of the Jewish law for the king and the library when he notes that the books of the Jews belong in the library “because this legislation is both very philosophical and uncorrupted, inasmuch as it is divine” (Let. Aris. 31). We do not hear anything more about the nature of the Hebrew text until the translators arrive in Alexandria and present Ptolemy with the scrolls that they have brought, which were “remarkable parchments on which the legislation had been written in golden writing in Judean characters, the parchment 19 For the debate and the arguments for my interpretation here, see Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 145–49.

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being worked amazingly and the common joins constructed to be imperceptible” (Let. Aris. 176). When the king sees the scrolls unrolled, “he paused for a long time (i.e., in amazement) and prostrating himself about seven times” he said, “I thank you, O Men, and even more the one who sent you, but mostly the God whose utterances these are” (Let. Aris. 177). In Let. Aris. 179, the king notes the appropriateness of paying homage to the scrolls. The king’s act of prostration recalls other instances where kings prostrated themselves before deities. In Aristeas, the author likely has the king prostrate himself before the scrolls, because they contain the words (τὰ λόγια) of the god, which substitute for the actual deity, since prostration before the Jewish god would have taken place in the temple in Jerusalem. This passage reiterates the divine quality of the Jewish law in Hebrew and also Eleazar’s scholarly authorization of these rolls as a text that has been curated by the ruler of the Jews.20

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3.2 The Septuagint as High Literature Demetrius recommends that the king write to Eleazar to request translators “who have lived exceedingly good lives and are eminent, skilled in matters pertaining to their own law … so that after examining the agreement of the majority and obtaining exactitude in the translation, we may place it conspicuously, worthy of the affairs of state and of your purpose” (Let. Aris. 32). Aristeas, one of the king’s courtiers, along with a certain Andreas, heads the delegation to Jerusalem to bring back translators to do the job. We find out later that these translators were equipped by both nature and education for the task. In Let. Aris. 121–22 we discover that the translators “excelled in education” both in the literature of the Jews and in Greek literature. They “possessed a great natural disposition for conversations and questions about the Law.” They live exemplary lives, and thus, in their piety, they fulfill the Law as well. The translators who go with Aristeas are uniquely qualified, then, to represent Eleazar the high priest and ruler of the Jews; their piety and training in Jewish literature shows that they understand the Law thoroughly, while their training in Greek literature equips them to transfer that understanding and piety into a Greek text of distinction. They function as the guarantors of the authority of the translation into Greek, which will be the equivalent of the original in Hebrew from the moment of its production and at the same time a work of high literature in Greek.21 20 Ps.-Aristeas employs some of the language of Homeric textual scholarship at various points in the narrative. For two different takes on the significance of this vocabulary, see Honigman, Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship, and Maren R. Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), ch. 2. See also, Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 146–48. 21 See Dries de Crom, “The Letter of Aristeas and the Authority of the Septuagint,” JSP 17 (2008): 141–60, who argues that there are two paradigms of authority at work: an Alex-

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After arriving in Alexandria, the king honors the translators with a series of symposia in which he asks each a question and which establishes their bona fides as men who are capable of rendering the law into Greek (Let. Aris. 187–300). Their answers invariably include reference to God, and the king applauds each one. Even the king’s philosophers admire the Jewish translators – in fact, in the middle of the symposia, they shout approval of the answers to the king’s questions (Let. Aris. 235). The description of the translations along with their answers in the symposia establish that the translators are the right people to render a Hebrew text that is “philosophical, uncorrupted, inasmuch as it is divine” and to transfer these same qualities to the Greek translation.22

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3.3 The Septuagint as Independent Replacement of the Hebrew Ultimately, however, the translators represent Eleazar, who serves as the primary authority for the new translation. One of the central episodes in the book is Eleazar’s speech in which he gives allegorical interpretations of the law. Eleazar takes up kosher law, specifically the distinction between clean and unclean birds along with animals that have cloven hooves and that chew the cud. In this speech Eleazar does not claim responsibility for his interpretations, but he frames them as Moses’s intention when he gave these laws originally. So, for example, after Eleazar argues that the distinction between eating certain birds and not eating others has to do with executing justice and not oppressing others, he says in Let. Aris. 147, “Therefore through these he (i.e., Moses) established a sign, giving the designation ‘unclean,’ that is binding on that person for whom the legislation has been ordained….” Likewise, after arguing that “chewing the cud is nothing other than the recollection of life and existence” (Let. Aris. 154), Eleazar claims that Moses “exhorted us to keep in remembrance that the aforementioned things are preserved by divine power…” (Let. Aris. 157). In an ironic twist, Eleazar, who is ostensibly giving the meaning of what Moses said in Hebrew, makes his claims about Moses’s intention in Greek. Thus, the rhetoric of Eleazar’s speech in these paragraphs subtly imbues the translation with the status of scripture even before it is translated.23 In essence, then, Ps.-Aristeas portrays the translation of the Jewish law into Greek as a second giving of the law, this time in Greek for the Jews of Alexandria. He rewrites the Exodus story to fit the circumstances of this givandrian/Greek one where the authority is scholarly and connected with the Library; and a Jewish one that plays on the Exodus narrative and the giving of the Law at Sinai (see esp. ibid., 151). More on the latter below. 22 See later in Let. Aris. 305, which treats the practice of Jews washing their hands, where the translators’ piety also is emphasized. 23 See Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 277–78.

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ing of the law in Greek in order to confirm that it can function as a replacement for the Hebrew text on which it is based and that it can stand next to the Hebrew as an equal that contains all that Moses, the lawgiver, had intended when he gave the law in its original language.24 Several aspects of Ps.Aristeas’s narrative contribute to this theme. First, early in the work (Let. Aris. 12–27), Aristeas convinces Ptolemy II to liberate Jewish slaves who had been brought to Egypt as war captives under his father Ptolemy I arguing that his mission to Eleazar to secure the translators would have no justifiable rationale while the Jews, whose legislation he wanted translated for the library, were held in captivity. Second, the travel narrative that describes the deputation’s trip to Jerusalem adapts several episodes from the Exodus story (and slightly beyond). So, we get a description of the workings of the temple, its sacrifices, and priestly activities à la passages in Exodus and Leviticus, a description of the high priest’s vestments (cf. Exod 28), an ekphrasis on the accoutrements of the temple (bowls and the table; cf. Exod 25), a description of Jerusalem and its surroundings as an ideal city and the accompanying countryside, likely reflecting the biblical “land flowing with milk and honey” (cf. Num 13:26–27; 14:7–8).25 Third, Eleazar functions as a stand-in for Moses, who explains the meaning of the law, and thus, Aristeas participates in what Hindy Najman has called “Mosaic discourse.”26 Fourth, the translators, who parallel the 70 elders who ascended Sinai with Moses in Exod 24:9, are authorized representatives of Eleazar.27 They are uniquely qualified to execute the translation, on which Eleazar already has conferred his authority. Of course, because the law is given a second time in Egypt, certain features of the Exodus story required complete revision or even excision. There is an Egyptian pharaoh in Ps.-Aristeas’s version, but on this occasion we have 24 For different assessments of Aristeas as a rewriting of the Exodus, see Honigman, Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship, ch. 3; Noah Hacham, “The Letter of Aristeas: A New Exodus Story?” JSJ 36 (2005): 2–20; Arkady Kovelman, Between Jerusalem and Alexandria: The Dynamic of Jewish and Hellenistic Culture, Brill Reference Library of Judaism 21 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), ch. 4; and Paul McKechnie, “Ptolemy Philadelphus: A New Moses,” in Ptolemy Philadelphus and his World, ed. idem and Philip Guillaume, Mnemonsyne Supplements History and Archaeology of Classical Antiquity 300 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 234–46. Hacham and McKechnie argue that Ptolemy II rather than Eleazar plays the role of Moses, a point with which I disagree. 25 The description of Jerusalem and its surrounding countryside also has been influenced by Hellenistic conceptions of an ideal city, particularly Aristotle, Pol. 7. See Sylvie Honigman, “La Description de Jérusalem et de la Judée dans la Lettre d’Aristée,” Estratto da Athenaeum 92 (2004): 73–101 and Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 196–223. 26 Hindy Najman, Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism, JSJSup 77 (Leiden: Brill, 2003). 27 In fact, the label “Septuaginta,” “70,” reflects a tradition in which there are 70 translators rather than the 72 of the text. It is clear that in later tradition, the translators were closely associated with the elders of Exodus.

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a benevolent pharaoh, Ptolemy II, who facilitates the giving of the law and does not persecute the people. Thus, the people have no need to escape Egypt; they do not need to flee Egypt to a mountain in the wilderness or to wander in the desert, and as a result, the Sinai episode is missing in toto from Aristeas. Finally, despite the fact that Ps.-Aristeas knows the Septuagint translation of Deuteronomy (cf. Let. Aris. 159–60), he ignores the injunction given in Deut 17:6 in which God prohibits the Israelites from returning to Egypt. Jews had indeed returned to Egypt and were flourishing. We see a picture in Aristeas of a Jewish community fully at home in Alexandria with no need to leave, one that has taken a central myth of Jewish identity and refashioned it to suit their own needs.28 3.4 Acceptance of the Septuagint in the Jewish Community After the translators finish their work, Ps.-Aristeas has Demetrius assemble the Jews together, a scene in which they accept the Septuagint as their scriptural text. Curiously, we are never told that the Septuagint is placed in the library. Actually, this episode incorporates two separate scenes, which accords with the double theme of a Jewish translation that has had Ptolemaic sponsorship. In the first scene (Let. Aris. 308–11), Demetrius gathers the Jews together and publicly reads the translation to them. The assembled multitude approves of Demetrius, and they request a copy of the translation for their leaders. In Let. Aris. 310–11, Ps.-Aristeas plays on biblical scenes where the people accept something as authoritative and binding.29 And when the rolls were read, the priests and the elders of the translators and some from the politeuma and the leaders of the people stood and said, “Since the exposition has been made well, piously, and accurately in every respect, it is good that it remain just as it is and there is no revision at all.” And then all assented to what had been said. They ordered that there be a curse, just as is their custom, upon anyone who might revise by adding or changing anything at all of what had been written or by making a deletion. They did this well so that it would always be preserved everlastingly and permanently.30

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The paradigmatic biblical example, of course, is Exod 24:3–8 in which Moses tells the people what God has said and the people respond that they will obey 28 See Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 56–59. On Jews being comfortable in their Alexandrian environment, see as well, Gruen, “Aristeas and the Cultural Context.” 29 See Harry M. Orlinsky, “The Septuagint and Holy Writ and the Philosophy of the Translators,” HUCA 46 (1975): 89–114. 30 On the reference to a Jewish politeuma, see Sylvie Honigman, “Politeumata and Ethnicity in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt,” Ancient Society 33 (2003): 61–102; Bradley Ritter, “On the ‘πολίτευμα in Heracleopolis’,” Scripta Classica Israelica 30 (2011): 9–37; Constantine Zuckerman, “Hellenistic Politeumata and the Jews: A Reconsideration,” Scripta Classica Israelica 8–9 (1985–1988): 171–85; Gert Lüderitz, “What is a Politeuma?” in Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy, ed. Jan Willem van Henten and Pieter W. van der Horst, AGJU 21 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 183–225.

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these words. Moses writes down what God has said and reads it to the people, who again proclaim their allegiance to what Moses has read. In 2 Kgs 23, when Josiah’s men present him with the scroll found during the refurbishment of the temple, he calls together “all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.” He then reads the scroll out loud to them: “And with him went all the people of Judah, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets and all the people both small and great; he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord…. All the people joined in the covenant” (2 Kgs 23:2–3).31 Curses are associated with violating the law/covenant in Deuteronomy 4 and 28. Here in Aristeas, the people bind themselves to this new translation as their sacred scripture. The Greek has replaced the Hebrew for them in a scene that replicates biblical instances of the people’s acceptance of the Hebrew text. The second scene (Let. Aris. 312–16) features Ptolemy II. Demetrius reads the translated law to the king, who marvels at it and wonders why no one has referred to it previously. Demetrius answers, “Because the legislation is sacred and has come about through God” (Let. Aris. 313), and he tells the king about Theopompus and Theodektes, who, when they were about to cite something from the Jewish scriptures, were struck by God to prevent it. In the cases of these two Greek writers, Ps.-Aristeas seems to be drawing on traditions that great wisdom or sacred things should not be revealed to people who are not properly prepared to receive them. So, wanting to include God’s “utterances” in a history or a rhetorical oration would be throwing pearls before swine, something God would not allow.32 Absent, however, is any statement in the scene that the translation was given to the king, in contrast with the copy given to the Jewish leaders, or that it ended up in the library. The narrative effectively ends with the Jews possessing the copy of the law that now has become their scriptural text and with the king marveling at it all.

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4. The Septuagint as a Translation and the Problem of Origins If we compare the Septuagint as a translation to the idealized portrait of it in Aristeas, we have to confront a large disconnect. Aristeas constructs the Septuagint at its point of production as a work of high literature, intended to be the sacred scripture of Alexandrian Jews, and from its inception meant to be used independently of its Hebrew parent text. Yet, if we look at the Greek Pentateuchal translations through the lens of contemporary translation theory, that construction seems rooted in the realm of Aristeas’s ideological goals 31 See also Neh 8:1–8. In the Septuagint/Old Greek translations, see the translations of the Exod 24 passage and 4 Kgdms (=2 Kgs) 23 passages as well as 2 Esd 18:1–8. 32 For the detailed argument Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 446–48.

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rather than in the translation process itself. The work of Gideon Toury helps to illuminate the problems.33 Toury theorized that the intended function of a translation (its position), its surface makeup (the product), and the strategies taken by a translator (the process) are intrinsically related. As he puts it, “[T]he prospective systemic position or function of a translation determines its appropriate surface realization (=textual-linguistic makeup), which governs the strategies whereby a target text (or parts thereof) is derived from its original, and hence the relationships which hold them together.”34 Moreover, Toury’s model has important consequences for thinking about the Septuagint in that for him translation is embedded in the socio-cultural and historic matrices in which translators live and work and in which their translations are produced. Thus, translation is a teleologically driven activity in which the historical and linguistic remain inextricably intertwined.35 In such a case, as with the Septuagint, if we do not know one of the three aspects that Toury identifies, we ought to be able to hypothesize about it from what we can see in the other two. For the Septuagint, we do not know the niche it was intended to occupy in the target culture, its position.36 We do have access to its textual-linguistic makeup and its translation strategies, however. So, we should be able to make some informed suggestions about the unknown position and from there hypothesize about where in the socio-cultural landscape of ancient Alexandrian Judaism such a translation might fit. When we examine the Septuagint as a translation, we see immediately that this is not the work of high literature that Aristeas leads us to expect. Scholars take different approaches to the nature of the Greek of the Septuagint, but within the translations that make up the Pentateuch, we see translators rendering the Hebrew text in ways that range from quite sensitive to producing outright nonsense. Throughout, the translators take a predominantly isomorphic approach to the translation process, which results in the translations 33 See, Gideon Toury, Descriptive Translation Studies and beyond, Benjamins Translation Library 4 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1995). Toury’s ideas formed part of the foundation for the approach to translation taken in Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright, eds., A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under That Title (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), see the ch. “To the Reader of NETS,” xiii–xx. 34 Toury, Descriptive Translation Studies, 13. See the convenient chart there. 35 For more detail, especially as related to Aristeas, see Benjamin G. Wright, “Moving Beyond Translating a Translation: Reflections on A New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS),” in “Translation Is Required”: The Septuagint in Retrospect and Prospect, ed. Robert J. V. Hiebert, SBLSCS 30 (Atlanta: SBL, 2010), 23–39 and Wright, “Aristeas and the Question of Septuagint Origins.” 36 Position, however, is not Sitz im Leben but rather its cultural location or systemic value in the target culture, which can be represented in certain binaries such as central/peripheral, literary/non-literary, monolingual/bi- or multi-lingual. We do not know the Sitz im Leben for the Septuagint as well, however.

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having a dependent linguistic relationship with their parent text. That is, the Septuagint translations have both a horizontal and a vertical dimension. On the horizontal dimension, the translator connects morphemes in syntactical units, but on the vertical axis, the source text comprises the “de facto context for units of meaning.”37 To the extent that the Septuagint translations are characterized by interference from the source texts, particularly negative interference, they have inherent in them a dimension of unintelligibility, and the Hebrew parent text in such cases requires consultation and serves as an arbiter of meaning.38 Even in cases where we see literary sensitivity in the Greek, the translators tended to retain this more-or-less one-to-one relationship with the source text.39 So, for example, James Aitken points to Gen 1:2, where the translator rendered the euphonic phrase ‫ ֹתהוּ ׇוֹבהוּ‬with ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος, which looks to be an attempt to translate both the sense of the Hebrew phrase and its euphony by using the alliterative alpha-privative and the rhyming -τος adjectival endings.40 Yet, the translator at the same time retained a one-to-one correspondence between the Greek and the Hebrew for the entire verse. By contrast, sometimes translators also produced translations that contained decidedly un-Greek Greek. In Lev 17:3, for instance, the Hebrew ‫איש איש‬, a distributive meaning “each person,” is rendered into Greek as ἄνθρωπος ἄνθρωπος, which is not a distributive in Greek, and one needs to resort to the Hebrew to understand what the Greek translator might have been trying to get at.41 The Septuagint’s dependent linguistic relationship to the Hebrew text suggests that rather than an independent scriptural corpus, at its point of production the translation opened a gateway to the Hebrew – it brought the reader to the text rather than the text to the reader – which retained the status of sacred scripture. Only later in its reception history, at a remove from the transla37 Pietersma, “A New Paradigm,” 351. The idea that the Septuagint had a dependent linguistic relationship with its parent text that at times serves as an arbiter of meaning, the “interlinear paradigm,” served as the foundation for A New English Translation of the Septuagint. 38 Pietersma, “A New Paradigm,” 350. On the phenomenon of interference, see Toury, Descriptive Translation Studies, 274–79. 39 For examples of literary sensitivity on the part of the translators, see James K. Aitken, “The Characterisation of Speech in the Septuagint Pentateuch,” in The Reception of the Hebrew Bible in the Septuagint and the New Testament: Essays in Memory of Aileen Guilding, ed. David J. A. Clines and J. Cheryl Exum (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2013), 9–31 and idem, “The Significance of Rhetoric in the Greek Pentateuch,” in On Stone and Scroll, ed. idem, Katherine J. Dell, and Brian A. Mastin, BZAW 420 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 507–21. 40 Aitken, “Significance of Rhetoric,” 507. 41 This does not mean that the Greek phrase has now become a distributive in Greek; see Pietersma, “A New Paradigm,” 352.

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tion’s production, did the Septuagint achieve independence and the status of a sacred text. Ps.-Aristeas takes the status of the Septuagint in his own time and projects that status backwards to its supposed time of origin. Royal patronage and Jewish acceptance guarantee that the text has been curated and stabilized and has the authority of the Jewish community as its scripture, as we saw above.42 Given the evidence of the Septuagint as a translation within Toury’s theoretical model, we might suggest the various possibilities about where in the socio-cultural landscape of third-century BCE Jewish Alexandria it might have fit. Scholars have suggested any number of motivations for the translation of the Septuagint: as royal patronage for the library, as Aristeas claims; for use as a legal code; for use in liturgy, being the most common.43 On the basis of the relationship of the Septuagint to its Hebrew parent, Albert Pietersma has suggested an instructional context for the Septuagint in which that dependence points to the translation functioning as a vehicle for study and understanding of the Hebrew. In such a context, the relative authority of the two texts, Hebrew and Greek, would not be in question. The Hebrew retained its authority and the Greek functioned as a kind of crib for it.44 Looking at the Septuagint as a translation and setting aside the Letter of Aristeas can also enable suggestions about other questions related to the translation of the Pentateuch in Alexandria. Two in particular are germane here. One concerns how much Hebrew Alexandrian Jews knew and how much expertise the translators had in Hebrew. Aristeas claims that the translators came from Jerusalem, although, as we saw above, this claim enhances the authority of both the Hebrew text from which the Septuagint was made and the Septuagint translations themselves. There is no reason to think, as has been suggested as one motivation for the Septuagint, that Alexandrian Jews had lost their facility in Hebrew and thus needed a Greek translation in order to read their scriptures.45 As René Bloch demonstrates, there is good evidence for Hebrew in Alexandria,46 and, as with other aspects of the Septuagint, acceptance of the narrative in Aristeas has likely played a role in the claims that Alexandrian Jews had “abandoned the language of their fathers.”47 If one takes Aristeas’s claims seriously, that scrolls of Hebrew came from Jerusalem 42 On the issue of a stable text, see Francis Borchardt, “The LXX Myth and the Rise of Textual Fixity,” JSJ 43 (2012): 1–21. 43 See Wright, “Aristeas and the Question of Septuagint Origins,” 311–17. 44 Pietersma argues that the koine translations of Homer in instructional contexts are analogous. For his full argumentation, see “A New Paradigm,” 357–60. 45 See, for example, the claim of diasporic, Jewish loss of Hebrew in Natalio F. Marcos, The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Versions of the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 19–20. 46 See his article “How Much Hebrew in Jewish Alexandria?” in this volume. 47 The quote comes from Marcos, Septuagint in Context, 19.

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along with people who could translate, the implication might be that the Jews of Alexandria could not do the job themselves. On the other hand, even if Alexandrian Jews did the translating, the kind of Greek that we find in the Septuagint has been taken as evidence that the translators did not know Hebrew very well. Either conclusion would be mistaken, however. Pietersma has argued that the isomorphic approach to translation found in the Septuagint reflects an intentional choice for rendering Hebrew into Greek, since the translators’ mode of translating “was dictated by social convention.”48 Moreover, Aitken has examined Greek translations of Demotic texts that are roughly contemporary with the Septuagint and has concluded: The features found in the Egyptian translations can all be paralleled in the Septuagint…. They reflect a method of close adherence to the source text in word order, lexical consistency, phrasing and parataxis. At the same time the translations display a degree of freedom, with occasional variation, alternation between translation and transliteration, literary embellishment, and the occasional interpretive rendering.49

The approach of the Septuagint translators to translation represents an intentional choice determined by convention and the translations’ intended position in the target culture. In this light, the translations of the Greek Pentateuch do not provide evidence of a lack of knowledge of Hebrew either on the part of the Alexandrian Jewish community or of the translators themselves. Second, the differences between Aristeas’s construction of the Septuagint and the nature of the translations themselves suggest that we should not rely on the narrative in Aristeas as an historical source for the origins of the Septuagint, however tempting that might be. Aristeas testifies to the issues and concerns of the Alexandrian Jewish community in the mid- to late second century BCE, not those of the origins of the translation in the third century BCE. Erich Gruen has it correct when he writes, “The value of the narrative lies not in extracting nuggets of fact from a largely fictional façade, but in employing the text as a window upon the Jewish mentality in the circumstances of a diasporic community in Ptolemaic Alexandria.”50

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5. Conclusion When we look at the place of the Septuagint in Alexandrian Judaism as reflected in the Letter of Aristeas and in the translations of the Pentateuch that Pietersma, “A New Paradigm,” 357. James K. Aitken, “The Septuagint and Egyptian Translation Methods,” in XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Munich 2013, ed. Wolfgang Kraus, Martin Meiser and Michaël N. van der Meer, SBLSCS 64 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016), 269–93 (292). 50 Gruen, “Aristeas and the Cultural Context,” 136. 48

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make up the Septuagint, we must reckon with two different contexts. Aristeas offers a construction that situates the Septuagint as the scriptural text of Alexandrian Judaism that serves as the basis for Alexandrian Jewish identity at the end of the second century BCE and that has replaced its Hebrew parent text, a construction that reflects the status of the Septuagint in Ps.-Aristeas’s time. The narrative exudes comfort within the Hellenistic context of the city of Alexandria and with Greek elites, such as Aristeas, Demetrius, and Ptolemy II, who understand and affirm Jewish law and customs and with whom commensality is achieved easily. Ps.-Aristeas and his co-ethnics can maintain a Judean ethnic identity while also presenting themselves as Hellenes, insiders within Alexandrian Hellenistic society.51 The Septuagint translations give some clues to their place within Jewish Alexandria at their point of production, sometime in the third century BCE, but they do not allow the kind of detailed reconstruction that we get with Aristeas. In many ways what we can know from the translations themselves contradicts the story of Aristeas. Egyptian Jews, not a large delegation from Jerusalem, almost certainly made the translations, and they employed methods of translation that can be paralleled in other Egyptian contexts of translation. In what context the Septuagint originated and for what purpose the translations were made remain largely a mystery still, although it seems likely that the Septuagint did not function originally as an independent scriptural replacement for the Hebrew. Toury notes that translations can change their position over time, and I think that is precisely what we see in the differences between the Septuagint at its point of production and in the Letter of Aristeas, which witnesses to the Septuagint’s reception history.52 By the time of Aristeas, the Septuagint had achieved the status of scripture and had replaced the Hebrew for Alexandrian Jews and, its author constructed a sophisticated myth of origins for that status, one that would endure in Greek-speaking Judaism and later in the Christian church.

See Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 62–74. See Toury, Descriptive Translation Studies, 30. On this issue between Aristeas and the Septuagint, see Wright, “Aristeas and the Question of Septuagint Origins,” 323. 51 52

The First Pogrom? Religious Violence in Alexandria in 38 CE? JAN N. BREMMER Among the best known and least edifying events to take place in Alexandria were the riots in 38 CE when Greek and Egyptian Alexandrians set upon the Judeans, confined them to a kind of ghetto, plundered their houses, and lynched those that strayed from that ghetto. The incident has regularly been compared to the notorious pogroms of late nineteenth-century Russia, and Pieter W. van der Horst has called his commentary on Philo’s Flaccus, the most important source for this event, “The First Pogrom.”1 The label “pogrom” raises the question to what extent the comparison is useful and what role religious violence played in the ancient metropolis. I will not even try to sketch an answer to this broader question, which far transcends the limits of my competence. However, using modern insights about pogroms and religious riots, I will here concentrate on the events in Alexandria as they are the best-attested case in the early Roman Empire.

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1. The Term ‘Pogrom’ The term “pogrom,” from Russian погром, “storm, devastation,” is nowadays so well known that we hardly pause when using it. Yet it is a fairly recent term in Western historiography. Most studies and Wikipedia articles state that the term arose from the anti-Jewish riots in the 1880s,2 but it is hard to find attestations in Anglophone literature before 1900; in German I found none at all, although in Yiddish studies the term appears soon after 1900, and Yiddish probably popularized the term.3 Interestingly, one of the very first uses of the 1 See Pieter W. van der Horst, ed., Philo’s Flaccus: The First Pogrom, Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2003); similarly, for example, Klaus Bringmann, Geschichte der Juden im Altertum (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2005), 220: “ein Pogrom der allerschlimmsten Art.” 2 John D. Klier, Russians, Jews, and the Pogroms of 1881–1882 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Stefan Wiese, Pogrome im Zarenreich: Dynamiken kollektiver Gewalt (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2016). 3 See, for example, Shmuel Frug and Abraham Goldfaden, Der Ḳishineṿer Pogrom: tsṿey ḳloge Lider (London, 1906); David Horovitz, Der bluṭiger pogrom in Odessa: fun 18–22

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term in Anglophone literature refers to the massacre of a prison population by Cossacks, without any mention of Jews; subsequently the term occurs within quotation marks or is explained: “pogrom or Jew-Baiting in Russia.”4 In German and English dictionaries, the term only appeared gradually, and not always with reference to the Jews, and in the titles of scholarly books and articles it seems to have become current only in recent decades.5 This relatively recent origin probably explains the lack of a generally accepted definition. In the International Handbook of Violence Research, Werner Bergmann defines the pogrom as “a unilateral, nongovernmental form of collective violence initiated by the majority population against a largely defenseless ethnic group and occurring when the majority expect the state to provide them no assistance in overcoming a (perceived) threat from the minority.”6 It is clear that this definition is only partially helpful, as its focus on the role of the state makes it less suitable for pre-modern societies. Moreover, its focus on an “ethnic group” strangely neglects religious groups. It also has nothing to say about the course of the event, the nature of the pogromists, or the culture of violence employed in specific cases, which are all features studied by Natalie Zemon Davis in a famous article on the “rites of violence.”7 Yet a combination of these modern approaches can perhaps make better sense of the events Oḳṭyabr 1905 yohr (Odessa, 1906); Maria Konopnicka, Mendil Dantsiger: A Pogrom Bild (Warsaw: Kantaroyts, 1906–1907). 4 See, for example, George Kennan, “The History of the Kara Political Prison,” The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine 38 (1889): 732-49 (734, 736); see also, a Russian (presumably, somebody who wanted to stay anonymous), “The Kishineff ‘Pogrom,’” The Arena 30 (1903): 137–144 (quotation marks); Simon Hirsdansky, A Jewish bard: Being the Biography of Eliakum Zunser, ed. Abraham H. Fromenson (New York: Zunser Jubilee Comittee, 1905), 92, 95 (quotation marks); (no author mentioned), “The Jew on the Stage,” The Review of Reviews 32 (1905): 605. 5 See, for example, Alfred Gottschalk, The German Pogrom of November 1938 and the Reaction of American Jewry (New York: Leo Baeck Institute, 1988); Paul R. Brass, ed., Pogroms and Riots (New York: NYU Press, 1996); Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir P. Naumov, eds., Stalin’s Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991). 6 Werner Bergmann, “Pogrome,” in Internationales Handbuch der Gewaltforschung, ed. Wilhelm Heitmeyer and John Hagan (Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2002), 441–460. This volume was translated into English. See “Pogroms,” in The International Handbook of Violence Research, ed. idem (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004), 351–467; see also David Engel, “What’s in a Pogrom? European Jews in the Age of Violence,” in AntiJewish Violence: Rethinking the Pogrom in East European History, ed. Jonathan Dekel-Chen et al. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), 19–37 (24). 7 Natalie Z. Davis, “The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France,” Past and Present 59 (1973): 51–91, reprinted in eadem, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), 152–87; see also Harvey E. Goldberg, “Rites and Riots: The Tripolitanian Pogrom of 1945,” Plural Societies 8.1 (1977): 35–56.

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of 38 CE, especially by a thick description, which has not been attempted until now. Unfortunately, we have only one source, Philo’s Flaccus, which is of course written, as Elias Bickerman (1897–1981) once said of the Maccabean documents, “in order to make history, not report it,”8 but which still enables us to reconstruct a fairly plausible course of events.9 The Judean revolt of 115–117 CE must have eliminated “carriers” of the memory of the events of 38 CE,10 but the dramatic execution of some of the leaders of the Greek side in the aftermath of the events were remembered until the early third century – witness the so-called Acta Alexandrinorum11 – and seems to be a clear case of a cultural trauma.

2. Judeans or Jews?

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Before turning to the riots, I should briefly comment on a recent debate regarding the terminology for the inhabitants of Judea. Beginning with a wellknown article by Steve Mason, several scholars have now persuasively argued that the ancient term Ἰουδαῖοι should be translated not with “Jews” but with “Judeans.”12 Admittedly, Ἰουδαῖοι normally refers to an ethnic group, but the concentration of the rioters on the synagogues as the most obvious physical symbols of the Jewish community shows that the religion of the 8 Elias Bickerman, The God of the Maccabees: Studies on the Meaning and Origin of the Maccabean Revolt, trans. Horst R. Moehring (Leiden: Brill, 1979), 4. 9 For earlier studies, see especially Werner Bergmann and Christhard Hoffmann, “Kalkül oder ‘Massenwahn’? Eine soziologische Interpretation der antijüdischen Unruhen in Alexandria 38 n. Chr.,” in Antisemitismus und Jüdische Geschichte, ed. Rainer Erb and Michael Schmidt (Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Autorenverlag, 1987), 15–46. 10 Cf. Joseph Mélèze-Modrzejewski, “Ioudaioi aphêirêmenoi: La fin de la communauté juive en Égypte,” in Symposion 1985: Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte, ed. Gerhard Thür (Cologne: Böhlau, 1989), 337–61, reprinted in idem, Un peuple de philosophes (Paris: Fayard, 2011), 283–310; Livia Capponi, Il mistero del tempo: la rivolta ebraica sotto Traiano (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2018). 11 For these Acta, see most recently Andrew Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence in Roman Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Andreas Hartmann, “Judenhass und Märtyrertum: Zum kulturgeschichtlichen Kontext der Acta Alexandrinorum,” in Zwischen Antike und Moderne: Festschrift für Jürgen Malitz zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Andreas Hartmann and Gregor Weber (Speyer: Kartoffeldruck-Verlag, 2012), 119–209 (119–56); Natalia V. Navarrete, Die Acta Alexandrinorum im Lichte neuerer und neuester Papyrusfunde (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2017). 12 See especially Steve Mason, “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,” JSJ 38 (2007): 457–512; Steve Mason and Philip F. Esler, “Judaean and Christ-Follower Identities: Grounds for a Distinction,” NTS 63 (2017): 493– 515; Benedikt Eckhardt, “Rom und die Juden – ein Kategorienfehler? Zur römischen Sicht auf die Iudaei in später Republik und frühem Prinzipat,” in Religio licita? Rom und die Juden, ed. Görge K. Hasselhoff and Meret Strothmann (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 13–53.

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Judeans had caught the attention of the other inhabitants of Alexandria, even though they may well have known that synagogues also functioned as social meeting points. Moreover, even though Philo, like some earlier Judeans, was a Roman citizen, he certainly considered himself, in our terms, a Jew. I will use the term Judean in the rest of this article, because in the first instance the riot seems to have developed along ethnic lines, even though the modern distinction between “Judean” and “Jew” is not always helpful for antiquity.13

3. The Riots and Their Aftermath

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Let us start with Alexandria itself. There can be no doubt that it was a metropolis and a cultural melting pot like modern New York, with probably over half a million inhabitants. Of these, perhaps 10 to 20 percent was of Judean origin,14 but it is impossible to gather more precise population data on them or the other inhabitants, which included many Greeks and Egyptians in addition to numerous other peoples.15 Relations between these peoples were undoubtedly problematic. The Egyptians were at the bottom of the pecking order,16 with the Judeans not far off, in the opinion of many Greeks and Romans.17 But while it was almost impossible for an Egyptian to receive Alexandrian citizenship,18 several Judeans received citizenship, for instance Philo’s own family, although certainly not en masse;19 nevertheless, Judeans had a number of privileges, such as their own religious, social and legal ad13 For the most recent survey of the debate, see Peter J. Tomson, Studies on Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries, CRINT 15 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 187–220. 14 For the population numbers, see Diana Delia, “The Population of Roman Alexandria,” TAPA 118 (1988): 275–92; Walter Ameling, “‘Market-place’ und Gewalt: Die Juden in Alexandrien 38 n. Chr.,” Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft 27 (2003): 82–87. 15 Virtually all modern studies focus on the number of Judeans, none on that of the Greeks and Egyptians, but we know that Egyptians had participated in the foundation of Alexandria: Pseudo-Callisthenes 1.31.8; Pseudo-Aristotle, Oec. 2.2.33c; Curtius Rufus 4.8.5. 16 Maren Niehoff, Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 45–74 (“The Egyptians as Ultimate Other”); Benjamin Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 352–70. 17 John M. G. Barclay, “The Politics of Contempt: Judaeans and Egyptians in Josephus’s ‘Against Apion,’” in Negotiating Diaspora-Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire, ed. John M. G. Barclay (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 109–27. 18 For the few exceptions, see Amin Benaissa, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. 79.5202 (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 2014), 131–32. 19 See most recently Klaus Bringmann, “Isopoliteia in den Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Juden und Griechen in Alexandreia,” Chiron 35 (2005): 7–21; Paola Druille, “La situación cívica de los judíos en los tratados de Filón,” Synthesis 22 (2015): 1–14.

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ministration,20 probably in the form of a πολίτευμα.21 Only the most elite Greeks possessed full citizen rights and were exempt from the poll-tax. Above them there was the tiny Upper Ten of Roman citizens.22 To become a Roman citizen one had to be an Alexandrian citizen, but the Romans were not generous in this respect.23 Tensions between these different groups may well have begun earlier in Egyptian history, in particular between Judeans and Egyptians, as witnessed by the anti-Judean writings of Manetho.24 Yet there must have been more, and Walter Ameling has collected a valuable number of notices about tensions, ranging from the third century BC to Germanicus’s visit in 19 BC.25 Why these tensions arose is not clear. For Egyptian intellectuals like Manetho the Biblical Exodus story may have been a sore point, and its celebration each year at Passover might have irritated others, but we simply do not know. What is clear, though, is that nearly all these earlier reports concern Judeans and Egyptians, not Greeks.26 And indeed Philo’s work describes the Egyptians in the most negative terms. They are the ultimate Other, placed in diametrical opposition to the Jews.27 However, when we look at the political Bradley Ritter, Judeans in the Greek Cities of the Roman Empire: Rights, Citizenship and Civil Discord, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 170 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 89–90. 21 This is flatly denied by Ameling, “‘Market-place’ und Gewalt,” 88–92; but see Sylvie Honigman, “Politeumata and Ethnicity in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt,” Ancient Society 33 (2003): 61–102; Stefan Pfeiffer, “The Alexandrian Jews and their Agon for Affiliation: The Conflict of the Years 38–41 A.D.,” in Strangers and Poor People: Changing Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion in Europe and the Mediterranean World form Classical Antiquity to the Present Day, ed. Andreas Gestrich, Lutz Raphael and Herbert Uerlings (Frankfurt a. M: Peter Lang, 2009), 113–31 (114); Benjamin G. Wright, The Letter of Aristeas: Aristeas to Philocrates or on the Translation of the Law of the Jews (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 448–50. 22 For the Alexandrian social and political stratigraphy, see, most recently, Sylvie Honigman, “Philon, Flavius Josèphe et la citoyenneté alexandrine: Vers une utopie politique,” JJS 48 (1997): 62–90; Ameling, “‘Market-place’ und Gewalt,” 99–100; Ritter, Judeans in the Greek Cities, 77–112. 23 Gertrud Dietze-Mager, “Die Beziehung zwischen römischem Bürgerrecht und alexandrinischem Stadtrecht bis zur Constitutio Antoniniana (212),” in Faces of Hellenism, ed. Peter van Nuffelen (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 217–75. 24 See especially Doron Mendels, “The Polemical Character of Manetho’s Aegyptiaca,” in Purposes of History: Proceedings of the International Colloquium. Leuven 24.–26. May 1988, Studia Hellenistica 30, ed. Herman Verdin et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 1990), 92–110, reprinted in idem, Identity, Religion, and Historiography: Studies in Hellenistic History (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 139–57; John D. Dillery, Clio’s Other Sons: Berossus and Manetho. With an Afterword on Demetrius (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015). 25 Ameling, “‘Market-place’ und Gewalt,” 103–5. 26 Ameling, “‘Market-place’ und Gewalt,” 107. 27 See the detailed discussion in Niehoff, Philo on Jewish Identity, 45–74.

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situation, the Egyptians do not seem to have been the main problem in the decades preceding the riot. Philo repeatedly mentions the ancient enmity between Judeans and Alexandrians (Flacc. 29, Legat. 120, 170), reports a Roman directive no longer to keep the Sabbath rest (Somn. 2.123–24), and praises the Roman prefect of Egypt, Aulus Avillius Flaccus,28 for keeping order and preventing riots by prohibiting Greek clubs and associations (Flacc. 4, 8).29 These reports are not very precise, but they do suggest that there had previously been tensions between Judeans and Greeks in the city, which was in any case notorious for its many riots.30 The Judeans probably contributed to these tensions too, to judge from Philo’s Schadenfreude at the humiliation of the Greeks (Macedonians) by the Romans – witness his rhetorical question: “Where is the house of the Ptolemies and the fame of the several diadochs, whose light once shone to the utmost boundaries of land and sea?” (Ios. 135– 36, tr. Niehoff). His attitude may well have been shared by other Judeans and rubbed the Greeks the wrong way.31 This situation is the formative condition of the pogrom, to which we now turn. It is interesting that Philo does not start with possible tensions in the city, but first introduces the above-mentioned Flaccus. Perhaps justifiably, Philo goes out of his way to praise him for his first five years (Flacc. 1–8), but his excellent governorship in this period is also a useful foil for what follows. After the death of Tiberius, whose rule Philo (unlike Josephus and Tacitus) paints in rather rosy colors,32 and after Caligula’s murder of his grandson and the forced suicide of his friend Macro (so Philo, Flacc. 9–16), Flaccus lost his touch and started to act against the interests of the Judeans on the counsel of his Greek advisors (Flacc. 21–24). Since Philo claims to quote here from a private conversation (Flacc. 21), his account can hardly reflect a trustworthy source. On the other hand, Philo’s inference from what he viewed as Flaccus’s change of heart in the period preceding the pogrom may well be correct and is supported by the course of events, which now took a fateful turn. In the summer of 38 CE (Flacc. 26, 83; Josephus, Ant. 18.238) Alexandria received a visit from Agrippa I,33 a Judean who was en route to Jerusalem For Flaccus, see van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus, 34–38 (with recent bibliography). For the full list, see Ameling, “‘Market-place’ und Gewalt,” 107. 30 Strabo 17.1.53; Philo, Flacc. 17; Dio Chrysostomos 32.70–72; Rudolf Haensch, Capita provinciarum: Statthaltersitze und Provinzialverwaltung in der römischen Kaiserzeit (Mainz: von Zabern, 1997), 219–21; Peter F. Mittag, “Unruhen im hellenistischen Alexandreia,” Historia 52 (2003): 161–208; Gottfried Schimanowski, Juden und Nicht-Juden in Alexandrien: Koexistenz und Konflikte bis zum Pogrom unter Trajan (117 n. Chr.) (Berlin: LIT, 2006). 31 For Philo and the Greeks, see Niehoff, Philo on Jewish Identity, 137–58. 32 Niehoff, Philo on Jewish Identity, 118–28. 33 Cf. Allen R. Kerkeslager, “Agrippa I and the Judeans of Alexandria in the Wake of the Violence in 38 CE,” REJ 168 (2009): 1–49. 28

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where he was to become king of Judea, appointed by Caligula; the route might surprise, but in 62 CE Albinus, a procurator of Nero, also travelled to Judea via Alexandria.34 The precise circumstances of his visit remain unclear,35 but Philo does his utmost to make the visit as unobtrusive as possible (Flacc. 27–28), probably to minimize the effects of his arrival in retrospect.36 Yet it is obvious from his report that Agrippa’s appearance on the Alexandrian scene sparked a series of events that were to be highly damaging to the Judeans. Recent pogrom research has stressed that pogroms depend on a contingent trigger – an “outrageous event” that causes the fury of the majority and leads to a critical mass of people who are prepared to participate in collective action.37 This is exactly what happened in Alexandria. The visit of Agrippa was completely unexpected but, clearly, his splendid retinue of bodyguards with their weapons adorned with silver and gold (Flacc. 30) disturbed the uneasy civil balance in Alexandria. The contrast between this Judean king and the fact that the Greeks had lost their own royalty through the Romans, presumably still fresh in their memory, probably played a role here. Unfortunately, we have insufficient information about the period immediately preceding the visit, but the fact that the Greek Alexandrians mocked his visit (Flacc. 38) surely points to existing tensions or rivalries between the Judeans and Greeks. It is hard to imagine that Flaccus would have permitted the offending of a close friend of the emperor, so it seems likely that the people started to gather in the gymnasium and to revile and make fun of the king, as Philo (Flacc. 34) reports, immediately after his departure. Philo calls these participants an “undisciplined mob” (Flacc. 35: ὄχλος ἀσύντακτος),38 but research on the Roman mob and later comparable mobs suggests that such labeling misjudges the fact that these crowds often consisted of artisans and even those higher up the social scale.39 34 Hegesippus apud Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.23.21. For Albinus, see Daniel R. Schwartz, “Josephus on Albinus: The Eve of Catastrophe in changing Retrospect,” in The Jewish Revolt against Rome: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Mladen Popović, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 154 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 291–310. 35 For the close connection between Caligula and Alexandria, which may well have played a role in the organization of his visit, see Stefan Pfeiffer, Der römische Kaiser und das Land am Nil: Kaiserverehrung und Kaiserkult in Alexandria und Ägypten von Augustinus bis Caracalla (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010), 68–69. 36 Similarly, Daniel R. Schwartz, Agrippa I: The Last King of Judea (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1990), 74. 37 Bergmann, “Pogroms,” 362. 38 See also Philo, Flacc. 33, 41, 65; Philo, Legat. 67, 120, 132. 39 Peter A. Brunt, “The Roman Mob,” Past and Present 35 (1966): 3–27, reprinted in Studies in Ancient Society, ed. Moses I. Finley (London: Routledge, 1974), 74–102; Davis, Society and Culture, 282–84; Fergus Millar, The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002).

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Moreover, action is usually led by “entrepreneurs” who guide it in a specific direction.40 In this case, it seems that the gymnasiarchs Isidorus (Flacc. 20) and Lampo (Flacc. 139) played a leading role. The gymnasium and these Greek names strongly suggest that the initiative was taken by Greeks belonging to the highest class, as entry to the gymnasium was a pre-condition to Greek citizenship, and few Judeans will have been able to participate in the ephebate, although enough, it seems, to be mentioned by Claudius in his famous Letter to the Alexandrians (below).41 Although little data about riots in Alexandria survives, gathering in the gymnasium was already part and parcel of the repertory of riotous behavior in Ptolemaic times.42 This is important, since pogroms and early modern religious riots did not usually start from scratch but served a purpose and had a traditional structure, perhaps even a kind of script.43 This was apparently the case here too, since at this point a lunatic dressed as a king was driven into the gymnasium and ridiculed (Flacc. 36–40). The gymnasium, about 180 meters long, was one of the largest and most impressive Alexandrian buildings (Strabo 17.1.10) and seems to have served for some days as a venue for the mocking of Agrippa and, one suspects, the Judeans. When Flaccus failed to act (Flacc. 40), the crowd took the initiative and moved early next morning to the theater (Flacc. 41), probably because it offered more space than the gymnasium, and they may now also have received support from the Egyptians, who will have heard of what was going on. The change of location must have been suggested by somebody and is one more sign of some kind of organization on the side of the anti-Judean camp. The move also reflects the theater’s central position in urban life in imperial times,44 when it even served as a meeting place for the Alexandrian δῆμος.45

Bergmann, “Pogroms,” 362. P.Lond. 6.1912 (= TM 16850), ll. 53–56, cf. Aryeh Kasher, “The Jewish Attitude to the Alexandrian Gymnasium in the First Century A.D.,” American Journal of Ancient History 1.3 (1976): 148–61; John E. G. Whitehorne, “The Functions of the Alexandrian Ephebeia Certificate and the Sequence of PSI XII 1223–1225,” BASP 14 (1977): 29–38 and John E. G. Whitehorne, “Becoming an Alexandrian Citizen,” Comunicazioni (Florence) 4 (2001): 25– 34. 42 Fabienne Burkhalter, “Le Gymnase d’Alexandrie: Centre administratif de la Province Romaine d’Egypte,” BCH 116 (1992): 345–73; Wolfgang Habermann, “Aspekte des römerzeitlichen Gymnasiums in Ägypten,” AfP 61 (2015): 399–401. 43 Cf. Davis, Society and Culture, 187. 44 For the central place of the theater in Alexandria and public life elsewhere, see Eric Junod and Jean-Daniel Kaestli, Acta Iohannis II, Corpus Christianorum, Series Apocryphorum 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1983), 2:459–60; Angelos Chaniotis, “Theatricality beyond the Theater: Staging Public Life in the Hellenistic World,” Pallas 47 (1997): 219–59; and Angelos Chaniotis, “Theatre Rituals,” in The Greek Theatre and Festivals, ed. Peter Wilson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 48–66. 40

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Here events took another turn for the worse, as the rioters demanded that statues (εἰκόνας) of Caligula (Legat. 134) should be set up in the synagogues (Flacc. 42), which was allowed by Flaccus (Flacc. 43),46 who could hardly have done otherwise without being labelled an enemy of the emperor.47 In general, the Greeks used ἄγαλμα for the statues of the gods, whereas εἰκών was mainly employed for statues and images of mortals, from a king to the living emperor to a local official;48 in our case, it perfectly fits the living emperor.49 The mocking of Agrippa already had an anti-Judean focus, and this culminated in the demand to Flaccus to, de facto, desecrate the synagogues. The worship of statues was a Greek “identity marker,” which they now imposed on the most holy places of the Judeans. These had been prepared to address the emperor as savior and to honor him with shields, steles, wreaths, prayers, and sacrifices for his well-being,50 but to have his statues in their synagogues went against their Law and would have been a clear case of idolatry, prohibited by Yahweh.51 At this point, the violence must have spread beyond the theater to the various parts of the city where synagogues were occupied by the pogromists, who apparently destroyed (Flacc. 45) and burnt some (Legat. 134–35) and rededicated others to Caligula (Legat. 136–37), removing their names (Flacc. 53). We do not know how many synagogues there were, but given the sizable community of Judeans, the number cannot have been small (Flacc. 55, Legat.

45 Josephus, B.J. 2:491–98; cf. Richard Alston, “Philo’s In Flaccum: Ethnicity and Social Space in Roman Alexandria,” Greece & Rome 44 (1997): 169–70; Ritter, Judeans in the Greek Cities, 133–34. 46 It is hard to see here just an attempt at an, albeit, forced, unification of the Alexandrian population, contra Ameling, “‘Market-place’ und Gewalt,” 119–20. 47 So, rightly, Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2004), 58. 48 The difference between ἄγαλμα and εἰκών, which is not always clear, was established by Louis Robert, Hellenica, Recueil d’épigraphie, de numismatique et d'antiquités grecques, 13 vols. (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1960), 11–12:124n2; and Louis Robert, Opera Minora Selecta II (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1968), 832–40; see also Simon R. F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 176–79; Kirsten Koonce, “Αγάλμα and εἰκών,” American Journal of Philology 109 (1988): 108–10; Dimitri Damaskos, Untersuchungen zu hellenistischen Kultbildern (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1997), 304–9; John Ma, Statues and Cities: Honorific Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 2. 49 Note that none of the recent studies pays any attention to the term except Sandra Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots of 38 C.E. and the Persecution of the Jews: A Historical Reconstruction (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 168, which is not wholly persuasive. 50 Philo, Flacc. 49, 97, 103, Philo, Legat. 22, 133; Gruen, Diaspora, 283n109; Pfeiffer, Der römische Kaiser, 73–74. 51 See now Daniel Barbu, Naissance de l’idolâtrie: Image, identité, religion (Liège: Presse Universitaire de Liège, 2016).

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124, 132). As such, they must have been hard to defend (Flacc. 122),52 except perhaps the majestic synagogue in the largest Judean neighborhood,53 which seems to have survived until the time of Trajan.54 However this may be, Philo (Legat. 138) insists that such attacks on the synagogues were unique and had never happened under the Ptolemies. They must have made a devastating impression on the Judeans.55 Modern research into pogroms notes that they also constitute an indirect call for government action.56 Indeed, Flaccus, who until that point had been a more or less passive onlooker, now decided to jump on the bandwagon. A few days later (Flacc. 54) he issued a decree curtailing all Judean legal and political rights (Flacc. 53–54) and gave permission to loot the possessions of the Judeans (Flacc. 54). We need not take this assertion of Philo literally. It clearly neglects the fact that such a measure could hardly have been taken without consulting the emperor,57 but the looting of shops and houses (Flacc. 90, Legat. 121–22) is an almost regular epiphenomenon of riots and pogroms,58 even today in cities like London, Paris, and Chicago: it will have been a “natural” consequence of the collapse of law and order. Moreover, some kind of “ethnic cleansing” of Judeans from most districts now took place, and they were forced into a kind of ghetto (Legat. 124, 128). Philo’s description of Judean refugees on the beaches and the necropoleis (Flacc. 56–57, Legat. 127) – dying from famine (Flacc. 62) and suffering from heat during the day and cold at night (Legat. 123) – has distressingly modern resonances. The looting culminated in the lynching of those Judeans unlucky enough to fall into the hands of the rioting crowd (Flacc. 65–72, Legat. 127, 130), sometimes by burning – a not unusual way of lynching people in antiquity.59 Apparently, though, at this point, Flaccus sought a way out of the turmoil and sent for representatives of the γερουσία, the highest administrative council of the Judeans, to seek reconciliation (Flacc. 76). Philo suspects that the Philo, Flacc. 48, suggests some form of resistance. Philo, Flacc. 55 mentions that two of the five Alexandrian districts were mainly Judean of which only one remained in Judean hands during the pogrom; see also Josephus, Ant.. 14.117; van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus, 157–58. Unfortunately, we have no means to locate these Jewish areas more precisely. 54 Philo, Legat. 134; t. Sukkah 4.6; b. Sukkah 51b, although Ameling, “‘Market-place’ und Gewalt,” 95, is skeptical about the survival. 55 Sarah Pearce, “Cleopatra and the Jews,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 27 (2017): 29–64 (with thanks to Jan Willem van Henten for the reference). 56 Bergmann, “Pogroms,” 363. 57 For possible explanations and speculations, see Gambetti, The Alexandrian Riots, 176– 80. 58 Gary T. Marx, “Issueless Riots,” in Collective Violence, ed. James F. Short and Marvin E. Wolfgang (New York: Routledge, 2017); Bergmann, “Pogroms,” 363. 59 Jan N. Bremmer, Maidens, Magic and Martyrs in Early Christianity: Collected Essays I, WUNT 379 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 201. 52

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attempt was insincere, but continuing disorder can hardly have been to the advantage of Flaccus. Yet, for reasons unknown, the attempt failed. Perhaps as a reaction to this failure, and to teach the γερουσία a lesson, Flaccus had 38 of its 71 members arrested, shackled with leather straps or iron chains, and marched through the town to the theater.60 The procession was not unusual, as those who were to be killed at a festival – sacrificial animals, gladiators, and criminals – were normally paraded in town to show the munificence of the giver of the games and to whet the appetite of the public.61 Here, as Philo says, “they were standing in front of their enemies, who were seated” (Flacc. 75). This brief statement deserves more attention than it has received so far. It was normal for a Roman judge to sit on a tribunal when administering justice.62 In other words, the members of the γερουσία were put on trial and treated in a most humiliating, but also traditionally Roman manner, as Flaccus had them stripped and scourged (Flacc. 75): it was normal for Romans not only to torture and execute their criminals but to humiliate them as well.63 As if that were not enough, the Judean magistrates were flogged as if they were Egyptians, a double humiliation (Flacc. 78–80)! As the procession shows, Flaccus treated the torture and execution of the Judeans as a show, undoubtedly for the occasion of Caligula’s birthday, August 31st (Flacc. 72, 81, 83). As was traditional, the show started at dawn (Flacc. 85),64 after which the executions began, which even included the most humiliating punishment of crucifixion.65 At this point, however, the pogrom already seems to have fizzled out. In fact, the show trial in the theater may have been an attempt by Flaccus, in a very Foucauldian manner, to keep the population quiet and to restore his authority by public humiliations and executions. The intimidating order to the military to search Judean houses for weapons may have had a similar purpose (Flacc. 86–91). As Bergmann notes, “Pogroms are episodic in character, For the γερουσία and its members, see van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus, 168–69. George Ville, La gladiature en Occident des origines à la mort de Domitien (Rome: École francaise de Rome, 1981), 364–65; Price, Rituals and Power, 110. 62 Alfons M. Schneider, “Bema,” RAC 2:129–30, to be added to Louis Robert, Le martyre de Pionios, prêtre de Smyrne (Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1994), 107–8. 63 For the element of humiliation in Roman executions, see Kathleen M. Coleman, “Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments,” JRS 80 (1990): 46–47; David Potter, “Martyrdom as Spectacle,” in Theater and Society in the Classical World, ed. Ruth Scodel (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 53–88 (65). 64 Suetonius, Claud. 34.2; Passio Perpetuae 18.1; Ville, La gladiature en Occident, 393– 94; Bremmer, Maidens, Magic and Martyrs, 161. 65 See, most recently, David W. Chapman, Ancient Jewish and Christian Perceptions of Crucifixion, WUNT 244 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008); Gunnar Samuelsson, Crucifixion in Antiquity: An Inquiry into the Background of the New Testament Terminology of Crucifixion, WUNT 2/320 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013); John G. Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World, WUNT 327, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019). 60

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since a ‘critical mass’ cannot remain available for mobilization in the long term because the pogromists are often quick to complete their work of destruction, looting and expulsion, and because the state cannot allow the situation of public disorder to last very long.”66 This, indeed, seems to have been the case in Alexandria. At the time of the show trial in the theater we hear no more of the riots, except for a few remarks by Philo about the treatment of women, but this is clearly an afterthought and seems to fit the period before the show trial (Flacc. 95).67

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4. Conclusions What can we conclude from our discussion? First, we have seen that attention to the definition of a pogrom as quoted above shows that the definition is only partially helpful in understanding the events of 38 CE. It may well be that the Greeks, who must have been a minority in the city,68 had perceived the arrival of Agrippa as a threat. Yet nothing points to the possibility of a real change in the balance of local power, which the Romans certainly would not have permitted. Both parties must also have been conscious of the fact that the Roman prefect could not allow a disturbance of public order if he wanted to remain in function. Nevertheless, the Greeks, just like the prefect, will have been aware that the two legions at nearby Nikopolis were all that Flaccus had, and these would not have been enough to quell a real uprising.69 From this perspective, the Alexandrian events hardly conform to the definition of a pogrom, which we quoted above, since in Philo’s version of the events, the Greek elite had Flaccus’s full support, wholeheartedly or not. Yet, the definition’s stress on “collective action” and the attacking of a minority by a majority perhaps justify the use of the term as a useful label for certain forms of violent collective action. Second, as already noted, the definition does not help us understand the events themselves. Here the so-called culturalist approach has been more helpful. The pogromists made use of symbolically important artefacts (imperial statues) and places (gymnasium and theater), and Flaccus supported the anti-Judean camp by publicly humiliating the leading Judeans by stripping them, subjecting them to the kind of flogging reserved for Egyptians, and even crucifying them, a punishment normally reserved for slaves and crimiBergmann, “Pogroms,” 363. As is well observed by van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus, 185. 68 Pierre Briant, “Colonisation hellénistique et population indigènes: La phase d’installation,” Klio 60 (1978): 57–92 (78). 69 Rudolf Haensch, “The Roman Army in Egypt,” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt, ed. Christina Riggs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 68–82 (69–71). 66

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nals. On the other hand, looting, plundering, and lynching have often been noted in pogroms but seem to be a “normal” epiphenomenon of riots in general. Third, we saw that, whereas Philo continually speaks of the mob, in reality the pogromists were being instigated by (the henchmen of) the Greek elite; the fact that the famous Apion, well known from Josephus’s tract against him, was probably also one of the instigators confirms the social makeup of the pogrom leadership.70 Apparently, Greek responsibility for the riots was so clear that Claudius’s Letter does not mince words on the subject: But concerning the riot and civil strife against the Judeans, or rather, if the truth be told, the war, I did not want to have a detailed investigation as to which of the two sides was responsible, even though your envoys (the Greeks) strove for great honor from the disputation, particularly Dionysios the son of Theon. While storing up in me unrepentant rage against the ones starting again, I simply say to you that, unless you put a stop to this destructive, relentless rage against one another, I shall be forced to show what a benevolent leader is when turned toward righteous rage. For this I yet again exhort the Alexandrians to behave gently and kindly towards the Judeans who have lived in the same city for many years, and in no way to dishonor the customary worship of their god, but to let them practice their customs as in the time of the god Sebastos just as I myself have confirmed, having heard both sides.71

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Fourth, Stefan Pfeiffer has termed the cause of the pogrom “an insoluble problem of scholarship.”72 Indeed, none of the various explanations so far is really satisfactory.73 There can be little doubt that the ethnic discourse of the Romans and of the Greeks of the mainland and Asia Minor contested the Greek character of the Alexandrian Greeks.74 Given their own minority status, the Alexandrian Greeks must have been suspicious of the Judeans, of 70 For Apion, see most recently Walter Ameling, “Some Remarks on Apion,” SCI 33 (2014): 1–16 (2), who could not yet know the important new information about Apion in P.Oxy. 79.5202; Bremmer, Maidens, Magic and Martyrs, 265–74. 71 P.Lond. 6.1912, ll. 73–88: τῆς δὲ πρὸς Ἰουδαίους ταραχῆς καὶ στάσεως μᾶλλον δʼ εἰ χρὴ τὸ ἀλη̣θὲς εἰπεῖν τοῦ πολέμου πότεροι μὲν αἴτιοι κατέστησαν καίπερ ἐξ ἀντικαταστάσεως πολλὰ τῶν ἡμετέρων πρέσβεων φιλοτειμηθέντων καὶ μάλιστα Διονυσίου τοῦ Θέων[ο]ς ὅμως οὐκ ἐβουλήθην ἀκριβῶς ἐξελένξαι, ταμιευόμενος ἐμ̣αυτῶι κατὰ τῶν πάλειν ἀρξαμένων ὀργὴν ἀμεταμέλητον·ἁπλῶς δὲ προσαγορεύωι ὅτι ἂν μὴ καταπαύσηται τὴν ὀλέ- θριον ὀργὴν ταύτην κατʼ ἀλλήλων αὐθάδιον ἐγβιασθήσομαι δῖξαι ὗον ἐστιν ἡγεμὼν φιλάνθροπος εἰς ὀργὴν δικαίαν μεταβεβλημένος. Διόπερ ἔτι καὶ νῦν διαμαρτύρομε εἵνα Ἀλεξανδρεῖς μὲν πραέως καὶ φιλανθρόπως προσφέροντε Ἰουδαίος τοῖςτὴν αὐτὴν πόλειν ἐκ πολλῶν χρόνων οἰκοῦσει καὶ μηδὲν τῶν πρὸς θρησκείαν αὐτοῖς νενομισμένων τοῦ θεοῦ λοιμένωνται ἀλλὰ ἐῶσιν αὐτοὺς τοῖς ἔθεσιν χρῆσθαι ὗς καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ θεοῦ Σεβαστοῦ, ἅπερ καὶ ἐγὼι διακούσας ἀμφοτέρων ἐβεβαίωσα. 72 Pfeiffer, “The Alexandrian Jews,” 121. 73 See the discussions by Ameling, “‘Market-place’ und Gewalt,” 109–21; Pfeiffer, “The Alexandrian Jews,” 121–25. 74 This has been well stated again by Hartmann, “Judenhass und Märtyrertum,” 146–56.

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whom several had obtained the desired Alexandrian citizenship (above). They may well have wanted to prevent more Judeans attaining the same coveted status. The social ambition of the Judeans is clearly noticed and reproached by Claudius in his Letter: to the Judaeans I give strict orders not to aim at more than they had before, nor as though living in two cities to send in future two delegations, which had never been done before; nor intrude in the gymnasiarchic or cosmetic contests, reaping their own fruits while enjoying the abundance of benefits in a city not their own; nor to introduce or bring in Judeans from Syria or sailing down from Egypt, by which I shall be forced to have serious suspicions. 75

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Yet these circumstances do not explain the explosion at that particular moment in 38 CE. Here it seems useful to recall the conclusion of pogrom research (above) that the cause of pogroms is often completely contingent. Indeed, without the arrival of Agrippa nothing might have happened for several decades. We historians have to accept the fact that some developments were not foreseen and need not have happened. Fifth, modern discussions regularly speak of “anti-Semitic” rioting, something also implied by the use of the term “pogrom” for the events of 38 CE.76 Yet this characterization transposes a modern term, which is the product of modern forms of racism, into the world of early first-century Alexandria, which is not really helpful.77 It seems better to think of ethnic distinctions in the city, which could become more important in times of trouble, as happened, for example, with Serbs and Croats as well as Hutus and Tutsis in the 1990s. As Philo noted (Flacc. 43), “the city had two species of inhabitants, them and us, and likewise the whole of Egypt.” Yet this view of the situation, found repeatedly in his works, overlooks the fact that, for the Greeks, there were both Judeans and Egyptians. Apparently, Greeks and Judeans both tried to reorganise their ethnicity in the new world created by the Roman conquest of Egypt. In the case of the Judeans the response was loyalty to the Law, with 75 P.Lond. 6.1912, ll. 88–98: καὶ Ἰουδέοις δὲ ἄντικρυς κελεύωι μηδὲν πλήωι ὧν πρότερον ἔσχον περιεργάζεσθαι μηδὲ ὥσπερ ἐν δυσεὶ πόλεσειν κα- τοικοῦντας δύο πρεσβείας ἐκπέμπειν τοῦ λοιποῦ, ὡ μὴ πρότερόν ποτε ἐπράκθη, μηδὲ ἐπισπαί̣ρ̣ε̣ιν γυμνασιαρχικοῖς ἢ κοσμητικοῖς ἀγῶσει, καρπουμένους μὲν τὰ οἰκῖα ἀπολάοντας δὲ ἐν ἀλλοτρίᾳ πόλει περιουσίας ἁπάντων ἀγαθῶν, μηδὲ ἐπάγεσθαι ἢ προσείεσθαι ἀπὸ Συρίας ἢ Αἰγύπου καταπλέοντας Ἰουδαίους ἐξ οὗ μείζονας ὑπονοίας ἀνανκασθήσομε λαμβάνειν· 76 For example, Koen Goudriaan, “Ethnical Strategies in Graeco-Roman Egypt,” in Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt, Studies in Hellenistic Civilization 3, ed. Per Bilde (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1992), 74–99 (86); Alston, “Philo’s In Flaccum,” 165; Gruen, Diaspora, index s.v., although regularly qualifying the term. 77 As argued by John J. Collins, “Anti-Semitism in Antiquity? The Case of Alexandria,” in Ancient Judaism in its Hellenistic Context, ed. Carol Bakhos (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 9–29 (29); John J. Collins, Jewish Cult and Hellenistic Culture (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 201: “To speak of anti-semitism … is to fail to appreciate the contingent character of history.”

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the consequence that they differed in various respects from their fellow Alexandrians, as appeared all too clearly in the case of emperor worship.78 Sixth and finally, where does this leave the religious aspect of the pogrom? When we look at the course of events, it becomes clear that religion played an important but hardly the most important part in the pogrom. The abolition of the legal and political rights of the Judeans was clearly a more central concern for the pogromists, but by the forced introduction of imperial statues and the occupation of the synagogues, the pogromists also struck at the heart of Judean ethnicity, in which religion was embedded. In recent decades, Jan Assmann has canvassed a vision of a violent monotheism pitted against a more peaceful polytheism. Elsewhere I have argued that his ideas are not without truth but neglect the violent side of polytheism, as can be easily observed even today in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and India.79 The Alexandrian pogrom of 38 as well as the murder of bishop Gregory in 345 by his fellow Christians and the lynching of the pagan Hypatia in 415 by Christians suggests that religious violence is not the product of essentialist characteristics of religions but of specific local and historical circumstances. Yet, given the numbers required for collective action, such major (ethno-)religious clashes will perhaps appear less easily in small towns and cities than in a city like Alexandria, a real hub of the Hellenistic and Roman world.80

78 For the concept of ethnicity and its application to Roman Egypt, see Goudriaan, “Ethnical Strategies in Graeco-Roman Egypt”; Emperor worship: Norbert Dörner, Feste und Opfer für den Gott Caesar: Kommunikationsprozesse im Rahmen des Kaiserkultes im römischen Ägypten der julisch-claudischen Zeit (30 v.Chr.–68 n.Chr.) (Rahden: Leidorf, 2014). 79 Jan N. Bremmer, “Religious Violence and its Roots: A view from Antiquity,” Asdiwal 6 (2011): 71–79, updated in Reconceiving Religious Conflict: New Views from the Formative Centuries of Christianity, ed. Wendy Mayer and Chris L. de Wet (London: Routledge, 2018), 30–42; note also René Bloch, “Polytheismus und Monotheismus in der Antike: Zu Jan Assmanns Monotheismus-Kritik,” in Fremdbilder – Selbstbilder: Imaginationen des Judentums von der Antike bis in die Neuzeit, ed. René Bloch et al. (Basel: Schwabe, 2010), 5–24. 80 This contribution profited from audiences in Erfurt (2016) and Bern (2017). I am most grateful to Janico Albrecht and Pieter Nanninga for information and comments, and to Anthony Ellis for his insightful correction of my English.

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How Much Hebrew in Jewish Alexandria? RENÉ BLOCH

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Nam nemo, qui Philonem legerit, ignorare potest illum Hebraismi imperitissimum fuisse. According to the great humanist Joseph Justus Scaliger no reader of Philo of Alexandria could possibly question his ignorance of Hebrew.1 Philo was less educated in Hebrew or Aramaic, Scaliger writes sarcastically, than anyone from Gaul or Scythia: utriusque dialecti imperitior … quam ullus Gallus aut Scytha.2 Today, 400 years after Scaliger, the question whether Philo knew Hebrew continues to be debated in Philonic scholarship. While the majority of scholars might still tend to agree that Philo indeed did not know Hebrew, few would phrase their view in such an unambiguous way as Scaliger did. The question “How much Hebrew in Jewish Alexandria?” is a very difficult one, comparable in its complexity to the linguistic situation in Greco-Roman Palestine and thus to Saul Lieberman’s study “How much Greek in Jewish Palestine?”3 In order to come closer to an answer, it will be necessary first to place our question within a lager chronological as well as geographic context. I will then return to what Valentin Nikiprowetzky already called “un problème classique de la recherche philonienne” 40 years ago.4 At first sight, Egypt does not seem to differ much from the Jewish diaspora in the Western Mediterranean where the main language of the Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman period was Greek (and, eventually, Latin). All of the extant Jewish-Hellenistic literature from Egypt is, independent of genre (whether epics, drama, historiography or philosophy), in Greek. And the vast 1 Joseph J. Scaliger, Animadversiones ad Eusebii chronicon, vol. 7 of Thesaurus temporum, Eusebii Pamphili chronicorum canonum (Amsterdam 1658 [first publ. 1606]). 2 Joseph J. Scaliger, Elenchus triheresii, chap. 18 in Iohannes Drusius, De sectis iudaicis commentarii (Arnheim, 1619), 296 (the context is Philo’s note on Ἐσσαῖοι in Prob. 75): “… Philoni, homini Graece tantum loquenti, Hebraismi autem adeo imperito, ut dubitem, an etiam legere scire Hebraice. Denique Philo neque ab Hebraismo neque a Syriasmo hoc verbum deducere potuit, qui u triusque dialecti imperitior fuerit, quam ullus Gallus aut Scytha.” Carl Siegfried, Philo von Alexandria als Ausleger des Alten Testaments (Jena: Dufft, 1875), 142, refers to Scaliger as early as the late 19th century (not citing him accurately, though). The citation is later taken up by Valentin Nikiprowetzky, Le commentaire de l’écriture chez Philon d’Alexandrie (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 81. 3 Saul Lieberman, “How much Greek in Jewish Palestine?” in Biblical and Other Studies, ed. Alexander Altman (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), 123–41. 4 Nikiprowetzky, Le commentaire, 50.

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majority of Jewish papyri as well as inscriptions from Egypt are written in Greek as well. Still, Egypt is a particular case. At least as far as we can tell from the sources that have come down to us, the linguistic landscape of Egypt, with regard to the Jewish population, differs from that farther West. There is no literature in Hebrew from the Western Mediterranean, a few late antique inscriptions containing some Hebrew notwithstanding, from before the 9th century. From the 9th century there is evidence of poetry and longer inscriptions (from Venosa) written in Hebrew. And in the 10th century the Sepher Yosippon, the highly influential history of Second Temple Judaism written in southern Italy, marks a more substantial presence of Hebrew literature in the West together with other contemporary works.5 For Egypt, the history of Semitic evidence begins in Persian times. The use of Aramaic (including some Hebrew loanwords and names) is well documented in a series of papyri from a Jewish military garrison in Elephantine at the Southern border of Upper Egypt dating from the 5th and 4th century BCE. Generally, Aramaic was the lingua franca of the Persian Empire and certainly also of the Jews living in Egypt at the time.6 In the Hellenistic era, that is, for Egypt during the Ptolemaic period, evidence for Aramaic or Hebrew is sketchy but it is not absent. Aramaic remained present in Egypt in later times too, not least because of the close proximity to Syria-Palestine: Jewish immigrants, knowing Aramaic and/or Hebrew, had a short road to Egypt.7 From the Jewish community in Edfu, Upper Egypt, there is quite a bit of Aramaic evidence: ostraca, letters, and funerary inscriptions.8 That Aramaic was (still) in use in Ptolemaic Egypt is proven not least by two Aramaic papyri, of uncertain origin, containing legal and business matters.9 As for Aramaic or Hebrew evidence from Alexandria in the Ptolemaic period, it is cursory. Three very fragmentary inscriptions have come down to us. The inscriptions are limited to a few names, words, and, it seems, numerals.10 5 Nicolas de Lange, “The Hebrew Language in the European Diaspora,” in Studies on the Jewish Diaspora in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods, ed. Benjamin Isaac and Aharon Oppenheimer (Tel Aviv: Ramot, 1996), 111–37. 6 Cf. Bezalel Porten et al., Osef teʻudot Aramiyot mi-Mitsrayim ha-ʻatiḳah/: Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1986–1999) (TAD); CPJ I 30–31. Cf. Jan Joosten, “Egypt: in Antiquity,” EHLL 1:790–91. 7 Cf. Claudius’s order to Jews not to bring more Jews from Egypt or from Syria into the city of Alexandria (CPJ II 53, 96–97; 41 CE). 8 For a good survey, cf. Sylvie Honigman, “Noms sémitiques à Edfou et Thèbes,” BASP 40 (2003): 63–118. Nine funerary inscriptions with mostly Hebrew names in TAD D.21.7– 15 (late 3rd or early 2nd century BCE). 9 CAP 81–82 (83, verso, might also be from the Ptolemaic period). 10 William Horbury and David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), nos. 3–5 with helpful commentary. The

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This is not much epigraphic evidence for Hebrew or Aramaic (a distinction is not always possible) from Ptolemaic Egypt – although for Alexandria we need to keep in mind that we do not have much more epigraphic evidence in Greek either: less than 20 inscriptions, most of them also very fragmentary.11 The exact dating of these Aramaic and Hebrew texts is often very difficult. It is specifically the fact that these texts, whether epitaphs, ostraca or papyri, are written in a Semitic language which leads scholars to propose a rather early dating (that is, the beginning of the Ptolemaic period rather than the 3rd or even the 2nd century BCE). Thus Arthur Cowley comments on the dating of one of the late documents written in Aramaic as follows: “As it is an official document it would not have been written in Aramaic, one would suppose, much after 300 BCE.”12 This of course begs the question. Similarly, William Horbury and David Noy write in their notes on one of the Semitic inscriptions from Alexandria that “there is a fair probability … that a Jewish epitaph in Semitic script would be early Ptolemaic.”13 The archaeological and paleographic evidence from the necropolis in Alexandria (El-Ibrahimiya) seems to suggest that these inscriptions date from the early Ptolemaic period (first half of the 3rd century BCE?),14 but an exact dating remains difficult. Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni in their edition of Aramaic documents from ancient Egypt do not exclude a later dating (late 3rd or early 2nd century BCE).15 There is no doubt that in the Hellenistic period the main language of communication of Jews in Egypt became Greek: “le triomphe du grec est indéniable.”16 But Hebrew and Aramaic did not disappear entirely. For the 2nd century BCE we have fairly clear evidence of Hebrew in Egypt. The so-called Nash Papyrus which contains the Decalogue and the beginning of the Shema in Hebrew was discovered in Egypt and has been dated on paleographic grounds to the 2nd century BCE.17 That there were Jews in the 2nd century BCE in Egypt with a good command of Hebrew can also be inferred from the book of Sirach which was translated in Egypt from Hebrew into Greek by the (anonymous) grandson of the original author. In the prologue to the transla-

editors suspect that these Semitic inscriptions reflect the linguistic status of recent Jewish immigrants (ibid., 5). Cf. also TAD D.21.4–6. 11 Horbury and Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt, 253. 12 CAP 82 (200). 13 Horbury and Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt, no. 4. 14 Josephe Mélèze-Modrzejeweski, Les Juifs d’Égypte de Ramsès II à Hadrien (Paris: Armand Colin, 1991), 67–69; Horbury and Noy 1992, Jewish Inscriptions of GraecoRoman Egypt, 4–5. 15 TAD D.21.4–6. 16 Mélèze-Modrzejeweski, Les Juifs d’Égypte de Ramsès II à Hadrien, 67. 17 William F. Albright, “A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabean Age: The Nash Papyrus,” JBL 56 (1937): 145–76.

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tion, the grandson situates himself in Egypt of the 2nd century BCE (probably 132 BCE).18 A much larger translation project, of course, was launched already in the 3rd century BCE: the translation of Hebrew Scripture, first of the Torah, into Greek. The translators of what eventually became known as the Septuagint obviously knew both Hebrew and Greek. They certainly also knew Aramaic (as Aramaisms in the Septuagint indicate).19 Many questions in relation to the circumstances of this enormous translation enterprise continue to be debated. However, “there is a broad consensus that at least the Pentateuch translation was produced in Egypt”20 (with Alexandria, by default, as the most likely location). Recently scholars have pointed to Egyptian influence in the Septuagint as well as to linguistic parallels in the context of translations from Demotic into Greek.21 It seems safe to say that the Torah was translated from

18 Folker Siegert, Einleitung in die hellenistisch-jüdische Literatur (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 141–56. The translation of his grandfather’s text from Hebrew into Greek was a difficult task as becomes clear from what the author declares in the prologue (l. 22): “for what was originally expressed in Hebrew does not have the same force when it is in fact rendered in another language. And not only in this case, but also in the case of the Law itself and the Prophets and the rest of the books the difference is not small when these are expressed in their own language.” (trans. Benjamin G. Wright). Cf. Benjamin G. Wright, “Translation Greek in Sirach in Light of the Grandson’s Prologue,” in The Texts and Versions of the Book of Ben Sira: Transmission and Interpretation, ed. Jan Joosten and JeanSébastien Rey (Leiden: Boston, 2011), 75–94. Philo of Alexandria, when commenting on the Septuagint also stresses the difficulty of translating Hebrew into Greek, cf. Mos. 2.38. On Philo’s description of the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, cf. below 16–17. 19 Cf. Anne-Françoise Loiseau, L’influence de l’araméen sur les traducteurs de la LXX principalement, sur les traducteurs grecs postérieurs, ainsi que sur les scribes de la Vorlage de la LXX (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016); Jan Joosten, “Septuagint Greek and the Jewish Sociolect in Egypt,” in Die Sprache der Septuaginta/The Language of the Septuagint, ed. Eberhard Bons and Jan Joosten (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2016), 246–56 (250). 20 Joosten, “Septuagint Greek and the Jewish Sociolect in Egypt,” 247. Cf. also idem, “Le milieu producteur du pentateuque grec,” REJ 165 (2006): 349–61. 21 Egyptian influence with regard to religion and culture has been suggested in a number of phrases in the Pentateuch, cf. most recently Stefan Pfeiffer, “Ägyptische Elemente im Griechischen der LXX,” in Bons and Joosten, The Language of the Septuagint, 231–45 (245): “… ergibt sich mit einiger Sicherheit, dass zumindest bestimmte Bücher oder Teile von Büchern der LXX nicht unter palästinischem Einfluss übersetzt wurden, sondern dass einige Übersetzer sehr spezifische und genaue Kenntnisse der ägyptischen Kultur und Religion hatten.” For parallels with translations from Demotic into Greek, cf. James K. Aitken, “The Septuagint and Egyptian Translation Methods,” in XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies Munich 2013, ed. Wolfgang Kraus et al. (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016), 269–94. Cf. also idem, “The Language of the Septuagint and Jewish–Greek Identity,” in The Jewish-Greek Tradition in Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire, ed. James K. Aitken et al. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 120–34.

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Hebrew into Greek by local Jews in Egypt.22 Such an understanding of the Septuagint differs of course from what the so-called Letter of Aristeas reports. According to this pseudepigraphical text, written in the 2nd century BCE, the translators came from Jerusalem to Alexandria in order to translate the Law of the Jews.23 To what extent there is historical value in the Letter of Aristeas has been heavily debated.24 The main question does not relate to the origin of the translators but is of a much more fundamental nature. Is the translation a response to a Ptolemaic desire to have the Jewish Law in its Greek version in the Library of Alexandria as stated by the Letter of Aristeas? Or was it rather motivated by the linguistic needs of the Jews in the 3rd century BCE in Egypt who were about to lose their knowledge of Hebrew? The latter interpretation has become somewhat of a communis opinio. Lately, though, some scholars (not without predecessors) have begun to question the consensus.25 While no one would want to take the whole story (or even large parts) as outlined in the Letter at face value, its explanation for the translation project may not be that far removed from what could have happened. The royal house of the Ptolemies, whose eagerness to possess “all ancient books” is documented outside of the Letter of Aristeas,26 may very well have been involved in one way or another in the project of translating the Jewish “Law.” It is important to note that no ancient source claims that the Jews were in need of a Greek translation.27 Moreover, the modern history of Bible transla-

22 It is impossible to say for how long these Egyptian Jewish translators had settled in Egypt. This depends, to a large degree, on the weight one is willing to give to the suspected Egyptian influences and parallels in the Septuagint. 23 Let. Aris. 172–73. 24 On the Letter of Aristeas, see the contribution by Benjamin Wright in this volume. Aristobulus, the 2nd century BCE Jewish theologian, mentions not only the Greek translation of the Jewish Law under Ptolemaios II Philadelphos, but also earlier partial translations: frag. 3 (Eusebius, Praep. Ev. 13.12.1–2): cf. Markus Mülke, Aristobulos in Alexandria: Jüdische Bibelexegese zwischen Griechen und Ägyptern unter Ptolemaios VI. Philometor (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018), 263–311. 25 Cf. the balanced discussion of the problem in Tessa Rajak, Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible and the Ancient Jewish Diaspora (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 38–63. Cf. also the insightful surveys in Siegfried Kreuzer, Einleitung in die Septuaginta (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2016), 39–49 and Marguerite Harl et al., La bible grecque des Septante du judaïsme hellénistique au christianisme ancien (Paris: Cerf, 1988), 66–78. That the Ptolemies’ interest in the Jewish Law might not simply be fictitious was already argued 50 years ago by Elias J. Bickerman, “The Septuagint as a Translation,” PAAJR 28 (1959): 1–39. 26 Galen, Hipp. Epidem. 3.2.4: cf. Sylvie Honigman, The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria: A Study in the Narrative of the Letter of Aristeas (London: Routledge, 2003), 42. 27 Aryeh Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt: The Struggle for Equal Rights (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985), 5.

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tions may have led to some retro-projections.28 It remains true that the Letter of Aristeas is an aetiological myth explaining how the Septuagint came into being, but that myth – certe partim fabulosa, as Scaliger put it29 – may not be free of bits of historical truth. And of course it is also possible, if not likely, that the translation of Hebrew Scripture in fact responded to a two-fold need. The Ptolemaic king (or his librarians) wished for a Greek version of the Jewish law as much as Jews in Egypt and beyond appreciated a good translation of Scripture into their common language, Greek.30 Many questions with regard to the origins of the Septuagint continue to be discussed: how was the translation used? Did it replace the Hebrew original? And if so, in what context exactly? In synagogues? What seems clear is that the translation process, “the first major translation in western culture”,31 continued over a long time, reaching at least into the 2nd, if not the 1st century BCE.32 The setting of the Septuagint translation project as well as the question of how to interpret the Letter of Aristeas have obvious implications for our main question. If we can assume, that 1) most of the translation of the Septuagint was done by local Jews in Egypt over a long time period and that 2) the Letter of Aristeas should be taken more seriously in the sense that the incentive for the translation may not only have been a Jewish one, then this would strengthen the impression that knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic was by no means absent in Egypt throughout the Ptolemaic period. The evidence is not overwhelming but it is there and continuously so from the Persian throughout the Hellenistic and into the Roman period. It should not be argued 28 Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 5 explains the thesis that the translation was needed by the Jews as a “retroprojection from Moses Mendelssohn’s translation of the Pentateuch into German to fill the needs of the ‘enlightened’ Jews of Germany.” Seth Schwartz, “Language, Power and Identity in Ancient Palestine,” Past & Present 148 (1995): 3–47 (41), wonders whether the modern interpretation of the Septuagint as the result of a Jewish community without Hebrew “is no less an aetiological myth than the ancient one, though a rationalist one, reflecting and intending to justify the use of the vernacular in both Protestant churches and Reform synagogues of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” 29 Scaliger, Epistolae, 1:13. 30 Another possibility, not to be rejected too quickly, has been suggested by Honigman, The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria, 127: The Letter of Aristeas might mirror not so much the original translation of the Torah, but “dissatisfaction with the LXX Pentateuch” at the time. It may have been the quality of an existant Greek edition (explicitly criticized at the beginning of the Letter) which may have triggered the need for a better translation. 31 Rajak, Translation and Survival, 1. 32 Cf. Siegfried Kreuzer, “Entstehung und Entwicklung der Septuaginta im Kontext alexandrinischer und frühjüdischer Kultur und Bildung,” in Septuaginta Deutsch: Erläuterungen und Kommentare zum griechischen Alten Testament, ed. Martin Karrer and Wolfang Kraus (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2011), 3–39 (19–20).

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away. As a spoken language Hebrew most probably played no role (neither did it in Palestine)33 but in its written form it did. With regard to Demotic, James Aitken notes that it “continued to hold a special place” in Egypt’s “multilingual environment”.34 This can also be said about the presence of Hebrew. What about Alexandria in the Roman period? What about Philo, the theologian, philosopher and politician contre coeur of the first half of the 1st century CE? The question of whether Philo knew Hebrew or not has been treated repeatedly and extensively in Philo scholarship with a majority, it seems, arguing against a Philo Hebraicus. As we have seen from Scaliger’s very explicit statement, Philo’s knowledge of Hebrew was seriously disputed already in the Renaissance. Azaria de’ Rossi, a Jewish contemporary of Scaliger, is just as explicit on the question. According to de’ Rossi, Philo (whom he calls in Hebrew Yedidyah) “grew up in the Greek world and despite all his wisdom and fluency in their language never saw or knew the actual original text of Torah. It was not just a question of the holy tongue, but he was even ignorant of Aramaic, the language that was widely used in the Land of Israel.”35 This is, according to de’ Rossi, one of Philo’s defects.36 There is no need to review all of previous scholarship on the question of Philo’s knowledge of Hebrew (nor would it be possible).37 Among the earlier Philo scholars it may suffice to refer to just a few rather diverse voices in this loaded discussion: those of Isaak Heinemann, Harry A. Wolfson, and Suzanne Daniel. To Heinemann, who wrote a detailed study on Philo’s Greek 33 Even for Palestine one would be hard pressed to prove the presence of Hebrew as a spoken language in the Hellenistic and Roman period. In common speech, Aramaic rather than Hebrew was used: cf. Schwartz, “Language, Power,” 19, 27–28, 43. 34 Aitken, “The Septuagint and Egyptian Translation Methods,” 274. Cf. Sang-Il Lee, Jesus and Gospel Traditions in Bilingual Context: A Study in the Interdirectionality of Language (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 151–54. 35 Azaria de’ Rossi, The Light of the Eyes, ed. Joanna Weinberg, Yale Judaica Series 31 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 129: ( ‫זה ידידיהו אשר גדל בארצות היונים עם כל‬ ‫ לא מבעיה בלשון הקודש כי גם‬,‫חכמתו ורוחב מליצתו בלשונם לא ראה ולא ידע את התורה בעצם מקורה‬ ‫)הארמי המפורסם בארץ ישראל נעלם ממנו‬. The first thing de’ Rossi states about Philo is that he prefers to call him “Yedidyah the Alexandrian” as do “certain distinguished contemporaries” of his (ibid., 101). “Yedidyah” plays with the Greek φίλος (“friend”). 36 ‫נגעים‬: literally “plagues.” In the end, de’ Rossi’s verdict on Philo is ambivalent: “I say to the Jewish people that I cannot pass an unconditional verdict on this Yedidyah or Philo, to use his Greek name, or indeed any other name or surname he has been given” (ibid., 159). 37 The earlier discussion is summarized in Samuel Sandmel, “Philo’s Knowledge of Hebrew: The Present State of the Problem,” SPhA 5 (1978): 107–12. Later scholarship is discussed in Tessa Rajak, “Philo’s Knowledge of Hebrew: The Meaning of the Etymologies,” in The Jewish-Greek Tradition in Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire, ed. James K. Aitken and James Carleton Paget (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 173– 87.

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and Jewish education, it is very clear that Philo did not know Hebrew (“keinerlei Kenntnis des Hebräischen”38). Heinemann had translated the long tractate “On the Special Laws” (De Specialibus Legibus) for the German edition39 and his book on Philo’s education is also a commentary on the sources of that tractate and the question of what the Jewish law as presented by Philo had in common with rabbinic Halakha. According to Heinemann, Philo was much more part of Greek legal and philosophical thinking than of the emerging rabbinic movement. If there are parallels between the Jewish law as discussed by Philo and rabbinic Halakha (with regard to the Temple cult and vows) they are coincidental rather than the result of an intense exchange or influence. A rather different stand was taken by Harry A. Wolfson whose Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, published in 1947, in spite of its shortcomings, remains a major achievement in Philo scholarship.40 According to Wolfson, the fact that Philo’s interpretation of the Bible is based on the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic text does not prove his ignorance of Hebrew: The text of Scripture used by him is not the original Hebrew but the Greek translation, and sometimes it is the wording of that translation that is made the subject of his interpretation. Still it is not to be inferred from this that Philo had no knowledge of Hebrew. Writing in Greek for Greek readers, he would naturally quote the translation familiar to his readers, even though his knowledge of Hebrew was such that he could himself without too much effort provide his own translation.41

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Wolfson is less hesitant then Heinemann to assume some kind of exchange between early forms of rabbinic Judaism and Jews in Alexandria (“through the various channels of intellectual communication that existed between them”42). In Wolfson’s view, “the burden of proof is upon those who would deny that he [Philo] possessed such a knowledge [of Hebrew].”43 To Wolfson it was not the least Philo’s etymologies of Hebrew names which indicate some knowledge of Hebrew. We will return to the question of etymologies below. Isaak Heinemann, Philons griechische und jüdische Bildung: Kulturvergleichende Untersuchungen zu Philons Darstellung der jüdischen Gesetze (Breslau: Marcus, 1932), 524. 39 “Ueber die Einzelgesetze Buch I-IV,” in Werke Philos, ed. Leopold Cohn (Breslau: Marcus, 1910), 3–312. 40 Harry A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947); cf. David T. Runia, “History of Philosophy in the Grand Manner: The Achievement of H. A. Wolfson,” Philosophia Reformata 49.2 (1984): 112–33. 41 Wolfson, Philo, 1:88. 42 Wolfson, Philo, 1:91. 43 Wolfson, Philo, 1:89. 38

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20 years after the publication of Wolfson’s study, in 1967, another important and continuing point of reference in Philonic scholarship appeared: the papers of a groundbraking conference on Philo, which had taken place the previous year in Lyon. At the conference, many of the French scholars who were already or were about to become important voices in Philo scholarship and some of whom were contributing to the French annotated translation of Philo presented papers: Monique Alexandre, Suzanne Daniel, Valentin Nikiprowetzky, Roland Arlandez, and others.44 In the volume, Suzanne Daniel discusses the presence of Halakha in Philo’s oeuvre and thus also the question of Philo’s knowledge of Hebrew. Daniel cautiously rejects Isaak Heinemann’s view of a Philo writing independently from halakhic discussions in Palestine: “Il n’est donc pas interdit de penser que Philon ne dépendait pas exclusivement de la Septante, mais faisait état aussi de la Halacha de son temps.”45 In the French edition of Philo, Daniel was responsible for the first two books of De Specialibus Legibus and thus for the same tractate as Isaak Heinemann for the German translation.46 In her conclusion Daniel states that if Philo took part in halakhic discussions, he must have known Hebrew.47 At the Lyon conference Suzanne Daniel’s paper led to a “longue discussion … sur la question de savoir si Philon connaissait ou non l’hébreu”.48 Opinions thus differ greatly when it comes to the question whether Philo knew Hebrew or not and one may assume that the academic and/or biographic background of scholars arguing in favor or against a Philo Hebraicus plays into the discussion. As Samuel Sandmel observed: “In general, rabbinists affirm that he did [know Hebrew], Hellenists that he did not.”49 One of Harry

44 On the impact of this conference volume, cf. now Sébastien Morlet and Olivier Munnich, eds., Les études philoniennes: regards sur cinquante ans de recherche (1967–2017) (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). 45 Suzanne Daniel, “La halacha de Philon selon le premier livre des lois spéciales,” in Philon d’Alexandrie: Lyon, 11–15 Septembre 1966 (Paris: Editions du CNRS, 1967), 221– 41 (239). 46 Suzanne Daniel, De specialibus legibus I et II, Les Oeuvres de Philon d’Alexandrie 24 (Paris: Cerf, 1975). 47 Daniel, “La halacha de Philon,” 240: “Car si l’on doit reconnaître à celui-ci une compétence véritable dans le domaine de la Halacha, il n’est pas concevable qu’il ait pu ignorer la langue dans laquelle était rédigée la Loi écrite, et dans laquelle aussi se formulaient les discussions des Rabbins et leurs enseignements sur la Loi orale.” 48 Daniel, “La halacha de Philon,” 241 (the discussion after each paper is summarized in the volume). 49 Sandmel, “Philo’s knowledge of Hebrew,” 109. A scholar like Isaak Heinemann would of course not only fall into the category of ‘Hellenists’. Sandmel tries to put the importance of the question into perspective: “Whether he [Philo] knew Hebrew or not does not affect either the form or, more importantly, the substance of what he wrote and thought” (ibid., 111). A powerful argument against Philo knowing Hebrew was brought

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Wolfson’s arguments in favor of Philo’s knowledge of Hebrew seems a particularly obvious one. Time and again (more than 160 times in his oeuvre), Philo makes use of a Hebrew etymology of Biblical names for his exegesis. From a philological point of view, most of these etymologies are misleading. This, however, as most scholars would now agree, is not an indicator of a lack of knowledge of Hebrew (one just needs to think of the numerous imaginative etymologies in the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic Midrash). What counts for Philo, is that his etymologies make sense in the context of his (often allegorical) interpretation. Let me refer very briefly to just a couple of examples of Philo’s use of Hebrew etymologies50: Abram, Aaron, Israel, and Esau. Abram etymologically is explained in Philo as “uplifted/lofty father” (πατὴρ μετέωρος). The (imagined) Hebrew etymology, ‫רם‬-‫אב‬, fits Philo’s philosophy of the ideal mind very well: … for “Abram” means “father high-soaring,” and both epithets are grounds for praise. For when the mind does not, like a master, frighten the soul with threats, but governs it as a father, … it soars aloft and spends its time in contemplation of the universe and its different parts…. ἑρμηνεύεται γὰρ Ἀβρὰμ “πατὴρ μετέωρος”, δι᾽ ἀμφοτέρων τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐπαινετός· ὁ γὰρ νοῦς, ὅταν μὴ δεσπότου τρόπον ἀπειλῇ τῇ ψυχῇ, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς πατὴρ ἄρχῃ, … μετεωροπολῇ καὶ συνδιατρίβῃ θεωρήμασι τοῖς περὶ κόσμου καὶ τῶν μερῶν αὐτοῦ….51

A similar etymology is presented for Moses’s brother Aaron whose sublime character is brought into connection with the Hebrew word for “mountain”, ‫ה ר‬: Now Aaron is the priest and his name means “mountainous.” He is the reason whose thoughts are lofty and sublime, not with the empty inflated bigness of mere vaunting, but with the greatness of virtue, which lifts his thinking above the heaven and will not let him cherish any reasoning that is mean and low.

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Ἀαρὼν δέ ἐστιν ὁ ἱερεύς, καὶ τοὔνομα ὀρεινὸς ἑρμηνεύεται, μετέωρα καὶ ὑψηλὰ φρονῶν λογισμός, οὐ διὰ μεγαλαυχίας κενοῦ φυσήματος ὑπόπλεων ὄγκον, ἀλλὰ διὰ μέγεθος ἀρετῆς, ἣ τὸ φρόνημα ἐξαίρουσα πέραν οὐρανοῦ ταπεινὸν οὐδὲν ἐᾷ λογίζεσθαι.52

forward soon after Sandmel’s review by Valentin Nikiprowetzky, Le commentaire de l’écriture chez Philon d’Alexandrie (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 50–97. 50 They have been conveniently assembled, first by Carl Siegfried, Die hebräischen Worterklärungen des Philo und die Spuren ihrer Einwirkung auf die Kirchenväter (Magdeburg: E. Baensch jun., 1863); and more extensively by Lester L. Grabbe, Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation: The Hebrew Names in Philo (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). 51 Philo, Leg. 3.83–84 (trans. Colson, LCL). Cf. Siegfried, Die hebräischen Worterklärungen, 9; Grabbe, Etymology, 127–28. 52 Philo, Ebr. 128 (trans. Colson, LCL). Cf. Siegfried, Die hebräischen Worterklärungen, 8; Grabbe, Etymology, 124.

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Philo’s best known etymology is probably the one for “Israel”. Several times in his oeuvre he explains Israel as (man) “seeing God”, ὁρῶν θεόν, derived from Hebrew ‫ ראה‬and ‫( אל‬and possibly ‫איש‬, “man”).53 At times Philo explains the name of the nation of Israel by explicitly referring to the Hebrew language: Its high position is shown by the name; for the nation is called in the Hebrew tongue Israel, which, being interpreted, is “He who sees God.” μηνύει δὲ τοὔνομα τὴν δύναμιν αὐτοῦ· προσονομάζεται γὰρ Ἑβραίων γλώττῃ τὸ ἔθνος Ἰσραήλ, ὅπερ ἑρμηνευθέν ἐστιν “ὁρῶν θεόν.”54

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Scholars have of course always been aware of these etymologies. What nevertheless made a great number of scholars conclude that Philo did not know Hebrew at all (or if, then only in a very limited way), was that Philo seems to ignore the Hebrew text of the Bible. If Philo uses the Septuagint instead of the Masoretic text, the Hebrew etymologies cannot be his. Rather, Philo must have used a pre-existing list of Hebrew etymologies, some kind of Onomasticon. However, while we do know of such Onomastica, both in form of a papyrus fragment from Oxyrhynchus55 and from Jerome’s Liber interpretationis Hebraicorum nominum, these “parallels” are late antique. We do not possess any lists of Hebrew etymologies, similar to the ones supposedly used by Philo, from the Hellenistic-Roman period.56 Moreover, and more importantly, if there had been such a list at the time of Philo it would have had to include many of his allegorical interpretations. But the assumption that there was an Onomasticon which would have fit Philo’s thinking so neatly does not seem to hold. It would obviously question Philo’s originality with regard to quite a few of his allegorical interpretations.57 At the same time, one should not exclude the possibility that earlier authors writing in Greek made use of Hebrew etymologies to explain the deeper 53 Cf. Siegfried, Die hebräischen Worterklärungen, 24–25; Grabbe, Etymology, 172–73; Ellen Birnbaum, The Place of Judaism in Philo’s Thought: Israel, Jews, and Proselytes (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 70–72. 54 Philo, Abr. 57 (trans. Colson, LCL); cf. also Praem. 44 and Legat. 4: τοῦτο δὲ τὸ γένος Χαλδαϊστὶ μὲν Ἰσραὴλ καλεῖται, Ἑλληνιστὶ δὲ ἑρμηνευθέντος τοῦ ὀνόματος ὁρῶν θεόν. 55 P.Oxy. 36.2745. Cf. David Rokeah, “A New Onomasticon Fragment from Oxyrhynchus and Philo’s Etymologies,” JTS 19 (1968): 70–82. 56 According to Rokeah, “A New Onomasticon,” 81, the Onomasticon from Oxyrhynchus dates back to an earlier version of the Hellenistic period, but his argumentation is not very convincing. 57 Edmund Stein, Die allegorische Exegese des Philo aus Alexandreia (Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1929), 26, according to whom Philo did not know Hebrew, but copied the etymologies from somewhere else, put Philo’s allegorical originality into question: “Das allegorische System kann infolgedessen nicht von Philo selbst herrühren, es muß nach seinen Quellen gefragt werden.”

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meaning of Biblical figures and that Philo incorporated some of them. It needs to be remembered that “Philo’s oeuvre was the culmination of some three centuries of development of Judaism and of Jewish intellectual life conducted in a Greek milieu.”58 Philo was by no means the only Jewish theologian and philosopher at the time (as becomes evident from his critical remarks about contemporaries) and with Aristobulus (2nd century BCE) we know one of his predecessors by name. Sometimes it is indeed not clear whether Philo uses a ready-made etymology that he only had to jazz up, so to speak, or whether he came up with the etymological explanation himself. In the case of the name of Esau he quite explicitly takes up etymologies that were already circulating: Esau whose name is sometimes interpreted as “an oak,” sometimes as “a thing made up.” He is an oak because he is unbending, unyielding, disobedient and stiff-necked by nature, with folly as his counsellor, oak-like in very truth; he is a thing made up because the life that consorts with folly is just fiction and fable…. Ἠσαῦ, ὃς τοτὲ μὲν ποίημα, τοτὲ δὲ δρῦς ἑρμηνεύεται, δρῦς μέν, παρόσον ἀκαμπὴς καὶ ἀνένδοτος ἀπειθής τε καὶ σκληραύχην φύσει, συμβούλῳ χρώμενος ἀνοίᾳ, δρύινος ὄντως, ποίημα δέ, παρόσον πλάσμα καὶ μῦθός ἐστιν ὁ μετὰ ἀφροσύνης βίος….59

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In Philo, Esau stands for disobedience and for being stiff-necked as well as for myth and fiction.60 A complex use of Hebrew and Greek etymologies is at play here. Behind the etymological explanation for “Esau” as “oak” and “a thing made up” seem to stand the Hebrew words for “tree” (‫)עץ‬, and “to make” (‫)עשה‬.61 Esau is unbending like a tree (oak) and he stands for fiction. The Greek word ποίημα (“something made”) fits in elegantly into this wordplay: here it means “fiction” and stands for Esau’s mythical folly. If these complex etymologies are not Philo’s own, they do indicate substantial knowledge of Hebrew in the curriculum vitae of an earlier Jewish-Hellenistic author. That Philo must have known some Hebrew, was long ago suggested by Leopold Cohn, the editor of the standard Greek edition.62 More recently several scholars questioned the communis opinio that Philo did not know Hebrew. Chava Shur in her University of Tel Aviv dissertation from 1991 arRajak, “Philo’s Knowledge of Hebrew,” 174. Philo, Congr. 61 (transl. Colson, LCL, adjusted). 60 René Bloch, Moses und der Mythos: Die Auseinandersetzung mit der griechischen Mythologie bei jüdisch-hellenistischen Autoren (Brill: Leiden, 2011), 176–77. 61 Siegfried, Die hebräischen Worterklärungen, 19; Grabbe, Etymology, 162–63. 62 Leopold Cohn, “Philo von Alexandrien,” Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum und deutsche Literatur 1 (1898): 514–40 (528): “Er [Philo] verstand auch hebräisch, wie die zahlreichen Etymologien biblischer Namen bei ihm beweisen, die sich nur aus dem hebräischen Urtext erklären lassen, aber seine Kenntnisse im Hebräischen waren nicht bedeutend.” 58

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273

gues that Philo used Hebrew etymologies in an innovative way. According to Shur they are very much an integral part of Philo’s allegorical reading.63 Very recently, Tessa Rajak has taken up the topic of Philo’s knowledge of Hebrew. Rajak asks, “yet if Hebrew etymologies are found to be inextricable from the web of Philo’s allegorical interpretation of a particular passage, is it not simpler to suggest that the mind of the master himself might be responsible?”64 In her conclusion, Rajak remains cautious: “a definitive answer is unattainable.”65 It seems to me that “the burden of proof,” to use Harry Wolfson’s language, in arguing that Philo did not know Hebrew has not become lighter. It is very unlikely that Philo had no knowledge of Hebrew at all and that he blindly copied Hebrew etymologies from a template. The presence of Hebrew in ancient Jewish Alexandria hardly came to an end with an author who refers to some 160 Hebrew etymologies.66 Let us now return to the Septuagint and consider what Philo has to say about the translation of the “Law” from Hebrew into Greek. In his tractate Life of Moses, Philo introduces a fairly detailed description of why and how Scripture was translated in Alexandria at the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphus.67 As a matter of fact, he has more to say about the actual translation than the Letter of Aristeas (where the process of translation is discussed in just a few paragraphs).68 As in the Letter of Aristeas, Philo, too, claims that the initiative to translate the Bible into Greek came from Non-Jews. It is worthwhile taking a closer look at the text:

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In ancient times the laws were written in the Chaldean tongue, and remained in that form for many years, without any change of language, so long as they had not yet revealed their beauty to the rest of mankind. But, in course of time, the daily, unbroken regularity of 63 Chava Schur, ‫הש מות העבריים בפרשנות האליגורית של פילון‬-‫( מדרשי‬Etymologies of Hebrew Names in Philo’s Allegorical Exegesis) (PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, 1991). 64 Rajak, “Philo’s Knowledge of Hebrew,” 187. 65 Rajak, “Philo’s Knowledge of Hebrew,” 173. 66 A difficult passage to interpret remains Philo, Flacc. 39: The (anti-Jewish) mob in Alexandria shouts “Μάριν,” which is Aramaic for “lord,” “master” (cf. 1 Cor 16:22), in mockery of the Syrian king Agrippa. “This is, they say, how they call the ruler among the Syrians” (οὕτως δέ φασι τὸν κύριον ὀνομάζεσθαι παρὰ Σύροις), Philo comments. Can this incident tell us anything about knowledge of Aramaic among Jews in Alexandria at the time (38 CE)? Cf. William Horbury, “Jewish Inscriptions and Jewish Literature in Egypt with Special Reference to Ecclesiasticus,” in Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy, ed. Jan W. van Henten and Pieter W. van der Horst (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 9–43 (14): “one may guess that part of the point of their [the mob’s] insult was to mimic the use of Aramaic by some Jews.” By adding “φασι”, Philo seems to imply that he was unaware of this Aramaic title (but not necessarily the word). Altogether, the passage is too brief to draw any conclusions from it. Cf. the discussion in Pieter W. van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus: The First Pogrom: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 130–31. 67 Philo, Mos. 2.25–40. 68 Let. Aris. 301–7.

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practice exercised by those who observed them brought them to the knowledge of others, and their fame began to spread on every side. … Then it was that some people, thinking it a shame that the laws should be found in one half only of the human race, the barbarians, and denied altogether to the Greeks, took steps to have them translated. … [the high priest] sought out such Hebrews as he had of the highest reputation, who had received an education in Greek as well as in their native lore, and joyfully sent them to Ptolemy.

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τὸ παλαιὸν ἐγράφησαν οἱ νόμοι γλώσσῃ Χαλδαϊκῇ καὶ μέχρι πολλοῦ διέμειναν ἐν ὁμοίῳ τὴν διάλεκτον οὐ μεταβάλλοντες, ἕως μήπω τὸ κάλλος εἰς τοὺς ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους ἀνέφηναν αὑτῶν. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐκ τῆς καθ᾽ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν συνεχοῦς μελέτης καὶ ἀσκήσεως τῶν χρωμένων αἴσθησις ἐγένετο καὶ ἑτέροις καὶ τὸ κλέος ἐφοίτα πανταχόσε … , δεινὸν ἡγησάμενοί τινες, εἰ οἱ νόμοι παρὰ τῷ ἡμίσει τμήματι τοῦ γένους ἀνθρώπων ἐξετασθήσονται μόνῳ τῷ βαρβαρικῷ, τὸ δ᾽ Ἑλληνικὸν εἰς ἅπαν ἀμοιρήσει, πρὸς ἑρμηνείαν τὴν τούτων ἐτράποντο. … σκεψάμενος τοὺς παρ᾽ αὑτῷ δοκιμωτάτους Ἑβραίων, οἳ πρὸς τῇ πατρίῳ καὶ τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν ἐπεπαίδευντο παιδείαν, ἄσμενος ἀποστέλλει.69

Thus, according to Philo’s version of the story, the translation of the Bible was motivated by the wish to make it accessible to the Greek speaking half of the world. Greek speaking Jews may be included in this, but in Philo’s reading, the principal importance of the translation project was that it made the Jewish law accessible to everybody, not only to those who know Hebrew or Aramaic. What triggered the interest of the Greek speaking half of the word in the laws of the Jews was, according to Philo, “the daily, unbroken regularity of practice exercised by those who observed them.” These are observant Jews knowing Hebrew. While Philo clearly refers to the time when the translation was undertaken, it is difficult to imagine that he would not consider himself being part of the group already familiar with both law and language. Later in his report Philo refers to the Hebrew and Greek text of Scripture as “sisters.” As Maria Sokolskaya in her recent University of Bern dissertation rightly points out, this “sister” image needs to be taken seriously. The Septuagint is not replacing the Hebrew Bible, rather it is an equivalent and necessary addition to the family, so to speak.70 The outcome of the translation is in Philo’s version as miraculous as in the Letter of Aristeas: the translators wrote “the same word for word, as though dictated to each by an invisible prompter.”71 The translation, Philo continues, turned out to be of mathematical precision – according to what people thought at the time, according to Philo’s own impression and according to all those who are able to read both texts, that is the Hebrew original and the Greek translation:

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For, just as in geometry and logic, so it seems to me, the sense indicated does not admit of variety in the expression which remains unchanged in its original form, so these writers, as it clearly appears, arrived at a wording which corresponded with the matter, and alone, or Philo, Mos. 2.26–32 (transl. Colson, LCL). Maria Sokolskaya, Philon und die Septuaginta: Der Bezugsrahmen seiner Exegese (PhD diss., University of Bern, 2016). 71 Philo, Mos. 2.37. 69 70

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275

better than any other, would bring out clearly what was meant. The clearest proof of this is that, if Chaldeans have learned Greek, or Greeks Chaldean, and read both versions, the Chaldean and the translation, they regard them with awe and reverence as sisters, or rather one and the same, both in matter and words…. ὃν γὰρ τρόπον, οἶμαι, ἐν γεωμετρίᾳ καὶ διαλεκτικῇ τὰ σημαινόμενα ποικιλίαν ἑρμηνείας οὐκ ἀνέχεται, μένει δ᾿ ἀμετάβλητος ἡ ἐξ ἀρχῆς τεθεῖσα, τὸν αὐτὸν ὡς ἔοικε τρόπον καὶ οὗτοι συντρέχοντα τοῖς πράγμασιν ὀνόματα ἐξεῦρον, ἅπερ δὴ μόνα ἢ μάλιστα τρανώσειν ἔμελλεν ἐμφαντικῶς τὰ δηλούμενα. σαφεστάτη δὲ τοῦδε πίστις· ἐάν τε Χαλδαῖοι τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν γλῶτταν ἐάν τε Ἕλληνες τὴν Χαλδαίων ἀναδιδαχθῶσι καὶ ἀμφοτέραις ταῖς γραφαῖς ἐντύχωσι, τῇ τε Χαλδαϊκῇ καὶ τῇ ἑρμηνευθείσῃ, καθάπερ ἀδελφὰς μᾶλλον δ᾽ ὡς μίαν καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν ἔν τε τοῖς πράγμασι καὶ τοῖς ὀνόμασι τεθήπασι καὶ προσκυνοῦσιν….72

What exactly is Philo saying here? According to Philo what can be taken as proof (πίστις) of quality of the translation is the admiration with which those who know both Greek and Hebrew regard it. Philo clearly refers to readers of his own time. A dependent clause with ἐάν (or equivalents) followed by subjunctive (ἐάν τε Χαλδαῖοι τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν γλῶτταν ἐάν τε Ἕλληνες τὴν Χαλδαίων ἀναδιδαχθῶσι καὶ ἀμφοτέραις ταῖς γραφαῖς ἐντύχωσι) and a generic present indicative in the apodosis can be understood either as a conditional or as a temporal clause. What is clear is that when mentioning Chaldeans (that is Hebrew speakers73) who learn Greek and Greek speakers who learn Hebrew, Philo does not refer to a hypothetical event. He neither uses the potential mood nor the irrealis mood (“if they were to learn Hebrew”). Rather Philo describes a habitual state of affairs. He could have stressed this aspect even more by writing ὅταν (or ὁπόταν) which would underline the iterative character of the sentence.74 But even as it stands, the sentence refers to something that can be expected to happen (in this case that Chaldeans learn Greek and Greek speakers learn Hebrew).75 Moreover, conditional clauses introduced by ἐάν (and equivalents) can refer to recurrent circumstances the same

Philo, Mos. 2.39–40. Philo refers to the Hebrew language as Χαλδαϊστὶ (Philo, Legat. 4) and γλῶττα Χαλδαϊκή (Philo, Mos. 2.26–31). Cf. André Pelletier, Contre Flaccus, Les Oeuvres de Philon d’Alexandrie 31 (Paris: Cerf, 1972), 349–53. 74 As in Philo, Somn. 2.1 on some kind of dreams that arises “whenever (ὁπόταν) the soul becomes frenzied.” 75 As Albert Rijksbaron, The Syntax and Semantics of the Verb in Classical Greek: An Introduction (Amsterdam: Gieben, 2002), 70, explains this syntactical rule: “real events are referred to, though events which sometimes occur in the situation at hand.” I would like to thank Tobias Joho, University of Bern, for referring me to Rijksbaron and for his valuable suggestions on this matter. Cf. also Eduard Bornemann and Eduard Risch, Griechische Grammatik (Frankfurt am Main: Moritz Diesterweg, 1978), 291: “Er [der prospektive Fall (auch “Eventualis” genannt)] ist im klassischen und nachklassischen Griechisch der Normalfall für kondizionale Satzgefüge, bei dem die Protasis etwas bezeichnet, womit man rechnen kann oder muß.” 72

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way as clauses beginning with ὅταν.76 At times the more temporal ὅταν (or ὁπόταν) and the more conditional ἐάν are used alternately within the same passage, and so also in Philo.77 An alternative translation to Colson’s cited above (which remains correct) would thus be “whenever Chaldeans have learned Greek, or Greeks Chaldean…”. The other English translation of Philo widely in use today, the one by Charles Duke Yonge, misses the point on the other hand. Yonge translates Mos. 2.40 as follows: “if Greeks were to learn Chaldaean, and if each were to meet with those scriptures in both languages, namely, the Chaldaic and the translated version, they would admire and reverence them both as sisters, or rather as one and the same both in their facts and in their language….”78 Yonge misunderstands Philo’s statement about actual reading experiences of native Greek and Hebrew speakers (whether true or not, but presented as real) as hypothetical.79 What does this mean for our main question? While it remains true that Philo’s report on this great translation project is framed in rather mythical language, he says something here about readers of his own time. Philo, writing in Alexandria in the first half of the 1st century CE, clearly states that some people learn Hebrew as other people learn Greek. Granted, there is no reason to assume a widespread Hebrew-Greek bilingualism in Alexandria.80 The very fact that according to Philo people have to learn the other language 76 Raphael Kühner and Bernhard Gerth, Satzlehre, vol. 2 of Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache (Darmstadt: WBG, 2015), 473: “verallgemeinernd von Bedingungen, deren Verwirklichung jederzeit erwartet werden kann: jedesmal wenn.” 77 Kühner and Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik, 2:474. Cf. Philo, Mos. 1.111: “When (ὅταν) men make war…. But if (ἐὰν), at any time, He wills to use….” 78 Yonge’s translation of Philo, Mos. 2.40 is regularly used in the context of Philo’s comments on the Septuagint. Cf. Jan Joosten, “Translating the Untranslatable: Septuagint Renderings of Hebrew Idioms,” in ‘Translation is Required’: The Septuagint in Retrospect and Prospect, ed. Robert J.V. Hiebert (Atlanta: SBL, 2010), 59–70 (69); Hindy Najman, “Philo’s Greek Scriptures and Cultural Symbiosis,” in Jewish Cultural Encounters in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern World, ed. Mladen Popović et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 190–200 (197). 79 Both the French and the Hebrew translation of Mos. 2.40 render ἀναδιδαχθῶσι with a participle phrase, see Roger Arnaldez et al., eds., De vita Mosis I & II (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1967): “des Chaldéens sachant le grec ou des Grecs sachant le chaldéen”; Suzanne Daniel-Nataf, Philo of Alexandria: Writings (Jerusalem 1986): ‫כשדים יודעי יוונית או יוונים‬ ‫יודעי לשון הכשדים‬, but this undermines the process of learning the language made explicit in Philo’s phrase. Very much to the point is the German translation by Benno Badt (1909): “Wenn Chaldäer die hellenische Sprache oder Hellenen die chaldäische erlernt haben und beide Schriften, die chaldäische und ihre Uebersetzung, lesen….” In: Philon: Über das Leben des Mosis, ed. Leopold Cohn (Breslau: Marcus, 1909), 307. 80 It needs to be recalled that Hebrew was hardly a spoken language at the time (see above 7). More likely is some bilingualism in Aramaic and Greek in Alexandria: cf. SangIl Lee, Jesus and Gospel Traditions in Bilingual Context: A Study in the Interdirectionality of Language, 150–62.

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(Hebrew or Greek respectively) in order to be able to compare the two Bibles, is an indication that bilingual knowledge of Hebrew and Greek was not obvious.81 But some people learnt and knew both languages. Philo can refer to Greek as “our language” (ἡ ἡμετέρα διάλεκτος)82 as he can refer to Hebrew as “the ancestral language” (πάτριος γλῶττα)83: Hebrew was hardly unknown territory to Philo. Perhaps we can catch a glimpse of how a Jew in Egypt was confronted with the study of Hebrew from Philo’s description of someone who also had to learn Hebrew (and learnt it really well): Moses! While the book of Exodus has nothing to say about Moses’s education, Philo of Alexandria (also in his Life of Moses) fills in the gap with some fanciful details. He imagines a curriculum for Moses with very strong Hellenistic features: Arithmetic, geometry, the lore of metre, rhythm and harmony, and the whole subject of music as shown by the use of instruments or in textbooks and treatises of a more special character, were imparted to him by learned Egyptians…. He had Greeks to teach him the rest of the regular school course, and the inhabitants of the neighbouring countries for Assyrian letters and the Chaldean science of the heavenly bodies. ἀριθμοὺς μὲν οὖν καὶ γεωμετρίαν τήν τε ῥυθμικὴν καὶ ἁρμονικὴν καὶ μετρικὴν θεωρίαν καὶ μουσικὴν τὴν σύμπασαν διά τε χρήσεως ὀργάνων καὶ λόγων τῶν ἐν ταῖς τέχναις καὶ διεξόδοις τοπικωτέραις Αἰγυπτίων οἱ λόγιοι παρεδίδοσαν…. τὴν δ᾽ ἄλλην ἐγκύκλιον παιδείαν Ἕλληνες ἐδίδασκον, οἱ δ᾽ ἐκ τῶν πλησιοχώρων τά τε Ἀσσύρια γράμματα καὶ τὴν τῶν οὐρανίων Χαλδαϊκὴν ἐπιστήμην.84

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Philo’s Moses receives the best possible and a truly international education. He has Greek and Egyptian teachers, and inhabitants of the neighboring countries teach him among other things the “Assyrian letters” (ἀσσύρια γράμματα). This term can refer to “various oriental scripts”,85 to cuneiform, but also to Aramaic. Here, in the context of Moses’s education, “Assyrian letters” are probably to be understood as the Aramaic or Hebrew alphabet (very much like ‫ אשורית‬in rabbinic literature)86. If in this passage Philo is 81 Philo uses the verb ἀναδιδάσκω (Philo, Mos. 2.40) very regularly (no less than 95 times in his oeuvre). The verb can mean “to teach otherwise or better,” Pass. “to be better instructed,” but also “to learn anew” (LSJ). It is in the latter sense, as an equivalent to διδάσκω, that the verb is used here (and in many other passages in Philo). 82 Philo, Congr. 44 (in the context of Hebrew etymologies). 83 Philo, Spec. 2.41, 145, 194 with regard to the Hebrew words for Sabbath, Passover, and Yom Kippur (Sabbath of the Sabbaths). 84 Philo, Mos. 1.23. 85 LSJ (Revised Supplement), s.v. Ἀσσύριος. In Herodotus 4.87 it seems that cuneiform letters are meant, in Thucydides 4.50 the Aramaic script. Cf. also Rüdiger Schmitt, “Assyria grammata und ähnliche: Was wußten die Griechen von Keilschrift und Keilschriften?” in Zum Umgang mit fremden Sprachen in der griechisch-römischen Antike, ed. Carl W. Müller, Kurt Sier and Jürgen Werner (Stuttgart: Steiner 1992), 21–35. 86 b. Meg. 8b; cf. Jastrow, s.v.

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projecting a Jewish-Hellenistic paideia onto Moses (which at least for some of the fields of study mentioned is quite obvious),87 then learning Hebrew (or Aramaic) would be part of it. So how much Hebrew (and Aramaic) in Ancient Jewish Alexandria (and Egypt)? It seems to me the short answer is: more than has often been assumed. As in most areas of the ancient Jewish Diaspora, certainly in the West, Greek was the main language of the Jews in Alexandria, and more generally in Egypt, in the Hellenistic and Roman period. But Hebrew had its place, too. While the evidence is often sparse, it is fairly consistent. Space does not allow to go beyond Philo. At the time of the Diaspora uprisings under Trajan (116–117 CE) Jewish life in Egypt, if not totally eradicated,88 suffered a severe blow. At Oxyrhynchus locals commemorated the victory over the Jews for a long time as is indicated in a papyrus from around 200 CE.89 But from the 3rd, maybe already the 2nd century on, there is again some evidence for Jewish engagement with Hebrew and Aramaic, most notably from Oxyrhynchus where some Jews seem to have survived the defeat under Trajan.90 It seems to me that the literary evidence suggests that from the Persian up to the Roman period there were always some Jews in Egypt who knew some Hebrew. No one may have become as fluent as Moses, but not all were as illiterate as Gauls and Scythians.

87 Cf. Philo, Congr. 74–76 and René Bloch, Jüdische Drehbühnen: Biblische Variationen im antiken Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck), 44–45. 88 Appian, Bell. civ. 2.90: ἐξολλύντα τὸ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ Ἰουδαίων γένος. 89 CPJ II 450. 90 Cf. Michael D. Swartz, “Yoma from Babylonia to Egypt: Ritual Function, Textual Transmission, and Sacrifice,” AJS Review 43 (2019): 339–53 (347–51).

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2. Eusebius and the Praeparatio Evangelica

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“original” fragments, their authors, and their purpose(s), but also their meaning(s) for those who chose to preserve them – is an exploration of the various processes by which these fragments were actually transmitted. Thus, in what follows I consider: (1) surviving textual data from which various lines of transmission of the fragments can be established; (2) modes of textual production and reproduction in the ancient world, including especially the mechanics involved in the collection and preservation of fragmentary materials; and (3) the library settings in which such texts would have been procured, conserved, and re-transmitted. Their common denominator as texts of Hellenistic Jewish authors preserved in fragmentary form in literature of the Church Fathers belies the diversity of the fragments with respect to authorship, genre, date of composition, provenance, reception history, and so on. What might be supposed about one group of fragments cannot simply be assumed of the others, and this certainly applies to questions of their transmission. In some cases, e.g., the epic poetry of Theodotus and Philo, the transmission history can be determined fairly easily. In other cases, e.g., the Orphica, the fragments as they are preserved in various Christian texts suggest multiple recensions and a much more complicated transmission history.4 Moreover, while the excerpts in Clement and Eusebius can be considered in light of a wealth of comparable data elsewhere in their preserved works, e.g., knowledge of antecedent (Jewish and other) source material, citation tendencies, and modes of excerpting, analyses of the earlier periods of transmission of the fragments necessarily become much more speculative on the basis of fewer data. Moreover, so little of even the most basic information related to the fragments can be confirmed (authorship, provenance, date, context(s) of production, etc.) and our knowledge of figures like Polyhistor and his work(s) is similarly murky. Thus, the goal in this essay is not to establish securely the unique transmission histories of each of the fragments, but rather to speak in more general terms about the most likely trajectories thereof.

Discussions of the fragments most often begin with Eusebius’s Praeparatio Evangelica inasmuch as most of the fragments are preserved therein. This is not to say that Eusebius always preserves the fullest or final forms of the fragments. Nevertheless, the fragments appear in the Praeparatio Evangelica in such a way as to suggest the end of the line in terms of their development and transformation, which is to say that the versions of the fragments as they appear in subsequent texts appear to depend on Eusebius. 4

See the summary in Holladay, FHJA, 4:43–59.

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Eusebius explicitly indicates that he came into contact with the vast majority of the fragments through the work of Alexander Polyhistor, a non-Jewish polymath who flourished in the 1st century BCE.5 Most take Eusebius at his word and presume that Polyhistor’s On the Jews provided Eusebius with the raw material from which he excerpted numerous quotations of the fragments.6 In those instances where Eusebius does not indicate that Polyhistor was his source, e.g., Aristobulus, Ps.-Aristeas, and the Orphica, it stands to reason that they were available to him first-hand or through another, unnamed intermediary.7 The lengths to which Eusebius goes to indicate his use of intermediary sources (e.g., Polyhistor), and indeed the importance of these intermediaries in Eusebius’s apologetic arguments, suggests that the former is more likely.8 It is clear that Eusebius had access to a number of other intermediate sources who cite the fragments, including Josephus, Clement of Alexandria, Anatolius of Laodicea, and others, as Eusebius acknowledges each of these authors’ quotations of certain fragments. However, in most cases it seems unlikely that Eusebius actually depended on these authors in transmitting the fragments. A number of questions typically attend studies of Eusebius’s preservation of the fragments: What can be known about the nature of the sources to which Eusebius had access? By what means did he reproduce his source material into the form(s) in which it appears in Praeparatio Evangelica? How did he access such materials in the first place?

5 Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.17.1; 19.4; 20.2; 21.1, 19; 22.11; 37.3; 39.1. Much more on Polyhistor follows in this essay. 6 Polyhistor, On Libya may be the source of the fragment of Cleodemus Malchus (Holladay, FHJA, 1:245). Moreover, in rare instances, Eusebius appears to preserve fragments through another intermediary. For example, his quotation of the fragment of Cleodemus Malchus is taken directly from Josephus, Ant. 1.239–41 (cf. Pseudo-Hecataeus in Holladay, FHJA, 1:277–83). Nikolaus Walter took the exceptional position that Eusebius did not have direct access to Polyhistor at all, but rather accessed his work through another (unnamed) intermediary. See Nikolaus Walter, “Zur Überlieferung einiger Reste früher jüdischehellenistischer Literatur bei Josephus, Clemens und Euseb,” in Studia Patristica VIII, ed. Frank L. Cross (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1966), 314–20. 7 Some have made more specious arguments that Eusebius had direct access to other fragments, e.g., Ezekiel’s Exagoge. Rick van de Water, “Moses’ Exaltation: Pre-Christian,” JSP 21 (2000): 59–69; contra Howard Jacobson, “Eusebius, Polyhistor and Ezekiel,” JSP 15.1 (2005): 75–77. 8 Sabrina Inowlocki, Eusebius and the Jewish Authors: His Citation Technique in an Apologetic Context (Leiden: Brill, 2006).

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3. The Nature of Eusebius’s Sources

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We can only speculate on the precise form(s) of the sources to which Eusebius had access on the basis of their preservation in Eusebius, and such speculation typically relies on the question of how accurately Eusebius reproduced the texts he had on-hand. In some instances, e.g., the Exagoge of Ezekiel, the fragments of Artapanus, and the poetry of Philo, it seems almost certain that the fragments preserved by Eusebius constitute excerpts from texts that were originally larger – perhaps much larger – in their original form(s). The question becomes whether Eusebius was responsible for editing this material, or whether Eusebius’s sources themselves were comprised of already condensed and/or excerpted texts. For fragments that have not so clearly been excerpted in some fashion, i.e., shorter fragments that are not so clearly one piece of a larger original, we can only speculate as to the nature of his source material. This question is complicated by the fact that there are instances where it appears that Eusebius has omitted material(s) from his source(s), i.e., in those instances where he indicates that he is skipping over material with formulaic editorial comments.9 In these cases, Eusebius appears to be excerpting from his source(s) and it is unclear just how much of the source text he has omitted. When Eusebius does not provide any clues at all that he is eliding material, the situation is just as murky. Might we assume accurate reproduction of sources, or some degree of editing? While scholars of the 19th century were skeptical that Eusebius accurately replicated his sources, Freudenthal had a much more positive view of the fidelity of Eusebius’s citations, and scholars in his wake have tended to follow suit.10 First, the length of the excerpted citations (especially when compared with the sometimes abbreviated forms of these texts in Clement), suggests that Eusebius was preserving citations directly from a manuscript, rather than conjuring them from memory and/or paraphrasing them.11 Secondly, Eusebius demonstrates his penchant for exactness in his method of citing 9 E.g., πάλιν μεθ᾽ ἕτερα ἐπιλέγει or καὶ πάλιν μετ᾽ὀλίγα. Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.29.14–15. Gregory E. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephos, Luke-Acts, and Apologetic Historiography (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 142n26. 10 Jacob Freudenthal, Hellenistische Studien: Alexander Polyhistor und die von ihm erhaltenen Reste jüdischer und samaritanischer Geschichtswerke (Breslau: 1874), 3–16. André Pelletier, Lettre d’Aristée à Philocrate (Paris: Cerf, 1962), 22–41. 11 As Inowlocki has shown, Eusebius seems to indicate that he is providing a literal quotation when he uses expressions such as πρὸς λέξιν, κατὰ λέξιν, πρὸς ῥῆμα, etc. While Eusebius does not use such terminology to introduce his citations of the FHJA, most suspect a high degree of reliability. His use of παραθήσω might suggest as much. Eusebius, Praep. ev. 13.11.3b–12.2; 9.6.6–8 (Holladay frag. 3). In other instances, Eusebius claims that Clement and Polyhistor are quoting the FHJA “word for word” (e.g., Pseudo-Eupolemus [Holladay frag. 1]; Aristobulus [Holladay frag. 3a]).

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authors, titles of works, and the number of the books cited, precision one might expect from a librarian and which might be imagined to shape his concern for accurately reproducing his sources.12 Thirdly, studies of Eusebius’s citations of sources for which there are numerous other witnesses with which to compare to Eusebius (e.g., Plato, Plutarch, Josephus, Philo) demonstrate a reasonable degree of reliability, even when it can be shown that Eusebius modified certain texts in order to accommodate his theological agenda.13 Another question relates to the organization of the fragments as they are found in the Praeparatio Evangelica, inasmuch as they follow the general chronology of the biblical account, beginning with the stories of Abraham and concluding with the fall of Jerusalem. The issue is whether Eusebius himself was responsible for arranging the fragments in this way, or whether his sources had arranged the material to follow this chronology, an issue we will consider in much more detail below in the discussion of Polyhistor’s preservation of the fragments. At any rate, the forgoing discussion introduces a critical element in any discussion of Eusebius’s citation of the fragments: Insofar as some of the fragments have come to Eusebius through an intermediary such as Polyhistor (or perhaps Clement and/or Josephus), it is not simply a matter of determining whether Eusebius accurately reproduced his sources, but a question of whether the intermediaries themselves have accurately reproduced the fragments.

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4. Eusebius’s Library in Caesarea While scholars have long considered the nature of Eusebius’s sources and the extent to which he reproduced them, the means by which Eusebius actually came into contact with these sources, as well as the mechanics of their reproduction in the Praeparatio evengelica, tend to receive much less attention. The library at Caesarea provided Eusebius with immense resources with which to access, collect, and preserve a wide variety of literature, and to produce new literature of his own. The origins of the Christian library in Caesarea are obscure, but it likely began as a kind of “congregational library,” which is to say a depository in which local Christian communities could de12 Sabrina Inowlocki, “Reading the Praeparatio Evangelica as a Library,” in Reconsidering Eusebius: Collected Papers on Literary, Historical, and Theological Issues, ed. Sabrina Inowlocki and Claudio Zamagni (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 199–223. 13 A good example of this with respect to the FHJA can be found in the fragment of Cleodemus Malchus, which is preserved in Josephus, Ant. 1.51.1, from which Eusebius purports to quote in Praep. ev. 9.20.2–4 (Holladay frag. 1). The similarities suggest that at least in this instance, Eusebius faithfully preserved his source.

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posit various collections of liturgical, epistolary, and administrative texts.14 The library attained much greater prominence after Origen relocated to Caesarea from Alexandria, at which point he brought to Caesarea his own library collection. The collection of the library increased dramatically in size as he and others – most notably Pamphilus – added to it to such an extent that subsequent legends would recount that only the library of Alexandria had a greater collection of texts.15 We can only speculate as to the contents of the collection of the library in Eusebius’s day, including those apropos to the study of the fragments (Polyhistor’s On the Jews, Josephus’s Antiquities, Clement’s Stromata, Aristobulus, etc.), though it seems likely that the library at Caesarea provided Eusebius direct access to them.16 From the hints left by Origen, his student Gregory Thaumaturgus, Eusebius, Jerome, and others who came into the orbit of the library, it is possible to surmise the contents of the library at various stages of its existence. Origen appears to have owned biblical texts, commentaries on biblical texts, and a wide range of historical, philosophical texts from the (non-Jewish and nonChristian) Greek and Roman traditions.17 Origen certainly possessed various texts of Philo and Josephus, while others have speculated that he may have had other Jewish resources, e.g., lexicons, commentaries, etc., including perhaps a Jewish synopsis that provided the basis for his own comparative work on the various translations of the Hebrew Bible.18 It is reasonable to speculate

14 Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 145–54. 15 Andrew J. Carriker, The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea (Leiden: Brill, 2003); Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams, Christianity and the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library at Caesarea (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006). 16 Karl Mras, “Die Stellung der Praeparatio Evangelica des Eusebius im antiken Schrifttum,” Anzeiger der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophischhistorische Klasse 17 (1956): 209–17; cf. David T. Runia, “Caesarea Maritima and Hellenistic-Jewish Literature,” in Caesarea Maritima: A Retrospective After Two Millennia, ed. Avner Raban and Kenneth G. Holum (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 476–95; Paul Kalligas, “Traces of Longinus’ Library in Eusebius’ Praeparatio evangelica,” CQ 51 (2001): 584–98; Eugene Ulrich, “The Old Testament Text of Eusebius: The Heritage of Origen,” in Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism, ed. Gohei Hata and Harold W. Attridge (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 543–62. 17 Despite Eusebius’s claim that Origen discarded most of the contents of his collection of non-Jewish and non-Christian literature when he led the catechetical school in Alexandria. On texts that can be documented in Origen’s library, see Carriker, Library of Eusebius, 6–8. For more general treatments, see Grafton and Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book, 56–85. On the list of Origen’s works as compiled by Pamphilus, see Jerome, Epist. 33.4.1–20. 18 David T. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); David T. Runia, Philo and the Church Fathers: A Collection of Papers (Leiden: Brill, 1995); Jörg Ulrich, Euseb von Caesarea und die Juden, PTS 49 (New York: de Gruyter, 1999), 88–110; Heinz Schreckenberg, Die Flavius-Josephus-Tradition in Antike und Mit-

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that Origen would have possessed a range of texts of Hellenistic Jewish authors.19 Origen appears to boast a working knowledge of Aristobulus, on the basis of his suggestion that Celsus incorrectly assessed the value of his (and Philo’s) allegorical methods.20 It is not a stretch to imagine that Origen became acquainted with Aristobulus’s work(s) in Alexandria, especially in light of the fact that the only other ancient commentators ever to cite Aristobulus were both Alexandrian (i.e., Clement and Anatolius of Laodicea [preserved in Hist. eccl. 8.32.14–19]).21 The suggestion that Origen brought Aristobulus’s Exegesis of the Law to Caesarea when he relocated there in 231 is no less plausible.22 Whether Origen had access to Polyhistor is a matter of pure speculation, although, as David T. Runia has argued, Origen’s role as an intermediary between Alexandria and Caesarea provides a compelling reason to consider the possibility that he served as the link connecting these texts, many of which are presumed to have come from Alexandria, to the library in Caesarea.23 Despite the fact that Origen never cites any of the fragments, de Lange shares this optimism concerning the possibility that he had access to Polyhistor.24 Whatever became of Origen’s collection after his death (some suppose that it was destroyed as part of the Decian persecution), the library expanded rapidly under the influence of Pamphilus, who was trained in Alexandria by a disciple of Origen and who moved to Caesarea some time in the last quarter of the third century.25 He likely increased the collection, primarily Christian texts but also likely non-Christian ones, in order to support his curriculum at the school.26 This is all to say that we really cannot say whether or not Aristobulus, Ps.-Aristeas, Polyhistor, et al., were part of the collection in the li-

telalter (Leiden: Brill, 1972); Michael E. Hardwick, Josephus as a Historical Source in Patristic Literature through Eusebius (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989). 19 On Origen’s debt to Hellenistic Jewish modes of interpretation, see Annewies van den Hoek, “Philo and Origen: A Descriptive Catalogue of their Relationship,” Studia Philonica Annual 12 (2000): 44–121. 20 Origen, Cels. 4.51. 21 Ruth Clements, “Peri Pascha: Passover and the Displacement of Jewish Interpretation with Origen’s Exegesis” (PhD diss., Harvard Divinity School, 1997), 76; Runia, Philo, 161– 62. 22 Scholars have tended to follow this suggestion in Walter, Aristobulos, 7–9. 23 Runia, “Caesarea Maritima,” 494–95. 24 Nicholas de Lange, Origen and the Jews: Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations in Third-Century Palestine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 16. 25 Jerome, Vir. ill. 76; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.32.25. 26 Eusebius, Mart. Pal. 4.5–6; 5.2; 7.4–5; 11.1; Hist. eccl. 7.32.25.

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brary of Caesarea prior to the time of Eusebius, though we can safely assume that Eusebius did have direct access to them there.27

5. Transmission of Texts in the Library of Caesarea

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The library at Caesarea likely functioned as a setting for a school, wherein Origen, Pamphilus, Eusebius et al. would have engaged in various scribal activities including, e.g., preserving, copying, and commenting upon manuscripts.28 Insofar as this school (and library) in Caesarea was established by Origen, the scholars who operated therein and their methods were likely shaped in various ways by the ideals and practices of the Alexandrian school, though our lack of understanding of the precise mechanics of the Alexandrian and Caesarean schools prevents us from doing anything more than speculating on the continuity (or lack thereof) between them.29 There is good reason for assuming scribal activity in the library setting. The remains of the library at Herculaneum has yielded a number of manuscripts that signal the presence of a cadre of scribes.30 Roman authors such as Seneca and Porphyry, whose extant works betray dependence on private library collections of their own, indicate a variety of scribal activities associated on one hand simply with the task of collecting and organizing texts, and on the other hand with the variety of exegetical exercises (i.e. “commentary”) on 27 Eusebius likely made use of materials available at libraries elsewhere in his orbit. Eusebius himself acknowledges that he accessed the collection in the library at Jerusalem (Hist. eccl. 6.20.1). He is known to have visited other, major libraries in Tyre, Antioch, Nicaea, etc., although it is impossible to know which sources Eusebius may have accessed in any of these libraries. 28 Elizabeth C. Penland, “Eusebius Philosophus? School Activity at Caesarea through the Lens of the Martyrs,” in Inowlocki and Zamagni, Reconsidering Eusebius, 87–97. In the same volume, see also Aaron P. Johnson, “Eusebius as Educator,” 99–118; Guglielmo Cavallo, “Scuola, scriptorium, biblioteca a Cesarea,” in Le biblioteche nel mondo antico e medieval, ed. idem (Bari: Biblioteca Universale Laterza, 1988), 65–78. 29 See Claudio Zamagni, “Eusebius’ Exegesis Between Alexandria and Antioch: Being a Scholar in Caesarea,” in Inowlocki and Zamagni, Reconsidering Eusebius, 151–76. On the catechetical school in Alexandria, see Annewies van den Hoek, “The ‘Catechetical’ School of Early Christian Alexandria and Its Philonic Heritage,” HTR 90.1 (1997): 59–87; Roelof van den Broek, “The Christian ‘School’ of Alexandria in the Second and Third Centuries,” in Centers of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East, ed. Jan Willem Drijvers and Alasdair A. MacDonald (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 39–47; Clemens Scholten, “Die Alexandrinische Katechetenschule,” JAC 38 (1995): 16–37. 30 Guglielmo Cavallo, Libri, scritture, scribe a Ercolano: introduzione allo studio dei materiali greci (Naples: G. Macchiaroli, 1983); Marcello Gigante, Philodemus in Italy: The Books from Herculaneum, trans. Dirk Obbink (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1995), 20–29.

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these texts.31 Roger Bagnall insists that the work of scribes to continually recopy old manuscripts was necessary for their survival, as the humid conditions around the Mediterranean basin would have caused rapid deterioration of papyrus rolls.32 The probability of scribal activity at Eusebius’s library in Caesarea provides a starting point for imagining the mechanics of textual preservation and transmission of the fragments. The preservation of fragments in such a manner as they appear in the Praeparatio Evangelica – and in other sources such as Clement – appear to be the result of “excerpting,” i.e., the amassing of quotations from antecedent sources into new compilations, which will be considered in much more detail below.

6. Clement of Alexandria Clement is an important figure in the history of transmission of the fragments for a number of reasons. First of all, he preserves certain fragments unattested elsewhere.33 In such instances, it is presumed that Clement has simply chosen to preserve material from Polyhistor that Eusebius did not. In other words, there is little discussion of the possibility that Clement had access to a different source for (or recension of) the fragments than did Eusebius.34 Secondly, Clement’s interest in (at least some of the) fragments was also instrumental to their survival inasmuch as it may have piqued Eusebius’s interest in them.35 Several clues point in this direction, including especially the fact that all of the passages of Aristobulus quoted by Clement are also cited by Eusebius, and the fact that Clement is the only other Christian author to cite Demetrius, Artapanus, Pseudo-Hecataeus, Eupolemus, and Ezekiel.36 Indeed, Eusebius appears to have had direct access to Clement’s Stromata.37 The connections between Eusebius and Clement are far more complex than a shared interest in See Grafton and Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book, 22–85. Roger S. Bagnall, “Alexandria: Library of Dreams,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 146.4 (2002): 348–62; cf. James O'Donnell, Avatars of the Word (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 50–63. 33 E.g., Demetrius (Holladay frag. 6); Eupolemus (Holladay frag. 5). 34 In only one instance (the Orphic fragments) do the differences between the fragments as they are preserved in the Stromata and in the Praeparatio Evangelica suggest the existence of separate recensions of these fragments. Holladay, FHJA, 4:43–59. 35 Holladay, FHJA, 3:47; Runia, Philo and the Church Fathers, 64. 36 Inowlocki, Eusebius, 140–41. 37 Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.6.6–8; 13.12–13. Cf. Inowlocki, Eusebius, 140. Contra J. Coman, “Utilisation des Stromata de Clément par Eusèbe de Césarée dans la Préparation évangélique,” TU 125 (1981): 115–34 (122–25). We have knowledge of authors who would cite both a primary source, as well as an intermediate source quoting the primary source, for various effects. See Friedrich Münzer, Beiträge zu Quellenkritik der Naturgeschichte des Plinius (Berlin: 1897), 19–25. 31

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these particular Hellenistic Jewish authors. Some go so far as to suggest that Clement’s Stromata, insofar as it seeks to justify Christian teachings by citing Greek correspondences to them, provided the conceptual basis for Eusebius’s Praeparatio Evangelica. In this broader sense, we might find further evidence of the influence of Alexandria upon Caesarea.38 Finally, and undoubtedly most importantly, in those instances in which the citations of the fragments in Clement can be compared with those in Eusebius, there is a basis for comparing the methods of transmission of the fragments of each author, and for reconstructing the source materials from which both Clement and Eusebius drew. In some instances, Eusebius’s and Clement’s shared citations of the fragments reveal such strong commonalities that one can reconstruct the general contours of the source material with great confidence. Yet, substantive differences are also evident, the most conspicuous of which is the fact that there are significant variances in the contents of the preserved fragments themselves. Clement sometimes preserves less source material from a given fragment, which may reflect his broader tendencies insofar as he preserves many fewer lines of the fragments than Eusebius overall. Clement’s fragments are also sometimes periphrastic in nature.39 For example, Clement offers a very brief oratio obliqua summary of the fight between the Hebrew and the Egyptian as it is recounted in Ezekiel’s Exagoge (cf. Exod 2:11–15).40 This very story is also preserved in Eusebius in 24 lines in the form of first-person narration of Moses himself.41 The comparison reveals a stark difference between the methods of preservation of Clement and Eusebius.42 As a result of these (and other) comparisons, Freudenthal concluded that Eusebius more accurately preserved his source material and his conclusion remains unchallenged. It is important to note that Clement’s willingness to modify his source materials (vis-à-vis Eusebius or in general) does not signal his lack of interest in preserving their integrity. On the contrary, we must remember contexts of ancient textual production in which authors 38 Coman, “Utilisation des Stromata,” 133. Cf. Inowlocki, Eusebius, 97–100, 140; Claudio Zamagni, “Alexandre Polyhistor et Artapan: une mise en perspective à partir des extraits d’Eusèbe de Césarée,” in Interprétations de Moïse: Égypte, Judée, Grèce et Rome, ed. Philippe Borgeaud, Tomas Römer and Youri Volokhine (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 57–82. 39 This is a general tendency of Clement as seen in his paraphrase of biblical texts, Philo, and other sources. Annewies van den Hoek, Clement of Alexandria and His Use of Philo in the Stromateis: An Early Christian Reshaping of a Jewish Model (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 214– 21. 40 Clement, Strom. 1.23.155.6–7; 1.23.156.1–2 (Holladay frag. 2a). 41 Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.28.3 (Holladay frag. 2b). 42 Given Clement’s tendency to summarize his source material, it is worthwhile noting that Clement indicates that he is citing material verbatim (κατὰ λέξιν) only once. Clement, Strom. 1.22.150.1–3 (Aristobulus [Holladay frag. 3a]).

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would modify their source material in order “to express its essence more clearly.”43 Moreover, at the same time that Clement demonstrates a willingness to modify the fragments in these ways, his preservation of other sources (e.g., biblical texts, Philo, etc.) reveals that he most often preserved the order of the contents of his source material. In this way, it is possible to say something in the way of reconstructing Clement’s sources as they relate to the fragments.

7. Processes of Transmission – Excerpting We are able to understand the differences in the transmission of the fragments between Clement and Eusebius by exploring the processes by which ancient authors would have accessed and copied such quotations from their sources, i.e., excerpting.44 The younger Pliny’s description of his uncle’s prodigious literary excerpting is a valuable resource in this regard. He suggests that someone (a slave?) read aloud the contents of a papyrus scroll, while his uncle took notes and/or excerpts from the source as desired.45 It is from these notes and/or excerpts that Pliny would compile new literary works comprised of these excerpts, i.e., compendia. Other ancient commentators suggest that this was a fairly common practice, and we have plenty of evidence of such compilations.46 Clement himself testifies to the practice, in his record of the proem to Hippias’s Synagoge:

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Some of these things may perhaps have been said by Orpheus, some briefly here and there by Musaeus, some by Hesiod, some by Homer, some by others among the poets, some in

43 Sabrina Inowlocki, “Neither Adding Nor Omitting Anything: Josephus’ Promise Not to Modify the Scriptures in a Greek and Latin Context,” JJS 56.1 (2005): 48–65; cf. Eva Mroczek, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 103–10. 44 Tiziano Dorandi, Le Stylet et la tablette: dans le secret des auteurs antiques (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2000), 29–39; Jørgen Meyer, Diogenes Laertius and His Hellenistic Background (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1978), 16–29; Erik Skydsgaard, Varro the Scholar (Copenhagen: Munksgard, 1968), 102–16; Annewies Van Den Hoek, “Techniques of Quotation in Clement of Alexandria: A View of Ancient Literary Working Methods,” VC 50 (1996): 223– 43; Richard Goulet, “La conservation et la transmission des textes philosophiques grecs,” in The Libraries of the Neoplatonists, ed. Cristina D’Ancona (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 29–61. 45 Pliny, Ep. 3.5.11. Theodore C. Skeat, “The Use of Dictation in Ancient Book Production,” Proceedings of the British Academy 52 (1956): 179–208. 46 Plato, Leg. 811a; Xenophon, Mem. 1.2.56; 1.6.14; Plutarch, Brut. 4; Tranq. an. 464F– 465A; Athenaeus 8.336d; Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att. praef. 2–3; Cicero, Att. 12.5; 13.8; Inv. 2.4; Suetonius, Aug. 89.2.

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prose writings by Greeks or by barbarians. But I will put together the most important and inter-related passages from all these sources….47

We are left to speculate as to the mechanics of this process. Were the notes/excerpts recorded on a separate scroll, or on a tablet (pugillāris) and then perhaps later transferred to a scroll? What was the nature of the notes/excerpts themselves? How were the notes organized (by author; thematically), etc.? At any rate, it seems likely that direct quotations of the Hellenistic Jewish fragments, as well as summaries thereof, would have been recorded in some such manner. In this light, one can imagine how Clement might have excerpted from his sources differently than Eusebius, according to his own personal preferences.

8. Clement’s Libraries in Alexandria?

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It is reasonable to suggest that Clement had direct access to the sources apropos to the fragments, including Polyhistor’s On the Jews, which Clement cites only once but from which it is likely that Clement became acquainted with various other fragments.48 As such, it is likely that Clement had a personal collection as would have any scholar of his stature in the 2nd century CE. There are also good reasons to believe that a Christian “catechetical” school was flourishing at this time in Alexandria, the curriculum of which would require collections of texts – Jewish, Christian, and otherwise.49 Thus, it is reasonable to suppose that the catechetical school itself contained a modest library, for which there are numerous analogues in the first centuries of the Church. Indeed, it is possible that such a library provided the impetus for the famed Christian libraries in Jerusalem and Caesarea, insofar as Alexander and Origen, the respective founders of each, studied under Pantaenus and Clement in Alexandria.50 There is most certainly such a Christian library in Alexandria at a later point in its history, i.e., during the time of Athanasius, from which we might also infer a library history that goes back to Clement.51 Perhaps the fragments were included in such a library.

47 DK 86 B 6, trans. in George B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 48. 48 Clement, Strom. 1.21.130. André Méhat, Kephalaia: Recherches sur les matériaux des “Stromates” de Clement d’Alexandrie et leur utilization (Paris: Seuil, 1966); Van den Hoek, Clement of Alexandria, 210–11. 49 Eusebius, Praep. ev. 5.10; 6.3.3; 6.14.9. 50 Gamble, Books and Readers, 154–55. 51 Athanasius reports that the emperor Constans requested that he furnish codices of divine scriptures, a request that could only make sense if a library and scriptorium were available to Athanasius (Athanasius, Apol. Const. 4).

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Despite uncertainty as to the nature of the famed library in Alexandria in the 2nd century CE (its physical structure, its holdings, and even its very existence!), it is another logical place to imagine that Clement and others might have accessed sources relevant to the fragments. According to the oft-cited testimony of Byzantine scholar, Johannes Tzetzes, the collection included “books … not only those of the Greeks but also of all other peoples, including the Jews.”52 While Bagnall rightly casts doubts upon claims of the size and scope of the Alexandrian library, there is little reason not to believe reports that the library included texts of Jewish authors.53

9. Alexander Polyhistor

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Our knowledge of Polyhistor is limited to meagre biographical information provided by later sources. His story begins when he was brought to Rome as a slave in 82 BCE, where he was subsequently freed, and where one can presume that he became a prominent figure who flourished sometime in the mid1st century BCE.54 Of the many titles attributed to him, the most important with respect to the fragments is On the Jews, a text explicitly identified by Clement and Eusebius as their source for some of the fragments.55 From what can be gleaned on the basis of his work as it is preserved in early Christian literature, and inferred from characterizations of his work as συντάξεις and συναγωγαί, his work often took the form of compendia, i.e., compilations of texts from a variety of disparate sources.56 The excerpts are often quite short, perhaps only a line or two preserved from a source; other times, they are much larger. In many instances, Polyhistor indicates explicitly 52 This quote appears in the prolegomena to his commentary on Aristophanes, as preserved in Rudolf Blum, Kallimachos: The Alexandrian Library and the Origins of Bibliography, trans. Hans Wellisch (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 104–5. 53 Pliny, Nat. 30.4. Blum, Kallimachos, 102–4; Gamble, Books and Readers, 179n133. 54 E.g., Suetonius, Gramm. 20; Suda, s.v. “Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μιλήσιος”; Serv. Dan. Phil. A10, 388; See Felix Jacoby, “Alexandros,” FGH, 273; Eduard Schwartz, “Alexandros,” RE, 1:1449–52; Walther Sontheimer, s.v. “Alexandros,” KP, 1:252; Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974–1984), 1:157–64. 55 Clement, Strom. 1.21.130.3; Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.17.1. On Περὶ Ἰουδαίων, see Freudenthal, Polyhistor, 16–35; Denis, Introduction aux Pseudépigraphes, 244–48; Ben Z. Wacholder, Eupolemus: A Study of Judeo-Greek Literature (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1974), 44–52. On the other texts of Polyhistor to which Eusebius may have had access, see Sterling, Historiography, 147n69. 56 Other texts, like the Chaldaica, appear to have been compilations. See Jacoby, FGH, 273; cf. Geert De Breucker, “Alexander Polyhistor and the Babyloniaca of Berossos,” Bulletin for the Institute of Classical Studies 55.2 (2012): 57–68; Alan Cameron, Greek Mythography in the Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 213–14.

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that he is excerpting passages from larger sources with general editorial comments such as: καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς (“and so forth”), καὶ τὰ τούτοις ἑπόμενα (“and the rest of the things following these”), and/or οἷς μετ᾽ὀλίγα ἐπιφέρει (“after a few lines he adds to these things”).57 Even in the absence of such explicit acknowledgement, it seems likely that he excerpted material, especially in those fragments like Ezekiel’s Exagoge where surrounding material (the rest of the five-act play!) is conspicuously absent.58 Polyhistor also regularly provides summaries of texts which appear to be condensed versions of his source material in the form of indirect speech – i.e., oratio obliqua – and which often function to introduce quoted material and/or move amongst it. In any case, the fragmentary nature of his own compilations leaves many questions unanswered about the nature of his own source material, his fidelity in transmitting them, and the process of organizing them. While he was almost certainly responsible for some degree of editing of his source material (primarily in the form of condensing and/or extracting texts), scholars have tended to adopt Freudenthal’s position that Polyhistor faithfully reproduced the wording of those fragments that he chose to preserve.59 Comparisons of the fragments preserved by Polyhistor with his oratio obliqua summaries provide some clues as to the fidelity of his preservations of the fragments themselves. One example must suffice to demonstrate this general principal. The eight fragments of the “epic poet” Theodotus exhibit distinctively Homeric vocabulary and meter.60 However, Polyhistor’s summations of those parts of Theodotus that he chose not to cite directly are written in prose that lacks any “epic” flair, which suggests that Polyhistor was faithfully reproducing the “epic” sources he cited. This doesn’t mean that we can’t detect (sometimes quite conspicuous) errors in his own work, but rather that there are good reasons for trusting the fidelity of his preservation of the fragments in general.61

57 Interestingly, those instances in which Polyhistor is explicit about the fact that he is excerpting from his sources all occur in poetic fragments (Philo, Theodotus, and Ezekiel). 58 Here and in other instances one must suppose that Polyhistor himself has excerpted from his source, and not that Eusebius (or Clement) has excerpted from Polyhistor. 59 Freudenthal, Polyhistor, 17–34. There is no clear evidence of editorial activity with respect to his preservation of the fragments. Even the most concerted efforts to detect editorial activity on Polyhistor’s part are inconclusive. See, e.g., De Breucker, “Alexander Polyhistor,” 57–68. 60 Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.22.1–11. See Holladay, FHJA, 2:72–73, n57–69; Francis Fallon, “Theodotus,” in OTP 2:785. 61 For a good example of this, see Sterling, Historiography, 151n92.

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10. On What Basis Did Polyhistor Organize On the Jews? As noted above, as they are presented in Eusebius, the fragments follow the general chronology of the biblical account, and the question remains whether Eusebius, Polyhistor, or someone else was responsible for arranging the fragments in this way. Some are quite willing to imagine that Polyhistor had sufficient knowledge of the history of Israel, or even specific knowledge of the LXX itself, in order to align his source material with the chronology provided by the LXX.62 Others, doubting this capability (especially in light of the testimony of the Suda that he preserved the story of a certain woman “Mosō” who composed the laws of the Hebrews), suppose that they must have been compiled by somebody else.63 It is possible that his own sources constituted previously-edited compilations, though nothing in the fragments explicitly supports such a notion. In the end, it may be most prudent to presume that Eusebius himself was responsible for arranging the fragments in a way that reflected the chronology of the LXX, and that Polyhistor arranged his material in some other way, e.g., according to author or theme.64

11. How Did Polyhistor Access His Sources?

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We must assume that Polyhistor had access to a library, on the grounds that it would have been required given his (ostensible) prodigious literary output, as well as the wide range of sources with which he seems to be familiar.65 While “public” libraries seem to have been common in the East (e.g., beyond Alexandria, inscriptions uncovered at Kos, Rhodes, and Pergamum indicate the existence of institutional libraries in these locales), it is somewhat surprising that a public library does not exist in Rome until the dawn of the imperial

62 Proponents of this theory highlight several data: Polyhistor mentions the “sacred book(s)” three times; Eusebius claims that Polyhistor had knowledge of Jeremiah (Praep. ev. 9.39.1); and Polyhistor claims to be able to compare Demetrius’s account of the “slaying of the Egyptian” with the biblical account (Exod 2:11–14). So much might also be inferred from the fact that Eusebius introduces Polyhistor for the first time with a note about Abraham (Praep. ev. 9.17.1), and concludes his work with Jeremiah’s prophecy of the Fall of Jerusalem (Praep. ev. 9.39). See the summary of data supporting this position in John G. Cook, The Interpretation of the Old Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2004), 13–15. Cf. Sterling, Historiography, 147–51. 63 Suda, s.v. “Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μιλήσιος.” 64 De Breucker, “Alexander Polyhistor,” 58–59. De Breucker makes the unique suggestion that someone else was responsible for compiling Polyhistor’s material prior to its reception by Clement, Eusebius, et al. 65 Zamagni, “Alexandre Polyhistor et Artapan,” 73.

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age, when Roman elites (including the emperors themselves) began to emulate the Hellenistic models.66 Private libraries – often quite immense – are well-attested in the late Republic. We know bits about the private collections of Cicero, Lucullus, Galen, and Varro.67 Though privately owned, these libraries are in many ways indistinguishable from “public” or institutional libraries, e.g., in terms of the size of the collections, the contents of the collections, and their use as centers of scholarship for those in the wider community.68 In the absence of institutional libraries that would have been available to Polyhistor in Rome in the mid-1st century BCE, it is possible that he would have accessed texts in such private collections. The so-called “Villa dei Papyri,” a villa in the town of Herculaneum that was destroyed during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, contained a library which provides various data for imagining the kind of library to which Polyhistor might have had access, and/or Polyhistor’s own collection.69 The size of the collection was significant, with estimates of the number of book rolls ranging from 700–2000. It included a variety of texts in both Greek and Latin on a wide range of topics including mathematics, literary criticism, theology, and ethics, and in a variety of genres (e.g., biographies, philosophical treaties, lexica, commentaries, etc.), some of which can be dated as early as the 3rd century BCE, while a couple dozen are securely dated to the 2nd century BCE. While the Villa dei Papyri represents a magnificent library by just about any standard, it is possible to reconstruct lesser private libraries 66 On the problems associated with the notion of a “public” library at any point in the Hellenistic and Roman world, see T. Keith Dix, “‘Public Libraries’ in Ancient Rome: Ideology and Reality,” Libraries & Culture 29 (1994): 282–96; T. Keith Dix and George W. Houston, “Public Libraries in the City of Rome: From the Augustan Age to the Time of Diocletian,” MEFRA 118.2 (2006): 671–717; Steven Johnstone, “A New History of Libraries and Books in the Hellenistic Period,” Classical Antiquity 33.2 (2014): 347–93. 67 Matthew C. Nicholls, “Galen and Libraries in the Peri Alupias,” Journal of Roman Studies 101 (2011): 123–42; Vivian Nutton, “Galen’s Library,” in Galen and the World of Knowledge, ed. Christopher Gill, Tim Whitmarsh, and John Wilkins; (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2009), 19–34; T. Keith Dix, “The Library of Lucullus,” Athenaeum 88 (2000): 441–64; Michael Affleck, “Priests, Patrons, and Playwrights: Libraries in Rome before 168 BC,” in Ancient Libraries, ed. Jason König, Katerina Oikonomopoulou, and Greg Woolf (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 124–36; Paul Schubert, “Strabon et le sort de la bibliothèque d’Aristote,” ÉtCl 70 (2002): 225–37. 68 E.g., Plutarch relates that Lucullus’s library was “open to all.” Plutarch, Luc. 41.1–2. Cf. Fabio Tutrone, “Libraries and Intellectual Debate in the Late Republic,” in König, Oikonomopoulou, and Woolf, Ancient Libraries, 152–66. 69 Marcello Gigante, Philodemus in Italy: The Books from Herculaneum, trans. Dirk Obbink (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1995); David Sider, The Library of the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005); Mantha Zarmakoupi, The Village of the Papyri at Herculaneum: Archaeology, Reception, and Digital Reconstruction (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010).

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whose collections and functions nevertheless resemble those at the Villa in various ways at the end of the Republic, including those of Sulla, Lucullus, and Cicero, and which likewise provide various contexts for imagining a private library in Polyhistor’s orbit.70 The book collections uncovered at Oxyrhynchus provide still more possible, though more geographically and chronologically distant, analogues.71

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12. The Earliest Stages of Transmission of the Fragments – Date, Authorship, and Provenance Complicating any query into the earliest stages of the transmission of the fragments is that so much of even the most basic information concerning the fragments (date, provenance, ethnic identity of the author, etc.) is unclear. The fact that these fragments appear to have been preserved in Greek and show familiarity with the LXX presents only the vaguest terminus post quem, i.e., they must have been composed after the spread of Greek language in the aftermath of the conquests of Alexander. Alexander Polyhistor’s preservation of several fragments in his On the Jews provides a terminus ad quem for these fragments in the mid-to-late 1st century BCE. As such, most scholars tend to propose the late 3rd century BCE as the period during which the oldest fragments could have been composed (e.g., Demetrius, Philo, Artapanus, and Ps.-Hecataeus) and as late as the 1st century CE for others. Some dates can be determined more definitely than others, but there is rarely consensus.72 The Jewish provenance of the fragments is most often presumed on the basis of the contents of the fragments themselves, i.e., interest in well-known figures from Israel’s past and a focus on the formative events in the history of Israel. And yet, it is precisely the peculiar contents of the fragments (or contents that at one point in the history of scholarship seemed peculiar), that cast some doubt on a Jewish provenance for at least some of the fragments. Indeed, at one point it was not exceptional to suppose that certain fragments were composed by gentile authors. Samaritan authorship has been claimed for several fragments. There is very little explicit information about the identities of the cited authors from those who preserve the material, and the information Dix, Private and Public Libraries, 16–190. Houston, Inside Roman Libraries, 130–79. 72 More certain evidence exists in the form of the chronology provided by Demetrius himself in Holladay frag. 6. If one assumes that Demetrius concludes his chronology with events transpiring in his own lifetime, then the final epoch listed – the reign of Ptolemy IV (regn. 222–205 BCE) – would establish his own terminus ad quem sometime in the last quarter of the 3rd century BCE. Holladay, FHJA, 1:51. Fraser illuminates the problem with Demetrius’s chronology, and thus Demetrius’s own floruit, in Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 2.960n94. Holladay, FHJA, 1:51–91. 70

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that can be gleaned presents a number of problems. For example, Josephus counts Theodotus, Demetrius, Philo, and Eupolemus among the Greek historians who evince knowledge of the Jews, which raises the question of whether Josephus intentionally obscured their Jewish identity or simply was not aware of it.73 In one instance, Eusebius cites this very passage, suggesting that he accepted Josephus’s characterization of the Greek identity of these authors; however, elsewhere he identifies Demetrius and Eupolemus (alongside Philo, Josephus, and Aristobulus) as Jewish authors.74 One of the lowest common denominators of the fragments is that they reflect Jewish concerns while manifesting various fluencies in Greek culture, e.g., Aristobulus’s fluency in Pythagorean, Platonic, and Stoic philosophies; Demetrius’s use of Greek aporiai; Ezekiel’s familiarity with various Greek theatrical conventions and iambic trimeter; Philo’s and Theodotus’s use of epic meter; etc.75 The question posed by Fraser of Ezekiel’s tragedy (“Where else could such a work have been written?”) once constituted the communis opinio with respect to the question of the geographic provenance of many of the fragments.76 Such an attitude clearly reflects an appreciation of Ptolemaic Alexandria as the cultural hub of the ancient world. In certain cases, a Samaritan or Palestinian provenance seemed possible on the basis of specific clues in the text, e.g., Eupolemus’s apparent dependence on the MT and pre-MT traditions, and the fact that his chronologies are ordered according to the reigns of Seleucid instead of Ptolemaic kings, as well as Theodotus’s focus on Shechem as a “holy city.”77 In the wake of Hengel’s conclusions as to the degree of “hellenization” of Jewish culture outside of Alexandria, however, it has become much easier to imagine Jewish authors employing Greek religiophilosophical concepts, literary models, etc., in a wider variety of locales, and consequently, the geographic provenance of most of the fragments is debated. While we are wise not to defer immediately to the Alexandrian default, there are good reasons to suppose at least some of the fragments were composed there. Some fragments evince a particularly Egyptian flair, e.g., Artapanus’s glowing presentation of Egyptian customs, and Demetrius’s use of

73 Josephus, C. Ap. 1.215–18. Sterling, Historiography, 282–84; Inowlocki, Eusebius, 274–75; Louis H. Feldman, Josephus’ Interpretation of the Bible (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 20–21 n7. 74 Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.42; Hist. eccl. 6.13.7. 75 Maren R. Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); eadem, “Commentary Culture in the Land of Israel from an Alexandrian Perspective,” Dead Sea Discoveries 19 (2012): 442–63; Ekaterina D. Matusova, “Allegorical Interpretation of the Pentateuch in Alexandria: Inscribing Aristobulus and Philo in a Wider Literary Context,” Studia Philonica Annual 22 (2010): 1–51. 76 Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:707. 77 Holladay, FHJA, 1:58 n13, 93–97.

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Ptolemaic dynasties to establish chronologies.78 More direct evidence exists for the provenance of Aristobulus in Alexandria inasmuch as he claims to address Ptolemy directly, a notion that is supported by Clement’s and Eusebius’s assertions that Aristobulus dedicated his work to Ptolemy.79

13. Jewish Scribes

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Various data regarding textual composition in the Hellenistic period would suggest that the fragments were composed (or at least aided in their composition) by trained scribes.80 The collection, preservation, and reproduction of texts in Israelite culture has long thought to have been the prerogative of scribes of the royal court and/or the temple.81 Such arguments often depend on circumstantial premises, e.g., the association of libraries with temples in antecedent ANE cultures, that royal and/or temple bureaucracies would necessitate the use of scribes, and that the treasuries of such would alone have supported the kind of scribal activity imagined to be necessary to undertake such compositions. At the same time, the texts themselves – canonical and non-canonical – variously indicate the presence of a scribal culture that might have been responsible for them. In the Hellenistic period, there is less certain evidence of scribal experts who were primarily responsible for collecting, preserving, and (re)-producing “Jewish” texts, but so much is presumed on the basis of the history of scribal traditions in antecedent Jewish and Israelite culture, and the quality of extant manuscripts both from Palestine in the Hellenistic period and from Ptolemaic Egypt.82 Importantly, scribes of some sort – perhaps priests – were likely responsible for the preservation and/or composition of some texts among those found near the Dead Sea.83 Several features of the fragments suggest scribal composition, including especially the blending of various Greek literary and philosophical conventions, apparent knowledge of the LXX, and the nature of many of the collections as compendia. On Demetrius’s use of Greek devices, see Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis, 51–56. Adela Yarbro Collins, “Aristobulus,” in OTP 2:833; Walter, Thoraausleger, 13–26. 80 Christine Schams, Jewish Scribes in the Second Temple Period (London: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 71–123; 81 See Karel van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 82–108; William M. Schniedewind, How the Bible Became A Book (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 84–90. 82 Schams, Jewish Scribes, 71–123; Alan D. Crown, Samaritan Scribes (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001). 83 Emanuel Tov, Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 6–30; Hartmut Stegemann, The Library of Qumran: On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist, and Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 51–55. 78

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We might suppose that the authors of the fragments were trained in Jewish schools that arose according to Hellenistic models, which were imagined to endow scribes with the ability to appreciate “subtleties, hidden meanings, obscurities, and secrets” of Scriptures (Sir 39:1–8; cf. Dan 9:2), and which in turn accorded to the scribe a high social standing.84 In the first phase of such an education, students would have likely acquired the basic skills of reading and composition; in the second phase, students would have become masters of the texts of their tradition(s).85 The fragments reveal that the Jewish education of these authors must have included sustained study in the canon of Greek literature: Epic poetry; Classical drama; Greek historiography; etc.86

14. Composition and Dissemination of Texts The author(s) of the fragments could have written the text(s) in his/her own hand, i.e., amanuensis.87 Writing in one’s own hand is singled out as an exceptional compositional practice, and it seems to have been viewed as a laborious task unbecoming of someone with the skill set necessary to do so!88 As such, it was much more common to employ scribes, who would either transcribe the dictation of the author, or transform the shorthand notes thereof.89 Naturally, scribes would also be required to make copies of a text for distribution. Upon completion, it is likely that the fragments would have accrued immediately to the personal collections of the authors, collections which can be assumed to have existed on the basis of the ability to compose such a text in the first place. Such a notion might be corroborated by the evidence of the contents of private collections in the 1st century BCE, e.g., Villa dei Papyri and Qumran, which reveal that a large percentage of the collection consisted of the composed works of the individual(s) who owned the library. Here we could imagine the texts were stored in any number of vessels, e.g., clay jars Sir 51:23; y. Meg. 73b. Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, 24n57, 106–8. Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 37–109; Raffaella Cribbiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). 86 Justin J. Schedtler, “Perplexing Pseudepigraphy: The Case of the Pseudonymous Greek Poets,” JAJ 8.1 (2017): 69–89. 87 Quintilian, Inst. 1.1.28–29; Cicero, Att. 2.23; 4.16; 7.3; 8.13. 88 Rhet. Her. 4.4.6. 89 Cicero, Att. 13.25; Pliny, Ep. 3.5.11; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.23, 36. Larry W. Hurtado and Chris Keith, “Writing and Book Production in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods,” in The New Cambridge History of the Bible: From the Beginnings to 600, ed. James C. Paget and Joachim Schaper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 63–82 (71–73); Skeat, “Use of Dictation,” 179–208.

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as found at Qumran and as described by Origen, or deposited in wooden boxes and/or shelves as found at Qumran and elsewhere in Hellenistic and Roman libraries.90 The texts could have then circulated in any number of ways.91 Private transactions of manuscripts were very common. Individuals and libraries might acquire individual books and/or entire collections, either by buying them from book dealers and/or by acquiring them from private parties (e.g., friends, and/or authors who were eager to distribute their work).92 Papyri recovered from Oxyrhynchus testify to a seemingly vibrant market for bookdealing in Egypt, as well as various processes associated with procuring and transmitting manuscripts as early as the Ptolemaic period.93 One might also make a copy from an existing source. Galen seems to have copied texts from various private and institutional libraries in order to enlarge the scope of his own private collection(s).94 In larger settings (e.g., schools or imperial libraries) it is likely that trained scribes (often slaves) performed this duty on a professional basis, and that students were responsible for this task.95 Along these lines, one might borrow books from which a copy could be made, which seems to have been especially common for rarer texts.96 Yet another possibility is that (at least some of) the fragments were acquired by some kind of institutional library where they became more widely accessible for copying and distribution. It is plausible that the fragments could have been initially procured by a Jewish library of some sort.97 In the light of somewhat ambiguous evidence for Jewish libraries in the Second Temple period, there are long-standing and wide-ranging debates about the Eusebius, Eccl. hist. 6.16.1–3; cf. As. Mos. 1.16. Tov, Scribal Practices, 42–44; Gamble, Books and Readers, 150; Hezser, Jewish Literacy, 165. 91 George W. Houston, Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 12–38; Hurtado and Keith, “Writing and Book Production,” 73–75. 92 Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att. 9.4.1–5. Peter White, “Bookshops in the Literary Culture of Rome,” in Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome, ed. William A. Johnson and Holt N. Parker; (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 277–82. 93 See especially William A. Johnson, Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 179–99. 94 Galen, De Ind. 6, 13, 19. Cf. Fronto, Ep. 1.7.4. 95 Nepos, Att. 13.3; Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att. 18.5.2–5; Cicero, Fam. 16.22.1; Suetonius, Dom. 20; Seneca, Ep. 27.6–7; Libanius, Or. 1.232; Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 200–4. 96 Cicero, Att. 2.3.4; 4.14.1; 13.8; Fin. 4.10.1; 4.14.1; Strabo, Geogr. 13.1.54; Plutarch, Sull. 26.1; Fronto, Ep. 4.2.6; Martial, Epig. 1.117; P.Oxy. 18.2192. 97 Here we distinguish between “archives,” i.e., collections of public and administrative records, and “libraries” containing texts on a wider variety of (e.g., religious, philosophical, political) topics.

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nature of collections of Jewish texts, where and how such texts might have been stored, and whether such collections constituted a “library” by any objective standards.98 There is certainly no evidence of “public” Jewish libraries in the Hellenistic period in the model of those in the wider Greek and Roman world. Josephus’s remark about the paucity of Jewish books leads some to believe that an institutional Jewish library simply wouldn’t have been necessary, and that no such library existed in the Second Temple period.99 Such speculation is belied by a variety of evidence of collections of Jewish texts that are reasonably considered “libraries.” The recounting in 2 Maccabees of the founding of the second temple in Jerusalem by Nehemiah in the 5th century BCE includes a story of the creation of a library: The same things are described in detail in the records and memoirs concerning Nehemiah, and that by founding a library he collected together the books about the kings and prophets, the books about David, and letters of kings about votive offerings. In the same manner Judas, too, collected together all the books which had been lost to us by the war which happened, and we have them (2 Macc 2:13–14).

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Most imagine that this story is a fiction intended to cast Nehemiah (and likewise Judas) in the mold of a Hellenistic king by ascribing to him the founding of a library, which would have likened him to the Ptolemies, the purported founders of the Alexandrian library.100 We cannot know whether such a library existed in Jerusalem during the time of Nehemiah or Judas, but at the very least, it seems to reflect the importance of books and libraries in the time and place of the composition of 2 Maccabees.101 At any rate, the Jerusalem temple is sometimes imagined to have housed a collection of texts.102 Such a notion is supported by various sources (biblical and otherwise) in which texts are said to be stored there, as well as the knowledge that non-Jewish temples sometimes contained sizable libraries.103 This is true especially in Egypt, which may plausibly have served as models for temple libraries in Elephantine and/or Leontopolis, as well as nascent Carriker, Library of Eusebius, 69–74; Gamble, Books and Readers, 189–96; Carl Wendel, “Bibliothek,” RAC II (1954): cols. 236–38; Hezser, Jewish Scribes, 150–68; Menahem Haran, “Archives, Libraries, and the Order of Biblical Books,” JANES 22 (1993): 51–61. 99 Josephus, C. Ap. 1.8. Haran, “Archives,” 57–59. 100 Haran, “Archives,” 52. 101 Steven Weitzman, “Plotting Antiochus’s Persecution,” JBL 123 (2004): 219–34 (232). 102 Albertus F. J. Klijn, “A Library of Scriptures in Jerusalem?” in Studia Codicologia, ed. Kurt Treu (Berlin: Akademie, 1977), 265–72; 103 Exod 25:16, 21; 40:20; Deut 10:1–5; 31:24–26; Josh 24:26; 1 Kgs 8:6–9; 2 Kgs 22:8; 23:2, 24; 2 Chr 5:7–10; 34:15, 30; Josephus, C. Ap. 1.33; Ant. 3.38; 4.302–4; 5.61; B.J.. 7.150; m. Kelim 15.6; m. Yoma 7.1. Gamble, Readers and Books, 195–96; Ramsey MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 11, 146n50. 98

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synagogues in Egypt.104 Some also suppose that Jewish synagogues at this time would have included libraries of some sort, on the basis of data from (much) later periods indicating the educational functions of synagogues, and the discovery of storage areas (geniza) that seem to have been repositories for Jewish texts.105 The most conspicuous evidence for a Jewish library in this period consists of the data of the scrolls found near Qumran, though even this data is not unambiguous and the very existence of a library at the site is debated. Yet, at the very least we have evidence of many texts – of different genres, scribal hands, etc. – collected in one location. Important with respect to the issue of the transmission of the fragments is that many texts are believed to have accrued to the library at Qumran that were not productions of the scribes at Qumran. One suggestion is that some of the texts derived from the Jerusalem temple library.106 Michael Wise has argued that some of these texts likely derived from private (Jewish) collections.107 So we have yet another way of imagining the transmission of fragments from their origins in the private collections of the author(s) to an institutional Jewish library of some sort. Whatever can be said about the earliest circulation of the fragments, and the various processes of exchange – whether through private channels and/or institutional libraries – it stands to reason that the texts would have had to make their way eventually to a more public location from which it would be possible for someone like Alexander Polyhistor to access them. It then becomes an issue of imagining just how the fragments would have made their way from the collections of Jewish individuals and/or communities to nonJewish library settings – private or public. Alexandria is an obvious location in which to imagine opportunities ripe for such inter-cultural exchanges. The Letter of Aristeas provides a way of imagining that texts from Jerusalem may have been acquired by Jewish communities in Alexandria (2 Macc 2:14), though it lacks many details about how exactly the transaction might have occurred.108 Of course, it is also within the realm of possibility that the fragments could have made their way to the library in Alexandria. There is evidence that individuals accessed such texts at larger institutional libraries (e.g., John G. Griffiths, “Egypt and the Rise of the Synagogue,” JTS 38 (1987): 1–15. Philo, Mos. 2.215–16; Josephus, Ant. 16.43; C. Ap. 2.175. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 65–83. 106 Karl H. Rengstorf, Hirbet Qumrân and the Problem of the Library of the Dead Sea Caves, (Leiden: Brill 1963), 18–22. 107 Michael O. Wise, “Accidents and Accidence: A Scribal View of Linguistic Dating of the Aramaic Scrolls from Qumran,” in Studies in Qumran Aramaic, ed. Takamitsu Muraoka (Leuven: Peeters, 1992), 124–67 (144). Cf. Norman Golb, “The Problem of Origin and Identification of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 124 (1980): 1–25 (11). 108 Hezser, Jewish Literacy, 161. 104

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the library at Alexandria or imperial libraries) for the express purpose of making facsimiles. For example, Domitian sent teams of copyists to the Alexandrian library in order to search for textual exemplars from which to copy, in order to re-stock fire-damaged libraries in the empire.109 In the end, we are left to imagine any number of channels through which manuscripts of the fragments would have been disseminated from their origins in order to begin the next legs of their journey. Plausible conduits can only be imagined, and what remains unknown about the earliest paths of transmission of each of the fragments far outweighs what can be known for certain.

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Philo’s Quaestiones in Genesin and Paul’s σῶμα πνευματικόν

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JOHN GRANGER COOK Paul’s reference in 1 Cor 15 to the resurrection body as a σῶμα πνευματικόν (spiritual body) has generated an enormous literature – both in the ancient and modern world. Below I examine his concept of a spiritual body using a comparison with Paul’s description of the manna in the desert as a πνευματικὸν βρῶμα. Commentators on 1 Cor 10:3 (where Paul refers to the “spiritual food”) have apparently been unaware that he was using a category that was familiar to Philo of Alexandria. Philo, in Questions and Answers on Genesis 4.102, used an expression very similar to, if not identical with, Paul’s πνευματικὸν βρῶμα (spiritual food). This is clear because of the Armenian translators’ practice in the QG and in the New Testament itself.1 Consequently, it is probable that both Paul and Philo were dependent on a common Hellenistic tradition in Alexandria – a tradition that reflected on the spiritual nature of the manna. In this tradition, the manna is both material and has a spiritual identity of some sort. Both authors were likely aware of the common exegetical tradition. One exegetical option for both Philo and Paul that can be ruled out is that the manna was made of “spirit.” Neither Philo nor Paul rejects the view that the Israelites were consuming something physical. This has implications for understanding Paul’s use of σῶμα πνευματικόν. Troels Engberg Pedersen and others have recently argued that for Paul the resurrection body is made of “spirit,” using the Stoic concept of πνεῦμα. While I think such comparisons can be fruitful, they are in my view ultimately incorrect. I will review some examples of σῶμα πνευματικόν in various texts from antiquity and argue that whatever Paul meant by the concept, it is highly unlikely that he believed resurrection bodies were made of spirit. The “spiritual food” of Alexandrian interpretative tradition confirms that thesis.

I thank Vincenzo Carlotta, Frank Clancy, Richard Goulet, Matteo Martelli, David T. Runia, William Slater, Seda Stamboltsyan, and the scholars at the conference (Alexandria: Hub of the Ancient World) for various remarks on issues in this article. The views herein are my own. 1 Cf. John Granger Cook, “Philo Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesin 4.102 and 1 Cor 10:3: the πνευματικὸν βρῶμα,” NovT 59 (2017): 384–89.

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1. Philo on the πνευματικὸν βρῶμα

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Philo, discussing Gen 24:17 in the Quaestiones, explains the servant’s request for a little water by reference to the manna: “Why does he ask for a little water, saying, ‘Give me a little water to drink from your water jar?’ (Gen 24:17). It is necessary to understand that one should not desire anything that is beyond one’s capacity, for everything that has measure is praiseworthy (Ἄξιον ἀποδέχεσθαι τὸ μηδενὸς ὀρέγεσθαι τῶν ὑπὲρ δύναμιν· πᾶν γὰρ τὸ συμμετρίαν ἔχον, ἐπαινετόν). That is why in another place the spiritual food (zhogeworakan2 kerakowrn3) that gushed (błxeacʿ)4 like a spring from the aether and heaven, and was called “manna” in Hebrew, sacred scripture (orders) its measuring, so that no one had too much or too little. For it is necessary that teachings should be more abundant for the gifted person, and less for ungifted person, because of the perfect equality of proportion” (Ἀναγκαῖον οὖν τῷ μὲν εὐφυεῖ πλείους εἶναι τὰς διδασκαλίας, ἐλάττους δὲ τῷ ἀφυεῖ, διὰ τὴν ἐν ταῖς ἀναλογίαις ἀρίστην ἰσότητα).5 There can be little doubt that the Armenian expression corresponds to the Greek πνευματικός. Part of QG 1.92 survives in the Greek version: Πνευματικὴ δὲ ἡ τῶν ἀγγέλων οὐσία (the essence of the angels is spiritual).6 The translator adopted the same word for “spiritual” (hogewor) used in QG 4.102.7 The Armenian translator of “spiritual food” in 1 Cor 10:3 uses an 2 Gabriel Avetikʿean, Khatchadro Siwrmēlean and Mogherditsch Awgerean, Nor Baṛgirkʿ Haykazean Lezui (New Dictionary of the Armenian Language) (Venice: Académie armén. de S. Lazare, 1836–1837), 2:112 s.v. hogēwor gives πνευματικός, spiritualis; νοητός, intelligibilis as the Greek and Latin equivalents. In Philo, QG 4.8 (Françoise Petit, ed., Philon d’Alexandrie: Quaestiones in Genesim et in Exodum: Fragmenta graeca, Les oeuvres de Philon d’Alexandrie 33 (Paris: Cerf, 1978), 148 = Jean-Baptiste Aucher, ed., Philonis Judaei paralipomena armena (Venice: Académie armén. de S. Lazare, 1826), 250) = Johannes Lydus, De mens. 2.8, the Armenian translator renders νοητός (in the expression νοητὸς κόσμος) with imanalin. See Avetikʿean et al., Nor Baṛgirkʿ, 1:846 s.v. imanali (equivalent to νοητός, νοηρός). 3 Avetikʿean et al., Nor Baṛgirkʿ, 1:1090 s.v. kerakowr has βρῶσις, βρώμα, κατάβρωμα, βορά and τροφή as the Greek equivalents. The word is used for βρώμα in 1 Cor 3:2, 8:8, 13, 10:3. 4 Avetikʿean et al., Nor Baṛgirkʿ, 1:493, s.v. błx, has these equivalents: ῥέω, βρύω, ἐκβλύζω, ἀνομβρέω. 5 Philo, QG 4.102, trans. modified of the edition Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis, trans. Ralph Marcus, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), 1:385–86. Cf. that of Charles Mercier, ed., Philon d’Alexandrie: Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesim III-IV-V-VI e versione armeniaca: Traduction et notes, Les oeuvres de Philon d’Alexandrie 34B (Paris: Cerf, 1984), 309–11; text from Aucher, Philonis, 325; and Petit, Philon, 177. 6 Philo, QG 1.92 (Petit, Philon, 75). 7 Of course, the relational suffix akan is missing.

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expression (zhogewor zkerakowrn) similar to QG 4.102.8 In 1 Cor 10:4, “spiritual drink” is rendered with the same term (zhogewor ənpelin). The term “hogewor” is also used for πνευματικόν in 1 Cor 14:37 and 15:44. If one assumes that Philo died a few years after the accession of Claudius in 41, then it is clear that Paul could not have directly borrowed the tradition from Philo.9 Consequently, it seems nearly certain that both Philo and Paul were relying on a common Alexandrian tradition which viewed the manna as “spiritual food.”10 The literary genre of Erotapokriseis or Zētēmata kai lyseis used by Philo in QG 4.102 apparently has its origins in the 6th century BCE.11 The title itself, 8 Cf. Yovhannēs Zōhrapean, ed., Astowacašownčʿ matean hin ew nor ktakaranacʿ (God-breathed Scriptures of the Old and New Testament), 4 vols. (Venice: Académie armén. de S. Lazare, 1805), also “Novum testamentum armeniace,” TITUS Project, University of Frankfurt, http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/ etcs/arm/zohrab/armnt/armnt.htm. 9 Cf. Daniel R. Schwartz, “Philo, His Family, and His Times,” in The Cambridge Companion to Philo, ed. Adam Kamesar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 1–31 (10), with ref. to Philo, Legat. 206; and Abraham Terian, Philonis Alexandrini De animalibus: The Armenian Text with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Chico: Scholars Press, 1981), 28–33 (arguments for dating the treatise after the embassy to Gaius). 10 The precise nature of this tradition is highly controversial in Philonic scholarship. Worthy investigations include: Wilhelm Bousset, Jüdisch-Christlicher Schulbetrieb in Alexandria und Rom: Literarische Untersuchungen zu Philo und Clemens von Alexandria, Justin und Irenäus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1915); Richard Goulet, La philosophie de Moïse: Essai de reconstitution d’un commentaire philosophique préphilonien de Pentateuque, Histoire des doctrines de l’Antiquité classique 11 (Paris: Vrin, 1987); and cf. the review of Goulet, La philosophie by David T. Runia, JThS 40 (1989): 590–602. More recently Maren Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) has sought to identify Philo’s sources in the Homeric scholia (i.e. Alexandrian scholarship). Still fundamental is the review of Philonic texts in which he directly appeals to earlier scholarly traditions: David M. Hay, “Philo’s References to Other Allegorists,” SPhilo 6 (1979–80): 41–75. Goulet, La philosophie on the other hand, uses a different methodology and looks for signs of a pre-Philonic commentary due to inconsistencies in Philo’s interpretations – literary seams. 11 Cf. James R. Royse, “The Works of Philo,” in Kamesar, Cambridge Companion to Philo, 32–64 (34). For an early writer (ca 340–260 BCE), see Frances Pownall, “Duris of Samos 76,” BNJ, F 30 (Δοῦρις δὲ ἐν πρώτῳ Προβλημάτων Ὁμηρικῶν γράφει) = Schol. in Homer, Il. 21.498–9 = Hartmut Erbse, ed., Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem [scholia vetera], vol. 5 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1977), 242. Cf. Alfred Gudeman, “Λύσεις,” PW 13, 2:2511–29; Heinrich Dörrie and Hermann Dörries, “Erotapokrises,” RAC 6:342–70; Oskar Dreyer, “Lyseis,” KlPauly 3:832–33; Hans A. Gärtner, “Zetema,” BNP 15:914–15; and Adam Kamesar, Jerome, Greek Scholarship, and the Hebrew Bible: A Study of the ‘Quaestiones hebraicae in Genesim’ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 82–86; Lorenzo Perrone, “Quaestiones et responsiones in Origene Prospettive di un’analisi formale dell’argomentazione esegetico-teologica,” Cristianesimo nella storia 15 (1994): 1–50; Pieter W. van der Horst, “Philo and the Rabbis on Genesis: Similar Questions, Different Answers,” in Erotapokriseis: Early Christian Question-and-Answer Literature in Context

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which Eusebius knows, is presumably original: Τῶν ἐν Γενέσει καὶ τῶν ἐν Ἐξαγωγῇ ζητημάτων καὶ λύσεων (Problems and Solutions in Genesis and Exodus).12 Theagenes of Rhegium (6th c. BCE), for example, apparently wrote about Homer defending him from critics such as Xenophanes by creating physical and moral allegories of the various gods. These defenders of Homer “suppose that all was said using allegory” according to the scholiast (ἀλληγορίᾳ πάντα εἰρῆσθαι νομίζοντες).13 The scholiast writes, μάχας δὲ διατίθεσθαι αὐτόν, διονομάζοντα τὸ μὲν πῦρ Ἀπόλλωνα καὶ Ἥλιον καὶ Ἥφαιστον ... τὸν ἀέρα δὲ Ἥραν ... ὁμοίως ἔσθ’ ὅτε καὶ ταῖς διαθέσεσι ὀνόματα θεῶν τιθέναι, τῇ μὲν φρονήσει τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν, τῇ δ’ ἀφροσύνῃ τὸν Ἄρεα, τῇ δ’ ἐπιθυμίᾳ τὴν Ἀφροδίτην, τῷ λόγῳ δὲ τὸν Ἑρμῆν ... οὗτος μὲν οὖν τρόπος ἀπολογίας ἀρχαῖος ὢν πάνυ καὶ ἀπὸ Θεαγένους τοῦ Ῥηγίνου, ὃς πρῶτος ἔγραψε περὶ Ὁμήρου, τοιοῦτός ἐστιν ἀπὸ τῆς λέξεως.

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They say he sets up the battles using the names Apollo, Helios and Hephaestus for fire ... Hera for air ... Likewise [they claim that] he uses the names of the gods for qualities or dispositions: Athena for wisdom, Ares for rashness, Aphrodite for desire, Hermes for – Proceedings of the Utrecht Colloquium, 13–14 October 2003, ed. Annelie Volgers and Claudio Zamagni (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 55–70 (56–58). For literature on the genre in the Christian writers of late antiquity, cf. John Granger Cook, “Research on the Bible among the Pagans since Rinaldi’s Biblia Gentium,” Henoch 37 (2015): 167–90 (170). 12 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.18.1. 13 Cf. Theagenes, 8 test. 2 (Hermann Diels and Walther Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 3 vols. [Berlin: Weidmann, 1951–54], 1:52) = Porphyry, Quaest. hom. 20.67– 75 (Hermann Schrader, Porphyrii quaestionum Homericarum ad Iliadem pertinentium reliquiae, 2 vols. [Leipzig: Teubner, 1880–1882], 2:241 (a problematic edition) = John A. MacPhail, ed., Porphyry’s Homeric Questions on the Iliad: Text, Translation, Commentary, Texte und Kommentare 36 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 240 (Manuscript B = Venetus 453, XI CE). On this MS and the source of its exegetical scholia, cf. Albin Lesky, A History of Greek Literature (London: Duckworth, 1996), 77. On MacPhail, Porphyry’s Homeric Questions, a problematic edition, cf. William Slater, review of Porphyry’s Homeric Questions on the Iliad, by John A. MacPhail, Exemplaria Classica 16 (2012): 325–30. See Gudeman, “Λύσεις,” 2512, on Theagenes. For a defense of the accuracy of the Theagenes tradition, cf. Felix Buffiere, Les mythes d’Homère et la pensée grecque (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1956), 100–185; Jean Pépin, Mythe et allégorie: Les origines grecques et les contestations judéo-chrétiennes (Paris: Aubier, 1958), 98; Robert Lamberton, Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 15, 32, 322; idem, “Homeric allegory and Homeric Rhetoric in Ancient Pedagogy,” in Omero tremila anni dopo, ed. Franco Montanari and Paola Ascheri (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2002), 185–205 (188); Mikolaj Domaradzki, “Theagenes of Rhegium and the Rise of Allegorical Interpretation,” Elenchos 32 (2011): 205–27 (205–12); and Elsa Bouchard, “De la poétique à la critique: l’influence péripatéticienne chez Aristarque” (PhD diss., University of Montréal, 2012), 28. Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), 10 urges caution but accepts the testimony about Theagenes. Cf. the allegories of Pherecydes of Samos (7 Test. 8–9, frag. 4 [= Origen, Cels. 6.42] Diels and Kranz, Fragmente, 1:46, 49).

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reason ... This mode of response [or “defense”], which is very old and goes back to Theagenes of Rhegium, who was the first to write about Homer, is of this sort, proceeding from the style.14

It is certainly no accident that Philo stands in the same tradition, probably mediated through philosophical exegesis or less probably through Alexandrian scholarship.15 In his treatise On Providence,16 Philo defends Homer and Hesiod against the criticisms of his nephew Alexander by writing (in part), “If you apply the mythical story of Hephaestus (Hepʿestosin)17 to fire (howr),18 and the account of Hera (Eray) to the nature of air (jōdoy19 bnowtʿiwn20), and what is said about Hermes (Hermayn) to reason (ban),21

Porphyry, Quaest. hom. Il. 20.67–75 (MacPhail, Porphyry’s Homeric Questions, 240). Translation slightly modified of Lamberton, “Homeric Allegory,” 187–88. 15 It seems inherently unlikely that Philo perused the work of great Alexandrian scholars such as Aristarchus (pace Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis, passim). Heraclitus, e.g., in his interpretation of the gods’ battle in Homer, Il. 20–21 interprets Hera as the air, Artemis as the moon (Heraclitus, All. 57), while in Heraclitus, All. 56, Apollo is fire and Poseidon the water (“Ὕδατι πῦρ ἀντέθηκε, τὸν μὲν ἥλιον Ἀπόλλωνα προσαγορεύσας, τὴν δ’ ὑγρὰν φύσιν Ποσειδῶνα” (Here Homer opposes fire to water, calling the sun Apollo and the liquid substance Poseidon; trans: Heraclitus: Homeric Problems, ed. and trans. Donald A. Russell and David Konstan [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005], 95). Athena is wisdom and Ares is folly (“Ἀθηνᾶ καὶ Ἄρης, τουτέστιν ἀφροσύνη καὶ φρόνησις”; Heraclitus, All. 54), and Hermes is reason (λόγος; Heraclitus, All. 55). I thank Professor William Slater for his comments to me about the relationship between Philo and the Homeric scholia (personal communication of 24 June 2018). He argues that “Aristotelean problem solving methodology” “might have easily influenced the exegesis of Hebrew texts.” 16 Bousset, Jüdisch-Christlicher Schulbetrieb, 134–52, defends the thesis that this treatise represents Philo’s notes for a class, “where he sums up the teaching received rather than setting out his own ideas. These (the philosophical treatises) are primary sources, but for Alexandrian philosophical education.” Cf. Jean Daniélou, Philo of Alexandria (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2014), 42. Boussset, Jüdisch-Christlicher Schulbetrieb, 153–54 argues that most of Philo’s material came from Jewish exegetical schools, although the more philosophical treatises (Philo, Aet., Prob., Prov., and Anim.) are due to material from the Hellenistic schools. 17 The “n” functions as a definite article. 18 Avetikʿean et al., Nor Baṛgirkʿ 2:125, s.v. howr gives πῦρ as the Greek equivalent. Cf. Ralph Marcus, “An Armenian-Greek Index to Philo’s ‘Quaestiones’ and ‘De vita contemplativa’,” JAOS 53 (1933) 251–82 (270). 19 Avetikʿean et al., Nor Baṛgirkʿ 2:1022 s.v. ōd lists Ἀήρ as the Greek equivalent. Philo, QG 2.64c (Petit, Philon, 188 = Aucher, Philonis, 150) has τὴν πύκνωσιν τοῦ ἀέρος (“the condensation of the air”), and the Armenian equivalent of ἀηρ is ōdoyn. 20 Avetikʿean et al., Nor Baṛgirkʿ 1:499 s.v. bnowtʿiwn has φύσις as the Greek equivalent. Cf. Marcus, “Armenian-Greek,” 259. 21 Avetikʿean et al., Nor Baṛgirkʿ 1:431 s.v. ban notes that λόγος is one of the Greek equivalents. Cf. Marcus, “Armenian-Greek,” 258.

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and in the same way that which is said of the others....”22 Philo then comments on the necessity of allegory: “While you did not accept the principles of the allegories (kanons aylabanowtʿeancʿ)23 or hidden meanings (karceacʿ),24 then the same happened to you as to boys who out of ignorance pass by the paintings on boards of Apelles and are attached to the images stamped on little coins – they admire the laughable and scorn that which deserves general acceptance.”25 This close correspondence cannot merely be coincidental, but indicates a use of zētēmata traditions by Philo and the successors of Theagenes.26 Pieter W. van der Horst notes that Demetrius the Chronographer was apparently the first author to make use of the genre for the interpretation of scripture.27 The source, as is well known, was the Alexandrian tradition of Philo, Prov. 2.41 (Philonis Judaei Sermones tres hactenus inediti, ed. Jean-Baptiste Aucher [Venice: Académie armén. de S. Lazare, 1822], 76). Trans. of Aucher’s Latin by Lamberton, Homer the Theologian, 50 (Armenian checked by Peter Cowe) slightly modified. 23 For the latter term, Avetikʿean et al., Nor Baṛgirkʿ 1:83 s.v. aylabanowtʿiwn, lists ἀλληγορία and ἀλληγόρημα as the Greek equivalents. Cf. Marcus, “Armenian-Greek,” 254 s.v. aylabanowtʿiwn (ἀλληγορία). 24 Avetikʿean et al., Nor Baṛgirkʿ 1:1070 s.v. karcikʿ lists δόξα, δόκησις, ὑπόνοια, διάληψις, προσδοκία, and ὑποψία as Greek equivalents. Marcus, “An Armenian-Greek,” 268 lists δόκησις, οἴησις, ὑπόληψις, and ὑπόνοια as Philonic equivalents. As Lamberton, Homer the Theologian, 50, argues, ὑπόνοια is the most probable term in Philo’s text. 25 Philo, Prov. 2.41 = Aucher, Sermonis, 76; trans. Lamberton, Homer the Theologian, 50. 26 John Dillon “Ganymede as the Logos: Traces of a Forgotten Allegorization in Philo,” SPhilo 6 (1979–1980): 37–41 (37–38) reviews Philo’s allegories of the Homeric narratives and the Homeric gods, although he does not treat Prov. 2.41. Cf., e.g., Philo, Aet. 81: ἐπ’ ἐλάττονος οὐσίας τῆς τοῦ Διὸς (the lesser substance of Zeus after the conflagration; i.e., the ἐκπύρωσις); Philo, Decal. 54: καλοῦσι γὰρ οἱ μὲν τὴν γῆν Κόρην, Δήμητραν, Πλούτωνα, τὴν δὲ θάλατταν Ποσειδῶνα.... Ἥραν δὲ τὸν ἀέρα καὶ τὸ πῦρ Ἥφαιστον καὶ ἥλιον Ἀπόλλωνα καὶ σελήνην Ἄρτεμιν καὶ ἑωσφόρον Ἀφροδίτην καὶ στίλβοντα Ἑρμῆν καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀστέρων ἑκάστου τὰς ἐπωνυμίας μυθογράφοι παρέδοσαν οἳ πρὸς ἀπάτην ἀκοῆς εὖ τετεχνασμένα πλάσματα συνυφήναντες ἔδοξαν περὶ τὴν τῶν ὀνομάτων θέσιν κεκομψεῦσθαι (Different people give them different names: some call the earth Korē or Demeter or Pluto, and the sea Poseidon.... They call air Hera and fire Hephaestus, the sun Apollo, the moon Artemis, the morning star Aphrodite, and the glitterer Hermes, and each of the other stars have names handed down by the mythmakers to deceive the hearers and who thus won a reputation for accomplishment in name-giving). Translation of Philo, On the Decalogue, trans. Francis H. Colson, vol. 7, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1937), 33–35. 27 See van der Horst, “Philo and the Rabbis,” 57. For the fragments, cf. Carl R. Holladay, Historians, vol. 1 of Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors, Texts and Translations 20 / Pseudepigrapha 10 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983), frag. 1–6; cf., e.g., frag. 2 = Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.21.14: διαπορεῖσθαι δὲ διὰ τί ποτε ὁ Ἰωσὴφ Βενιαμὶν ἐπὶ τοῦ ἀρίστου πενταπλασίονα μερίδα ἔδωκε, μὴ δυναμένου αὐτοῦ τοσαῦτα καταναλῶσαι κρέα,

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Homeric scholarship. A scholion attributed to Porphyry’s Homeric Questions affirms that, ἐν τῷ μουσείῳ τῷ κατὰ Ἀλεξάνδρειαν νόμος ἦν προβάλλεσθαι ζητήματα καὶ τὰς γινομένας λύσεις ἀναγράφεσθαι. προεβλήθη οὖν, πῶς ... πρὸς τοῦτο ὁ λύων ἔφασκε ... In the Museum at Alexandria, it was a custom to propound questions and record the solutions that were given. So it was put forth [for consideration] how ... in reply to this the solver claimed ...28

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This tradition was probably mediated to individuals like Philo by writers such as Aristotle who applied his logic to the examination of literary problems.29 Paul and Philo were almost certainly aware of a Jewish exegetical tradition that reflected on the meaning of the manna and it probably had its origin in the zētēmata literature.

an aporia concerning why Joseph gave Benjamin a five-fold portion of meat even though he could not eat so much. Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis, 55, argues that the Demetrius of Clement, Strom. 1.21.141.1–2 (Περὶ τῶν ἐν τῇ Ἰουδαίᾳ βασιλέων) = Holladay, Historians, frag. 6, is not the same as the Demetrius of Eusebius’s Praep. ev. (Holladay, Historians, frag. 1–5) and thinks he wrote in the latter part of II BCE. This hypothesis is unnecessary since the document Clement quotes from is likely different from that of Eusebius, and the same individual could have written both. Frank Clancy, “Demetrius the Chronographer and 141 BCE,” SJOT 19 (2005):143–45 has argued that “Ptolemy IV” is a scribal error and should be amended to the fourth year of Ptolemy (VIII), i.e., 141 BCE., since the numbering of rulers (and popes) was an invention of the Middle Ages. This is questionable since both Appian and Strabo use the expression (cf. Appian, Hist. rom. 9 (Mac.) frag. 4.1: Πτολεμαῖος ὁ τέταρτος, ᾧ Φιλοπάτωρ ἐπώνυμον ἦν; Strabo, Geogr. 16.2.1: μάχη συνέβη Πτολεμαίῳ τε τῷ τετάρτῳ καὶ Ἀντιόχῳ τῷ Μεγάλῳ; cf. 17.1.11). 28 Porphyry, Quaest. hom. 9.682–3 (Schrader, Porphyrii, 152 = MacPhail, Porphyry’s Homeric Questions, 156–58 (his trans.)). Gudeman, “Λύσεις,” 2513 refers to a very similar text in which the Scriptor of the SHA (Aelius Spartianus, Hadr. 20.2) claims of Hadrian that “apud Alexandriam in Musio multas quaestiones professoribus proposuit et propositas ipse dissolvit” (In the Museum at Alexandria he propounded many questions to the teachers and answered himself what he had propounded; see Historia Augusta, trans. David Magie, 3 vols., LCL [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1921–1932], 1:61). 29 Cf. in particular Aristotle, Poet. 1460b–61b: Περὶ δὲ προβλημάτων καὶ λύσεων (with regard to problems and solutions) and Aristotle, Ἀπορήματα Ὁμηρικά frag. 142–79 (Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta, ed. Valentinus Rose [Leipzig: Teubner, 1886] 120–37). See the useful discussion in Sze-Kar Wan, “Philo’s ‘Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesim’: A Synoptic Approach,” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 32 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1993), 22–53 (24–26); and Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis, 41–44. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 5.26 notes that the book comprised six volumes.

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2. Paul’s πνευματικὸν βρῶμα

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There is little scholarly agreement about the precise meaning of “spiritual” in Paul’s expression, πνευματικὸν βρῶμα. Suggestions include the following: “supernatural, heavenly”;30 “supernatural, divine”;31 “given by God in a wondrous way”;32 the manna is “given by the spirit; mediates the spirit; or points to higher spiritual things.”33 Since it is clear that Philo does not reject the literal meaning of the manna, it would be incorrect to assert that the manna was made out of spirit, although some have apparently adopted that interpretation of 1 Cor 10:3.34 Paul was clearly using the same Alexandrian exegesis of the manna as Philo, given the precision of the linguistic parallel,35 and the common tradition and the context in 1 Cor 10:3–4 indicate that the manna in Paul’s view was not “made of spirit.” Despite the current popularity in some circles of comparing Paul’s pneumatology with Stoic physics, one can make a better case for interpreting σῶμα πνευματικόν using the context in chapter 15 and the πνευματικὸν βρῶμα of 10:3. It should be obvious in my view that the spiritual body of Paul is not “made of spirit,” just as the σῶμα ψυχικόν (soulish/psychic body) is not made of psychē (15:44). In addition, 1 Cor 2:12 (ἡμεῖς δὲ οὐ τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ κόσμου ἐλάβομεν ἀλλὰ τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ …) “we have not re30 Johannes Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief, KEK 5, 9th ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910), 251: “the food is ‘real’.” 31 Hans Lietzmann, An die Korinther I · II, HNT 9, ed. Werner G. Kümmel, 5th ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1969), 45: “an expression of real events.” 32 Joseph Fitzmyer, First Corinthians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AYB 32 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 382. Cf. Volker Rabens, The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul: Transformation and Empowering, for Religious-Ethical Life, WUNT 2/283 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 117: “food that is miraculously provided by the Spirit of God.” 33 Alexander J. M. Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Pauline Theology against Its Graeco-Roman Background, WUNT 44 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987), 241– 42. Cf. Wolfgang Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, EKK 7, 4 vols. (Zürich: Benziger, 1991), 2:393: “food and drink that convey the πνεῦμα, and thereby mediate heavenly Spirit substance.” 34 Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection, 241 mentions a number of scholars, but I cannot verify that most of the scholars in his list actually believed the manna was made out of spirit. The only scholar to whom he refers who actually held that view appears to be Christophe Senft, La première épitre de Saint Paul aux Corinthiens, CNT 7 (Genève: Labor et Fides, 1979), 129: “Paul projects his realistic sacramental conception on the food and drink ... in 12:13 the πνεῦμα itself is conceived by the apostle substantially as an element.” 1 Cor 12:13 probably refers to baptism, however. Cf. Andreas Lindemann, Der Erste Korintherbrief, HNT 9/1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 272. 35 No other proposed parallel to Paul’s “spiritual food” comes closer than Philo’s QG 4.102. Cf. Cook, “Philo,” passim. Did 10:3 (πνευματικὴν τροφὴν καὶ ποτόν) is a Christian text and refers to the Eucharist and not the manna and water from the rock.

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ceived the spirit of the cosmos, but the spirit of God …” is in almost direct contradiction with Stoic physics.36 Ps. Plutarch’s doxography, for example, summarizes Stoic views of the spirit as follows: Οἱ Στωϊκοὶ νοερὸν θεὸν ἀποφαίνονται, πῦρ τεχνικόν, ὁδῷ βαδίζον ἐπὶ γένεσιν κόσμου, ἐμπεριειληφὸς πάντας τοὺς σπερματικοὺς λόγους, καθ’ οὓς ἕκαστα καθ’ εἱμαρμένην γίνεται· καὶ πνεῦμα μὲν διῆκον δι’ ὅλου τοῦ κόσμου, τὰς δὲ προσηγορίας μεταλαμβάνον κατὰ τὰς τῆς ὕλης, δι’ ἧς κεχώρηκε, παραλλάξεις. θεόν37 δὲ καὶ τὸν κόσμον καὶ τοὺς ἀστέρας καὶ τὴν γῆν, τὸν δ’ ἀνωτάτω πάντων νοῦν ἐν αἰθέρι.38 The Stoics declare that the divinity is intelligent, an artisanal fire, which proceeds methodically to the creation of the cosmos, which encompasses in itself all the generative principles (logoi), according to which each thing is produced by destiny. And it is a breath [or “spirit”] which pervades the entire cosmos, changing its names according to the mutations of the matter through which it has permeated. And the divinity is also the cosmos, the stars and earth, and the mind that is above all is in the aether.

On this point, cf. John M. G. Barclay, “Stoic Physics and the Christ event: A review of Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010),” JSNT 33 (2011): 406–14 (411). It is curious that Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self, does not use SVF 2.1054 (the refs. to SVF are to fragment numbers and not page numbers). But see Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self, 104, 228–29 (on 1 Cor 2:12; he interprets Paul’s affirmation as “the pneuma that we received is not of the world, but one from God” – with ref. to Rom 8:15: “for the pneuma that you received was not one of slavery”). George H. van Kooten, Paul’s Anthropology in Context, WUNT 232 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) does not address the problem of 1 Cor 2:12. Barclay’s (ibid., 211) response to Engberg-Pedersen is important: “this categorical distinction between God and the cosmos seems unStoic, and occurs precisely where Paul speaks of eschatological mysteries prepared ‘before the ages’ but revealed and realized only in his present.” 37 A MS variant here is θεούς, adopted by Hermann Diels, Doxographi graeci (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1889), 306. 38 Ps. Plutarch, Plac. philos. 1.7, 881F–882A (Plutarch, Opinions des philosophes, ed. and trans. Guy Lachenaud [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1993], 88–91), whose translation I adapted above) = SVF 2.1027 and see Athenagoras, Leg. 6.4 and Eusebius, Praep. ev. 14.16.9. Ps. Galen, Medicus 9 (Carl G. Kühn, ed., Claudii Galeni opera omnia, 20 vols. [Leipzig: Knobloch, 1831–33], 14:698) = SVF 2.416 writes that in the addition to the four elements and qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry), Athenaeus adds a fifth: καὶ πέμπτον παρεισάγει κατὰ τοὺς Στωϊκοὺς τὸ διῆκον διὰ πάντων πνεῦμα, ὑφ’ οὗ τὰ πάντα συνέχεσθαι καὶ διοικεῖσθαι (and he introduces a fifth, which according to the Stoics, is the breath (spirit) which pervades all things, by which all things are held together and governed). Athenaeus of Attalus was a Stoic physician who founded the “pneumatic” school. Cf. Ludwig Edelstein and Vivian Nutton, “Athenaeus (3),” 4OCD 195. Posidonius, frag. 350 (Willy Theiler, ed., Posidonius: Die Fragmente, 2 vols. [Berlin: de Gruyter 1982] 1:265) held that “θεός ἐστι πνεῦμα νοερὸν διῆκον δι’ ἁπάσης οὐσίας” (God is an intelligent spirit that pervades all substance).

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Diogenes Laertius has a similar text: Δοκεῖ δ’ αὐτοῖς τὴν μὲν φύσιν εἶναι πῦρ τεχνικόν, ὁδῷ βαδίζον εἰς γένεσιν, ὅπερ ἐστὶ πνεῦμα πυροειδὲς καὶ τεχνοειδές·39 Nature in their [the Stoics’] view is an artistically working fire, going on its way to create; which is equivalent to a fiery, creative, or fashioning breath [or “spirit”].

The breath or spirit of the Stoics is creative, but is also equivalent to nature in some sense. Ps. Plutarch notes that: Ὁρίζονται δὲ τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ οὐσίαν οἱ Στωϊκοὶ οὕτως· πνεῦμα νοερὸν καὶ πυρῶδες, οὐκ ἔχον μὲν μορφήν, μεταβάλλον δ’ εἰς ὃ βούλεται καὶ συνεξομοιούμενον πᾶσιν.40 The Stoics define the essence of the divinity so: An intelligent and fiery breath [spirit] which does not have form, and which changes itself into what it wills and which conforms itself to all things.

This is a far cry, in my view, from Paul’s pneumatology. Despite the glaring difference between Paul’s denial that Christians possess the spirit of the cosmos and Stoic physics, Georg van Kooten has asserted that the following text from Origen is useful for understanding the σῶμα πνευματικόν of Paul. Should the expression be genuinely Stoic, then Wolfgang Schrage is probably incorrect in his assertion that it is a “hapaxlegomenon in all antiquity before Paul.”41 Hans F. A. von Arnim thought that the source was Chrysippus.42 Origen mentions those who believe in a “fifth element” (i.e., the aether) and those who view God as body in his Johannine commentary.

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Ταῦτα δέ φημι καθ’ ὑπεξαίρεσιν τῶν πέμπτην λεγόντων εἶναι φύσιν σωμάτων παρὰ τὰ στοιχεῖα.… Καὶ ἐκεῖνοι μὲν οὐκ αἰδοῦνται λέγειν43 ὅτι καὶ φθαρτός ἐστιν σῶμα ὤν, σῶμα

39 Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.156 = SVF 1.171 (Zeno), trans. of Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, trans. Robert D. Hicks, 2 vols., LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925), 2:261. 40 Ps. Plutarch, Plac. philos. 1.6, 879A (Lachenaud, Opinions des philosophes, 81 (his trans. modified)) = SVF 2.1009. 41 Schrage, Korinther, 4:300. 42 The problematic identification of Stoic fragments or rather testimonies in Origen with Chrysippus is discussed by Gilles Dorival, “Origène d’Alexandrie,” in Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, ed. Richard Goulet (Paris: CNRS, 1994), 4:807–43 (834–35). Cf. von Arnim on the attribution of such texts of Origen to Chrysippus in SVF 1, xlvi–xlvii. Origen refers to Stoic texts by names other than that of Chrysippus (communication of Richard Goulet, 15 Jan. 2017). Cf. Henry Chadwick, “Origen, Celsus and the Stoa,” JTS 48 (1947): 34–49 (34) (Origen had read Chrysippus; cf. Origen, Cels. 1.40, 1.64, 2.12, 4.48 [perhaps], 4.63, 5.57, 8.49, 8.51). 43 von Arnim in SVF 2.1054 includes the following words in a special typeface to signify that they are Chrysippus’s words.

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δὲ πνευματικὸν καὶ αἰθερῶδες, μάλιστα κατὰ τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν αὐτοῦ· φθαρτὸν δὲ ὄντα μὴ φθείρεσθαι τῷ μὴ εἶναι τὸν φθείροντα αὐτὸν λέγουσιν.44 But I make the following remarks as a refutation of those [the Peripatetics] who say there is a fifth nature45 of bodies in addition to the [four] elements. … Those [the Stoics] who hold this view46 are not ashamed to say that since God is a body he is subject to corruption, but they say his body is spiritual [or “made of breath”] and like aether, especially in the governing capacity of his soul. Furthermore they say that although God is subject to corruption he is not corrupted, because no one exists who might corrupt him.

The text is used somewhat uncritically, in my view, by van Kooten who claims the σῶμα πνευματικόν (pneumatic body) “is a term that Stoics use to describe the quality of the cosmic body after the conflagration, when it is

SVF 2.1054 (Chrysippus) = Chrysippe, Oeuvre philosophique, ed. Richard Dufour, 2 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2004), 2:1066 (529) = Origen, Comm. Jo. 13.21.126, 128 (on John 4:24 Πνεῦμα γὰρ ὁ θεός), trans. of Origen, Commentary on the Gospel According to John: Book 13–32, trans. mod. of Ronald E. Heine, FC 89 (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1993), 94. Origen also quotes Heb 12:29 (ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν πῦρ καταναλίσκον) as a verse that cannot be taken literally. His point is that one cannot stop at the literal meaning of the words. See Joachim Lukoschus, review of Dufour, Chrysippe, BMCR 2006.01.29, http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2006/2006-01-29.html. 45 Origen, Princ. 3.6.6 (the church does not believe that view of certain philosophers that there is a fifth substance) aliud quintum corpus, quod per omnia aliud sit et diversum ab hoc nostro corpore), Origen, Cels. 3.75, 4.60; Cicero, Tusc. 1.65 (est quinta quaedam natura, ab Aristotele inducta primum, haec et deorum est et animorum (if there is indeed a certain fifth nature, which was introduced by Aristotle first, it is that of the gods and of souls)). For the fifth element, see Aristotle, Cael. 1.2, 1069B, Mete. 339B: ὁ γὰρ λεγόμενος αἰθὴρ παλαιὰν εἴληφε τὴν προσηγορίαν (for what is called aether was given this name in antiquity, trans. of Aristotle, Meteorologica, trans. Henry D. P. Lee, LCL [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952], 13), and [Mund.] 393A (of the five, the lesser element is contained in the greater) πυρὸς δὲ ἐν αἰθέρι – τὸν ὅλον κόσμον συνεστήσατο, καὶ τὸ μὲν ἄνω πᾶν θεῶν ἀπέδειξεν οἰκητήριον (and fire in aether– [all five] constitute the entire cosmos, and all the upper region displays the habitation of the gods). On the entire issue, cf. Abraham P. Bos, Cosmic and Meta-Cosmic Theology in Aristotle’s Lost Dialogues (Leiden: Brill 1989), 83 (noting that for Aristotle there are “degrees of purity” within the fifth element) and Anton-Hermann Chroust, Aristotle: New Light on his Life and on Some of his Lost Works (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1973), 2:184. A succinct account of the Stoic view of the aether (not as a fifth substance) appears in EngbergPedersen, Cosmology and Self, 213: “aether is, one might say, air which in its upward going movement has become so rarefied that it begins to burn” (see SVF 2.579 = Plutarch, Stoic rep. 41, 1053A: ἡ δὲ πυρὸς μεταβολή ἐστι τοιαύτη· … λεπτυνομένου δὲ τοῦ ἀέρος ὁ αἰθὴρ περιχεῖται κύκλῳ· οἱ δ’ ἀστέρες ἐκ θαλάσσης μετὰ τοῦ ἡλίου ἀνάπτονται (The transformation of fire is like this: … and, as the air is subtilized aether is diffused round about, and the stars along with the sun are kindled from the sea; Plutarch, Moralia, trans. Harold Cherniss, LCL [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976], 13.2:571). 46 Namely, the view that if all body is material, then God is material, (εἰ δὲ πᾶν σῶμα ὑλικόν … ἀναγκη καὶ τὸν θεὸν ὑλικόν ὄντα …). Cf. Origen, Comm. Jo. 13.21.127.

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fully identical with God’s reasoning power.”47 There is no statement about the conflagration in this particular text. In addition, Origen may not be entirely reliable here, according to Jula Wildberger, since he does not clearly distinguish between God and the cosmos in the passage, although the Stoics did in a certain sense identify the two.48 Since the phrase σῶμα πνευματικόν does not occur in any other text describing Stoic beliefs, it is probably a formulation of Origen.49 It is highly unlikely, given 1 Cor 2:12, that for Paul “once the cosmos has been brought back to God, from whom it emerged, and once it is identical with God, not only the resurrection bodies (1 Cor 15:44) but the entire cosmos (1 Cor 15:28) will be a σῶμα πνευματικόν.”50 Origen’s formulation of Stoic thought, however, bears a very close resemblance to a statement by Alexander of Aphrodisias who contests the Stoic notion of two principles (god as pneuma and matter) both being σῶμα:

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αἰτιάσαιτο δ’ ἄν τις εὐλόγως αὐτῶν, ἐνταῦθα τοῦ λόγου γενόμενος, καὶ τὸ δύο ἀρχὰς τῶν πάντων λέγοντας εἶναι, ὕλην τε καὶ θεόν, ὧν τὸν μὲν ποιοῦντα εἶναι, τὴν δὲ πάσχουσαν, μεμῖχθαι τῇ ὕλῃ λέγειν τὸν θεόν, διὰ πάσης αὐτῆς διήκοντα καὶ σχηματίζοντα καὶ μορφοῦντα καὶ κοσμοποιοῦντα τούτῳ τῷ τρόπῳ· εἰ γὰρ θεὸς κατ’ αὐτοὺς σῶμα, πνεῦμα ὢν νοερόν τε καὶ ἀΐδιον, καὶ ἡ ὕλη δὲ σῶμα, πρῶτον μὲν ἔσται πάλιν διῆκον σῶμα διὰ σώματος, ἔπειτα τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦτο ἤτοι τι τῶν τεσσάρων τῶν ἁπλῶν ἔσται σωμάτων, ἃ καὶ στοιχεῖά φασιν, ἢ ἐκ τούτων σύγκριμα, (ὥς που καὶ αὐτοὶ λέγουσιν καὶ γὰρ ἀέρος καὶ πυρὸς ὑφίστανται τὴν οὐσίαν ἔχειν τὸ πνεῦμα), ἤ, ἄλλο τι εἴη, ἔσται τὸ θεῖον αὐτοῖς σῶμα πέμπτη τις οὐσία.…51 47 George van Kooten, “Quaestiones disputatae: How Greek was Paul’s Eschatology,” NTS 61 (2015): 239–45 (242). See also idem, “St Paul on Soul, Spirit and Inner-Man,” in The Afterlife of the Platonic Soul: Reflections on Platonic Psychology in the Monotheistic Religions, ed. Maha Elkaisy-Friemuth and John M. Dillon (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 25–46 (29–30). 48 Cf. Jula Wildberger, Seneca und die Stoa: Der Platz des Menschen in der Welt, UALG 84.2 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006), 2:458. Cf. ibid., 1:22 on the cosmos. SVF 2.1026 = Ioannes Damascenus, Haer. 7 (cf. Plato, Tim. 92C): Στωϊκοὶ σῶμα τὸ πᾶν δογματίζοντες καὶ αἰσθητὸν τοῦτον τὸν κόσμον θεὸν νομίζοντες (the Stoics teach that all is body and believe that this cosmos is a perceptible god). The cosmos is not the highest god for the Stoics, since it perishes in the conflagrations. Cf. Gretchen Reydams-Schiles, “The Academy, the Stoics and Cicero on Plato’s Timaeus,” in Plato and the Stoics, ed. Alex G. Long (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 29–58 (42). 49 van Kooten, “St Paul on Soul,” 30, argues that Origen is not responsible for the formulation by appealing to Comarius (which he dates to the 1st century CE? – which is probably erroneous). Cf. Zosimus, γνησία γραφή 1 (3rd to 4th century CE). See Marcellin Berthelot, Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs (Paris: G. Steinheil, 1887), 2:146, (this volume will be referred to as CAIG). 50 van Kooten, “Quaestiones,” 242 (his italics). 51 SVF 2.310 = Alexander of Aphrodisias, De mixtione 11 (Alexandri Aphrodisiensis praeter commentaria scripta minora, ed. Ivo Bruns, CAG 2.2 [Berlin: Reimer, 1892], 224,32–225,9); trans. of Robert B. Todd, Alexander of Aphrodisias on Stoic Physics: A Study of the De Mixtione: Preliminary Essays, Text, Translation and Commentary, PhAnt

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Entering the argument at this point one might reasonably challenge them with also claiming the existence of two universal principles, matter and God, of which the latter is active, [225] the former passive; and with saying that God is mixed with matter and pervades the whole of it, in this way shaping and forming it and creating the universe [or “makes it into a cosmos”52]; For if God is on their view body – an intelligent and eternal pneuma – and matter is body, first there will again be body going through body; then this pneuma will certainly be either one of the four uncompounded bodies which they say are also elements, or a compound of them (as of course they themselves say; for they certainly suppose that pneuma has the substance of air and fire), or, if it is something else, the divine body will be a fifth substance.…

Pneuma or breath, for the Stoics, is air and fire. A. A. Long and D. N. Hedley comment that “its [blending’s] chief function was certainly to explain how the light and tenuous elements of ‘breath’ could completely pervade portions of earth and water whose volume or density was very much greater.”53 In conclusion, the review of Stoic pneumatology and Paul’s clear distinction between the spirit of the cosmos in 1 Cor 2:12 and the spirit of God indicates that Paul did not adopt Stoic physics to account for πνεῦμα. Methodius, in the character of Memianius, questionably attributes to Origen the following view: Ὅτι φησί, πᾶν γὰρ τὸ ἐκ καθαροῦ ἀέρος καὶ καθαροῦ πυρὸς συνιστάμενον σύγκριμα, καὶ τοῖς ἀγγελικοῖς ὁμοούσιον ὑπάρχον, οὐ δύναται γῆς ἔχειν ποιότητα καὶ ὕδατος, ἐπεὶ συμβήσεται ἔσεσθαι αὐτὸ γεῶδες. Τοιοῦτον καὶ ἐκ τούτων τὸ ἀναστῆναι μέλλον σῶμα ἀνθρώπου ὁ Ὠριγένης ἐφαντάζετο, ὃ καὶ πνευματικὸν ἔφη.54

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They claim that any mixture consisting of pure air and pure fire is of the same substance as the angels and cannot have the quality of earth and water, since it would then come about that it was earthy. Origen imagined that the human body which is going to be resurrected was of such a kind and of such materials, and he even called it a pneumatic body.

27 (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 138–39 (text and trans.), 220–21 (commentary). On the similar text in Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.134 see the study (and textual reconstruction) of Richard Goulet, “Les principes stoïciens sont-ils des corps ou sont-ils incorporels,” in Agonistes: Essays in Honour of Denis O’Brien, ed. John Dillon and Monique Dixsauer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 157–76. Cf. the argument, similar to that of Alexander, against the substance of all bodily qualities being “spiritual” (πῶς δὲ καὶ πνευματικὴ ἡ οὐσία ἔσται τῶν σωματικῶν ποιοτήτων) by Simplicius in SVF 2.389. 52 An astute trans. of Anthony A. Long and David N. Hedley, Translation of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary, vol. 1 of The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 273 (45H). 53 Long and Hedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, 293. 54 Methodius, Res. 2.30.8 (Methodius, GCS, vol. 27, ed. G. Nathanael Bonwetsch [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1917], 388) = Photius, Bibl. 232, 299a (Photius, Bibliothèque, ed. René Henry, 8 vols. [Paris: Les Belles Lettres] 5:105), trans. of Richard Sorabji, Psychology (with Ethics and Religion), vol. 1 of The Philosophy of the Commentators 200–600 AD: A Sourcebook (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), 232.

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Origen referred approximately seventeen times to Paul’s σῶμα πνευματικόν,55 and I think it most likely that he formulated the expression to summarize Stoic views of God, sōma, matter, and pneuma in his commentary on John.56 An alchemical text mentioned by BDAG as an illustration of σῶμα πνευματικόν, The Dialogue of Comarius, is highly problematic – because of its probable late date (ca 3rd to 4th century CE) and likely influence by the New Testament.57 Its origins in Greco Roman Egypt or even in Alexandria make it relevant to this topic, however. Some scholars’ have asserted that the text was 1st century, but this is probably incorrect.58 Marcellin Berthelot con55 A selection: Origen, Cels. 4.57, 5.19, 22, Hom. Luc. 14 (Max Rauer, ed., Origenes Werke, GCS, 2nd ed. [Berlin: Akademie, 195] 9:86–87), Dial. 5, Fr. 1 Cor. 8:4 (Claude Jenkins, “Documents: Origen on I Corinthians,” JTS 10 [1909]: 29–51 [47]), Hom. in Ps. 23.2 = Hom. 6 Ps. 77 (Die neuen Psalmenhomilien: Eine kritische Edition des Codex Monacensis Graecus 314, vol. 13 of Origenes Werke, GCS, ed. Lorenzo Perrone [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015], 13:429), and Clement, Strom. apud Jerome, Jo. Hier. 26 (Contra Iohannem, CChrSL 79a, ed. Jean-Louis Feiertag [Turnhout: Brepols, 1999] 46): nunc oculis videmus, auribus audimus, manibus agimus, pedibus ambulamus. in illo autem corpore spiritali toti videbimus, toti audiemus, toti operabimur, toti ambulabimus et transfigurabit dominus corpus humilitatis nostrae conforme corpori gloriae suae. The count does not include those in the dubious Psalm homilies from the catenae in PG 12. 56 There is only one nominal fragment of Chrysippus (in SVF) in which he uses the word πνευματικός. SVF 2.913 = Stobaeus, Ecl. 1.5.15 (Ioannis Stobaei anthologium [5 vols.; ed. Otto Hense and Curt Wachsmuth; Berlin: Weidmann, 1884–1912] 1, 79): Χρύσιππος δύναμιν πνευματικὴν τὴν οὐσίαν τῆς εἱμαρμένης, τάξει τοῦ παντὸς διοικητικήν (Chrysippus affirms that the substance of destiny is a spiritual force [or “force made of breath”], which governs everything in an orderly fashion). According to Philo, Aet. 125, Theophrastus (cf. Aet. 117) refers to “those” (i.e., Stoics; Zeno?) who argue that, for example, the bond which holds rocks together is a “spiritual force, a bond that is not unbreakable, but only hard to dissolve” (ἡ δ’ ἐστὶ πνευματικὸς τόνος, δεσμὸς οὐκ ἄρρηκτος ἀλλὰ μόνον δυσδιάλυτος). Philo’s text is reproduced in SVF 1.106 (Zeno), Theophrastus, Physicorum opiniones 12 (Diels, Doxographi Graeci, 487), and Posidonius frag. 310 (Theiler, Posidonius, 1.234). 57 BDAG s.v. πνευματικός (they date the text to the 3rd century CE). On the issue of the date, cf. Vincenzo Carlotta, “La morte e la resurrezione dei corpi nel Dialogo dei filosofi e di Cleopatra e nel Liber de compositione alchemiae di Morieno,” in Appropriation, Interpretation and Criticism: Philosophical and Theological Exchanges between the Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Intellectual Traditions, Textes et Etudes du Moyen Age 88, ed. Alexander Fidora and Nicola Polloni (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 93–120 (95–96). 58 Many scholars have apparently accepted its ancient date (Robert Halleux, “Alchemy,” 4OCD 51–52 (51); Jackson P. Hershbell, “Democritus and the Beginnings of Greek Alchemy,” in Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry: Papers from Ambix, ed. Allen G. Debus (London: Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, 2004), 63–78 (78). Frank S. Taylor, “A Survey of Greek Alchemy,” JHS 50 (1930): 109–39 (116) argues that Comarius “is perhaps the earliest of all our authors. The mythical and symbolic matter, of which his fragmentary treatise is largely composed, is, when freed from later additions,

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flated two works: Κομερίου φιλοσόφου διάλεξις πρὸς Κλεοπάτραν (The Dialogue of Comarius the Philosopher and Cleopatra [Dial. Comer.]) and διάλογος φιλοσόφων καὶ Κλεοπάτρας (Dialogue of the Philosophers and Cleopatra [Dial. Cleop.]) in his edition for the Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs. These titles appear in the index of MS Marcianus 299 (M, 11th century CE), which offers a better text of the Dialogue of the Philosophers and Cleopatra than Codex Parisinus B.N. 2327 (A, copied in 1478), which Berthelot primarily relied upon. Richard Reitzenstein produced an edition of the Dialogue of the Philosophers and Cleopatra (superior to that of Berthelot) and A.-J. Festugière translated part of Reitzenstein’s text.59 Reitzenstein also believed that the Dialogue of the Philosophers and Cleopatra was originally an Aramaic text that was translated into Greek in Alexandria.60 The Aramaic Urtext has been dismissed by subsequent scholarship.61 Vincenzo Carlotta argues in his forthcoming edition that parts of the text can be explained on the basis provided by the New Testament.62 Possibly this passage, however, emerges from the pagan alchemical tradition: fully consonant with a first-century Egyptian origin.” Taylor missed the philological problems of Berthelot’s edition. Richard Reitzenstein, “Zur Geschichte der Alchemie und des Mystizismus,” NGWG.PH (1919): 1–37 (1–27, 26) thought the basic collection of writings in M (Marcianus 299; 11th century CE) was made before Diocletian’s measures against alchemy, ca 296 (Suda χ 280 Χημεία: ἡ τοῦ ἀργύρου καὶ χρυσοῦ κατασκευή, ἧς τὰ βιβλία διερευνησάμενος ὁ Διοκλητιανὸς ἔκαυσε; cf. John of Antioch, Fragmenta e libris de Caesaribus, frag. 248 (Karl Müller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum [Paris: Didot, 1868], frag. 165, 4:601 = Umberto Roberto, ed., Ioannis Antiocheni Fragmenta ex Historia chronica: Introduzione, edizione critica e traduzione, TU 154 [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005], 428)) and that the Greek adaptation of the Dial. Cleop. was somewhat earlier. He did not believe the Aramaic original could be dated. Jean Letrouit, “Chronologie des alchimistes grecs,” in Alchimie: Art, histoire et mythes - Actes du Colloque international de la Société d’étude de l’histoire de l’alchimie, Paris, Collège de France, 14-16 mars 1991, ed. Didier Kahn and Sylvain Matton (Paris: S.E.H.A., 1995), 11–93 (84), on the opposite end of the spectrum, dates it to the 7th century CE, although his arguments do not seem ultimately cogent. 59 The Dial. Cleop. is edited by Reitzenstein, “Geschichte,” 14–20 (index of M on 2–3), partially trans. by André-Jean Festugière, “La création des âmes dans la Korè Kosmou,” in Hermétisme et mystique païenne, ed. idem (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1967), 230–48 (241– 46). Reitzenstein edits (from A [Codex Parisinus B.N. 2327; 1478 CE]) the Dial. of Comarius in Festugière, Hermétisme et mystique, 23–25. 60 Reitzenstein, “Geschichte,” 21; Régine Charron, “The Apocryphon of John (NHC II 1) and the Graeco-Egyptian Alchemical Literature,” VC 59 (2005): 438–56 (453), argues that “Cleopatra” “had close contact with members of the Alexandrian Jewish milieu.” 61 Carlotta, “La morte,” 98–99. 62 Personal communication of 1 Nov. 2016. He is preparing a critical edition of the Dial. Cleop. Consequently, Charron’s (Charron, “Apocryphon of John,” passim) attempt to trace relationships between the Nag Hammadi texts and the Dial. Cleop. needs to be fundamentally reevaluated.

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Λαβὼν οὖν τὴν γῆν, ὦ Κλεοπάτρα, τὴν οὖσαν ἐπάνω τῶν ὑδάτων, καὶ ποίησον σῶμα πνευματικὸν, τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ στυπτηρίου· ταῦτα ἔοικε τῇ γῇ καὶ τῷ πυρὶ, τὰ μὲν τὴν θερμότητα τῷ πυρὶ, τὰ δὲ ξηρότητα τῇ γῇ·63 Now, take the earth that is above the waters, Cleopatra, and make a pneumatic [or volatile] body from it, the spirit of alum. These things are like the earth and fire, in respect of their warmth to the fire, in respect of their dryness to the earth.

The alchemist is not referring to an “immaterial” substance, but to an operation on the spirit of alum, a substance which features quite often in alchemical texts, that is probably sulphuric acid.64 The use of σῶμα πνευματικόν appears to be independent of the New Testament. Another alchemical text, perhaps from the same era, by Zosimus, refers to an operation on copper:65 Λαβὼν τὴν ψυχὴν τοῦ χαλκοῦ τὴν οὖσαν ἐπάνω τοῦ ὕδατος τῆς ὑδραργύρου, ποίησον σῶμα πνευματικόν· ἀναβαίνει γὰρ ἐπάνω ἡ ψυχὴ τοῦ χαλκοῦ ἡ κεκολλημένη ἐν τῇ χώνῃ·66 After taking the soul of the copper, which is above the water of mercury, make a pneumatic [or “volatile”] body; for the soul of the copper, which is in a bound state in the crucible, ascends.

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The “soul” is probably quicksilver (or “vapor of quicksilver) which is “given” to the copper (the metallic body), “probably suspended in the upper part of a kerotakis.”67 The editor himself was unsure what the reference of σῶμα πνευματικόν was – but it definitely is to a chemical compound of some variety.68 One chemist (H. Carrington Bolton) transmits this suggestion: “… here we have indications of the production of a gaseous body by means of a red substance (the soul of copper) which floats on the surface of liquid mercury; 63 Dial. Comer. (Reitzenstein, “Geschichte,” 24 = CAlG 2.290), trans. of Georg Luck, Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Collection of Ancient Texts, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 449. Cf. the usage in an alchemist from about the same era (Pelagius, “περὶ τῆς θείας τέχνης” 6 [CAlG 2.256–7]): Ἐὰν οὖν λευκανθῇ ὁ χαλκὸς ἄσκιος, πνευματικὸς γίνεται (if dull copper is whitened, it becomes enspirited/volatile). Michael R. Licona, “Paul on the Resurrection Body,” in Buried Hope or Risen Savior? The Search for the Jesus Tomb, ed. Charles L. Quarles (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2008), 177–98 (185), referred to several of the texts discussed below and emphasized the bodily nature of the expression, “with the possible exception of Chrysippus.” Cf. Kooten, “St Paul on Soul,” 29–30. 64 Cf. στυπτηρία in Ps. Democritus, Physica et mystica (CAlG 2.44) and Stanton J. Linden, The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 39–42 (a trans. with a number of other occurrences in the text). See Philip de Wolf, American Sulphuric Acid Practice (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1921), 1. Sulphuric acid (H2SO4) is distilled from potassium alum (KAl(SO4)2 . 12H2O). 65 Berthelot, CAlG 3.148 (notes to his trans. of the text quoted below). 66 Zosimus (3rd to 4th century CE) γνησία γραφή 1 (Berthelot, CAlG 2:146). 67 This is from a personal communication of Matteo Martelli (3 March 2018). 68 Berthelot, CAlG 3:148n2.

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if this red substance is red oxide of mercury, the aeriform body [σῶμα πνευματικόν] must have been oxygen.”69 Both the Dialogue and Zosimus use σῶμα πνευματικόν, although they are independent of each other. Both are examples of Greco-Egyptian literature. Their common tradition of a “pneumatic or volatile body” likely indicates that the origins of the alchemical expression are probably earlier than the 3rd century. An Aristotelean could also use a construction that was quite similar. A view attributed by Ps. Plutarch (2nd century CE)70 to Straton of Lampsacus, director “of the Peripatetic school after Theophrastus,”71 bears a fairly close verbal resemblance to Paul’s “spiritual body”: Εἰ σῶμα τὸ σπέρμα. Λεύκιππος καὶ Ζήνων σῶμα· ψυχῆς γὰρ εἶναι ἀπόσπασμα. Πυθαγόρας Πλάτων Ἀριστοτέλης ἀσώματον μὲν εἶναι τὴν δύναμιν τοῦ σπέρματος ὥσπερ νοῦν τὸν κινοῦντα, σωματικὴν δὲ τὴν ὕλην τὴν προχεομένην. Στράτων καὶ Δημόκριτος καὶ τὴν δύναμιν σῶμα· πνευματικὴ γάρ.72 Whether the sperm is a body. Leucippus and Zeno: a body, for it is a detached part of the soul. Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle: the power of the sperm is incorporeal, like the mind which sets in motion, but the corporeal in relation to the matter that is emitted. Straton and Democritus: the power is body [corporeal], for it is pneumatic [i.e., “airlike”].

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Straton’s views on the void was useful for the “pneumatic” school of physicians.73 The pneumatic theory, in other words, explains the motion of the fluid. Straton’s use does offer some insight into 1 Cor 15, although it refers to a “pneumatic power” (ἡ δύναμις πνευματική) which is a “body” (σῶμα) and not a “pneumatic body” (σῶμα πνευματικόν). A late usage in Damascius (ca 462–538)74 indicates that a Platonist could use the expression, albeit in an attenuated sense. In a passage commenting on Plato’s Phaedo and the postmortem destiny of the soul, Damascius writes: 69 Henry C. Bolton, “Notes on the Early Literature of Chemistry,” American Chemist 4 (1874): 170–71 (171) (cf. Ferdinand Hoefer, Histoire de la chimie, vol. 1 (Paris: Hachette, 1872), 270–71, with an image of the apparatus). 70 Jaap Mansfeld, “Doxography and Dialectic: The Sitz im Leben of the ‘Placita’,” ANRW 2.36.4 (1990): 3056–229 (3061, 3083), notes that the latest author quoted in the Placita is Xenarchus of Seleucia (1st century BCE). Cf. Aetius, Placita 4.3.10 (Diels, Doxographi Graeci, 388; from Stobaeus, Ecl. 1.49.1B). Cf. Jaap Mansfeld and David T. Runia, Aëtiana: The Method and Intellectual Context of a Doxographer - Volume I: The Sources (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 124–25 and Diels, Doxographi graeci, 2 (100 years after Philo). 71 David J. Furley, “Straton (1),” 4OCD 1406. 72 Ps. Plutarch, Plac. philos. 5.4, 905B (Lachenaud, Opinions des philosophes, 169) = Straton, frag. 94 (Fritz Wehrli, Straton von Lampsakos, vol. 5 of Die Schule des Aristoteles [Basel: Schwabe 1950], 31) = Democritus 68 T 140, Diels and Kranz, Fragmente, 2:123. 73 John T. Vallance, “Pneumatics,” 4OCD 1166–67. 74 Damascius, The Philosophical History, ed. and trans. Polymnia Athanassiadi (Athens: Apamea Cultural Association, 1999), 19.

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Ὅτι ἀναμάρτητοι καὶ ὁσίως βεβιωκυῖαι αἱ μὲν ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας ἐπὶ τῶν ἄκρων οἰκίζονται τῆς γῆς μετὰ σωμάτων πνευματικῶν λεπτοτάτων, αἱ δὲ πολιτικῶς φιλοσοφοῦσαι μετὰ τῶν αὐγοειδῶν ἐν οὐρανῷ διάγουσιν, αἱ δὲ καθαρθεῖσαι τελέως εἰς τὸν ὑπερκόσμιον τόπον ἀποκαθίστανται ἄνευ σωμάτων.75 [He says] that [among] the (souls) who are without sin and who have lived holy lives, [a] the ones who lived without philosophy inhabit the outermost regions of the earth with extremely delicate pneumatic bodies, [b] the ones who practiced philosophy at the (good) citizen level live in heaven with their luminous bodies, [c] the ones that have completely purified themselves are reinstated in the supramundane place without [any] bodies.

L. G. Westerink translates μετὰ σωμάτων πνευματικῶν λεπτοτάτων as “with very tenuous pneumatic bodies.”76 Whatever Damascius intends by the expression, it is likely that it is an embodied existence of some kind. In the relevant passage in the Phaedo, Plato refers to the people who lived holy lives as living on the earth: οἳ δὲ δὴ ἂν δόξωσι διαφερόντως πρὸς τὸ ὁσίως βιῶναι, οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ τῶνδε μὲν τῶν τόπων τῶν ἐν τῇ γῇ ἐλευθερούμενοί τε καὶ ἀπαλλαττόμενοι ὥσπερ δεσμωτηρίων, ἄνω δὲ εἰς τὴν καθαρὰν οἴκησιν ἀφικνούμενοι καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς οἰκιζόμενοι.77 But those who are found to have excelled in holy living are freed from these regions within the earth and are released as from prisons [Tartarus]; they mount upward into their pure abode and dwell upon the earth.

Presumably the ones who have lived extremely holy lives exist in an embodied state, since Plato contrasts them with those who have sufficiently purified themselves by philosophy who live without bodies (οἱ φιλοσοφίᾳ ἱκανῶς καθηράμενοι ἄνευ τε σωμάτων ζῶσι) in a more beautiful dwelling.78 The expression is used by later philosophers such as Philoponus and Proclus, but this is enough data.79

3. Summary and Conclusion

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The common exegetical tradition shared by Philo and Paul probably derived from the zētēmata literature of the Hellenistic Jews in Alexandria. Philo’s and Damascius, In Plat. Phaed. (versio 1) (114B6–C6) 551. I thank Dr. Richard Goulet for his comments and trans. of this text (communication of 14 Feb. 2017). Cf. the trans. by Leendert G. Westerink, The Greek Commentaries on Plato’s Phaedo, 2 vols., VNAW 93 (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1977), 2:282. 76 Westerink, Greek Commentaries, 2:282. 77 Plato, Phaed. 114B-C, trans. of Plato, ed. and trans. Harold N. Fowler, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1914), 1:391. 78 Plato, Phaed. 114C. 79 Philoponus, In Arist. de anima (Hayduck, CAG 15, 12,15–22) and In Arist. de anima (Hayduck, CAG 15, 17,19–26).

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Paul’s “spiritual food” provides a better interpretive framework for understanding the nature of the spiritual body of 1 Cor 15 than does Stoic physics. The existence in Alexandria of an interpretive tradition about the manna indicates that Hellenistic Jews had developed a concept in which a physical object had a spiritual nature of some kind – undoubtedly related to the spirit of God in some way. Paul’s determination that the spirit of God is not identical with the spirit of the cosmos contradicts Stoic physics. The concept of a σῶμα πνευματικόν in Greco-Egyptian alchemical literature already in the 3rd century may indicate that the expression was coined much earlier in technical discourse in Alexandria or Upper Egypt, but it is extremely unlikely that Paul was familiar with such literature. The likelihood is that Paul created the concept of a σῶμα πνευματικόν. Neither the alchemical nor the philosophical tradition is a convincing source. The πνευματικὸν βρῶμα of the Alexandrian exegetes indicates that Jews were reflecting on bodily objects suffused in some sense with the spirit of God. Both in Philo and in Paul the spiritual food is an object with a bodily nature of some sort that is not made of spirit. The context of 1 Cor 15 and the shared Alexandrian tradition of the πνευματικὸν βρῶμα imply that Paul did not envision a resurrection body made of pneuma.

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IV. From the New Testament to Early Christianities

Apollos of Alexandria Portrait of an Unknown SAMUEL VOLLENWEIDER

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Alexandria has found its way into the Bible – at least at its margins – due to Apollos’s activities in Ephesus and Corinth.1 Little is known about the emergence of Christianity in Alexandria, the famous metropolis, and thus the association between Apollos and this city seems to be like a lightning flash that comes without warning and briefly illuminates the sky before dissipating and being replaced by prolonged darkness.2 Nevertheless, the portrait that the New Testament paints of Apollos is vague, providing fewer answers than it does elicit more questions. Despite the meager evidence available and the inherent difficulties of studying this remarkable early Christian figure, I will 1 In addition to Alexandrian ships (Acts 27:6; 28:11), the New Testament also mentions members of a “Synagogue of the Alexandrians” in Jerusalem which seems to be identical to that “of the so-called Freedmen and Cyrenians” (Acts 6:9). See Michael Zugmann, ‘Hellenisten’ in der Apostelgeschichte: Historische und exegetische Untersuchungen zu Apg 6,1; 9,29; 11,20, WUNT 2/264 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 273: “als Verband dreier Landsmannschaften”. Robin G. Thompson discusses further possibilities in “Diaspora Jewish Freedman: Stephen’s Deadly Opponents,” BSac 173 (2016): 166–81. For a recent view on Alexandria as a multicultural site, see the synopsis by Luca Arcari, “Introduction: Cultural and Religious Cohabitations in Alexandria and Egypt between the 1st and the 6th Cent. CE,” in Beyond Conflicts: Cultural and Religious Cohabitations in Alexandria and Egypt between the 1st and the 6th Century CE, ed. idem, TSAJ 103 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 1–24. 2 Apollos is an outstanding representative of early Christian Alexandria according to Birger A. Pearson, “Christians and Jews in First-Century Alexandria,” HThR 79 (1986): 206–16 (215): “It is a Christianity which breathes the spirit of the contemplative Philo, and, more importantly, moves in a trajectory leading to the typically Alexandrian theology of such great figures as Clement, Origen, and Athanasius.” See also Pearson, “Earliest Christianity in Egypt: Some Observations,” in The Roots of Egyptian Christianity, ed. idem and James E. Goehring, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 132–59 (136, 149). Jürgen Wehnert, “Apollos,” in Alexandria, ed. Tobias Georges et al., COMES 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 403–12, plays with the thought that Apollos returned later to Alexandria with a great impact (“könnte seine christologische Schriftauslegung … dort schulbildend geworden sein,” referring to the Letter of Barnabas). For a recent and cautious view of Christian origins in Alexandria, see Bernard Pouderon, “‘Jewish,’ ‘Christian’ and ‘Gnostic’ Groups in Alexandria during the 2nd Cent. Between Approval and Expulsion,” in Arcari, Beyond Conflicts, 155–75.

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attempt to sketch an image of this unknown character, Apollos, as far as the evidence permits.

1. Apollos Attracts Modern Historians and Interpreters Interest in Apollos as the first representative of Christian Alexandria has primarily arisen within the modern era. In early Christian literature, Apollos is a marginal figure. His ancient reception history is also quite meager.3 Nevertheless, one early Christian source counted Apollos among the seventy disciples of Jesus, crediting with the number 32.4 He became either bishop of Caesarea or, of course, bishop of Corinth and he died as martyr, burnt alive in Syrian Apamea.5 He is called the “cupbearer of Christ’s disciples.”6 And according to Luther he is the author of Hebrews.7 Within the modern era, interest in Apollos, his theological profile, his relationship with Paul, and his effect on early Christianity significantly increased. Of particular interest to modern scholars was his relationship with the apostle Paul and his Corinthian affairs. Academic Apollophiloi interested in this particular facet of Apollos inquiries contend that this early Christian teacher was a devotee of Philo and that he became the initiator of a sophisticated wisdom theology consisting of Alexandrian speculation. In Corinth, it is argued, Apollos with his wisdom theology became an opponent of Paul and his crosscentered apocalyptic theology. The most elaborate expression of this model

Eckhard J. Schnabel, “Apollos,” EBR 2:411–14, does not offer any material. Chronicon Paschale (PG 92, 521C). See Pier F. Beatrice, “Apollos of Alexandria and the Origins of the Jewish-Christian Baptist Encratism,” ANRW 2.26.2 (1995): 1232–75 (1240n18). Beatrice considers traditions like these to be historical facts (see below n12). 5 See Beatrice, “Apollos,” 1241n21. 6 Nilus, Ep. 2.49 (PG 79, 220C: Ἀπολλὼς ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεὺς λόγιος ὁ ποτιστὴς τῶν Χριστοῦ μαθητῶν). 7 Luther WA 45, 389: “Apollo ist ein hochverstendiger Man gewest, Die Epistel Hebreorum ist freilich sein;” cf. WA 44, 709. More recently, the same position is taken by Albert Vanhoye, “Hebräerbrief,” TRE 14: 494–505 (496): “bleibt jedoch eine unbeweisbare Hypothese.” A very detailed explanation for this hypothesis is offered by Ceslas Spicq, L’Épître aux Hébreux, vol. 1: Introduction, EtBib (Paris: Gabdala, 1952), 209–19. Knut Backhaus, “Der Hebräerbrief und die Paulus-Schule,” in idem, Der sprechende Gott: Gesammelte Studien zum Hebräerbrief, WUNT 240 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 21–48 (44), writes, “besitzt der Gedanke Luthers einen gewissen heuristischen Wert. Denn der Missionar Apollos, dessen Bild aus 1Kor 1; 3f und Apg 18,24–28 ungefähr zu rekonstruieren ist, dürfte … den Typus darstellen, den auch der Hebr-Autor repräsentiert: theologisch eigenständig, schriftkundig, “alexandrinisch” gebildet und rhetorisch gewandt, in freien (für Lk durchaus problematischen) Beziehungen zum Paulus-Kreis stehend.” 3

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appears in the work of the late Gerhard Sellin.8 Sellin notes a heavy rivalry between a Paul-group and an Apollos-group in Corinth – a tension rooted in a rivalry between Paul and Apollos themselves. The so-called Corinthian πνευματικοί are pupils of Apollos, the representative of an Alexandrian dualistic wisdom and pneuma theology. Sellin, among others, finds constitutive elements of this spiritual wisdom in parts of 1 Corinthians, namely in ch. 2 and, later, in the discourse about resurrection in ch. 15. According to Sellin, Paul’s argument in these passages takes up central elements of Apollos’s theology. Furthermore, Sellin argues that Corinth’s enthusiasts have a soteriological understanding of the group leader as a “Heilsvermittler.” Accordingly, Apollos resembles the rank of Philo’s “man of God,” being the Logos of God. As such, Apollos – like every “wise” man – should be afforded with this status. This is a fascinating hypothesis. However, it is not only highly constructive (and therefore held together by tenuous assumptions), it also mischaracterizes Philo himself, who never thought a human person, even an exceedingly wise person, might take over the function of God’s Logos.9 In a much less exaggerated form, however, such a reconstruction of Apollos’s teaching and his central role in the Corinthian community is often advocated by scholars.10 According to this view, Paul intentionally formulates his theology in 1 Corinthians as a refutation of and response to Apollos’s theology. Putting aside interpretations that place an emphasis on Apollos’s influences from Alexandrian wisdom theology, there are other modern strands of interpreta8 Gerhard Sellin, “Das ‘Geheimnis’ der Weisheit und das Rätsel der ‘Christuspartei’ (zu 1Kor 1–4),” in Studien zu Paulus und zum Epheserbrief, FRLANT 229 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009 [1982]), 9–36. Among the predecessors of this kind of hypothesis is Birger A. Pearson, The Pneumatikos-Psychikos Terminology in 1 Corinthians: A Study in the Theology of the Corinthian Opponents of Paul and Its Relation to Gnosticism, SBLDS 12 (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1973), 18. 9 See the analysis of Dieter Zeller, “Philonische Logos-Theologie im Hintergrund des Konflikts von 1Kor 1–4?” in idem, Studien zu Philo und Paulus (Bonn: University Press, 2011), 119–28. But see the defense of Sellin himself in “Einflüsse philonischer LogosTheologie in Korinth: Weisheit und Apostelparteien (1Kor 1–4),” in Philo und das Neue Testament: Wechselseitige Wahrnehmungen, ed. Roland Deines and Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, WUNT 172 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 165–72. 10 See, e.g., Gregory E. Sterling, “‘Wisdom among the Perfect’: Creation Traditions in Alexandrian Judaism and Corinthian Christianity,” NT 37 (1995): 355–84 (383–84); Wehnert, “Apollos,” 409–12; idem, “Apollos und Paulus in Ephesos,” in Ephesos: Die antike Metropole im Spannungsfeld von Religion und Bildung, ed. Tobias Georges et al., COMES 2 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 223–52 (230–31), who even plays with the thought (“mit einiger Phantasie”) that the later Deutero-Pauline letters Col and Eph continue the preaching of Apollos, ibid., 230n18. A moderate position is taken by Knut Backhaus, “Apollos,” in Personenlexikon zum Neuen Testament, ed. Josef Hainz et al. (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 2004) 28– 29.

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tion that credit Apollos with the honor of being one of the founders of the famous Ephesian Christian community.11 These are some of the more prominent theories surrounding the interpretation and significance of Apollos as an early Christian figure.12 In the following pages, I will investigate the textual basis on which such hypotheses have been built. All scholars agree on this point: There are a scant number of texts, some of which are the most complicated ones contained within New Testament. After we have analyzed the relevant texts, the study will conclude with a somewhat sober result. The two texts of main interest are in Acts and in 1 Corinthians.13 See Werner Thiessen, Christen in Ephesus: Die historische und theologische Situation in vorpaulinischer und paulinischer Zeit und zur Zeit der Apostelgeschichte und der Pastoralbriefe, TANZ 12 (Tübingen: Francke, 1995), 45, 53–60, 86; Matthias Günther, Die Frühgeschichte des Christentums in Ephesus, ARGU 1 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1995), 46, 67, 54–58, 205; Helmut Koester, “Ephesos in Early Christian Literature,” in Ephesos: Metropolis of Asia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Its Archaeology, Religion, and Culture, ed. idem, HThS 41 (Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1995), 119–140 (126, 133); Michael Fieger, Im Schatten der Artemis: Glaube und Ungehorsam in Ephesus (Bern: Lang, 1998), 73; a rather reserved position is taken by Rick Strelan, Paul, Artemis and the Jews in Ephesus, BZNW 80 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996), 214: “one original Christian movement in Ephesus was from Egypt and not from Palestine”; Stephan Witetschek, Ephesische Enthüllungen 1: Frühe Christen in einer antiken Großstadt, BTS 6 (Leuven: Peeters, 2008), 358; Wehnert, “Apollos,” 405 (considered as a possibility); very summarily formulated by Mikael Tellbe, ChristBelievers in Ephesus: A Textual Analysis of Early Christian Identity Formation in a Local Perspective, WUNT 242 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 22: “All studies agree that the beginning of the Christian movement in Ephesus cannot be found in the Pauline mission, but in the mission of the Alexandrian Christ-believer Apollos.” See also the report of Eckhard J. Schnabel, “Die ersten Christen in Ephesus: Neuerscheinungen zur frühchristlichen Missionsgeschichte,” NT 41 (1999): 349–82 (367–68). 12 More recently Petr Pokorný claims that the so-called hymn in Phil 2:6–11 may have originated from Apollos and that he conveyed it to Paul in Ephesus: “Ephesos als Kreuzung frühchristlicher Traditionen,” in Ephesos: Die antike Metropole, 297–320 (309–13, referring to N. Walter). The most fantastic portrait paints Beatrice, “Apollos”: In Corinth, Apollos is not only Paul’s main opponent (in relation to the disputes in both Corinthian Epistles), but the representative of a radical encratism, stemming both from Alexandria and from the baptists (“another gospel: Apollos’s ‘encratite’ Theology,” ibid., 1251). He laid the foundation for radical encratism in Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, which later gave rise to gnosticism. He was one of the seventy disciples sent out by Jesus (ibid., 1260), so he knew the traditions of Jesus very well. Of course, he also represents a speculative wisdom theology and denies the resurrection of the dead (ibid., 1257). He stands behind the Nicolaitans of Rev 2 (ibid., 1261– 63) and is the author of the apocryphal “Gospel of the Egyptians” (and perhaps also of the Odes of Solomon, ibid., 1268–70). And finally, as an important Christian minister, he suffers martyrdom in Apamea (ibid., 1270). In summary, Beatrice writes, ibid., 1271: “the figure of Apollos occupies the crucial position between Jesus and Paul”! 13 Apart from Acts 18 and 1 Corinthians, Apollos is also mentioned in Titus 3:13: “make every effort to send Apollos,” and 1 Clem 47:3: “a man certified” by the apostles. William O.

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2. Two Lukan Episodes: Acts 18–19 Acts 18–19 recounts the beginning of Paul’s so-called third missionary journey. At the outset, the narrator tells the audience that although Paul arrived in Ephesus, he did not stay long but instead set sail for Caesarea shortly after his arrival (Acts 18:19–22). Though Paul sails away from Ephesus, the narrator lingers there to tell the audience about Apollos, Priscilla, and Aquila. This episode, which spans 18:24–19:1, provides us with the foundational text about Apollos. Following this episode is Paul’s return to Ephesus – while Apollos is in Corinth – and his encounter with twelve disciples who are connected with John the Baptist (19:1–7). The two stories (18:24–19:1a and 19:1b–7) are formulated similarly and share many parallels. We will come back to this point. The few lines about Apollos we find in this passage offer important information: 1. Apollos is a “Jew.”14 2. He is a native of Alexandria. 3. He is λόγιος, i.e., “eloquent” and/or “learned,” “educated.” 4. He is competent in the interpretation of the “Scriptures.”

All these elements about Apollos’s personal background seem to be internally consistent and do not conflict with the claim that he comes from Alexandria. The following points, however, are more difficult to fit within a consistent framework:

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5. He is “instructed in the way of the Lord.” This can be a mere biblical phrase that includes his lifestyle as well as a particular expression of ethics, or the phrase could be

Walker, “Apollos and Timothy as the unnamed ‘brothers’ in 2 Corinthians 8:18–24,” CBQ 73 (2011): 318–38, identifies Apollos with the “brother” in 2 Cor 8:18. 14 The theophoric name Ἀπολλῶς itself, which is short for Ἀπολλώνιος and other names referring to Apollo (see BDAG 116), does not allow any conclusion about the degree of his family’s cultural adaptation to a pagan-Hellenistic environment, against Elisabetta Abate, “Spuren der religiösen Identität der ephesischen Juden (1. Jahrhundert v. Chr. – ca. 3. Jahrhundert n. Chr.),” in Ephesos: Die antike Metropole, 205–20 (213, referring to W. Eckey). See e.g. Stewart Moore, Jewish Ethnic Identity and Relations in Hellenistic Egypt: With Walls of Iron?, JSJ.S 171 (Brill: Leiden, 2015), 258–59. Furthermore, the name interacts in some manuscripts with Ἀπελλῆς, a very common name among Jews (cf. Rom 16:10 and BDAG 101). See George D. Kilpatrick, “Apollos – Apelles,” in The Principles and Practice of New Testament Textual Criticism – Collected Essays, ed. idem and J. Keith Elliott, BETL 96 (Leuven: University Press, 1970), 186, who assumes that the original reading in Acts is Ἀπελλῆς, but that it is the same person as in 1 Corinthians. On the name change, see Friedrich Blass et al., A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), §29.4: “interchange of ε and ο”; Theodor Zahn, Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 3rd ed. (Leipzig: Deichert, 1906), 1:193.

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interpreted as a link to the message of John the Baptist (Luke 3:4 par. 1:76). The significance of a connection with John the Baptist will become apparent later within our text. 6. “He spoke being fervent in spirit”: The phrase itself is clear but how does it fit with Lukan pneumatology? 7. He “taught accurately the things concerning Jesus”: Linked with the interpretation of the Scriptures, this phrase might refer to a kind of christological hermeneutic of the Bible. Such an interpretation would fit well with the end of the passage, which claims that he showed “by the Scriptures that the Messiah is Jesus.” However, it must be taken into account that between these two descriptions of Apollos (Acts 18:25 and 18:28), he received special instruction from Priscilla and Aquila (18:26). 8. “He knew only the baptism of John”: With this detail, and those that follow in the subsequent section, the confusion concerning Apollos as a character begins. The text identifies a gap in Apollos’s knowledge, and narrates that Priscilla and Aquila fill this gap, providing Apollos with a “more accurate” teaching about “the way of the Lord.” Although this couple is closely linked with Paul and his mission, they were not converted to Christianity by the apostle himself (18:1–3). 9. Disputations with Jews (in Ephesus and, later, in Corinth). 10. Information about Apollos’s travel (Achaea; the Corinth-connection is supported by 1 Corinthians).

Our passage, together with the following one, has produced a series of scholarly hypotheses without any convincing solution. Although it is not my intent to navigate through this jungle, I will focus on a few elements in service of our search for the historical Apollos.

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2.1 Two Parallel Stories: Apollos and the Baptists The first task that must be accomplished is to illuminate the surrounding context of these parallel episodes. Prior the Apollos episode, and connected with it, the narrator provides a peculiar notice: Paul reaches Ephesus for the first time but departs shortly thereafter (Acts 18:18–23). Although there are some historical and exegetical questions regarding the veracity and the purpose of this travel information,15 what appears to be clear is that Luke deems it important to mention Paul’s appearance in Ephesus before he continues the narrative. Luke must cope with and work around the fact that the apostle himself did not found the Christian community at Ephesus. Accordingly, in some way, this short notice with its link to Paul and the first mention of Ephesus offers the reader a substitute for a foundation narrative. After the Apollos story Luke inserts another travel notice, this time narrating Paul’s return to Ephesus (19:1). What follows this travel notice (19:1–7) is in part a parallel to the previous story about Apollos (18:24–28). Paul encounters some “disciples” who were only baptized with “John’s baptism,” not having any experience or knowledge of the Holy Spirit. After being baptized 15 See e.g. Michael Wolter, “Apollos und die Johannesjünger von Ephesus (Apg 18,24– 19,7),” in idem, Theologie und Ethos im frühen Christentum: Studien zu Jesus, Paulus und Lukas, WUNT 236 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 402–26 (405–15).

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by the apostle, they receive the Spirit and speak in tongues. The basic pattern between the two stories is similar, though there are some differences: (1) Once again, Luke presents the reader with individuals related to John’s baptism. (2) These individuals are identified with the absolute μαθηταί, initially giving readers the impression that they are Christians. (3) However, as the narrative progresses, it becomes clear that these disciples are in greater need of an “upgrade” to their doctrinal understanding than Apollos. (4) This time, Paul himself (instead of Priscilla and Aquila) offered the errant disciples a corrective. The “disciples” episode can be read as a thematic resumption and variation of the Apollos narrative, but with marked intensity and exaggeration.16 This becomes apparent when comparing the manner in which Apollos and the “disciples” are depicted. There is a significant gap between them: the “disciples” are still part of John the Baptist’s movement while Apollos has, in part, already made the transition to Christianity; furthermore, the disciples have not been touched by the spirit, whereas Apollos was “fervent in spirit.”17 The contrastive portrayal of Apollos and the disciples creates a narrative that enhances the apostle’s own work in Ephesus. Paul himself, and not only the couple allied with him, brings these disciples to conversion. As a result, the story is presented as a kind of “third Pentecost” (cf. 2:1–4; 10:44–46) and the disciples’ number (twelve) corresponds to the apostles’ circle at the outset of the Christian movement. Read in this light, it seems clear that Luke creates a new little narrative reverting to the previous one, intensifying all of its elements. 2.2 A Teaching Upgrade: The Intervention of Priscilla and Aquila

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As we now turn to the Apollos story, one basic methodological question has to be clarified: How can one determine Luke’s role in the construction of his 16 The parallels between Acts 18:24–28 and 19:1–7 have often been noted, see esp. Ernst Käsemann, “Die Johannesjünger in Ephesus,” in idem, Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen, vol. 1, 6th ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 158–68 (167): “eine regelrechte communicatio idiomatum;” Scott Shauf, Theology as History, History as Theology: Paul in Ephesus in Acts 19, BZNW 133 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005), 140: “There is a clear similarity in the plot between 18:24–28 and 19:1–7,” see also ibid., 159. Shauf underlines the observation that “the deficiency of Apollos is really not the main point of the episode” but “his participation in the expansion of the Christian movement, particularly in the refutation of Jewish opponents,” ibid., 143. 17 See Charles K. Barrett, “Apollos and the Twelve Disciples of Ephesus,” in The New Testament Age: Essays in Honor of Bo Reicke, ed. William C. Weinrich (Macon: Marcer, 1984), 29–39 (38), Luke works “by making Apollos more and the twelve disciples less Christian”. The question is often asked whether “being fervent in spirit” relates to the divine or the human spirit. This is most probably a false alternative, which does not apply either in Acts 18:25 or in Rom 12:11. See also below n28.

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narrative? Is he simply a transmitter of old traditions, a creator of new stories, or an author who shapes his material according to his purposes? If we accept the possibility that Luke had a more or less strong redactional hand within the creation of this narrative, then we must ask about his main intentions. As we begin answering some of these questions, we must be exceedingly cautious about claiming that Luke ingeniously and systematically created new material for his narrative. The first Christian historian is not so much interested in inventing pure fictions as he is in developing specific theological paradigms through the narrative retelling and shaping of his material. The author’s purpose is to write a διήγησις, a narrative of Christian origins (Luke 1:1). Accordingly, the auctor ad Theophilum, being a great narrator as any historian of antiquity, converts some elements he finds in his traditions – like names, small pieces of local and personal notices – into miniature stories. That is why Luke has been imagined as a painter. Even though it is quite difficult to get behind the redactional wall of Luke, there is hardly any doubt that he works with traditions about Apollos and about some disciples from the movement of John the Baptist. And from his presentation of these episodes, the modern reader might get the impression that Luke has some difficulties handling them properly and integrating them into his comprehensive grand narrative.18 In the two passages here in Acts 18–19 we face most notably Luke’s authorial activity. It does not make sense to look for historical trajectories of Christian theology consisting of Jesus traditions without any knowledge and experience of the Holy Spirit and without a confession of Christ’s resurrection. In other words, seen from a historical perspective, the theological profile Luke attributes to Apollos does not seem plausible. It does not seem likely that Apollos knew of Jesus traditions but had only experienced John’s baptism and was, therefore, in need of an “upgrade” by the couple Priscilla and Aquila. The matter is further complicated when one notes the parallelism of Luke’s formulations within this short story: I. Apollos “had been instructed in the way of the Lord” and “he … taught accurately the things concerning Jesus” (v. 25). These details are parallel with Luke’s remarks about how Priscilla and Aquila “explained the way of God to him more accurately” (v. 26c).

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II. Apollos is “well-versed in the Scriptures” (v. 24) and taught “boldly in the synagogue” (v. 26a). Luke offers this description prior to Apollos’s upgrade and a parallel one about

18 See e.g. Knut Backhaus, “Lukas der Maler: Die Apostelgeschichte als intentionale Geschichte der christlichen Erstepoche,” in Historiographie und fiktionales Erzählen: Zur Konstruktivität in Geschichtstheorie und Exegese, ed. Knut Backhaus and Gerd Häfner, BThSt 86 (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 2007), 30–66 (64): “Die diffuse Situation von Apollos (Apg 18, 24–28]) und den Johannesjüngern zu Ephesus (Apg 19, 1–7) sprengt das vereinheitlichende Geschichtsbild und dürfte die mannigfachen Grauzonen christlicher Identitätsbildung wirklichkeitsgerecht widerspiegeln.”

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his work in Achaea after he received instruction from Priscilla and Aquila: He “refuted powerfully the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Messiah is Jesus” (v. 28).

The nature of the instructional upgrade carried out by the couple is unclear since it is linked neither with the transmission of the Holy Spirit nor does it end with baptism. Was their intervention to integrate Apollos (an “early Christian privateer”19) into the Christian and especially the Pauline communities? Whatever form this upgrade might have had, the author’s intention behind the couple’s intervention seems to be aimed at embedding Apollos in the overall historical setting Luke establishes in his work: Apollos has to be linked with the universal mission run in this phase especially by Paul and his team. Such a “heilsgeschichtliches” embedding of missionary activities of famous early Christian missionaries can also be observed in the case of Philip in Acts 8:9–25.20 Why is it not Paul himself who “optimizes” Apollos’s teaching and his ecclesiastical standing but “only” his allies, Priscilla and Aquila? We know that Apollos and Paul were in direct contact in Ephesus (1 Cor 16:12). Many scholars suspect that Luke knew about some rivalry between these two and tried therefore to keep them at a distance here in Ephesus.21 But there is a rather simple explanation that does not rely on historical background knowledge, if the story about the Baptist’s disciples in Acts 19:1–7 is understood as a narrative variation and adaptation of the former story, which enhances and intensifies its elements at several points: Now not only does the couple act, but also the master himself, Paul. And at the same time Luke is able to hint at Apollos’s independence of Paul and, by means of Paul’s temporary absence, to hint at the non-Pauline early developments in the Christian community of Ephesus. 2.3 Luke’s Apollos: Alexandrian or Levantine Background? Some details of Apollos’s portrait deserve special attention. Apollos is presented not as a Christian but as a Jew22 with great rhetorical and hermeneutiThis is the wording of Käsemann, “Johannesjünger,” 165–66, “urchristliche Freibeuter.” Friedrich Avemarie, Die Tauferzählungen der Apostelgeschichte: Theologie und Geschichte, WUNT 139 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 441–55, tries to maintain the historical reliability of as much material as possible connected to the narratives of Philip and of the Baptist’s disciples; he refers to an archaic rite of baptism without any link to the Holy Spirit. 21 See, e.g., Wolter, “Apollos,” 412, 415, 419–20. 22 Here the phrase Ἰουδαῖος δέ τις refers to a Jew rather than specifically to a Jewish Christian. See Walter Gutbrod, “Ἰσραήλ κτλ. (C./D.),” ThWNT 3:382, cf. TDNT 3:380: “When members of the community are called Jews, this is usually in explanation of the special circumstances or to denote that they are members by birth. … At [Acts] 18:2 Aquila is called a Ἰουδαῖος to explain why he was in Corinth. He had to leave Rome whether or not he had become a Christian.” Also Acts 21:20 and Gal 2:13 (cf. 2:15) are particular cases determined by their specific context.

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cal competence (Acts 18:24). He is a native of Alexandria (Ἀλεξανδρεὺς τῷ γένει). Immediately following these details is the information that he was an “educated man” (ἀνὴρ λόγιος). The semantic spectrum of λόγιος ranges from “eloquent” to “learned, cultured.” It is probably best not to treat these two meanings as alternatives. There is, nevertheless, some reason to put the emphasis on “learned, educated,” because Apollos is described as an outstanding biblical expert in the following part of the sentence.23 At first glance, Apollos’s origin and his education fit together well and correspond to Luke’s general intention of embedding his message within a context of ancient education, of paideia. In early Christian literature, the auctor ad Theophilum is an outstanding representative of a program of “Bildung.”24 If Luke hadn’t found this information about Apollos’s education in his tradition, he would have invented it! An educated Alexandrian Jew would look exactly like Luke’s Apollos – Alexandria was the famous city of Hellenistic paideia, of books, and of hermeneutics and, from a Jewish perspective, was important due to its connection with the legendary origins of the Septuagint.25 The Alexandrian color, however, is only a part of the picture. If we continue reading, another setting begins to prevail: the connection between Apollos and the baptist movement. In what follows, I will argue that the much more extensive and significant part of the description of Apollos and his activities is determined by the reference to the movement of John the Baptist. 1. Central is the phrase “he had been instructed in the way of the Lord” (v. 25a), which is an expression often used throughout the biblical texts.26 Alt23 See Gerhard Kittel, “λόγιος,” ThWNT 4:140, cf. TDNT 4:137: “the accompanying clause: δυνατὸς ὢν ἐν ταῖς γραφαῖς, corresponds so closely to the use attested in Joseph[us] that the sense of ‘learned’ is at least very probable.” See furthermore Ceslas Spicq, Lexique théologique du Nouveau Testament (Fribourg: Cerf, 1991), 924–26 (cf. ET, idem, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, ed. and trans. James D. Ernest [Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994], 2:403–6), with arguments for both meanings, together with a third, namely for “un titre d’honneur.” 24 See the hints in my article, Samuel Vollenweider “Bildungsfreunde oder Bildungsverächter? Überlegungen zum Stellenwert der Bildung im frühen Christentum,” in Bildung und Religion: Was ist Bildung in der Vormoderne? ed. Peter Gemeinhardt, SERAPHIM 4 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 283–304; repr.: idem, Antike und Urchristentum: Studien zur neutestamentlichen Theologie in ihren Kontexten und Rezeptionen, WUNT 436 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 375–94; Matthias Becker, Lukas und Dion von Prusa: Das lukanische Doppelwerk im Kontext paganer Bildungsdiskurse, Studies in Cultural Contexts of the Bible 3 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2020). 25 On the significance of such ethnic stereotypes, see Matthijs Den Dulk, “Aquila and Apollos: Acts 18 in Light of Ancient Ethnic Stereotypes,” JBL 139 (2020): 177–89. Den Dulk emphasizes the unexpected scenario of an uneducated Pontic manual laborer, instructing a learned Alexandrian. This story ties in with Luke’s general “reversal theme.” 26 For the “way of the Lord, ” see Gen 18:19; Deut 8:6; Josh 2:5; Judg 2:22; 2 Sam 22:31; Ps 24:10 LXX; Isa 26:8; Jer 6:16 LXX; Ezek 18:25; Jub 20:2; Sap 5:7. As regards the term “instructed” see Becker, Lukas und Dion von Prusa, 59–61 on κατηχεῖσθαι in Luke.

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hough the expression is at home in the biblical vernacular, it is more likely a specific reference to the performance and the message of John the Baptist with which the readers have been familiar since the beginning of the Gospel (Luke 3:4; cf. 1:76; 7:27; furthermore Acts 13:24–25; 19:4).27 2. Verse 25d refers explicitly to John’s baptism: Apollos “knew only the baptism of John.” Framing the description of Apollos in this way also suggests that the middle part of this sentence about his spiritual possessions and teaching (v. 25b–c) are loosely related to the “baptist section.” 3. Apollos’s “burning enthusiasm” is typical for any charismatic preacher (like Stephen).28 In addition, the phrase “boiling in spirit” (ζέων τῷ πνεύματι) is perhaps also a loose allusion to John’s announcement about the one who will baptize with spirit and fire (Luke 3:16; cf. Acts 1:5; 11:16; 13:24–25). However, it is an otherwise known expression (see Rom 12:11).29 4. Apollos’s teaching about “the things concerning Jesus” (v. 25c) refers most simply to the type of proclamation that was characteristic of John who had to prepare the way for Jesus. In some sense, Apollos shares the position of John being in between the age of promise and the age of fulfilment (cf. Luke 16:16; 7:28). The adverb “accurately” fits well with John’s announcement of the coming of Jesus: It is precise, especially because of the exact references to the Scriptures (Luke 3:3–6; cf. Acts 13:24–25; 19:4). Nevertheless, Apollos’s teaching remains in a blurred state, like the one of John the Baptist: The latter clearly looks ahead to Jesus, and yet he does not yet know him as a real person (cf. Luke 7:19). Only thanks to the intervention of Priscilla and Aquila does the preaching of Apollos mutate into the full proclamation of Jesus Christ (ἐπιδεικνὺς διὰ τῶν γραφῶν εἶναι τὸν χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν, v. 28). For Luke, the proclamation of Apollos undergoes an increase in accuracy and precision (ἀκριβέστερον, v. 26). 5. The statement that Apollos courageously spoke in the synagogue (v. 26a) also belongs in this section, as it attests to the continuation and localization of his teaching (v. 25). Seen in this light, the later remark about his

See Ulrich Busse, “Apollos: ein Geistlicher im Lernprozess (Apg 18,24–28),” in Mysterium regni ministerium verbi (Mc 4,11; At 6,4): Scritti in onore di mons – Vittorio Fusco, ed. Ettore Franco (Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane, 2000), 517–27 (520–21). 28 See Acts 7:55; cf. 6:3, 5; 11:24; 13:52. Wehnert, “Apollos und Paulus,” 229, refers also to the “anderen begnadeten ägyptischen Juden” in Stephen’s speech: Joseph (Acts 7:9–10) and Moses (Acts 7:21–22, 36, 38). Cf. also Wolf-Henning Ollrog, Paulus und seine Mitarbeiter: Untersuchungen zu Theorie und Praxis der paulinischen Mission, WMANT 50 (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1979), 40: “Die Wendung beschreibt Apollos … als überragenden Pneumatiker.” 29 See Albrecht Oepke, “ζέω,” ThWNT 2:877–78; cf. TDNT 2:876: “The combination τῷ πνεύματι ζέειν seems to be peculiar to the NT and was perhaps coined by Paul.” See also above n17. 27

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preaching among the Jews (v. 28), although it is already in Corinth, refers to v. 25f. and therefore also belongs in this series of statements. 6. The initial remark about Apollos’s exegetical skills (“well-versed in the scriptures,” v. 24d) is, at first glance, part of the “Alexandrian” section. However, the words can also be assessed differently. With the previous phrase “he came to Ephesus” we have already left Alexandria, so to speak. The following remark about the biblical competence of Apollos points in advance to the next statement: His expertise is filled in terms of content by the phrase of the “way of the Lord,” which we have previously assigned to the “baptist section.” 7. Above all, the central significance of the baptist background is reinforced by the following story about the twelve disciples (19:1–7), which is in many ways parallel to the previous one. We tried to understand this story as a variegated resumption of the previous narrative, which works with marked intensification and heightening. John’s baptism, his announcement, and his movement are like an overarching clasp that holds together the first two Ephesian narratives. “Alexandrian section”

Transition

“Baptist section”

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δέ τις Ἀπολλῶς ὀνόματι, Ἀλεξανδρεὺς τῷ γένει, bἀνὴρ λόγιος,

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εἰς Ἔφεσον, ὢν ἐν ταῖς

ἦν κατηχημένος τὴν ὁδὸν τοῦ κυρίου bκαὶ ζέων τῷ πνεύματι ἐλάλει cκαὶ ἐδίδασκεν ἀκριβῶς τὰ περὶ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, dἐπιστάμενος μόνον τὸ βάπτισμα Ἰωάννου· … 28εὐτόνως γὰρ τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις διακατηλέγχετο δημοσίᾳ ἐπιδεικνὺς διὰ τῶν γραφῶν εἶναι τὸν χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν. 19:1–7 the Baptist’s disciples

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Based on this understanding of the material in Acts 18, therefore, the narrator very quickly leaves the Alexandrian origin of Apollos. The initial remark functioned only to provide the audience with Apollos’s native origin (γένος).30 The “Alexandrian” profile is surprisingly kept tight: Apart from the mention of his homeland, the only information about Apollos that can be

30 In Paul’s case, Luke explicitly differentiates between his home town and his place of studies (Acts 22:3: γεγεννημένος – ἀνατεθραμμένος … πεπαιδευμένος, cf. 26:4).

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assigned to his time in Alexandria is the adjective “eloquent/educated.”31 It is no surprise that later at least one reader felt this marginal role of Alexandria and tried to amplify it.32

3. Various Roles in the Corinthian Community: 1 Cor 1–4

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In our assessment of the biblical portrayal of Apollos, we must briefly address the material found in 1 Corinthians. As already stated in section 1, there are many exegetical hypotheses that relate Apollos’s Alexandrian background with a type of “wisdom” theology in Corinth and postulate a more or less severe tension between Paul and Apollos.33 On this point we have to be content with a few observations. If we put the Alexandrian educational background of Apollos in question, then there is no compelling reason to link the Corinthian’s yearning for wisdom with him. Corinthian sophiaphilia and pneumatomania have to be explained without reference to an Apollosconstruction built on the basis of Acts 18. There is also some reason to seek an explanation for the Corinthian’s enthusiasm for wisdom in Paul’s own group – or even in the Christ group, if there has been one. Also Paul’s criticism of pure rhetoric in 2:1–5 does not necessarily address Apollos’s elo31 The vagueness and rarity of the statement is rightly observed by Johannes Munck, “Die Gemeinde ohne Parteien: Studien über 1. Kor. 1–4,” in idem, Paulus und die Heilsgeschichte (Kopenhagen: Munksgaard, 1954), 127–61 (136): “Man kann sehr wohl aus Alexandria stammen und Jude sein, ohne von der allegorischen Schriftauslegung und der hellenistischjüdischen Philosophie, die in dieser Stadt blühten, beeinflusst zu sein.” See especially Adolf Schlatter, Paulus: Der Bote Jesu – Eine Deutung seiner Briefe an die Korinther (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1934), 20: “Aus der Herkunft des Apollos aus Alexandria lassen sich keine Schlüsse über die Haltung seines Glaubens und seiner Predigt ziehen. In der grossen Judenschaft Alexandrias war alles vorhanden, was es an Formen jüdischer Frömmigkeit gab…. Vermutlich war ein von der Taufbewegung erfasster Mann von allen griechisch gefärbten Theologien weit entfernt, … dies war etwas ganz anderes als mit Platonismus begründete Mystik.” 32 In v. 25, Codex Bezae offers a slightly modified version that situates clearly Apollos’s education in his home town of Alexandria (ὃς ἦν κατηχημένος ἐν τῇ πατρίδι τὸν λόγον τοῦ κυρίου). This note has no historical value since it testifies to the tendency of the following centuries, “aus der heraus eine ganze Reihe von frühchristlichen Theologen mit Alexandria in Verbindung gebracht worden ist,” Alfons Fürst, Christentum als Intellektuellen-Religion: Die Anfänge des Christentums in Alexandria, SBS 213 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2007), 72; differently Pearson, “Christians,” 210; also Schnabel, “Apollos,” 411: “This comment is often interpreted to imply that the early Christian mission had reached Egypt some time before 50 CE, which is a distinct possibility.” 33 See also Niels Hyldahl, “Paul and Apollos: Exegetical Observations to 1 Cor. 3,1–23,” in Apocryphon Severini, Presented to Søren Giversen, ed. Per Bilde et al. (Aarhus: University Press, 1993), 68–82 (81): “Apollos is the person mainly responsible for the division,” and, even more, “Apollos’ philosophy, as distinct from Paul’s ‘wisdom of God’, can … be called gnostic.”

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quence.34 Furthermore, there are no clear signs of any underlying rivalry between Paul and Apollos in ch. 1–4.35 The problem in Corinth was factionalism (1:11–12). If one does not read the passages where Paul explicitly refers to Apollos through a “hermeneutic of suspicion,” one will only find rivalry and quarrelling between some factions in Corinth but not among their leaders.36 Finally, it is also not advisable to read the polemically interpreted passages in 1 Cor 1–4 as a prelude to the much more violent debates in 2 Corinthians.37 The central passage in this discussion concerning rivalry between Paul and Apollos is 1 Cor 4:6: “I have applied all this to Apollos and myself for your benefit” (NRSV; ταῦτα δέ … μετεσχημάτισα εἰς ἐμαυτὸν καὶ Ἀπολλῶν δι᾿ ὑμᾶς). Here, the term μετασχηματίζειν seems to have the meaning application or exemplification, a kind of indirect speech in order to spare somebody.38 As the phrase “for your sake” shows, this is about sparing the Corin34 This is a hypothesis shared by many researchers, e.g., Joop F. M. Smit, “What is Apollos? What is Paul?: In Search for the Coherence of First Corinthians 1:10–4:21,” NT 44 (2002): 231–51 (248–49); Duane Litfin, Paul’s Theology of Preaching: The Apostle’s Challenge to the Art of Persuasion in Ancient Corinth, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove: IVP, 2015), 323– 26. 35 At this point in accordance with Corin Mihaila, The Paul-Apollos Relationship and Paul’s Stance toward Greco-Roman Rhetoric: An Exegetical and Socio-historical Study of 1 Corinthians 1–4, LNTS 402 (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 211–12, 214; Devin L. White, Teacher of the Nations: Ancient Educational Traditions and Paul’s Argument in 1 Corinthians 1–4, BZNW 227 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 161–70 (164): “Paul presents himself and Apollos as … cooperative teachers.” 36 See Donald P. Ker, “Paul and Apollos – Colleagues or Rivals?,” JSNT 77 (2000): 75–97 (83): “while we may not be able to determine Apollos’s original teaching or intentions we are in a stronger position to gauge the Corinthian response to them.” Recently Timothy A. Brookins denies that the quarrels in Corinth have anything to do with leaders: “Reconsidering the Coherence of 1 Corinthians 1:10–4:21,” NT 62 (2020): 139–56. 37 So Gerhard Sellin, Der Streit um die Auferstehung der Toten: Eine religionsgeschichtliche und exegetische Untersuchung von 1 Korinther 15, FRLANT 138 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 67–71; Manuel Vogel, “‘Seine Briefe sind gewichtig und gewaltig’ (2 Kor 10,10): Polemik im 2. Korintherbrief,” in Polemik in der frühchristlichen Literatur, ed. Oda Wischmeyer and Lorenzo Scornaienchi, BZNW 170 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 183– 208 (188–192). 38 See the options in BDAG 642. The most illuminating example for this type of rhetorical method (not noted by BDAG) is Alexander Numenius, De figuris 20 (3,24 Spengel). Alexander deals with the rhetorical figure of apostrophe, i.e., aversio (“turning away”), understood in such a way that one blames person A, but actually person B is intended. He explains it in a Homeric speech by Odysseus before Troy (Homer, Il. 2.284–86): To avoid direct criticism of the Achaeans, the speaker “applies the word to Agamemnon (μετεσχημάτισε τὸν λόγον πρὸς αὐτὸν τὸν Ἀγαμέμνονα).” I have compared the passage of Spengel to the one in the electronic edition of: Jaewon Ahn, “Alexandri de figuris sententiarum et verborum,” (PhD diss., University of Göttingen, 2004), 31 (https://ediss.uni-goettingen.de). The passage of Alexander is already noted by Johan S. Vos, “Der ΜΕΤΑΣΧΗΜΑΤΙΣΜΟΣ in 1Kor 4,6,” ZNW 86 (1995):

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thians. Unfortunately, the following words are, once more in our subject, a crux interpretum. It is likely that the phrase “Nothing beyond what is written” (v. 6b) is a kind of proverb.39 But the central intention of this μετασχηματισμός is very clear: “so that none of you will be puffed up in favor of one against another.” This relates again to the fatal effect of factionalism. If we ask to what “all this” (ταῦτα, v. 6a) refers, it seems best to relate it to the whole passage that comes before it (3:5–4:5). There are two different consequences for understanding ταῦτα in this way: First, Paul relativizes the position of the servants of God, be they apostles or teachers, “planters” or “waterers” (3:5–15). Second, God’s servants, no matter their role, should not be played off against each other (4:1–5) – an effect of factionalism. Both of these points are held together by their reference to the last judgment.40 So God’s judgment gives no room either to self-aggrandizing nor to the criticism of others. Paul’s attack on Corinthian factionalism levels everything which seems to have power and position in this world: 3:21–23 offers a strong theological statement that fuses together Stoic praises of the wise man and the Christian “word of the cross.” Apollos seems, however, to have made a lasting impression on some Corinthians that led to the emergence of an Apollos group within the community. But if we have to abandon the wisdom-hypothesis, it becomes more difficult to explain the rise of such a faction. Did Apollos’s attraction stem mainly from his hermeneutical competence? Or was his acquaintance with SyrianPalestinian baptist circles – if this can be said with any historical certainty – and therefore his indirect association with the Jesus movement, something the Corinthians found attractive? Somewhat later, at any rate, certain teachers among the “Hebrews” seem to have impressed the Corinthians (2 Cor 11:22– 23), probably not least because of their close ties to the early Jerusalem congregation. For the Corinthians, they were probably particularly interesting as representatives of a kind of “barbaric wisdom.”41 Perhaps something similar was also an allure of Apollos. 154–71 (165). A slightly different rhetorical interpretation is given by Carl J. Classen, Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament, WUNT 128 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 34–36 (36): “Not only does Paul show himself familiar here with the terminology of rhetoric, it is with the help of such a knowledge of the technical vocabulary of rhetoric alone that one can fully and adequately understand and appreciate Paul’s phrasing.” 39 See the discussion in White, Teacher, 80–84, who interprets the phrase “as a maxim or praescriptio referring to the earliest stages of literate education.” 40 See the analysis of Christian Stettler, Das Endgericht bei Paulus: Framesemantische und exegetische Studien zur paulinischen Eschatologie und Soteriologie, WUNT 371 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 207–34. 41 See my article, Samuel Vollenweider, “Kreuzfeuer: Paulus und seine Konflikte mit Rivalen, Feinden und Gegnern,” in Receptions of Paul in Early Christianity: The Person of Paul and his Writings through the Eyes of his Early Interpreters, ed. Jens Schröter et al.,

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Finally, there is no hidden agenda behind the remark about Apollos’s travel projects in 1 Cor 16:12.42 The note instead points to a good and relaxed relationship between the two teachers. They were two independent, itinerant preachers who cooperated locally and maintained good relations. And the note is a small highlight on the intensive communication processes that existed between early Christian travelers and local inhabitants.

4. In Search of the Historical Apollos

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Turning back to Acts 18, my intent will be to provide a better picture of Apollos as a historical figure. Luke’s depiction of Apollos seems to be oriented more on his association with the baptist movement than with a refined Alexandrian educational context. From the information Luke provides, it is difficult to asses the nature of the information he has received about Apollos. Concerning the detail about Alexandria, he may have had only a brief note about his origin from there. Luke obviously correlates his Alexandrian origin with his education and, probably, with his competency in the interpretation of Scripture (Acts 18:24b–d). These correlations provide readers with a miniature portrait of an excellent Alexandrian teacher. However, everything that follows immediately in the Lukan account (v. 25) is textually related to the baptist environment: his doctrine about the “way of the Lord,” his spiritual fulfillment, some knowledge of Jesus, and finally the baptism of John. This baptist complex may also include the competence to interpret Scripture (v. 24d; 26a; 28). It is not easy to assume that all these attributions were originally made by Luke. The well-known difficulties of this story – and the next one dealing with the “disciples” (19:1–7) – show that the evangelist attempts to incorporate little older pieces of tradition into his tales about Ephesus, but the pieces remain bulky and protrude awkwardly from his finished edifice. Therefore, scholars have good reason to argue that Luke knew of traditions about Apollos that put him in connection with some groups who claim to originate from John.43 Of course, there is no need to make Apollos a disciple BZNW 234 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018), 647–74 (669); repr.: idem, Antike und Urchristentum, 201–26 (221). 42 See esp. Matthias Konradt, “Die korinthische Weisheit und das Wort vom Kreuz,” ZNW 94 (2003): 181–14 (193): “16,12 wäre … schwer verständlich, wenn Apollos in Korinth als Paulus’ Rivale und mit einer mit Paulus inkompatiblen Verkündigung aufgetreten wäre.” Konradt distinguishes between the wisdom hypertrophy among the Apollos-group and Apollos himself who did not introduce necessarily a kind of wisdom theology in Corinth (ibid., 214). 43 This historical linkage, esp. the phrase in Acts 18:25c: “though he knew only the baptism of John,” is often completely denied, for example by Käsemann, “Johannesjünger,” 164: “lukanische Fiktion”; Witetschek, Enthüllungen, 352, 357; Wehnert, “Apollos,” 405.

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of John the Baptist himself.44 In any case, Luke’s embedding of Apollos in a baptist environment is of some historical significance. There is more substance behind it than in the very general note about Apollos’s Alexandrian provenance. It is, furthermore, noticeable that Luke locates the activities of Apollos above all in a Jewish synagogue milieu (v. 26a; cf. v. 28). His focus on a Jewish audience at the fringes of a local synagogue community fits both with his provenance from Hellenistic Jewish Alexandria as well as with his connections to baptist circles. It also makes sense to suggest that Luke’s story about the Ephesian “disciples” in Acts 19:1–7 has a historical core.45 Surrounding this nucleus are a number of strong narrative traits Luke appends to the episode: In addition to the eye-catching number twelve, the gift of the Spirit accompanied by glossolalia and prophecy is outstanding. This third Pentecost event stands beside the two decisive watersheds in the historical outline of Acts, that is the Pentecost event in Jerusalem (2:3–4) and the one in Caesarea (10:44–46). Despite the strong redactional hand of Luke, the scene is not a mere fiction. Instead, it is an indication of the historical possibility that followers of John the Baptist played a certain role in Ephesus up to his time.46 The Christian congregation

44 In this regard, Avemarie is most likely right, idem, Tauferzählungen: There is no need Apollos “als einen ehemaligen Täuferjünger vorzustellen …, den bereits Jahrzehnte vor seiner ephesinischen Wirksamkeit ein seltsames Schicksal zu Johannes an den Jordan geführt hätte” (ibid., 439). A moderate position is taken by Paul Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius, WUNT 166 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 123: “We have no reason to think that Apollos had any strong connections with John the Baptist.” Knut Backhaus, Die ‘Jüngerkreise’ des Täufers Johannes: Eine Studie zu den religionsgeschichtlichen Ursprüngen des Christentums, PaThSt 19 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1991), 226, is a little more confident: “Der Jude Apollos hat die Johannestaufe empfangen, einen dauerhaften Anschluss an die Jüngerschaft des Täufers aber nicht gewonnen. Auch zur JesusBewegung hat er keine festen sozialen Beziehungen aufgenommen.” Cf. also ibid., 369; similarily Heinz Giesen, “Von Täufer- und Jesusanhängern zum Glauben an Christus: Apollos und die zwölf Jünger in Ephesus (Apg 18,24–19,7),” in Lukas – Paulus – Pastoralbriefe: Festschrift für Alfons Weiser, ed. Rudolf Hoppe and Michael Reichardt, SBS 230 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2014), 129–43 (135–36; cf. also 142). 45 For some indications of historical evidence, see Trebilco, The Early Christians, 130–34; Dietrich-Alex Koch, Geschichte des Urchristentums (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 316–20. 46 There is, nevertheless, no need to link the twelve “disciples” of Acts 19:1–7 too closely with John the Baptist himself. Nevertheless, they seem to be part of a movement derived from him and with reference to him. See Backhaus, Die Jüngerkreise, 211, 368–69: the “palästinische Täuferbewegung … repräsentiert eine relativ breite Strömung im spätantiken Judentum und begegnet der Gestalt des Jordanpropheten mit tiefer, mitunter quasi-messianischer Verehrung.”

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in this metropolis was multi-faceted and must have consisted of diverse, distinct groups, some of which with Jewish-Christian origins.47 In our quest for a historical reconstruction of Apollos, the question of his theological education and formation once again comes to the fore. His teaching and his abilities in interpreting the Bible are historically plausible even within a baptist context. After all, it is generally inadvisable to underestimate Jewish movements like the ones related with John the Baptist; they were not all rural and uneducated people. As subsequent centuries demonstrate, baptist groups were theologically productive. Such is the case with the Mandaeans as well as with the Elkesaites.48 For the 1st century, however, scholars are at a loss, having absolutely no material from which to work. At least one can assume that, within the Johannine circle, some among the baptist movement played an important part in an early phase of its Christian history. In fact, one finds later in the Fourth Gospel all the characteristics we encounter in Luke’s portrait of Apollos, such as hermeneutical competence, spirituality, and even some forms of rhetoric. This is not at all to make the claim that Apollos could have been the author of the Fourth Gospel, as it has been proposed in 19th century.49 But it is clear that, in later times, Ephesus played a remarkable role

47 See the outlines offered by Trebilco, The Early Christians, 712–17; Koch, Geschichte des Urchristentums, 287–322; Markus Tiwald, “Frühchristliche Pluralität in Ephesus,” in Das frühe Christentum und die Stadt, ed. Reinhard von Bendemann and Markus Tiwald, BWANT 198 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2012), 128–45; Jörg Frey, “Von Paulus zu Johannes: Die Diversität ‘christlicher’ Gemeindekreise und die ‘Trennungsprozesse’ zwischen der Synagoge und den Gemeinden der Jesusnachfolger in Ephesus im ersten Jahrhundert,” in The Rise and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries of the Common Era, ed. Clare K. Rothschild and Jens Schröter, WUNT 301 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 235–78; Benjamin Schliesser, “Vom Jordan an den Tiber: Wie die Jesusbewegung in den Städten des Römischen Reiches ankam,” ZThK 116 (2019): 1–45 (38–40) about the “melting pot” Ephesus. For the city as a whole throughout its history, see the volume of essays edited by Georges, Ephesos; furthermore Religion in Ephesos Reconsidered: Archaeology of Spaces, Structures, and Objects, ed. Daniel Schowalter et al., NT.S 177 (Leiden: Brill, 2020). 48 On the latter, see the proposal on the differentiation of Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, The Revelation of Elchasai, TSAJ 8 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985), 222–27; furthermore Tobias Nicklas, “Jenseits der Kategorien – Elchasai und die Elchasaiten,” in Shadowy Characters and Fragmentary Evidence: The Search for Early Christian Groups and Movements, ed. Joseph Verheyden et al., WUNT 388 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 177–99. See also the theological disputes that Mani began in his early years among the baptists according to the Cologne Mani Codex (esp. p. 72–106 Koenen / Römer); an English translation is offered in Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire, ed. Iain Gardner and Samuel N. C. Lieu (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 58–66; cf. esp. Luttikhuizen, Revelation of Elchasai, 153–64. 49 See the report by Rudolf Schumacher, Der Alexandriner Apollos (Kempten: Kösel, 1916), 45–49.

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in the history of the Johannine group.50 Accordingly, it is possible that this metropolis provided a suitable place for interactions between members of the baptist movement and the Johannine circle. Despite these considerations, there are definitely no signs that a group tracing itself back to Apollos would have formed among the Baptist’s followers.51 Furthermore, the fact that Luke reports nothing about Apollos’s missionary successes in Ephesus – he apparently travels to Corinth immediately after the intervention of Priscilla and Aquila – does not once indicate that any stable Apollos group, similar to that in Corinth (1 Cor 1:12), was ever formed in this city.52 Be that as it may, the doors are open for all kinds of imagination. Did Apollos, a Jew, become a follower of the Jesus movement in Ephesus first thanks to Priscilla and Aquila?53 Or was it just Luke who linked Apollos with this couple?54 And what of these two communities? Were the boundaries between being a Jew, shaped by the baptist movement, and being a member of the Jesus movement in the second third of the 1st century much more permeable than later as seen by some representatives of Christian orthodoxy? In sum, Apollos remains an almost unknown wandering missionary and teacher of early Christianity, independent of Paul’s team and yet connected with him in a collegial manner, whose traces are lost after his stay in Corinth and his return to Ephesus. His ties to Alexandria are tenuous. He is certainly not a representative of an early Christian community there. And the connection between his education and Alexandria is at best a charming assumption. 50 It seems, therefore, reasonable to see a connection between the baptist disciples of Acts 19 with the baptist circles who apparently played a notable role in the history of the Johannine group within Ephesus. See Hermann Lichtenberger, “Täufergemeinden und frühchristliche Täuferpolemik im letzten Drittel des 1. Jahrhunderts,” ZThK 84 (1987): 36–57 (47–53); Ulrich B. Müller, “Die Heimat des Johannesevangeliums,” ZNW 97 (2006): 44–63 (46–50); Koch, Geschichte des Urchristentums, 319. 51 The fact that Luke does not directly associate the baptist disciples with Apollos himself speaks against this: Despite all similarities, 18:24–28 and 19:1–7 are two different narratives, which were presumably first linked by Luke. See Trebilco, The Early Christians, 122–23: “Luke has given the two stories one after the other in his narrative. But beyond this, there seems to be no historical connection between the two.” 52 Jörg Frey, “Toward Reconfiguring Our Views on the ‘Parting of the Ways’: Ephesus as a Test Case,” in John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context, ed. R. Alan Culpepper and Paul N. Anderson (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017), 221–39 (225, 229), interprets the matter differently, assuming that during Luke’s time there was still a group of Christians on the fringes of the synagogue that traced itself back to Apollos. 53 This is suggested by Eduard Schweizer, “Die Bekehrung des Apollos, Apg 18, 24–26,” in idem, Beiträge zur Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Zürich: Zwingli Verlag, 1970), 71–79 (76–78). Differently Trebilco, The Early Christians, 122: “Apollos was almost certainly a Christian before he met Priscilla and Aquila.” 54 Such was the position of Käsemann, “Johannesjünger,” 167.

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Luke himself is more concerned with embedding him within the baptist movement than in an Alexandrian setting. And this connection with the baptist movement seems to be based on some reliable historical data. Apollos, therefore, turns out to be not a great thunderbolt highlighting early Alexandrian Christianity but rather a shooting star, a “Sternschnuppe,” that can be seen but does little to illuminate its surroundings. In fact, the depiction of Apollos in the New Testament leaves us with more questions than it does provide answers about who he was, his relationship to early Christianity, and to the great metropolis of Alexandria.

Locating New Testament Writings in Alexandria On Method and the Aporias of Scholarship JÖRG FREY 1. The Lack of Sources and the Curiosity of Scholars One of the most disturbing lacunae in early Christian history is our lack of any clear knowledge about the origins of Christianity in Alexandria and about the earliest history of the community or communities of Jesus followers there.1 We have no clear evidence as to when and how the message about Jesus arrived from Jewish Palestine in Egypt or Alexandria. The mention of Egyptians in the list of pilgrims in Luke’s Pentecost narrative (Acts 2:10) cannot count as a reliable source about early Egyptian converts, and we can only speculate about the connections of the “Synagogue of the Alexandrians” (Acts 6:9) to Alexandria or even closer connections between the Jerusalem Hellenists and Hellenistic Jews from Alexandria or Egypt.2 The first Alexan-

Thus Adolf von Harnack, Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, 4th ed. (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1924), 706: “Die empfindlichste Lücke in unserem Wissen von der ältesten Kirchengeschichte ist unsere fast vollständige Unkenntnis der Geschichte des Christentums in Alexandria und Ägypten … bis zum Jahre c. 10 (Episkopat des Demetrius).” Cf. the recent surverys by Markus Lang, “Das frühe ägyptische Christentum: Quellenlage, Forschungslage und Perspektiven,” in Das ägyptische Christentum im 2. Jahrhundert, ed. Wilhelm Pratscher, Markus Öhler and Markus Lang, SNTSU N.F. 6 (Wien: LIT, 2008), 9–44 (there the quote from Harnack, ibid., 9); Alfons Fürst, Christentum als Intellektuellen-Religion: Die Anfänge des Christentums in Alexandria, SBS 213 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2007), 70–110; and the earlier studies by C. Wilfred Griggs, Early Egyptian Christianity: From its Origins to 451 C.E., Coptic Studies 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 13–44; Birger A. Pearson, “Christians and Jews in First Century Alexandria,” HThR 79 (1986): 206–16; idem, “Earliest Christianity in Egypt: Some Observations,” in Studies in Antiquity and Christianity, ed. Birger A. Pearson and James E. Goehring (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 132–60; Attila Jakab, Ecclesia alexandrina: Evolution sociale et institutionelle du christianisme alexandrin (IIe et IIIe siècles) (Bern: Lang, 2001), 35–61; Annick Martin, “Aux origines de l’Alexandrie chrétienne: Topographie, ligurgie, institutions,” in Origeniana Octava: Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition, ed. Lorenzo Perrone, BETL 164 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 105–20. 2 Cf. Lang, “Das frühe ägyptische Christentum,” 12.

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drian we encounter in the communities of Jesus followers is Apollos,3 who is presented as a learned Jewish Jesus follower from Alexandria. But even with respect to Apollos, it is unclear whether he was converted4 in his home area5 or elsewhere, and it is quite difficult to get a full picture of this important early missionary from the meager remarks in the Pauline epistles and Luke. Paul focused his missionary efforts in the regions of Syria and Cilicia, Asia Minor, and Greece, looking to the West and even Spain, but apparently he never cared about preaching in Egypt or other regions in Africa.6 It is unclear whether at some time other missionaries went down to Egypt and founded communities there, or whether the message simply spread through the close connections between Jews in Palestine and their fellow Jews, through relatives in Egypt and the Cyrenaika, or through Jews making pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Furthermore, it is unclear whether such an “infiltration” of the message happened in the 40s or 50s, or only later, after the Jewish War and the rebellion of the Egyptian Jews, which was eventually put down by the Jewish “apostate” and Roman praefectus Tiberius Julius Alexander in 66 C.E. In any case, we have to assume that the groups of Jesus followers in Egypt first developed within the Jewish ethnos, and that they had a clear Jewish, or more precisely, Hellenistic Jewish imprint.7 The mission to Egypt is later mirrored in the legendary tradition about Mark, the disciple of Peter and evangelist, who is said to have founded and presided over the church of Alexandria.8 Eusebius who is our earliest source for this tradition dates his arrival to the third year of Emperor Claudius (i.e.,

3 On Apollos, cf. the sober contribution by Samuel Vollenweider in the present volume; see further Jürgen Wehnert, “Apollos,” in Alexandria, ed. Tobias Georges et al., COMES 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 403–12. 4 Thus a textual addition to Acts 18:25 in Codex Bezae and in the Liber Gigas. See for discussion, Lang, “Das frühe ägyptische Christentum.” 5 Thus a textual addition in the Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis on Acts 18:25. 6 We can assume that this was due to a particular geographical view of the nations of the world, inspired from the biblical table of nations and its later interpretation; cf. the important study by James M. Scott, Paul and the Nations: The Old Testament and Jewish Background of Paul's Mission to the Nations with Special Reference to the Destination of Galatians, WUNT 84 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002). Based on those views, Paul’s plans, as sketched in Rom 15:17–29, actually represent a concern for the nations belonging to Japheth, not Ham. 7 An argument which is often adduced is the fact that the development of nomina sacra in Early Christian papyri can best be explained from the Palestinian Jewish treatment of the sacred Divine name; thus Colin H. Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt (London: British Academy, 1979). 8 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.16.1.

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43 CE).9 Of course, this tradition is far from reliable. Due to the close ties between Palestinian and Egyptian Jews, it is plausible that the message about the Messiah Jesus could have arrived by that time,10 but everything about the early period remains in the dark. There are no early testimonies on which to build any kind of historical reconstruction. Due to the lack of historical sources, we can understand scholarly interest in any possibility of locating early Christian writings in Alexandria. If there were writings from the 1st century which could confidently be attributed to Egypt or Alexandria, this would be a considerable aid for reconstructing the origins of Christianity in Egypt. But are there writings from Alexandria or Egypt from the 1st century? Or are the first literary traces we encounter from that region the fragments of Basilides, Valentinus and Karpokrates, and the quotations of some other earlier works by Clement, specifically the two noncanonical gospel writings known as the Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Gospel according to the Egyptians?

2. Scholarly Suggestions and Methodological Questions

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When browsing through the works of “New Testament Introduction” or “Einleitung in das Neue Testament,” we discover reference to numerous attempts at locating particular gospel writings and some of the epistles within Alexandria. Thus, although most authors suggest an origin in Rome or in Syria or Palestine for the Gospel of Mark,11 a rare case has been made for an Alexandrian origin.12 Similarly, although the majority of scholars opt of a Syrian or Antiochian, and even at times a Transjordanian origin of the Gospel of Matthew,13

9 Eusebius, Chron. 7.7, in the recension by Jerome; the Armenian recension leads to a date in 41 CE; cf. Lang, “Das frühe ägyptische Christentum,” 21, referring to Alfred Schoene, Eusebi Chronicorum Canonum quae supersunt (Berlin: Weidmann, 1866), 152. 10 Cf. Alfred M. Perry, “Is John an Alexandrian Gospel,” JBL 63 (1944): 99–106, (100): “In the ordinary course of events, should not the Alexandrian church have been nearly the first established outside of Palestine? … Alexandrian Judaism must have had close and constant contacts with Jerusalem, – would not Christianity naturally have found a foothold in Alexandria even before it reached Antioch?” 11 Cf. the discussion in Rudolf Pesch, Das Markusevangelium, vol. 1, HThK 2/1, 4th ed. (Freiburg: Herder, 1984), 12–13, and Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 7–10. 12 Cf. the rather idiosyncratic suggestion in Klaus Berger, Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums (Tübingen: Francke 1994), 714; idem, Im Anfang war Johannes: Datierung und Theologie des vierten Evangeliums (Stuttgart: Quell, 1997). 13 Cf. the criticism of Brandon’s views in William D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Matthew: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, vol. 1, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988),

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a case has occasionally been made for an Alexandrian origin.14 The voices for Alexandria have been stronger with regard to the Fourth Gospel,15 although most interpreters favor either Asia Minor or Syria. While the Pauline and also the Deutero-Pauline writings are most likely unrelated to Egypt, an Alexandrian origin or background has been suggested for Hebrews.16 For various reasons, some interpreters also suggest an Alexandrian setting of the Epistle of James,17 the Epistle of Jude,18 and – in my view, most plausibly, 2 Peter.19 Few of these suggestions have found major support, as the evidence always remains uncertain. So the question of origin is an issue of scholarly methodology: For what reason could early Christian writings be attributed to an Alexandrian milieu? Does the hypostatic figure of the Logos (prefigured in Philo) or the adoption of Jewish Wisdom traditions (e.g., from the Wisdom of Solomon) point to the milieu of Alexandria? Can the reference to particular philosophical ideas be considered evidence of Alexandrian learning? Or can such elements be imagined in any urban context of the Eastern Mediterranean? Are there allusions to more specific Egyptian traditions or to other texts that are more firmly linked with Alexandrian Jewry or the Alexandrian mi139, and the general discussion in ibid., 139–47; Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 1–13, WBC 33A (Dallas: Word, 1993), lxxv. 14 Thus the view of Samuel G. F. Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church (London: SCPK, 1951), 221–43. 15 Cf. Joseph N. Sanders, The Fourth Gospel in the Early Church (Cambridge: CUP, 1943), 85–86; Henry C. Snape, “The Fourth Gospel, Ephesus and Alexandria,” HThR 47 (1954): 1–14; cf. critically Rudolf Schnackenburg, Das Johannesevangelium, vol. 1, HThK 4/1, 6th ed. (Freiburg: Herder, 1986), 133. 16 See Adolf Jülicher and Erich Fascher, Einleitung in das Neue Testament (Tübingen: Mohr, 1932), 160: “Der Verf. ist ein paulinisierender Christ von alexandrinischer Bildung.” Cf. also also Knut Backhaus, “Der Hebräerbrief und die Paulusschule,” BZ 37 (1993): 183–208, and, most recently, Claire Clivaz, “(According) To the Hebrews: An Apocryphal Gospel and a Canonical Letter Read in Egypt,” in Between Canonical and Apocryphal Texts, ed. Jörg Frey, Claire Clivaz and Tobias Nicklas, WUNT 419 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 271–88. An origin in Rome is suggested by Martin Karrer, Der Brief an die Hebräer, vol. 1, ÖTBK 20/1 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2002), 93–96. 17 See Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem, 237–39; cf., more recently, Henning Paulsen, “Jakobusbrief,” TRE 17 (1987): 488–95 (492); Berger, Theologiegeschichte, 714; and Udo Schnelle, Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 9th ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017), 466. The extensive new commentary by Dale C. Allison, The Epistle of James, ICC (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), 94–98, prefers Rome as place of origin. 18 Cf. John J. Gunther, “The Alexandrian Epistle of Jude,” NTS 30 (1984): 549–62; cautiously also Henning Paulsen, Der zweite Petrusbrief und der Judasbrief, KEK 12/2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 45. 19 See the thorough argument in Wolfgang Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus. Studien zum historischen und theologischen Ort des zweiten Petrusbriefes, WUNT 353 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013); cf. Jörg Frey, The Epistle of Jude and the Second Epistle of Peter (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2018).

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lieu? What can we conclude from the early reception in the 2nd century and from the attestation of texts on Papyri, given the fact that Papyri have only been preserved from Egypt, whereas material remains from all the other provinces have been lost?

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3. Glimpses into the Beginnings of Critical New Testament Scholarship Before looking at some of the arguments for locating the origin of John, Hebrews, and 2 Peter in Alexandria, we should briefly remember the situation at the beginnings of critical New Testament scholarship when exegesis or Biblical theology separated from dogmatic theology, questioning the traditional views of the authorship of canonical texts and developing initial thoughts on history-of-religions backgrounds. In this context, it was particularly the Gospel of John with its use of the Logos that inspired critics to suggest that John might originate in Alexandria.20 The observation of John’s “mystical” language, its allegorical narratives, a metaphysical Christology differing from that of the Synoptics, and especially the term and idea of the “Logos” suggested an influence from or even a composition in the Alexandrian milieu. The primary interest of those scholars, however, was not the place of origin but more generally the critical questioning of traditional ascription of the Gospel to the Apostle John in Ephesus. At that time, Alexandria provided the best option to distance John’s gospel from its traditional attribution to a Palestinian Jewish author writing in Asia Minor, or to question the Patristic authorship tradition. For scholars at that time, Alexandria was characterized by Pagan philosophy, Philonic tradition (with the idea of the Logos), and the allegorical method of interpretation. All these elements could be found in John, such that John could be distanced not only from the Synoptics, but more generally from the Apostolic origins of the Jesus tradition. Thus, the first thoroughgoing criticism of John’s authorship tradition by Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider in 1820 concluded that the author of John was neither an Apostle, nor a Palestinian, nor a Jew, but a Gentile presbyter, trained in Alexandrian teaching. 20 Thus Heinrich C. Ballenstedt, Philo und Johannes oder neuere philosophischkritische Untersuchung des Logos beym Johannes nach dem Philo nebst einer Erklärung und Uebersetzung des 1. Briefes Johannes aus der geweiheten Sprache der Hierophanten (Braunschweig: Culemann, 1802), 9–27; Georg K. Horst, “Lässt sich die Echtheit des Johannes-Evangeliums aus hinlänglichen Gründen bezweifeln, und welches ist der wahrscheinliche Ursprung dieser Schrift?,” Museum für Religionswissenschaft 1 (1803): 96–97, who suggests that language, design and thought patterns (“Sprache, Einkleidung, und Ideenform”) of the Gospel of John point to Alexandria.

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Hoc certe intelligitur, neque Joannem apostolum, neque Jesu comitem, neque christianum Palaestina oriundum ibique degentem, neque e Judaeis natum, sed alium quendam christianorum, disciplinae alexandrinae addictum et presbyteri munere ornatum (hoc enim ipse in epistolis posterioribus professus est) evangelium conscripsisse, et in eo exarando traditione et libro quodam scripto usum esse. Verosimillimum est, illum vixisse in Aegypto, partim quia de paschate aliam, quam ecclesiae Asiae minoris tuerentur, sententiam, eamque, quae ab ecclesia alexandrina tenebatur, sequutus est, partim quia ejus doctrina cum gnosticismo potissimum congruit, et Gnostici in Aegypto ejus evangelium primi cognoverunt, valde probarunt, et Romam transtulisse, sicque auctoritate ecclesiae romanae publicam ei fidem fecisse videntur.21

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Again, Alexandria is the tool to distance the Johannine writings from the traditional views of their authorship. But now, apart from the views about the Easter date that seem to differ from those of the church in Asia Minor, the main argument is the alleged congruence with the views of the Gnostics. In an initial attempt to critically discern different teaching patterns (“Lehrbegriffe”) within the New Testament, Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette22 distinguished between three main forms of the Apostolic teaching: Jewish Christian, Alexandrian or Hellenistic, and Pauline.23 The Alexandrian teaching pattern was considered quite different from the Jewish Christian teaching, and its main sources were, according to de Wette, “der alexandrinische Brief an die Hebräer mit seinem Allegorismus und die johanneischen Schriften mit dem alexandrinischen Philosophem des Logos und der ideal-mystischen Ansicht Christi.”24 For scholars in that period, Alexandria was largely viewed in contrast with Judaism.25 This tendency can still be found in the comprehensive sums of 19th century scholarship, in Heinrich Julius Holtzmann’s “Lehrbuch der historischkritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament”26 and in his “Lehrbuch der 21 Karl G. Bretschneider, Probabilia de evangelii et epistolarum Joannis apostoli, indole et origine eruditorum iduiciis modeste subiecit (Leipzig: Barth, 1820), 224. 22 Wilhelm M. L. de Wette, Biblische Dogmatik Alten und Neuen Testaments: Oder kritische Darstellung der Religionslehre des Hebraismus, des Judenthums und des Urchristenthums – Zum Gebrauch akademischer Vorlesungen (Berlin: Realschulbuchhandlung, 1813); on de Wette’s concept, cf. Otto Merk, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments in ihrer Anfangszeit: Ihre methodischen Probleme bei Johann Philipp Gabler und Georg Lorenz Bauer und deren Nachwirkungen, MThS 9 (Marburg: Elwert, 1972), 210–14. 23 Thus in the third edition, § 228: Wilhelm M. L. de Wette, Biblische Dogmatik Alten und Neuen Testaments: Oder kritische Darstellung der Religionslehre des Hebraismus, des Judenthums und des Urchristenthums – Zum Gebrauch akademischer Vorlesungen, 3rd ed. (Berlin: Reimer, 1831), 204. 24 Cf. de Wette, Biblische Dogmatik, 203 (§ 227). 25 It should be noted that in the 19th century, even Jewish scholars such as Heinrich Graetz did not consider Philo a true Jew, as his views were in such a strong contrast with “classical” (i.e., Rabbinic) Judaism. 26 Heinrich J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament (Freiburg i. B.: Mohr, 1885; along with subsequent editions).

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neutestamentlichen Theologie.”27 The Gospel of John and the Epistle to the Hebrews are both considered strongly influenced by the Alexandrian milieu and, in particular, by Philo. Not only the superficial adoption of the term “Logos,” but even more the metaphysical Christology and the concept of an allegorical narrative with little, if any, historical foundation are taken as evidence of such an origin. The main interest, however, is not to uncover a historical source for early Alexandrian Christianity but rather to historically explain the unique character of John’s narrative and thought. And again, Alexandria could provide such a context that markedly differed from the Palestinian Jewish tradition (of Jesus and the Synoptics) as well as from Pauline thought.

4. New Testament Writings and Alexandria 4.1 The Johannine Writings

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When turning now to more recent scholarship, we can see that scholars have generally become more cautious. Nevertheless, the arguments are still mostly the same in the various attempts to locate John in Alexandria. Of course, the Patristic testimonies locate the development of the Johannine tradition in Ephesus and Asia Minor.28 Due to the availability of sources suggesting an origin of Gnosticism in Syria and Transjordan, a considerable number of scholars in the 20th century have, then, suggested an origin of the Johannine tradition in Transjordan or Syria,29 while some scholars tried to assume that the Gospel was composed in Northern Palestine, under the rule of Agrippa II.30 The number of scholars suggesting an origin in Alexandria has been quite limited, but time and again this thesis is made with support from new arguments.

27 Heinrich J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Theologie, 2 vols. (Freiburg i. B.: Mohr, 1897; 2nd ed. 1911). 28 See most comprehensively Martin Hengel, Die johanneische Frage: Ein Lösungsversuch, mit einem Beitrag zur Apokalypse von Jörg Frey, WUNT 67 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 9–90. 29 Thus, Wilhelm Bousset, “Johannesevangelium,” RGG, 1st ed. (Tübingen: Mohr, 1912), 608–36 (613); Walter Bauer, Das Johannesevangelium, HNT 6, 3rd ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1933), 244; cf. more recently Jürgen Becker, Das Evangelium nach Johannes: Kapitel 1–10, ÖTBK 4,1, 3rd ed. (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1991), 64; Michael Theobald, Das Evangelium nach Johannes: Kapitel 1-12, RNT (Regensburg: Pustet, 2009), 96– 98. 30 Thus Klaus Wengst, Bedrängte Gemeinde und verherrlichter Christus: Ein Versuch über das Johannesevangelium: Der historische Ort des Johannesevangeliums als Schlüssel zu seiner Interpretation, BThS 5 (Neukirchen: Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1981), 77–81.

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The first wave of scholarship arose in the 1940s, following the “Introduction to the New Testament” by the Harvard professor Kirsopp Lake.31 At that time, scholars were impressed by the evidence of the freshly published papyrus P52 (P.Rylands Gk. 457)32 and the early reception of John in Egypt, which is also documented by Valentinian authors such as Herakleon and Ptolemaios.33 Based on the view of John’s independence from the Synoptics that came up in the late 1930s,34 Alfred Perry35 proposed an Alexandrian origin of the Johannine tradition, pointing to the “generally ‘Johannine’ (or gnostic) character of the Christian tradition that circulated in Egypt,”36 the unique Johannine style which was said to be more influenced by the Aramaic world,37 and the affinities with Philo “not only the Logos doctrine, but the whole mysticalallegorical temper.”38 Perry further points to the idea of an incipient Gnosticism in the background of the Fourth Gospel,39 to John’s Anti-Judaism which could have developed in Alexandria, and to the detail of the palm-branches from John 12:13 and suggests that these details “sound more like the work of an Alexandrian narrator than either a Judean.”40 Ten years later, H. C. Snape also referred to P52, the early attestation of John on Egyptian papyri, and the Egerton Gospel, which he considered a source of John.41 But since he fol31 Kirsopp Lake and Silva Lake, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1937), 53. 32 Cf. Colin H. Roberts, “An Unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel in the John Rylands Library,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 20 (1935): 45–55. 33 See especially the work by Sanders, The Fourth Gospel in the Early Church: Its Origin and Influence on Christian Theology Up to Irenaeus (Cambridge: University Press, 1943). 34 Percival Gardner-Smith, St. John and the Synoptic Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938); on the influence of the booklet of Gardner Smith, see Joseph Verheyden, “P. Gardner-Smith and the ‘Turn of the Tide,’” in John and the Synoptics, ed. Adelbert Denaux, BETL 101 (Leuven: Peeters, 1992), 423–52. 35 Perry, “Is John an Alexandrinian Gospel?” 36 Perry, “Is John an Alexandrinian Gospel?,” 103. 37 Perry, “Is John an Alexandrinian Gospel?,” 103; here, Perry draws on the work of Charles F. Burney, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1922). 38 Perry, “Is John an Alexandrinian Gospel?,” 103. 39 Perry, “Is John an Alexandrinian Gospel?,” 104; here, Perry can take up the numerous points of connection between John and Gnostic thought as shown in the works of Rudolf Bultmann and others. Cf., in general, Bultmann’s commentary: Rudolf Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes, KEK 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1941; ET: The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. George R. Beasley-Murray [Oxford: Blackwell, 1971]). 40 Perry, “Is John an Alexandrinian Gospel?,” 105; cf. also William R. Farmer, “The Palm Branches in John 12:13,” JThS 3 (1952): 62–66. 41 Henry C. Snape, “The Fourth Gospel, Ephesus and Alexandria,” HThR 47 (1954): 1– 14 (9), strongly based on the views of Samuel G. F. Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem and

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lowed S. G. F. Brandon’s view that the Gospel of Matthew was written in Alexandria, he could suggest that the author of John was an Alexandrian who finally wrote his gospel in Ephesus.42 The most comprehensive case for an Alexandrian origin of John was made in 1979 by J. J. Gunther. He concludes: “Abundant Johannine parallels to Philonic and Hermetic teachings and to Egyptian Jewish and Christian apocrypha point to a distinctively Alexandrian environment. Controversial antiJudaism is a special feature of early Egyptian Christian writers that corresponds to the uniquely hostile alienation of the Hebrews from their neighbors from 38 to 117 A.D.”43 In his influential study on History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, J. Louis Martyn also mentions the strong Jewish autonomy and adds the fact that there was also a Samaritan community in Alexandria which could also explain the reference to the Samaritans in John 4.44 Marco Frenschkowski45 has adopted the suggestion of an Egyptian (but not necessarily Alexandrian) origin of John. After an attempt to weaken the Asia Minor tradition as much as possible, he makes use of a number of earlier arguments for an Alexandrian origin of John: its use among the Valentinians, in Basilides, and in the Epistula Apostolorum, the attestation on Egyptian papyri and in other authors from Egypt, John’s isolation within the streams of NT tradition, and the fact that John 21:25 could suggest that John is the only book about Jesus. In the later parts of his article, Frenschkowski, then, strongly focuses on the term τὰ βαΐα τῶν φοινίκων used for palm branches in John 12:13. βαΐα is a Coptic loan word and would, thus, fit quite well with an Egyptian origin of the Gospel. However, as Frenschkowski mentions, a similar expression (βαΐα φοινίκων) occurs also in Testament Naphthali 5:4, and similar forms are used in 1 Macc 13:37 (βαΐνη) and 13:51 (βαΐα) which might be explained from the translation of the work in Egypt.46 Frenschkowski mentions a number of additional Egyptian texts that contain reference to palm trees which are mostly located in Egypt,47 but given the usage of the word in Jewish texts with certainly wider circulation, we cannot draw the conclusion that it was only understandable to readers in an Egyptian context. Moreover, the Christian Church: A Study of the Effects of the Jewish Overthrow of AD 70 on Christianity, 2nd ed. (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2010), who thinks that Matthew was composed in Alexandria after 70 CE. 42 Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem, 2nd ed., 13. 43 John J. Gunther, “The Alexandrian Gospel and Letters of John,” CBQ 41 (1979): 581–603 (603). 44 J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, 2nd ed. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979), 73n100. 45 Marco Frenschkowski, “τὰ βαΐα τῶν φοινίκων (Joh 12,13) und andere Indizien für einen ägyptischen Ursprung des Johannesevangelium,” ZNW 91 (2000): 212–29. 46 Frenschkowski, “Ursprung des Johannesevangeliums,” 221–22. 47 Frenschkowski, “Ursprung des Johannesevangeliums,” 223–25.

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it would be quite daring to decide the origin of a text based on one single term. A relatively weak case for the Alexandrian origin of a ‘first edition’ of John has been made most recently by Herman C. Waetjen48 who locates the growth of the gospel within Alexandrian Jewry and additionally points to parallels in the later Epistula Apostolorum and the Apocryphon of James from Nag Hammadi. But none of the parallels adduced by Waetjen can be considered sufficient evidence for locating the Fourth Gospel precisely in this context. Therefore, the majority of Johannine scholarship is still unconvinced of an Alexandrian origin of John. It is more interesting to see how the arguments have changed: In contrast with earlier scholarship, the general impression of a Philonic atmosphere, the correspondence with the term “logos,” or the Johannine liberty concerning the historical tradition can no longer serve as arguments for an Alexandrian background. Logos was widely used in various philosophical and religious contexts,49 an allegorizing way of narrating could also be developed in any urban area of the Eastern Mediterranean, and educated Diaspora Jews lived in Antioch or Ephesus as well. Thus, the reference to (Jewish) traditions from Alexandria (Wisdom, Philo) is no longer a convincing argument for locating John in Egypt. The hint to the early reception of John or its textual attestation is also unconvincing, as the Egyptian reception and the number of Egyptian papyri cannot provide a firm argument for the view that John was also composed in Egypt. For these reasons, more recent scholars look for philological evidence, such as a term with a particular local connotation. But the change in the arguments also shows the aporia: It is possible that John originated from Alexandria, but there is no firm basis for comparison, neither in the earlier tradition nor in the later reception. Therefore, any attempt to locate John somewhere other than Ephesus – in Syria, Transjordan, and even in Alexandria – remains mere guesswork.

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4.2 Hebrews We can – much more briefly – turn to Hebrews which in earlier scholarship had also been linked with Alexandria. In the 16th century, Martin Luther con-

48 Herman C. Waetjen, The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple: A Work in Two Editions (New York: T&T Clark, 2005), 30–49. 49 Cf. Jörg Frey, “Between Tora and Stoa: How Could Readers Have Understood the Johannine Logos?” in The Prologue of the Gospel of John: Literary, Theological, and Philosophical Contexts; Papers Read at the Colloquium Ioanneum 2013, WUNT 359 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 186–231 (202–19).

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sidered that it might have been written by Apollos.50 But since Origen’s view that “only God knows” the author of Hebrews51 has become widely accepted, scholars have instead focused on identifying its addressees rather than its place of origin. The crucial question is, therefore, whether the inscription “to the Hebrews” actually points to the original addressees as Jewish-Christians, who were given such a designation most probably outside of Jewish Palestine, or whether it is instead deduced from the contents of the writing and its extensive quotation of the Jewish Scriptures. The second question is whether and how the end of Hebrews, the greetings from “those from Italy” (Heb 13:24), can be used to locate the addressees. These features suggest that the writing – if it was actually sent – was sent to Italy, possibly, but not certainly, to Rome from another region, where some people from Italy lived and now sent their greetings back home. An understanding in the reverse direction, that is, from Italy to elsewhere (“all Italians send their greetings”), seems less plausible.52 This opens up the possibility that the epistle originates in Egypt or Alexandria, but admittedly it could also be explained from many other places in the Eastern Mediterranean. With regard to history-of-religions matters, there were always scholars who strongly linked the thought world of Hebrews with Philo. Ceslas Spicq even considered the author of Hebrews a converted Philonian,53 but without locating him in Alexandria. Thus, while it is more plausible that the epistle was written to Italy/Rome than written by Rome, an Alexandrian origin cannot be ascertained. It is clear that Hebrews was read and received in Alexandria,54 even as a Pauline letter,55 but whether it was actually written there cannot be determined. 4.3 The Catholic Epistles and 2 Peter

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Things are different with the Catholic Epistles. Of course, this collection is not a unity and its canonical coherence as a corpus of “catholic” epistles, attributed to authors different from Paul, or more precisely, to the Jerusalem “pillars” Paul encounters in Jerusalem – James,56 Peter, and John (Gal 2:9) – 50 Cf. Martin Luther’s “Kirchenpostille” (sermon on 1:1–12 for Christmas day), in D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 10.1.1 (Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1910), 143. 51 Origen, in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.25.14. 52 Cf. Knut Backhaus, Der Hebräerbrief, RNT 12 (Regensburg: Pustet, 2009), 493. 53 Ceslas Spicq, L’ Épître aux Hébreux, EtB 1 (Paris: Gabalda, 1952), 111. 54 Cf. Clivaz “(According) To the Hebrews,” 281–86. 55 Thus in the Egyptian papyrus P 46, see Clare K. Rothschild, Hebrews as Pseudepigraphon: The History and Significance of the Pauline Attribution of Hebrews, WUNT 235 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 42. 56 Jude as an author can be linked with James, as he functions as a kind of “Second James.” Cf. Jörg Frey, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, trans. Kathleen P. Ess (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2018), 60.

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is only achieved after a long and complicated history of collection.57 The Johannine Epistles have their origin in the vicinity of the Fourth Gospel, and their way into the collection of the Catholic epistles is still unclear. 1 Peter is also a very particular text. It is clearly independent from Paul,58 and originated either in Rome (according to tradition) or in Asia Minor. The epistles ascribed to James, James’s brother Jude, as well as 2 Peter, however, mark a quite distinct line of tradition which is, in various ways, opposed to Paul and the Pauline school.59 I can only very briefly discuss James and Jude and will then more thoroughly enter the debate on 2 Peter. The Epistle of James has traditionally been read in opposition to Paul or the Pauline school.60 Some more recent scholars have criticized the antiPauline reading and, instead, stressed that the epistle generally draws on Jewish Wisdom literature.61 However, since the particular terminology used in James 2 does not occur in Jewish texts before Paul, it seems reasonable to assume that the epistle does indeed critically react to views held by Paul or his followers.62 From the adoption of sapiential traditions and from some aspects of James’s imagery, some scholars have also assumed an origin in Alexandria.63 Other scholars, instead, suggested an origin in Palestine, in

57 See the history of the collection in Andreas Merkt, Der erste Petrusbrief, Novum Testamentum Patristicum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015). 58 See the discussion in Jens Herzer, Paulus oder Petrus? Studien über das Verhältnis des Ersten Petrusbriefes zur paulinischen Tradition, WUNT 103 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998). 59 Cf., for discussion Jörg Frey, “Between Holy Tradition and Christian Virtues? The Use of πίστις/πιστεύειν in Jude and 2 Peter,” in Glaube: Das Verständnis des Glaubens im frühen Christentum und in seiner jüdischen und hellenistisch-römischen Umwelt, ed. idem, Benjamin Schliesser and Nadine Ueberschaer, WUNT 373 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 609–40. 60 Cf. the suggestion by Martin Hengel, “Der Jakobusbrief als antipaulinische Polemik,” in idem, Paulus und Jakobus: Kleine Schriften III, WUNT 141 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 510–48. Hengel considers James an authentic letter by the brother of the Lord, strictly directed against Paul. Scholars who considers James a pseudepigraphon, then, see the intention against misunderstandings of Paul, or the Pauline school. 61 Thus Christoph Burchard, Der Jakobusbrief, HNT 15.1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000); Matthias Konradt, Christliche Existenz nach dem Jakobusbrief, SUNT 22 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998); idem, “Der Jakobusbrief im frühchristlichen Kontext,” in The Catholic Epistles and the Tradition, ed. Jacques Schlosser, BETL 176 (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 171–212; Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, “‘A New Perspective on James?’: Neue Forschungen zum Jakobusbrief,” TLZ 129 (2004): 1019–44. 62 Cf. Frey, “Between Hoy Tradition and Christian Virtues?”; following the argument in Friedrich Avemarie, “Die Werke des Gesetzes im Spiegel des Jakobusbriefs: A Very Old Perspective on Paul,” ZTK 98 (2001): 282–309; and Allison, The Epistle of James, 448–53. 63 Thus e.g. Schnelle, Einleitung, 466; and Franz Schnider, Der Jakobusbrief, RNT (Regensburg: Pustet, 1987), 18.

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Syria, or even in Rome,64 while still others simply left the issue open.65 Designed as a Diaspora-Letter (Jas 1:1), James addresses a very wide, general audience. For such a “catholic” setting, not only the place of the addressees but also the place of origin is of minor relevance and can, in my view, no longer be determined with sufficient certainty. The brief letter ascribed to Jude, James’s brother, is quite different from James, although the prescript and some other textual elements apparently draw on the Epistle of James.66 Unlike James, the epistle is not shaped by sapiential traditions but rather by Apocalyptic, in particular Enochic traditions. The author quotes Enoch as a prophet (Jude 14; cf. 1 En 1:8–9), and he apparently shares the concept of angelic beings who occupy an ἀρχή (cf. Rom 8:38; Col 1:16; 2:15), that is, a position of celestial or “cosmic” power or rule. His main interest is in refuting the opponents’ “slandering” of angels (Jude 8, 10),67 that is, their alleged rejection of a certain cosmic or soteriological relevance of the angels or even of angel veneration. In the New Testament, it is especially the Pauline tradition where such a prominent function of the angels is criticized and minimized for christological reasons. According to Paul, not one of those powers can separate the faithful from Christ (Rom 8:38–39), yet the faithful will finally sit in judgment over the angels (1 Cor 6:2–3). This tendency toward disempowering angelic forces is intensified in the Deutero-Pauline tradition (Col 1:16; 2:15; Eph 1:21; 3:10). It is, therefore, a plausible suggestion to locate the addressees and possibly also the pseudonymous author of Jude in an area of the Pauline ministry, most probably in Asia Minor.68 There are, however, attempts to locate the origin of Jude in Egypt,69 particularly in view of its reception in Clement of Alexandria and earlier in 2 Peter.70 But again it is easily conceivable that the small letter of

64

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98. 65 Thus Wiard Popkes, Der Brief des Jakobus, ThHK 14 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2001), 69. 66 See Jörg Frey, “The Epistle of Jude between Judaism and Hellenism,” in The Catholic Epistles and the Apostolic Tradition, ed. Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr and Robert W. Wall (Waco: Balor University Press, 2009), 309–30, 463–75; idem, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, 57–60. 67 On the various charges against the opponents and the issue about what was actually at stake, see Jörg Frey, “Disparagement as Argument,” in Moral Language in the New Testament, ed, Jan G. van der Watt and Ruben Zimmermann, WUNT 2/296 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 275–310; idem, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, 33–44. 68 Cf. Frey, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, 32–33. 69 Thus in particular John J. Gunther, “The Alexandrian Epistle of Jude,” NTS 30 (1984): 549–62, with a set of bold hypotheses. 70 Cf. Henning Paulsen, Der zweite Petrusbrief und der Judasbrief, KEK 12/2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 45.

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Jude was transmitted to Alexandria where it was then used by 2 Peter and later commented upon by Clement of Alexandria. Therefore, 2 Peter might be the only New Testament writing for which we can make a better case for an Alexandrian origin. The argument has been presented thoroughly by Wolfgang Grünstäudl in his dissertation “Petrus Alexandrinus.”71 In my commentary on Jude and 2 Peter, I adopt Grünstäudl’s views, supplemented by the findings of some other colleagues, including Tobias Nicklas, Thomas J. Kraus, and Jan N. Bremmer,72 for developing what I call a “new Perspective on Second Peter.”73 The argument presupposes74 that 2 Peter is a pseudepigraphon which presupposes 1 Peter (in 2 Pet 3:1) as an already well-accepted letter and draws on Jude which is used in a discrete manner for inspiring the polemics against opponents.75 Yet a close reading reveals that the opponents rejected in 2 Peter are quite different from those denigrated in Jude.76 Therefore, the two epistles cannot be explained from the same milieu or community situation. Instead, they address different situations and fight against different opponents, with the author of 2 Peter reusing some of the polemical tools of Jude. The author fiction of 2 Peter suggests that the addressees do not know the author’s source attributed to the rather unknown brother of Jesus and James, because “Peter” in his final testimony before death (2 Pet 1:14–15) is not supposed to utilize foreign texts as a source. Since 2 Peter is also a real “catholic” letter, it is not addressed to a specific community. Instead “Peter” addresses all true believers after his death. The problem addressed in 2 Peter is – unlike Jude – the problem of the alleged delay (or implicit negation) of the Parousia (3:3– 4), but the refutation shows awareness of philosophical discourses about the immutability of the world and adopts – uniquely in the NT – the Stoic idea of a conflagration of the world which is adapted with Christian eschatological tradition. Interestingly, such a view is never adopted in Jewish texts, apart from the Egyptian Sibylline Oracles, and the only close “Christian” parallel is in the Apocalypse of Peter.77 This is a strong argument for the assumption Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus, 234–86. Cf. Frey, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, 221–24. 73 Jörg Frey, “Second Peter in New Perspective,” in 2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter: Towards a New Perspective: Radboud Prestige Lectures by Jörg Frey, ed. idem, Matthijs Dulk and Jan G. van der Watt, BIS 174 (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 7–74. 74 The following is a brief summary of the main points of my introduction to Second Peter in Frey, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, 163–233. 75 Frey, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, 182–92. 76 Cf. Jörg Frey, “Autorfiktion und Gegnerbild im Judasbrief und im Zweiten Petrusbrief,” in Pseudepigraphie und Verfasserfiktion in frühchristlichen Briefen, ed. idem et al., WUNT 246 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 683–732 (711–27); idem, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, 224–32. 77 Cf. Frey, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, 394–400.

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that the author draws on a set of ideas particularly present in Egypt, which he diligently uses to refute the negation of the Parousia or the skepticism against any eschatological fulfilment. One further cornerstone of the argument has to be explained: the relationship between 2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter.78 In contrast with the traditional view that the apocryphal Apocalypse of Peter is later than and dependent on canonical 2 Peter,79 Wolfgang Grünstäudl has convincingly shown that the dependence can be better explained in the reverse direction. In some aspects, 2 Peter seems to draw on the apocryphal Apocalypse of Peter which is, however, only completely preserved in an Ethiopic version, whereas the Greek is only preserved in some fragments.80 The most important point is the fact that the Apocalypse of Peter seems to take the martyrdom of Peter in Rome as in indicator that the eschatological completion has already begun.81 Such a dated eschatological expectation, however, implies the danger that it becomes outdated and questionable when time goes on and nothing happens. It is this skeptic denial which is attributed to the “scoffers” in 2 Peter 3:3–4: The fathers have died, and nothing has happened. Instead the world goes on unchanged (and will never change). The view of the opponents quoted here is not merely the simple sobriety due to the delay of the Parousia. Instead, it seems to draw on a particular expectation, linked with the lifetime or death of the “fathers” (probably the first Christian generation, including Peter). Now they have died, and nothing has changed, and this perception is indeed a deadly threat to any kind of further eschatological hope. If we can reconstruct the background of the epistle and its argument this way, the epistolary construction of 2 Peter can be explained better. It is a testament of Peter confirming what the Lord had actually revealed to him about his martyrdom (cf. 2 Peter 1:12–15), including the truth of the eschato78 Cf. Frey, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, 201–6; Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus, 113–37. 79 Thus the argument by Richard Bauckham, “2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter,” in The Fate of the Dead: Studies on the Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, NovTSup 93 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 290–303; idem, “The Apocalypse of Peter: An Account of Recent Research,” ANRW 2.25.6 (1988): 4712–50; but cf. his recent reaction on my suggestions in which Bauckham now drops the view of any dependence between the two writings: Richard Bauckham, “2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter Revisited: A Response to Jörg Frey,” in Frey, Dulk and van der Watt, 2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter, 261–81. 80 See the edition of the Greek fragments in Thomas J. Kraus and Tobias Nicklas, Das Petrusevangelium und die Petrusapokalype: Die griechischen Fragmente in deutscher und englischer Übersetzung, GCS NF 11 and Neutestamentliche Apokryphen 1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004). 81 Cf. in particular Tobias Nicklas, “‘Drink the Cup Which I Promised You’ (Apoc. Pet. 14:4): The Death of Peter and the End of Times,” in The Open Mind: Aspects of Apocalypticism in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity (FS for Christopher Rowland), ed. Jonathan Knight and Kevin Sullivan, LNTS (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2014), 183–200.

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logical promise. But now, this expectation is no longer linked with certain events or indicators of time, because from God’s perspective, 1,000 years are like a single day. This reads like a correction of the naïve expectation uttered in the Apocalypse of Peter, while also confirming the expectation of the final completion and judgment, including the image of a conflagration of the whole world as a rejection of the skeptical “scoffers.” For the present purpose, it is only important to maintain that, against the traditional suggestion that 2 Peter was composed either in Rome or Asia Minor, the best option for locating 2 Peter is Egypt or Alexandria:82 The first attestation of the writing is in Origen (i.e., in Alexandrian tradition) and in manuscripts from Egypt (P72). Particularly in Alexandria, there was an urban milieu with a thriving Christian educational system, with evidence of the reception of Hellenistic-Jewish traditions and the encounter with pagan thought, as well as reflection about forms of scriptural interpretation and concepts of Christian “knowledge.”83 The knowledge of other “Petrine” texts probably originating from Egypt such as the Apocalypse of Peter84 and possibly also the Kerygma of Peter,85 and the adoption of the Egyptian tradition about a conflagration of the world (2 Peter 3:6, 10) as presented in the Sibylline Oracles and also in the Apocalypse of Peter86 can provide a much stronger argument than only the reference to education and literary style. Moreover, Grünstäudl has pointed to interesting connections between 2 Peter and concepts found in the theology of Clement of Alexandria.87 The educated milieu in the Egyptian metropole could also offer a context in which the authorial fiction of 2 Peter would be understood as a literary stylistic device and in which the author could also expect an appropriate reception of his boldly constructed pseudepigraphy.

82 See also the earlier suggestions by Eric Fuchs and Pierre Reymond, La deuxieme épitre de Saint Pierre, l’epitre de Saint Jude, CNT 13b (Paris: Cerf, 1980), 40; Henning Paulsen, Der zweite Petrusbrief und der Judasbrief, KEK 12/2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 95; Ceslas Spicq, Les Epitres de Saint Pierre, Sources bibliques (Paris: Gabalda, 1966), 195; and Hans-Martin Schenke and Karl Martin Fischer, Einleitung in die Schriften des Neuen Testaments (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1979), 2:321–30. 83 Cf. Fuchs and Reymond, La deuxieme épitre de Saint Pierre, 41. 84 On the Egyptian background of the Apocalypse of Peter, see Frey, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, 203, and the literature mentioned below, n88. Indicators of this are, among other things, the river of fire (Apoc. Pet. 12), the mention of the Acherusian lake and Elysian fields (Apoc. Pet. 14), and the punishing angel Temelouchos (= Apoc. Pet. [Ethiopic text] 8: Temlakos). 85 Cf. Frey, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, 206–8. 86 Cf. Frey, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, 394–400. 87 Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus, 283–84: “among those Christian educators of Alexandria … who for us can be seen in the texts of Clement of Alexandria – in particular in Adumbr./Hyp., Exc., and Ecl. ….” Cf. ibid., 293.

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Locating 2 Peter in Alexandria contradicts the classical location of Petrine traditions in Rome but this is in accord with more recent scholarship which has shown that most of the Petrine writings (1 Peter, the Acts of Peter, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Kerygma Petrou quoted by Clement, and the Kerygmata Petrou from the Pseudo-Clementines) are altogether unrelated to Rome, so that there is a discord between the early Roman claim for Peter’s martyrdom and some archaeological traditions and the development of a number of (Pseudo-)Petrine texts in the 2nd century.88 In my view, at least three of them, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Kerygma Petrou, and 2 Peter, can be located in Alexandria where apparently different groups could find the figure of Peter useful for authorizing their vision of Christian life.

5. Noncanonical Traditions as Our Earliest Sources for Alexandrian Jesus-Followers: The Apocalypse of Peter and the Gospel according to the Hebrews

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If this is true, the earliest canonical writing from Alexandria, 2 Peter, is the latest writing that finally made it into the New Testament. According to this reconstruction, 2 Peter was most likely composed around the middle of the 2nd century, instead of in its first decades. However, the noncanonical Apocalypse of Peter might be earlier than 2 Peter, and some of its details such as the river of fire (Apoc. Pet. 12), the Acherusian lake and Elysian fields (Apoc. Pet. 14), the punishing angel Temelouchos (= Apoc. Pet. [E] 8: Temlakos), and also the idea of the conflagration point to an Egyptian context.89 Therefore, the Apocalypse of Peter may be an earlier testimony to an Egyptian 88 Cf. now the volume Petrusliteratur und Petrusarchäologie: Römische Begegnungen, ed. Jörg Frey and Martin Wallraff, Rom und der Protestantismus – Schriften des Melanchton Zentrums in Rom 4 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020). 89 See Jan N. Bremmer, “Orphic, Roman, Jewish and Christian Tours of Hell: Observations on the Apocalypse of Peter,” in Other Worlds and Their Relation to This World: Early Jewish and Ancient Christian Traditions, ed. Tobias Nicklas et al., JSJSupp 143 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 305–22; Thomas J. Kraus, “Acherusia und Elysion: Anmerkungen im Hinblick auf deren Verwendung auch im christlichen Kontext,” Mnemosyne 56 (2003): 145–63; idem, “Die griechische Petrus-Apokalypse und ihre Relation zu ausgewählten Überlieferungsträgern apokalyptischer Stoffe,” Apocrypha 14 (2003): 73–98; Tobias Nicklas, “‘Insider’ und ‘Outsider’: Überlegungen zum historischen Kontext der Darstellung ‘jenseitiger Orte’ in der Offenbarung des Petrus,” in Topographie des Jenseits: Studien zur Geschichte des Todes in Kaiserzeit und Spätantike, ed. Walter Ameling, Altertumswissenschaftliches Kolloquium 21 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2011), 35–48; idem, “Jewish, Christian, Greek? The Apocalypse of Peter as a Witness of Early 2nd-Cent. Christianity in Alexandria,” in Beyond Conflicts: Cultural and Religious Cohabitations in Alexandria and in Egypt between the 1st and the 6th Century CE, ed. Luca Arcari, STAC 103 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 27–46.

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tradition of Jesus followers in which Jewish and Christian apocalyptic traditions are connected with pagan traditions that were vivid in Egypt or in Alexandria. Although the dating of such texts is quite uncertain, we might imagine a situation before or shortly after the Messianic riots in Egypt during the time of Trajan which could have inspired such a composition. The reference to Peter’s martyrdom could even point to an earlier date since such a reference could only work for a limited time-span after the end of Nero’s reign. But this might not be the only and earliest Christian testimony from Egypt. One other writing seems to antedate the Messianic riots as well: The Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is first quoted by Clement, then by Origen, and later again by Jerome and Didymus of Alexandria.90 In spite of the difficulties in assembling the various fragments of Jewish-Christian gospel writings, some of the fragments definitely point to an otherwise unknown gospel writing in Greek91 which was quite well-known and accepted by at least some groups in second-century Alexandria. The term Gospel according to the Hebrews most probably points to Jewish-Christian groups as the origin or bearer group of that text, and when those groups of Jewish Jesus followers ceased to exist together with the entirety of Alexandrian Jewry in the turmoil under Trajan, their gospel writing was left and probably transmitted by other (Gentile) Jesus followers in Alexandria, so that Clement and his addressees could know it and refer to it without reservations. However, due to the loss of its original bearer group, the work gradually lost its relevance and became forgotten with the exception of some fragments. In those fragments, there is little correspondence with the canonical tradition. Instead, Jesus’s words are reshaped in terms of the Jewish Wisdom tradition, as the fragment quoted twice in Clement demonstrates.92 In another fragment, the Spirit, in the image of Lady Wisdom, longed for rest and found it in Jesus.93 In a fragment quoted by Origen and adopted also by Jerome,94 the Spirit 90 Cf. Jörg Frey, “Whence the Gospel according to the Hebrews?” in Texts in Context, ed. Joseph Verheyden, BETL (Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming); idem, Evangelien und Verwandtes (Teilband 1), vol. 1 of Die Fragmente judenchristlicher Evangelien, Antike christliche Apokryphen, ed. Christoph Markschies and Jens Schröter (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 560–660 (597–98), idem, “Gospel of the Hebrews,” in The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries, ed. Chris L. Keith et al. (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 2:183–92. 91 Language arguments compel us to distinguish these fragments from other quotations later attributed to an Aramaic gospel composition (“of the Nazarenes”) later quoted by Jerome who apparently mixed or misunderstood the hints to various Jewish-Christian writings and assumed they were all the same. 92 Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 2.9.45 an 5.96.2–3; the fragment is also preserved in Greek and Coptic in the Gospel of Thomas (frag. 2: P.Oxy 654, ll. 5–9 and NHC II 2, 32.14–19). 93 Jerome, Comm. Isa. 4, on Isa 11:1–3. 94 Origen, Comm. Jer. 15.4, on Jer 15:10 and, with the correct name “the gospel according to the Hebrews,” in Comm. Jo. 2.12, on John 1:3. The fragment is further adopted in

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(as the mother of Jesus) brings Jesus to a high mountain (possibly for his transfiguration). Most significant and typically Jewish-Christian is the tradition that James, the brother of Jesus, is considered a believer even before Jesus’s passion, and he – not Peter – is granted the first vision of the risen Jesus.95 Although the selection of fragments quoted by the fathers may have preferred the elements which were unknown from the canonical gospels, the fragments of the Gospel according to the Hebrews point to a narrative that differs considerably from the canonical gospels, with the pious James as special authority and first witness of the risen Jesus and with a strong influence of Hellenistic-Jewish Wisdom tradition. Do these elements characterize Alexandrian Christianity in the end of the 1st or the beginning of the 2nd century, or at least the circles of Jewish Jesus followers in Alexandria? Do some of the fragments still point to an origin of the tradition in Jewish Palestine where James the brother of Jesus was martyred by the High Priest Hannas in 62 CE,96 and subsequently became the hero of Jewish Christianity? Do other fragments point to a particular development of the Jesus tradition within the context of Alexandrian Wisdom tradition? We cannot continue these considerations here, because many things remain unclear, but the testimonies remind us of the plurality of early Christian traditions which is overlooked if we only follow the canonical writings with their strong focus on the Pauline and Post-Pauline tradition. Things were probably different in Alexandria and Egypt.

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6. Conclusions and Perspectives From our quick overview we can summarize at least a few aspects which are relevant for the issue of relating early Christian writings with Egypt or Alexandria: 1. Many earlier attempts at locating early Christian writings in Alexandria have failed: Neither the reception of Jewish Wisdom tradition nor parallels with Philonic ideas can prove an Alexandrian origin of a text, as all those traditions could equally be known in Diaspora Jewish circles, including circles of Jewish Jesus followers in other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean diaspora. The same is true with regard to an elaborated language or the inter-

Jerome’s commentaries on Micah (Jerome, Comm. Mich. 7.5–7), Isaiah (Comm. Isa. 40.9– 11), and Ezekiel (Comm. Ezech. 16.13). 95 Jerome, Vir. ill. 2.12–13. 96 Cf. the testimonies by Josephus, Ant. 20.199–203, and Hegesippus (in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.2.8).

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action with Greco-Roman education which was not limited to Alexandria but could be found in any urban center of the Mediterranean. 2. The early attestation of texts on papyri from Egypt is also invalid as an argument for determining their origin. The papyrus evidence can show that the respective writings were read and possibly copied in second-century Egypt, but it cannot serve as a proof of an Egyptian origin, as papyri have only been preserved in Egypt and in the dry Dead Sea region, and writings could be quite quickly transported elsewhere through the network of travelers between Egypt, Jewish Palestine, and other regions. 3. The reception of, for example, John in Valentinian authors in Egypt (Herakleon, Ptolemaios) in the second half of the 2nd century can demonstrate the reception of John in Egypt, but more recent scholarship has pointed to the fact that John was not only received by Gnosticizing authors,97 but also read and received by Papias, Justin, Melito, and others, such that the reception cannot provide a particular argument for locating John in Egypt. The only New Testament writing which can be more confidently located in Egypt is the very late pseudonymous second epistle ascribed to Peter, which is designed as a testament of Peter, and possibly draws on an already existing “Petrine discourse” in Alexandria.98 4. There are good reasons to assume that at least two texts that did not make it into the later NT canon can provide clues to the earliest available Christian tradition in Alexandria: The fragments of the Jewish-Christian Gospel according to the Hebrews with their high esteem of James and their strongly sapiential reshaping of Jesus’s words, and the Apocalypse of Peter with its combination of Jesus tradition (probably from Matthew), Jewish Apocalyptic tradition, and local Egyptian ideas. If this is true, the earliest Christian milieu in Alexandria, at least until the catastrophic end of Egyptian Jewry in the time of Trajan, was a strongly Jewish-Christian one, focused on James and Peter, in which the originally Palestinian Jesus traditions were reshaped in a discrete and independent manner. But since most traces of that milieu are lost, the conundrum of the earliest expressions of Alexandrian Christianity remains. 5. Hermeneutically, scholars have often used Alexandria (or rather their image of Alexandria) as a means of contrasting John and the Synoptics, or John and the Palestinian Jewish tradition. The argument was a theologically motivated distinction that could explain certain features of the Fourth Gospel, especially where it differs from other NT writings. But the underlying image of Alexandria was often primarily shaped from what was considered nonCf. Charles E. Hill, “The Fourth Gospel in the Second Century: The Myth of Orthodox Johannophoia,” in Challenging Perspectives on the Gospel of John, ed. John Lierman, WUNT 2/219 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 135–69. 98 Cf. Frey, “Second Peter in New Perspective,” 22–24. 97

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Palestinian or even non-Jewish. Thus, locating certain writings in Alexandria was often motivated by theological interests that wanted to distance certain texts from Judaism or from Jewish-Christian or Pauline concepts of thought, rather than by the presentation of valid evidence about the character of early Alexandrian Christianity.

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Jewish Beginnings Earliest Christianity in Alexandria BENJAMIN SCHLIESSER 1. The Silence of the Sources and the Imagination of Scholarship 1.1 Adolf von Harnack: Jewish Beginnings When and how did the Jesus movement reach Alexandria? The answer is quite simple: we do not know.1 Adolf von Harnack famously stated, Nevertheless, literature abounds: Andreas Heckel, Die Kirche von Ägypten: Ihre Anfänge, ihre Organisation und ihre Entwicklung bis zur Zeit des Nicänum (Strassbourg: Heitz, 1918); H. Idris Bell, “Evidences of Christianity in Egypt during the Roman Period,” HTR 37 (1944): 185–208; Manfred Hornschuh, Die Anfänge des Christentums in Ägypten (PhD diss., FriedrichWilhelm-Universität, 1959); Colin H. Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt, The Schweich Lectures 1977 (London: The British Academy, 1979); Gilles Quispel, “African Christianity before Minucius Felix and Tertullian” (1982), in Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 387–459; Birger A. Pearson, “Earliest Christianity in Egypt: Some Observations,” in The Roots of Egyptian Christianity, ed. idem and James E. Goehring (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 132–61; idem, “Christianity in Egypt,” ABD 1:954– 60; idem, Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt, SAC (New York: T&T Clark, 2004); idem, “Cracking a Conundrum: Christian Origins in Egypt,” Studia Theologica 57 (2003): 61–75; idem, “Egypt,” in Origins to Constantine, vol. 1 of The Cambridge History of Christianity, ed. Margaret M. Mitchell and Frances M. Young (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 331–50; idem, “Earliest Christianity in Egypt: Further Observations,” in The World of Early Egyptian Christianity: Language, Literature, and Social Context – Essays in honor of David W. Johnson, ed. James E. Goehring and Janet A. Timbie, CUA Studies in Early Christianity (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 97–112; C. Wilfred Griggs, Early Egyptian Christianity: From Its Origins to 451 C.E., Coptic Studies 2, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1991); Adolf M. Ritter, “Das frühchristliche Alexandrien im Spannungsfeld zwischen Judenchristentum, ‘Frühkatholizismus’ und Gnosis,” Charisma und Caritas: Aufsätze zur Geschichte der Alten Kirche (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht), 1993, 117– 36; Gilles Dorival, “Les débuts du christianisme à Alexandrie,” in Alexandrie: Une mégapole cosmopolite, ed. Jean Leclant (Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1999), 157– 74; Attila Jakab, Ecclesia alexandrina: Evolution sociale et institutionelle du Christianisme Alexandrin (IIe et IIIe Siècles), Christianismes anciens 1 (Frankfurt: Lang, 2001); Annick Martin, “Aux origins de l’Alexandrie chrétienne: Topographie, liturgie, institutions,” in Origeniana Octava: Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition, ed. Lorenzo Perrone, BETL 164 (Leuven:

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The worst gap in our knowledge of early church history is our almost total ignorance of the history of Christianity in Alexandria and Egypt … up till 180 A.D. (the episcopate of Demetrius), when for the first time the Alexandrian church appears in the daylight of history.

Less frequently quoted is Harnack’s following statement, which makes clear that the appearance of the first testimonies of the Alexandrian community must not be confused with the appearance of the Christian community itself: It is then a stately [stattliche] church with a powerful bishop and a school of higher learning attached to it by means of which its influence was to be diffused and its fame borne far and wide.2

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Harnack draws the conclusion that, despite the lack of direct evidence, Alexandria counts among the “places in which Christian communities or Christians can be traced as early as the 1st century (previous to Trajan).”3 Harnack gathered all potential traces of the earliest Alexandrian or Egyptian church prior to Demetrius, mentioning over a dozen texts and persons. Apollos (Acts 18:24– 25), the pseudo-Pauline “Letter to the Alexandrians”, the Gospel according to the Egyptians, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, Basilides, Valentinus, Apelles, Pantaenus, and others. With respect to the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, the Kerygma Petrou or the Apostolic Constitutions, he ponders if “one or two of them” might be of Egyptian or Alexandrian origin, though this “can hardly be proved in the case of any one of them with clearness.”4 He discards Hebrews as a possible Leuven University Press, 2003), 1:105–20; Simon C. Mimouni, “A la recherche de la communauté chrétienne d’Alexandrie aux Ier- IIème siècles,” in ibid. 1:137–63; Alfons Fürst, Christentum als Intellektuellen-Religion: Die Anfänge des Christentums in Alexandria, SBS 213 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2007); Markus Lang, Spuren des frühen ägyptischen Christentums (PhD diss., University of Vienna, 2008; I am grateful to Dr Lang for allowing me to consult his dissertation); David Brakke, “The East (2): Egypt and Palestine,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, ed. David G. Hunter and Susan A. Harvey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 344–63; Malcolm Choat, “Christianity,” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt, ed. Christina Riggs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 474–89; idem, “Egypt’s Role in the Rise of Christianity, Monasticism and Regional Schisms,” in A Companion to Greco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt, ed. Katelijn Vandorpe (Hoboken: Wiley, 2019), 449–70; Robert A. Kraft and AnneMarie Luijendijk, “Christianity’s Rise after Judaism’s Demise in Early Egypt,” in Partings: How Judaism and Christianity Became Two, ed. Hershel Shanks (Washington: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), 179–85; Sabine Huebner, Papyri and the Social World of the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2019), 8–15. I am very grateful to Jan N. Bremmer for his insightful feedback on this contribution and to Christina Harker for improving the English style of this article. 2 Adolf von Harnack, Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, trans. and ed. James Moffatt, 2nd ed. (New York: Putnam, 1908), 2:158–59. 3 Harnack, Mission and Expansion, 2:91. 4 Harnack, Mission and Expansion, 2:159. See, however, his thoughts on 2 Peter etc. in Adolf von Harnack, Die Chronologie der Litteratur bis Irenäus nebst einleitenden

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candidate in a footnote, he does not even mention James or 2 Clement, and he holds that “we have no means of checking” the earliest Alexandrian traditions on Mark.5 1.2 Walter Bauer: Dominance of Heresy Harnack’s data have been reevaluated and supplemented in subsequent decades, most prominently by Walter Bauer in his Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, first published in 1934.6 Bauer surmised that the sources on earliest Christianity in Alexandria are silent because they could not report anything favorable.7 For him, the silence of the sources tells us that heresy reigned. Bauer postulated a forked, mostly “heretical” Christian movement at the beginning of the 2nd century – “how long before that we cannot say.” “There were gentile Christians alongside Jewish Christians, with both movements resting on syncretistic-gnostic foundations. But apparently, they were not both united in a single community, but each group congregated around a distinctive gospel”: the Gospel according to the Egyptians and the Gospel according to the Hebrews.

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We first catch sight of something like “ecclesiastical” Christianity in Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria from 189 to 231. Certainly, there had already been orthodox believers there prior to that time, and their community possessed a leader. But we can see how small their number must have been from the fact that when Demetrius assumed his office he was the Untersuchungen, vol. 2/1 of Die Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1897), 470–71. 5 Harnack, Mission and Expansion, 2:162. The tradition that Mark was the evangelist to Alexandria is first reported in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.16 (during the reign of Claudius); see also the recently published Historia Episcopatus Alexandriae, a medieval Ethiopian version of a fourth-century Greek text, that has a different dating (in the seventh year of Nero). Cf. Alessandro Bausi and Alberto Camplani, “New Ethiopic Documents for the History of Christian Egypt,” ZAC 17 (2013): 215–47; also idem, “The History of the Episcopate of Alexandria (HEpA): Editio minor of the fragments preserved in the Aksumite Collection and in the Codex Veronensis LX (58),” Adamantius 22 (2016): 249–302. If, as Eckhard Rau has argued, the Secret Gospel of Mark is a product of second-century Alexandrian Christianity, this would be the earliest tradition on Mark (Eckhard Rau, “Das Geheimnis des Reiches Gottes: Die esoterische Rezeption der Lehre Jesu im geheimen Markusevangelium,” in Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen: Beiträge zu außerkanonischen Jesusüberlieferungen aus verschiedenen Sprach- und Kulturtraditionen, ed. Jörg Frey and Jens Schröter, WUNT 256 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010], 187–221). Many others deem the writing a plain forgery. 6 Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, ed. Robert A. Kraft and Gerhard Krodel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971). See on Bauer’s historiographical scheme Christoph Markschies, Kaiserzeitliche christliche Theologie und ihre Institutionen: Prolegomena zu einer Geschichte der antiken christlichen Theologie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 339–69. 7 Referring to Harnack, Mission and Expansion, 2:59: “Eusebius found nothing in his sources.”

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only Egyptian “bishop.” … Demetrius lived long enough to achieve success and possessed a consciousness of his own power that was sufficient to take disciplinary action against even an Origen.8

Bauer remained the starting point for subsequent scholarship on Christianity in Alexandria, though his ideological premises and his binary terminology (“orthodoxy”/“heresy”) have been scrutinized and revised.9 He himself did his thesis a disservice by not explaining why and how the minority of “orthodox” Christianity would gain the upper hand so rapidly during Demetrius’s episcopate. Bauer questions the opinion, prevalent in his time, that the strength of the Jewish community in Alexandria was instrumental to the rise of Christianity. He asks, “Is it possible to demonstrate, not as an occasional occurrence, but as a general rule, that a large population of Jews would immediately attract Christianity?”10 1.3 Alfons Fürst: Educated Christianity

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Alfons Fürst has presented a contemporary variation of Bauer’s thesis. He notes a certain spiritual kinship between Philo and Origen, and a common mentality which he considers typical of the educated elite in Alexandria. That is, due to a forced abstinence from political commitment, Alexandria’s upper class resorted to education and science, and Alexandria offered ideal possibilities for such activities unparalleled in the ancient world.11 According to Fürst, Origen is just the most prominent example of Alexandrian “educated Christianity” (Bildungschristentum), and others could be placed by his side. Among the “heterodox” early Christian intellectuals we find Basilides and Isidore, Carpocrates, Epiphanes, Apelles, Valentinus and Heracleon. Among the “orthodox,” he refers to those associated with the catechetical school: Pantaenus, Clement, Heraclas, Origen, and Ambrose.12 8 Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy, 46n6. Bauer (ibid., 63) seems to contradict himself when he argues that “even into the 3rd century, no separation between orthodoxy and heresy was accomplished in Egypt and the two types of Christianity were not yet at all clearly differentiated from each other.” 9 In the 1990s, Griggs followed Bauer’s lead in distinguishing between the “orthodox” and the “so-called heretics” (Early Egyptian Christianity, 45–78). He charges Bauer with overemphasizing Gnosticism and argues that the theological profile of heresiarchs such as Cerinthus, Carpocrates, Basilides, and Valentinus has been corrupted by their later disciples (ibid., 32– 33). 10 Bauer argues here (Orthodoxy and Heresy, 46n6) against the contrary view of Harnack (Mission and Expansion, 2:159n2). 11 Alfons Fürst, “Der junge Origenes im Bildungsmilieu Alexandrias” (2007), Von Origenes und Hieronymus zu Augustinus: Studien zur antiken Theologiegeschichte, AKG 115 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 45–79 (79): “Wie Philon und Origenes reden und handeln politisch abstinente Intellektuelle.” 12 Fürst, Christentum als Intellektuellen-Religion, 20–33, 36–69.

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Fürst suggests that earliest Christianity took root in Alexandria as a GentileChristian intellectual phenomenon after the end of Alexandrian Judaism. It began in the shape of a Christian philosophical school. Fürst’s final sentence signals how important this idea is for his view of events: “Christianity in Alexandria started on a high, the highest intellectual level – as a religion of intellectuals.”13 Unfortunately, Fürst’s provocative thesis cannot be evaluated here extensively.14 Without a doubt, Alexandria became a formative force in the Christian movement only in the 2nd century when Christian-“Gnostic” thinkers placed and developed Christian ideas within the framework of higher education and contemporary philosophy of religion, and would later enrich the philosophical discourse themselves. The qualification of this type of Christianity as a “religion of intellectuals” or as an “educated Christianity” is debatable.15 To infer from the lack of earlier sources the non-existence of Christ-groups in Alexandria is even bolder, even if one agrees that Alexandria was a “very peculiar city”.16 1.4 Adolf von Harnack Revisited: Jewish Beginnings If Bauer and his later ally Fürst mark the second stage after Harnack in the quest for the roots of Christianity in Alexandria, those who posit a thoroughly Jewish character of earliest Christianity in Egypt represent the third stage. Scholars like Manfred Hornschuh, C. H. Roberts, Helmut Koester, A. F. J. Klijn, Birger Pearson, Adolf M. Ritter, Christoph Markschies, Attila Jakab, Joseph Mélèze-Modrzejewski, Martin Hengel, Anna Maria Schwemer, Simon Mimouni, and Markus Lang are part of a new consensus on the Jewish context for the emergence of Christianity in Alexandria and an early date of its Jewish

Fürst, Christentum als Intellektuellen-Religion, 110. See the modifications of Fürst’s proposal in Lang, Spuren des frühen ägyptischen Christentums. Lang assumes an early, hardly tangible form of Jewish Christianity which has been replaced after the Jewish revolt by an “intellectual” type of Gentile Christianity, which in turn has been influenced by popular philosophy and, later, Gnosticizing elements. 15 See, apart from Fürst, e.g., Thomas Söding, Das Christentum als Bildungsreligion: Der Impuls des Neuen Testaments (Freiburg: Herder, 2016). Critical opposition includes Samuel Vollenweider, “Bildungsfreunde oder Bildungsverächter? Überlegungen zum Stellenwert der Bildung im frühen Christentum,” in Was ist Bildung in der Vormoderne?, ed. Peter Gemeinhardt, SERAPHIM 4 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 283–304 and Dietmar Wyrwa, “Philosophie in der alexandrinischen Schule,” in PHILOSOPHIA in der Konkurrenz von Schulen, Wissenschaften und Religionen: Zur Pluralisierung des Philosophiebegriffs in Kaiserzeit und Spätantike, ed. Christoph Riedweg, Philosophie der Antike 34 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 193– 216. Wyrwa contends, “Schlagworte wie Christentum als Intellektuellen-Religion oder Ähnliches [sind] unangemessen, bestenfalls sind sie historisch nur die halbe Wahrheit…” (194). 16 Fürst, Christentum als Intellektuellen-Religion, 105. 13

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beginnings.17 In fact, the third stage of scholarship is a return to Adolf von Harnack. It is more than a conjecture, however, that a larger number of Jews were converted to Christianity in the Nile valley than anywhere else; for (i) the inner development of Judaism never approximated so closely to a universal religion as it did in Alexandria, and (ii) we know that the gospel according to the Hebrews circulated in a Greek version in Egypt during the second century – which implies the existence of an original Jewish Christianity.18

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The post-Bauer stage is characterized by a thorough challenge and rebuttal of the categories “orthodoxy” and “heresy”. They have been unmasked as polemical concepts introduced in the processes of identity formation in the 2nd century, with varied implications in different regions and among different groups.19 In modern historiography they are no longer used. Rather, most recent studies, such as David Frankfurter’s Christianizing Egypt, emphasize the fluidity of cultural forms and a fascinating reciprocal ideological osmosis.20 On related grounds, the labels “Jewish,” “Jewish-Christian,” and “Christian” have come under scrutiny, as they misleadingly pretend that clear-cut distinctions are possible, which they are not. Mindful of their limitations and for want of a better terminology – e.g., “Judean,” “Judeo-Christian,” “Jewishness,” and “Christianness”21 – I will nevertheless use these terms. 17 See the bibliographical data above in note 1. In addition, Christoph Markschies, Valentinus Gnosticus? Untersuchungen zur valentinianischen Gnosis mit einem Kommentar zu den Fragmenten Valentins, WUNT 65 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 319; Helmut Koester, “Egypt,” in History and Literature of Early Christianity, vol. 2 of Introduction to the New Testament, 2nd ed. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000), 658–76; Albertus F. J. Klijn, “Jewish Christianity in Egypt,” in Pearson and Goehring, The Roots of Egyptian Christianity, 161–75 (see the references to older literature in ibid., 162nn3–6); Joseph Mélèze-Modrzejewski, The Jews of Egypt from Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian, trans. Robert Cornman (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 227–31; Martin Hengel and Anna M. Schwemer, Paulus zwischen Damaskus und Antiochien: Die unbekannten Jahre des Apostels – Mit einem Beitrag von Ernst Axel Knauf, WUNT 108 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 393. 18 Harnack, Mission and Expansion, 2:159n2. 19 Cf. Fürst, Christentum als Intellektuellen-Religion, 19. 20 David Frankfurter, Christianizing Egypt: Syncretism and Local Worlds in Late Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). Frankfurter covers the process of “Christianizing Egypt” over the fourth through seventh centuries, but his findings also pertain to the analysis of earlier stages. See also Ismo Dunderberg, Beyond Gnosticism: Myth, Lifestyle, and Society in the School of Valentinus (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 14–20; Bernard Pouderon, “‘Jewish,’ ‘Christian,’ and ‘Gnostic’ Groups in Alexandria during the 2nd Century: Between Approval and Expulsion,” in Beyond Conflicts: Cultural and Religious Cohabitations in Alexandria and Egypt between the 1st and the 6th Century CE, ed. Luca Arcari, STAC 103 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 155–76. 21 Cf., e.g., Jennifer Otto, Philo of Alexandria and the Construction of Jewishness in Early Christian Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 4 with n12. My discussion will underline that Christian “identities” were dynamic and fluid in the period covered. Cf., for the

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Bearing that in mind, what are possible continuities between Alexandrian Judaism, earliest Alexandrian Jewish Christianity and post-117 CE Alexandrian Christianity? Previous scholarship mainly focused on literary sources, which is certainly the most productive and promising approach. New insights, especially on “Petrine” and “Jacobean” literature, require a fresh analysis (section 2). Anti-Christian sentiments expressed by Celsus and the Jewish voices he calls upon need to be taken into account as well (section 3). A systematic compilation of Jewish and Jewish-Christian traces in second-century Christianity in Alexandria would be incomplete if it did not include literary, personal, institutional, documentary, and statistical evidence (section 4). What I present in the following is no more than a preliminary sketch that requires supplementing. I am not looking for traces of earliest Alexandrian Christianity in general22 but for traces and trajectories of Jewish beginnings of Christianity in the 1st century CE, prior to the revolt under Trajan.23 This was a time when, generally, “the Christians were not yet regarded (by the bulk of Jews) as a group already distinct from the Jewish community.”24 If it is possible to substantiate the existence of significant “Jewish” and “Jewish-Christian” traces in 2nd century Alexandrian Christianity, we can reasonably assume the existence of Jewish Jesus followers in the 1st century. I am well aware that the lack of sources requires historical imagination and conjectures. For the sake of the argument I present a “maximalist” view that emphasizes continuity. This is not to deny the horrible disruptive effects of the revolt for the Jewish community but to question the “minimalist” view that posits a total annihilation of Jewish (and early Christian) life in 117 CE.

later period, Éric Rebillard, Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity: North Africa, 200–450 CE (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012). 22 See especially Lang, Spuren des frühen ägyptischen Christentums. 23 On the revolt, see Miriam P. Ben Zeev, Diaspora Judaism in Turmoil, 116/117 CE: Ancient Sources and Modern Insights, Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Culture and Religion 6 (Leuven: Peeters, 2005); William Horbury, Jewish War under Trajan and Hadrian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); also Gottfried Schimanowski, Juden und Nichtjuden in Alexandrien: Koexistenz und Konflikte bis zum Pogrom unter Trajan (117 n. Chr.), Münsteraner Judaistische Studien 18 (Berlin: LIT, 2006). 24 James D. G. Dunn, Neither Jew nor Greek: A Contested Identity, vol. 3 of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 617.

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2. Evidence for Continuity in Alexandrian Christian Literature 2.1 Epistle of Barnabas

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In the first place, the Epistle of Barnabas deserves mention in connection with the early tradition of Barnabas’s visit to Alexandria. While Acts eclipses Barnabas after his clash with Paul, Paul himself indicates that Barnabas is still active as a missionary in the mid 50s (1 Cor 9:6). Barnabas might have traveled from Cyprus to Alexandria, as indicated in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies (1:9.1–2): Peter sent “a Hebrew man (ἀνὴρ Ἑβραῖος) called Barnabas” from Jerusalem to preach the gospel in Alexandria.25 We should not rule out the reliability of this tradition from the outset, including the remark on the role of Peter. The origin of the Epistle of Barnabas is disputed as well. James Carleton Paget writes, “If Barnabas did in fact visit Egypt, then the ascription of a letter to him written in Alexandria would make sense.”26 Clement of Alexandria is the first to quote from the Epistle of Barnabas and the Codex Sinaiticus, an “Alexandrian” version of the New Testament text, includes it. Barnabas’s affinity for texts and traditions of Alexandrian provenance suggests that it could have been composed there. Its continuity with Jewish messianism and other millennial hopes, the antiRoman bias, and the figurative modes of interpretation can be situated in a setting where “Jewish literal interpretation of the law is harshly condemned and Jewish nationalistic promises are interpreted in a broadly Christocentric manner.”27 In particular, the figurative hermeneutics has obvious equivalents among Alexandrian exegetes, both Jewish (e.g., Philo) and Christian (e.g., Origen).28 The author polemicizes against Jewish ideas and symbols while at the same time incorporating Jewish messianic,29 apocalyptic, and ethical concepts (e.g., Two Ways). He defines “Christian” identity by a ubiquitous language of 25 Cf., e.g., Mimouni, “Communauté chrétienne d’Alexandrie,” 154: “On doit cependant se demander si Barnabé, mandaté par les Hébreux de Jérusalem ou les Hellénistes d’Antioche, n’a pas joué un rôle important dans la première mission chrétienne d’Alexandrie.” 26 James Carleton Paget, The Epistle of Barnabas: Outlook and Background, WUNT 2/64 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 36. 27 James Carleton Paget, “Messianism and Resistance among Jews and Christians in Egypt” (2007), in Jews, Christians and Jewish Christians in Antiquity, WUNT 251 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 103–22 (119); cf. 113–15 and extensively idem, Epistle of Barnabas, 30–42. 28 Cf. the summary in Bart D. Ehrman, “Introduction to The Apostolic Fathers,” LCL 24 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 7–8. 29 Cf. Pearson, “Cracking a Conundrum,” referring to Philo, Praem. 85–168. Pearson suggests that the Epistle of Barnabas reflects a certain kind of Jewish messianism, a “christocentric” reading of scripture focusing on the figure of Jesus, while Philo, by contrast, had sought to interiorize the messianic outlook in terms of enhancing virtue.

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“us” vs. “them”.30 Christians are “this people” (as opposed to the “first people”) (Barn. 13:1) or the “new people” (Barn. 5:7). Although all particulars regarding date and provenance remain speculative, the evidence could point to an Alexandrian origin between the diaspora revolt in 115–117 CE and the Bar Kokhba revolt, i.e., around 130 CE31, with strong ties to the first-century Jewish-Christian setting and an affinity for the anti-Jewish sentiment after the riots. Carleton Paget’s thesis that Christian anti-Jewish polemic is connected to the presence of Jews where the authors lived could be interpreted in terms of the continual presence of Jews in Alexandria after the revolt.32 2.2 Kerygma Petrou The Kerygma Petrou, which came down to us only in fragments, could have its roots in a similar historical atmosphere as the Epistle of Barnabas.33 Both Clement of Alexandria and Origen used it but, due to its fragmentary character, ascertaining a relationship of literary dependence to any of the other Petrine literature discussed is not possible.34 Adolf von Harnack considers the Kerygma Petrou the first among the Petrine writings and dates it to 100–130 CE,35 though a date after the revolt seems more likely. Harnack also finds it “tempting” to think – but unprovable – that 2 Pet 1:15 alludes to the Kerygma Petrou.36

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In the Kerygma of Peter, Peter serves as the spokesman of a completely Gentile type of Christianity, rejecting pagan cults as well as Jewish practices and angel veneration. Christ is 30 Cf. Reidar Hvalvik, The Struggle for Scripture and Covenant: The Purpose of the Epistle of Barnabas and Jewish-Christian Competition in the Second Century, WUNT 2/82 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 137–39. 31 Cf. Hvalvik, Struggle, 23. 32 See, however, Carleton Paget who takes this argument to date the Epistle of Barnabas to a time prior to the revolt (Barnabas, 9–27). 33 Cf., on the Alexandrian (or Egyptian) setting, Harnack, Chronologie, 473; Jakab, Ecclesia alexandrina, 54–55; Michel Cambe, Kerygma Petri: Textus et commentarius, CChr.SA 15 (Turnhout: Brepols 2003), 382; Wilhelm Pratscher, “Die Rede von Gott im Kerygma Petri und in den Ignatiusbriefen,” in Die Briefe des Ignatios von Antiochia: Motive, Strategien, Kontexte, ed. Peter von Möllendorff and Thomas J. Bauer, Millenium Studies 72 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018), 229–48. Lang lists many more authors (Spuren, 121n469). 34 Wolfgang Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus: Studien zum historischen und theologischen Ort des Zweiten Petrusbriefes, WUNT 2/315 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 95–96; Paul Foster, “The Relationship between 2 Peter and Early Christian Pseudepigrapha,” in Der Zweite Petrusbrief und das Neue Testament, ed. Wolfgang Grünstäudl, Tobias Nicklas and Uta Poplutz, WUNT 389 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 179–201 (189); Tobias Nicklas, “PetrusDiskurse in Alexandria: Eine Fortführung der Gedanken von Jörg Frey,” in 2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter: Towards a New Perspective, ed. Jörg Frey, Matthijs den Dulk, and Jan van der Watt, BibInt 174 (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 99–127 (114). 35 Harnack, Chronologie, 474. 36 Harnack, Chronologie, 474n1.

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called ‘Nomos’ and ‘Logos.’ God is depicted in Platonizing terms as the creator of all things, and he is also said to have the power to set an end. The interpretation of Scripture and the motif of ‘insight’ ([ἐπι]γινώσκειν) seem to be predominate elements of Peter’s teaching in the Kerygma.37

At most, we can say that the “theological milieu” of the Kerygma resembles that of 2 Peter.38 Both seek to establish “knowledge” (of Christ) among their readers, and they do so by integrating (Jewish-)Hellenistic philosophical terminology and ideas (e.g., εὐσέβεια) into their exegetical efforts. Their authors use the first-person plural to convey their standing and authority. The author of Kergyma Petrou considers “Jewish” worship dated, as well as the “Gentiles’” worship; he declares Christ established a new kind of worship. “He made a new covenant with us; for what belonged to the Greeks and Jews is old. But we, who worship Him in a new way, in the third form [τρίτῳ γένει], are Christians. For clearly, as I think, he showed that the one and only God was known by the Greeks in a Gentile way, by the Jews Judaically, and in a new and spiritual way by us.”39 The author pioneers the striking idea that Christianity represents a “new covenant” and a “new way” that outranks both Judaism and Greek religion, but – in contrast to Marcion and in consonance with the Epistle of Barnabas – “he grounds the new covenant on the Jewish scriptures, the Prophets.”40 In fact, this could be the first literary reference (known to us) to the idea of something “third” – a third form of worship. 2.3 Apocalypse of Peter

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The Apocalypse of Peter has been associated with two places of origin, Palestine and Alexandria, with a tendency in recent scholarship to favor the Egyptian metropolis on grounds of distinct “Egyptian” motifs (e.g., the river of fire, the Acherusian lake and Elysian fields, the angel Temelouchos, ekpyrosis).41 As for the date, there is a “general consensus” for a period from ca. 130 to 150

37 Jörg Frey, “Second Peter in New Perspective,” in Frey, den Dulk, and van der Watt, 2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter, 7–74 (23) (with the relevant references from Clement). 38 Frey, “Second Peter in New Perspective,” 23. 39 Frag. 5, apud Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 6.5.41.4–6 (Cambe, Kerygma Petri, 157). 40 Markus Vinzent, Christ’s Resurrection in Early Christianity and the Making of the New Testament (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 149. 41 Cf. Jan N. Bremmer, “The Apocalypse of Peter as the First Christian Martyr Text: Its Date, Provenance and Relationship with 2 Peter,” in Frey, den Dulk, and van der Watt, 2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter, 75–98 (87): “All evidence we have at the moment points to Egypt, in particular to Alexandria.” Nicklas, “Petrus-Diskurse in Alexandria,” 102–8.

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CE,42 although there are suggestions of a date prior to the diaspora revolt.43 The well-educated author consistently used the Septuagint for his scriptural arguments, drew on Enochic traditions, included Orphic material (e.g., borboros, scourging angels, ideas of crimes and punishments) also found in other Jewish Egyptian texts,44 and he produced what could be called “the first Christian martyr text.”45 Furthermore, the text mentions followers of a messianic claimant (the “liar”) who persecuted the Christians. But this liar is not the Christ. And when they resist him, he will wage war with the sword. And there will be many martyrs …. Therefore, all who die by his hand will be martyrs and will be counted in the company of the good and righteous martyrs who pleased God with their life (Apoc. Pet. 2.10, 13).46

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In the text, we find a developed martyrological language including the title “martyr”,47 the idea that the intercession of martyrs could save from hell’s punishments, and the designation of martyrs as “holy”. This points to the need to cope with experiences of persecution. In fact, the purpose of the writing is to convey a “message of compassion” to those undergoing persecution and compassion for persecutors.48 We need not engage in the question whether or not the messianic “liar” should be identified with Bar Kokhba. It is plausible that Apoc. Pet. 7–12 preserves “older traditions or an edited source which was incorporated by the author into the work.”49 These may have been Palestinian traditions that made 42 Jan N. Bremmer, “Christian Hell: From the Apocalypse of Peter to the Apocalypse of Paul,” in Maidens, Magic and Martyrs in Early Christianity, WUNT 379 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017) 295–312 (300–1), referring to Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.14.1. 43 Tobias Nicklas, “Jewish, Christian, Greek? The Apocalypse of Peter as a Witness of Early 2nd-Cent. Christianity in Alexandria,” in Arcari, Beyond Conflicts, 27–46 (40–41): “the author (and his group) may have sensed the ‘winds of change’ that both led to the catastrophe of the diaspora revolt and almost totally destroyed Jewish life in Egypt (and many other parts of the diaspora) for more than a century.” 44 Cf. Bremmer, “The Apocalypse of Peter as the First Christian Martyr Text,” 86n46 (with a number of references). Bremmer also points out that there is a reference to the worship of cats that also has analogies in Jewish Egyptian texts. 45 Bremmer, “The Apocalypse of Peter as the First Christian Martyr Text.” 46 I follow Eric J. Beck, Justice and Mercy in the Apocalypse of Peter: A New Translation and Analysis of the Purpose of the Text, WUNT 427 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 67. 47 Bremmer, “The Apocalypse of Peter as the First Christian Martyr Text,” 78: “the repetition and explanation of the term suggests that the author is here employing a relatively new term.” 48 Beck, Justice and Mercy, 175. 49 Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, “Is the Liar Bar Kokhba? Considering the Date and Provenance of the Greek (Ethiopic) Apocalypse of Peter,” in The Apocalypse of Peter, ed. Jan N. Bremmer and István Czachesz, Studies in Early Christian Apocrypha 7 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 63–77 (75). Tigchelaar questions Richard Bauckham’s proposal that the Apocalypse of Peter responds

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their way to Alexandria.50 It might even be conceivable that Palestinian JewishChristian notions from the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE) resonated with experiences of persecution that Jewish Christians underwent twenty years prior during the Kitos War (115–117 CE). After all, the Alexandrian revolt was also fueled by messianic aspirations which could easily have led its leaders to “wage war with the sword” against conflicting messianic concepts, such as the Christian belief in a non-political Messiah.51 2.4 2 Peter

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In what has been called a “New Perspective on 2 Peter”,52 the study of this enigmatic New Testament writing is currently experiencing a renaissance. Recent scholarship has reopened the old debate about how we should assess the striking analogies and parallels between 2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter, in some ways circling back to ideas current 100 years ago. In his first analysis of the fragments of the Apocalypse of Peter, Adolf von Harnack left open the question of chronology. However, a few years later he had made up his mind: the author of 2 Peter “ransacked”53 existing Jewish-Christian writings (in 2 Pet 2, the Letter of Jude and in 2 Pet 3, the Apocalypse of Peter54), and he was aware of synoptic traditions, especially the transfiguration (cf. 2 Pet 1:16–18 with Matt 17:1–8). In effect, Harnack concludes, the letter did replace the Apocalypse, even if it is not possible to prove that he intended to do so. More recent work on 2 Peter has refined this thesis. Following Wolfgang Grünstäudl, Jörg Frey states that “2 Peter postdates the Apocalypse of Peter and responds to it”, and he adds that “Second Peter draws on certain elements of the Apocalypse, but it does so from a critical distance.”55 In Alexandria, Frey argues, the to the Bar Kokhba revolt and originates in Palestinian Jewish Christianity. See Richard Bauckham, “The Apocalypse of Peter: A Jewish Christian Apocalypse from the Time of Bar Kokhba” (1994), in The Fate of the Dead: Studies in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, NovTSup 93 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 160–258. 50 On a possible Palestinian origin, see Theodor Zahn, Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons, vol. 2/2 (Leipzig: Deichert, 1892), 810–20 and Harnack, Chronologie, 471n4. 51 Cf. Martin Hengel, “Messianische Hoffnung und politischer ‘Radikalismus’ in der ‘jüdisch-hellenistischen Diaspora’: Zur Frage der Voraussetzungen des jüdischen Aufstandes unter Trajan 115–117 n. Chr.,” in Judaica et Hellenistica, Kleine Schriften 1, WUNT 90 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 358–91. 52 Frey, “Second Peter in New Perspective.” 53 This is Harnack’s term (Chronologie, 469). 54 Harnack, Chronologie, 471–72. Cf. idem, Bruchstücke des Evangeliums und der Apokalypse des Petrus, TU 9.2 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1893), 89: “wie die Verwandtschaft zu deuten ist, lasse ich dahingestellt.” 55 Frey, “Second Peter in New Perspective,” 21. Cf. Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus. Obviously, not everyone is convinced by this reconstruction of the order and by the proposed date and place. See the critique in Paul Foster, “Does the Apocalypse of Peter Help to Determine the Date of 2 Peter?” and Richard Bauckham, “2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter Revisited:

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author was even part of a “flourishing Christian school activity” which engaged in dialogue with both Hellenistic-Jewish traditions and pagan thinking, and which debated different forms of Scriptural reasoning and different concepts of Christian “knowledge.”56 In comparison with the Letter of Jude, we note that 2 Peter reduced Enochic traditions (Jude 6, 12–13, 14–15) and is instead interested in incorporating concepts also found in Philo (e.g., Balaam) and, more generally, in Hellenistic moral philosophy (e.g., the “Christianized” form of a sorites in 2 Pet 1:5–7). One of the most remarkable features of the writing is that it adopts the idea of conflagration (ekpyrosis), a Stoic notion, which is absent in early Christian or Jewish texts with the exception of the (Egyptian) Sibylline Oracles (e.g., Sib. Or. 5.206–13) and the Apocalypse of Peter.57 2 Peter stands for a chapter in Egyptian Christianity in which Jewish, Jewish-Christian, and Gentile-Christian identities were being negotiated, but the egregious polemics is an intra-Christian polemics. There is no confrontation with Jews; they are unreservedly called λαός (2 Pet 2:1). It is a time in which Paul’s letters were regarded as “Scriptures” and weaponized by groups Peter identifies as opponents (2 Pet 3:1). 2.5 Sibylline Oracles

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Although the first two books of the Sibylline oracles’ process of composition,58 place of authorship, and date are debated, there is strong evidence that the author, especially in the second book, has used, adapted, reordered and “classicised” the Apocalypse of Peter, e.g., his reference to the river Acheron from Plato’s Phaedo (Sib. Or. 1.302; 2.338) and his extensive incorporation of Ps.Phocylides’s ethical teachings (Sib. Or. 2.56–148).59 The author made a A Response to Jörg Frey,” in Frey, den Dulk, and van der Watt, 2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter, 217–60 and 261–81. Notably, Clement of Alexandria quotes the Apocalypse of Peter but gives no indication that he knew 2 Peter, though there is a “fundamental correspondence” of theological conceptions (cf. Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus, 236–86). 56 Jörg Frey, Der Brief des Judas und der zweite Brief des Petrus, THKNT 15/2 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt), 189. 57 Cf. Jane L. Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles: With Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on the First and Second Books (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2007, 482–86 and Knut Usener, “Ekpyrosis – ein (nicht nur) mythologisches Denkmodell in der Antike: Der Weltenbrand in der antiken Literatur,” in Der eine Gott und die Völker in eschatologischer Perspektive: Studien zur Inklusion und Exklusion im biblischen Monotheismus, ed. Luke Neubert and Michael Tilly, BTS 137 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2013), 149–81. 58 Olaf Waßmuth, Sibyllinische Orakel 1–2: Studien und Kommentar, AJEC 76 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 466, again advocates the theory of a first-century Jewish Grundschrift which has been reworked by a single Christian author. 59 Lightfoot, Sibylline Oracles, 141: “One naturally asks about the reasons for this classicisation, particularly of the underworld. Is it connected with the choice of pseudo-pagan literary

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deliberate choice of “recasting a predecessor [sc. the Apocalypse of Peter] in a classical idiom,”60 possibly in order to make its content accessible to a different readership. We observe a movement from Jewish Enochic tradition to the Apocalypse of Peter and from there to a thoroughly classical tone. A likely date for the final (Christian) composition of books 1–2 is the second half of the 2nd century.61 Its polemical confrontation with Judaism presupposes confident and well-integrated Jewish communities which, for some scholars, point to Asia Minor,62 but its tie to the Apocalypse of Peter might also suggest Alexandria. Finally, correspondences between 2 Peter and the Sib. Or. 2 are conspicuous,63 particularly those on the idea of punishments and rewards, and, more specifically, on Noah as the preacher of righteousness and as the “eighth” (ὄγδοος) man saved (cf. 2 Pet 2:5 with motifs from Sib. Or. 1.125, 129, 281). “Might it suggest specifically Petrine influence …?”64 Yes, it might. 2.6 Gospel according to the Hebrews

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So far, we have encountered texts that (with varying degrees of probability) originated in Alexandria and are all part of a “Petrine discourse.” The enigmatic fragments of the Jewish-Christian Gospel according to the Hebrews might point to another and even earlier testimony of Alexandrian Jewish Christianity,65 to a “Jacobean discourse” in the widest sense. Authors from Alexandria, Clement, Origen, and Didymus the Blind, quote or allude to it. According to the stichometry of Nicephorus, the gospel was 2200 stichoi long and even longer than Mark’s with 2000 stichoi. Due to its fragmentary transmission, recent scholarship is quite cautious in determining its date and provenance, its theological characteristics, and its contribution to the reconstruction of earliest Jewish Christianity. Notable features include an affinity for Hellenistic-Jewish form, and the pretense that the Sibyl is a certain kind of revelatory figure? … Was it in order to reach a particular kind of readership?” 60 Lightfoot, Sibylline Oracles, 142. See the table of parallels ibid., 560–63. 61 Waßmuth, Sibyllinische Orakel 1–2, 487, 502. 62 Waßmuth, Sibyllinische Orakel 1–2, 503: “[Es] gibt … keine andere Lokalisierung, für die sich annähernd schlüssige Argumente finden ließen.” Waßmuth rejects direct influence of the Apocalypse of Peter on Sib. Or. 1–2 and suggests a common source (ibid., 440). 63 Compiled in Thomas J. Kraus, Sprache, Stil und historischer Ort des zweiten Petrusbriefes, WUNT 2/136 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 359, who cautions, however, that such overlaps do not point to literal dependence but rather to a common repertory of motifs and ideas. 64 Lightfoot, Sibylline Oracles, 253. 65 Cf. the overviews in Andrew Gregory, The Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Ebionites (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) and Jörg Frey, “Whence the Gospel according to the Hebrews?,” in Texts in Context, ed. Joseph Verheyden, BETL (Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming). See the clear judgment in Albertus F. J. Klijn, Jewish-Christian Gospel Tradition, VCSup 17 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 42: “The GH is an authentic product of Egyptian Christianity.”

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wisdom tradition, e.g., the spirit descending onto Jesus at his baptism (frag. 13) and the spirit identified as Jesus’s mother transporting him to a mountain (frag. 10). In another section (frag. 11 apud Jerome, Vir. ill. 2) it is not Peter, but James who receives greatest prominence. The Lord, however, when he had given the shroud to the servant of the priest, went to James and appeared to him (for James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour in which he had drunk the cup of the Lord, until he would see him rising from those who sleep) … “bring a table and bread,” said the Lord. … He took bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to James the Just and said to him, “My brother, eat your bread, because the Son of Man has risen from those who sleep” (trans. Gregory).

The protophany before James implies a Jewish-Christian character of the gospel, as do Jesus’s words to the rich young man that prompt him to obey the law and the prophets (frag. 17; cf. Matt 19:17–19).66 If from Alexandria, the most likely setting of the Gospel according to the Hebrews are the decades prior to the revolt around the turn of the 1st century. It was composed by, and circulated among, Jewish Jesus followers who held James in high esteem and who were inspired by Alexandrian wisdom traditions. In the turmoil of the violent conflict the Jewish-Christian group(s) were severely diminished, though their gospel survived and was handed down to Clement and Origen. With the exception of a few fragments, it would sink into oblivion, replaced by what came to be the “canonical” gospels. 2.7 Protevangelium of James

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The Protevangelium of James claims to be written by James, the brother of Jesus, and presents a narrative of the life of Mary to fill the gap left by the gospels. Despite its popularity in early Christianity, the text has been sidelined in scholarship, although currently there is renewed interest in this obscure writing, including in its provenance.67 In a recent study, Jan N. Bremmer has opted for an Alexandrian origin toward the end of the 2nd century (180–190 CE),68 where it was quoted for the first time by Clement and later by Origen. The Ps.-Origen, Comm. Matt. 15.14.4. On the historical place of the Protevangelium of James, see Silvia Pellegrini, “Das Protevangelium des Jakobus,” in Antike christliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung, vol. 1/2, ed. Christoph Markschies and Jens Schröter (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 903–29 (907–9); Lily C. Vuong, Gender and Purity in the Protevangelium of James, WUNT 2/358 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 182–90, 193–239; George T. Zervos, The Protevangelium of James: Greek Text, English Translation, Critical Introduction, vol. 1, Jewish and Christian Texts in Context and Related Studies 17 (New York: T&T Clark, 2019); Jan. N. Bremmer, “Author, Date and Provenance of the Protevangelium of James,” in The Protevangelium of James, ed. idem et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 2020), 49–70. 68 Bremmer, “Author, Date and Provenance.” I present some of his insights in the following. 66

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writing is an interesting “history of religions”-hybrid with (superficial) knowledge of Jewish life and the reception of various early Christian traditions and texts. The author was conversant with the Septuagint’s vocabulary and phraseology, and adapts scenes from the Septuagint (e.g., Susanna). He knew Matthew, Luke and John – Mark and the Acts of the Apostles are less likely69 – and he freely wove gospel traditions into the fabric of his own narrative. We cannot ascertain the use of the letters of Paul. On the other hand, the author was inspired by Jude, 1 Peter and 2 Peter, not surprising considering our previous discussion. Bremmer’s case for Alexandria as the place of origin, as opposed to Syria, on the basis of “details of the vocabulary, sources and aims of the author” is convincing.70 Among the most interesting details is the figure of Salome, the midwife who verified the perpetual virginity of Mary through manual inspection (Prot. Jas. 20:1). Salome plays a major role in the probably Alexandrian Gospel according to the Egyptians, where she engages in a dialogue with Jesus about sexual asceticism and purity as the only means to overcome the power of death.71 As for the aims of the author, it has been convincingly argued that Prot. Jas. reacted to “Jewish accusations concerning Mary’s background and character.”72 Such charges were also levelled against the Christians by Celsus who, in his Logos Alethes (ca. 180 CE), drew on the argument of a Jewish polemicist (whether a real person or a literary figure) who insulted the Jesus movement and intended to drag the family situation of its founding figure through the mire. The narrative of the Protevangelium of James addresses precisely such aspects, with a notable effort to facilitate dialogue.

69 Thomas R. Karmann, “‘Rein bin ich und von einem Mann weiß ich nichts!’ Zur Rezeption neutestamentlicher Texte und Motive im Protevangelium Jacobi,” in Christian Apocrypha: Receptions of the New Testament in Ancient Christian Apocrypha, ed. Jean-Michel Roessli and Tobias Nicklas (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 61–104. Knowledge of John seems indisputable to me on account of the relationship between John 20:25 and Prot. Jas. 19:3. 70 See, again, Bremmer, “Author, Date and Provenance,” 65. Syria is suggested by Vuong, Gender and Purity. 71 According to Clement, the encratic movement referred to the Gospel according to the Egyptians to bolster its claim for their ascetic and sexually abstinent lifestyle. The quotations in Clement’s Stromateis offer the only fragments of the lost gospel, though even he has only second-hand acquaintance with the text. Thus, at the end of the 2nd century, the gospel seems to have been out of reach in Alexandria or was not considered to be worth possessing. 72 Petri Luomanen, “Judaism and Anti-Judaism in Early Christian Apocrypha,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Apocrypha, ed. Andrew Gregory and Christopher Tuckett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) 319–42 (327) (quoted and accepted in Bremmer, “Author, Date and Provenance,” 69).

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3. Evidence for Continuity in Alexandrian “Anti-Christian” Literature 3.1 Celsus, Logos Alethes The Alexandrian Platonist Celsus is an unwitting witness to continuities between the Jewish beginning of Christianity in Alexandria and its second-century shape. Celsus incorporated the anti-Christian ideas of a “Jew,” yet it is disputed whether he created a literary character (prosopopoeia) that simulates reality73 or actually used the writing of a real person.74 Whether real or not, the Jew is an educated exponent of Hellenistic Judaism who holds on to the messianic prophecies and believes in bodily resurrection, but also knows (and does not subscribe to) “pagan” mythology. He gathers accusations against the Jesus followers, denigrating Jesus’s conception, his way of life and his deeds,75 and he does so by inventing a conversation with Jesus himself (Origen, Cels. 1.29). In Origen’s report of Celsus’s rendition of the Jew’s dialogue with Jesus, we find the following charges: He fabricated the story of his birth from a virgin; he came from a Jewish village and from a poor country woman who earned her living by spinning; she was driven out by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade, as she was convicted of adultery; after she had been driven out by her husband and while she was wandering about in a disgraceful way she secretly gave birth to Jesus; because he was poor he hired himself out as a workman in Egypt, and there tried his hand at certain magical powers on which the Egyptians pride themselves; he returned full of conceit because of these powers, and on account of them gave himself the title of God (Cels. 1.29) The mother of Jesus turned out by the carpenter who was betrothed to her, as she had been convicted of adultery and had a child by a certain soldier named Panthera (Cels. 1.32).

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It is not likely that God would have fallen in love with her since she was neither wealthy nor of royal birth; for nobody knew her, not even her neighbours. When she was hated by the carpenter and turned out, neither divine power nor the gift of persuasion saved her. Therefore, he says, these things have nothing to do with the kingdom of God (Cels. 1.39; transl. Chadwick).

73 E.g., Horacio E. Lona, Die “Wahre Lehre” des Kelsos: Übersetzt und erklärt, Kommentar zu frühchristlichen Apologeten 1 (Freiburg: Herder, 2005), 172–77 (172): “Die Konturen der fiktiven Gestalt müssen die Wirklichkeit nachahmen. Die Schöpfung des Kelsos entspricht in seinem Denken und Sprechen des öfteren einem echten Juden.” Johannes Arnold, Der Wahre Logos des Kelsos: Eine Strukturanalyse, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum. Ergänzungsband 39 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2016), 479 et passim. 74 Maren R. Niehoff, “A Jewish Critique of Christianity from the Second Century: Revisiting the Jew Mentioned in Contra Celsum,” JECS 21 (2013): 151–75; James Carleton Paget, “The Jew of Celsus and adversus Judaeos Literature,” ZAC 21 (2017): 201–42. 75 Lona, “Wahre Lehre,” 173–74.

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Celsus’s detailed accusation through the mouth of the Jew is only conceivable as the result of ongoing crosstalk between Jews and Jesus followers (both Jewish and Gentile), which also produced writings such as the Kerygma Petrou and the Epistle of Barnabas. To name just one piece of evidence for a sustained quarrel: the idea that Jesus is the result of an affair with Penthera (Cels. 1.32) presupposes a milder form of insult reported in the Acts of Pilate, in which a group of Jews insists that Mary just had pre-marital sex (cf. Acts Pil. 2.3–4). Jewish-Christian missionary success is transparent in the Jew’s rebuke to Jewish believers: “deluded by Jesus, they have left the law of their fathers and have been quite ludicrously deceived and have deserted to another name and another life” (Cels. 2.1). The Jew’s line of argument shows various points of contact with Matthew (e.g., Cels. 1.34, 58, 66: birth narratives) and John (e.g., Cels. 2.36, 55: Passion and Easter accounts), seeks to refute Jewish-Christian doctrines,76 and displays knowledge of the dialogue genre between Christians and Jews for the sake of both apologetics and propaganda.77 3.2 Dialogue between Papiscus and Jason Celsus’s Jew is aware of a book by the title Dialogue between Papiscus and Jason (Cels. 4.52–53) that Clement ascribes to Luke in his fragmentary Hypotyposeis.78 Origen still knows and commends it with some reluctance: Out of all the writings which contain allegories and interpretations written with a literary style, he has chosen one that is worthless, which although it could be of some help to the simple-minded multitude in respect of their faith, certainly could not impress the more intelligent … In it a Christian is described as disputing with a Jew from the Jewish scriptures and as showing that the prophecies about the Messiah fit Jesus; and the reply with which the other man opposes the argument is at least neither vulgar nor unsuitable to the character of a Jew. (Cels. 4.52).

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The “small book” (Cels. 4.52: συνγραμμάτιον) is mostly considered to be the first known exemplar of the Jewish-Christian dialogue genre with a 76 According to Arnold’s overall reconstruction, the refutation of Jewish-Christian teaching was Celsus’s first main goal, and his second was to convince the more intellectual group of Christians to be loyal to the empire and to follow the true knowledge of the divine (Arnold, Der Wahre Logos des Kelsos). 77 Cf. Lona, “Wahre Lehre,” 175–76. 78 Cf. Harry Tolley, “Clement of Alexandria’s Reference to Luke the Evangelist as Author of Jason and Papiscus,” JTS 63 (2012): 523–32. See, however, the hypothesis in Luke J. Stevens, “The Evangelists in Clement’s Hypotyposes,” JECS 26 (2018): 353–79 (354), that John of Scythopolis (ca. 540 CE), the source of this ascription, erroneously transferred a clause on Luke’s authorship of Hebrews to the Dialogue between Papiscus and Jason. The ascription to Luke is confirmed by a fragment discovered in 2012 from the works of Sophronius of Jerusalem (ca. 635 CE), which, however, is dependent on John of Scythopolis. Cf. François Bovon and John M. Duffy, “A New Greek Fragment from Ariston of Pella’s Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus,” HTR 105 (2012): 457–65.

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stereotypical pattern of a studious debate and the ensuing conversion of the Jewish interlocutor. The dialogue very likely has an Alexandrian provenance; it had a wide range of readership throughout a long period of time. We have evidence ranging from the philosopher Celsus in ca. 180 CE to Origen in ca. 250 CE, when its significance was already fading. If Celsus did not invent the Jew but rather drew on an actual Jewish writing, the Sitz im Leben of the Jew’s anti-Christian rebuke could actually point to a time before the turmoil under Trajan. This would require an even earlier date for the Dialogue between Papiscus and Jason. It is, however, more likely that both the Dialogue and the alleged writing of the Jew (who, after all, refers to the Gospel of John!) should be dated later. The friendly character of the encounter between Papiscus and Jason suggests a less fraught situation in the years after the Jewish revolt (ca. 120 CE).79 In stark contrast to the non-dialogical “us vs. them”-rhetoric of the Epistle of Barnabas, the author of the Dialogue between Papiscus and Jason might have considered an open clash between Jews and Jewish Jesus followers unwise after a near eradication of the Jewish communities. The much more combative writing of the Jew (if he is not a literary invention of Celsus) was penned some time after 150 CE, when the “Jewish community in Alexandria was recuperating” and, at the same time, had to react against the success of Christian mission, which not only attracted non-Jews but also Jews.80

4. Personal, Literary, Institutional, Documentary, and Statistical Evidence for Continuity 4.1 Apollos of Alexandria

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Birger Pearson recently revived the thesis that Apollos was a student of Philo. “I would go so far as to suggest that Apollos had been a pupil of Philo’s before 79 It is much more diplomatic than Justin’s Dialogus cum Tryphone. An Alexandrian provenance of the Dialogue between Papiscus and Jason seems more likely than the traditional ascription to Ariston of Pella. Though Adolf von Harnack followed the conventional ascription to Ariston, his characterization of the author could also be an accurate description of an Alexandrian author: a work with an apologetical tendency penned by a Jewish-Christian author who was philosophically educated and who did not disavow the religious ideas of his people. See Adolf von Harnack, “Das dem Aristo von Pella beigelegte Werk Jason’s und Papiskus’ Disputation über Christus,” in Die Überlieferung der griechischen Apologeten des 2. Jahrhunderts in der alten Kirche und im Mittelalter, TU 1/1–2 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1883), 115–30 (129) (soon after the year 135 CE); cf. idem, “Die Altercatio Simonis et Theophili nebst Untersuchungen über die antijüdische Polemik in der alten Kirche,” TU 3/1 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1883), 1–136 (116) (between 135 and 165 CE). 80 Bremmer, “Author, Date and Provenance,” 69. Bremmer opts for 170 CE; Niehoff, “A Jewish Critique of Christianity,” 152, for 150 CE.

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his departure from Alexandria.”81 This, of course, is highly speculative, but calls attention to the mysterious figure of Apollos, who is reported to be a native of Alexandria (Acts 18:25: Ἀλεξανδρεὺς τῷ γένει) and who has taught in Ephesus (Acts 18:24–28) and in Corinth (Acts 19:1–7; 1 Cor 1–4). Apollos is the earliest potential signpost to Jewish-Christian beginnings in Alexandria. Reconstructing and assessing the disparate information from Luke and Paul is notoriously difficult.82 In particular, this is true of Apollos’s Alexandrian setting. In the textual tradition, there is a hint of Jewish-Christian activity in Alexandria. The varia lectio of Acts 18:25 (Codex Bezae), which is certainly secondary but might go back to the 2nd century,83 reports that Apollos “had been instructed in the word in his native city (ἐν τῇ πατρίδι).” The Western text thus establishes what Luke left open: Apollos joined an existing Christian community in Alexandria in the 40s and is therefore the first Egyptian Christian known by name. The “Egyptian conversion” of Apollos is by no means certain, as any educated, presumably wealthy, Alexandrian could have become acquainted with Christianity on his travels, possibly even in Judea,84 as Ernest Renan suggested.85 Up to today, however, these mentions of Apollos are taken as pivotal evidence of “a date in the first half of the 1st century for the presence of a Christian community in Alexandria.”86 The idea that Apollos formed his christology against the backdrop of Alexandrian-Jewish wisdom theology remains a valid possibility.87 Pearson, “Earliest Christianity in Egypt,” 101. See the attempts by Pier F. Beatrice, “Apollos of Alexandria and the Origins of the Jewish-Christian Baptist Encratism,” ANRW 2.26.2 (1995): 1232–75; Jürgen Wehnert, “Apollos,” in Alexandria, ed. Tobias Georges et al., COMES 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 403–12; Claire Clivaz, “Reading Luke-Acts in Second Century Alexandria: From Clement to the Shadow of Apollos,” in Engaging Early Christian History: Reading Acts in the Second Century, ed. Ruben R. Dupertuis and Todd Penner (Durham: Acumen Publishing, 2013), 209–23. See also the contribution of Samuel Vollenweider in the present volume. 83 Cf. Anna Maria Schwemer, “Zum Abbruch des jüdischen Lebens in Alexandria: Der jüdische Aufstand in der Diaspora unter Trajan (115–117 n.Chr.),” in Georges et al., Alexandria, 381–99 (397). The information is considered reliable, e.g., by Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (London: United Bible Societies, 1994), 413: “The implication of the statement no doubt accords with historical fact,” suggesting that Christianity had come to Alexandria by 50 C.E. 84 Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Paul Between Damascus and Antioch: The Unknown Years (London: SCM, 1997), 259: “In the case of Apollos, too, one could ask whether he did not gain his new faith in Judaea, since he is alleged to know only the baptism of John (Acts 18.25). Elsewhere we have no evidence of a particular influence of John the Baptist from Egypt.” Cf. Huebner, Papyri, 9. 85 Ernest Renan, The Apostles, vol. 2 of The History of the Origins of Christianity (London: Mathieson, 1890), 152. 86 Ronald E. Heine, Origen: Scholarship in the Service of the Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 27; Klijn, “Jewish Christianity in Egypt,” 163–64. 87 Cf. Wehnert, “Apollos,” 412. 81

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4.2 Circulation of Extra-canonical Jewish-Christian Writings The reception of Jewish-Christian writings which are not of Alexandrian provenance, but enjoyed great popularity there, suggests an early Jewish-Christian readership. The Shepherd of Hermas, for instance, was regarded as a proper divine revelation due to its genre as an apocalypse and the idea, first expressed by Origen, that the “apostolic” Hermas mentioned in Paul’s letter to the Romans (Rom 16:14) was its author. Clement, too, was an advocate of the text and referred to it as “divinely inspired.”88 The remarkable success of Hermas in Alexandria and in Egypt in general89 is best explained by the hypothesis that Jewish-Christian sub-groups transmitted and used it even after the tragedy of the diaspora revolt. Is it not even plausible that the character of the writing actually resonated in a situation of great distress, with its repeated references to persecution and martyrdom?90 To be sure, one should not put too much weight on the currency of writings such as the Shepherd of Hermas for our question on Jewish-Christian continuities. However, the existence and appreciation of the Shepherd in 2nd century Alexandrian Christianity suggests that these texts were not only held on shelves in a library but also in the hands of members of a community. 4.3 Jewish Literature and Ideas in Christian Writings

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The above survey of Christian and anti-Christian literature from Alexandria suggests a dynamic Jewish and Jewish-Christian presence after the revolt in the beginning of the 2nd century, with robust traces of continuity into the 1st century. A comprehensive analysis of the Christian literary landscape in Alexandria would confirm that Christians in Alexandria retained and used the Alexandrian Jewish Septuagint, and that they collected and disseminated the writings of Philo. These two aspects have been counted by Birger Pearson among “the most obvious signs of continuity”91 and they should not be 88 Carolyn Osiek, The Shepherd of Hermas, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 5. Cf. Dan Batovici, “Hermas in Clement of Alexandria,” StPatr 66 (2013): 41–51. 89 On a survey of manuscripts from Egypt before the time of Constantine, see Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge, “The Egyptian Hermas: The Shepherd in Egypt before Constantine,” in Early Christian Manuscripts: Examples of Applied Method and Approach, ed., Thomas J. Kraus and Tobias Nicklas (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 191–212; cf. ibid., 196: “There are 11 papyrus witnesses to the text of Hermas up to the time of Constantine. In the same period, there is a solitary witness to the Gospel of Mark (P.Beatty 1), 6 texts of Luke and only slightly more copies of Matthew (14) and John (17). Hermas is considerably better attested than any other non-scriptural Christian text.” 90 Cf. the excursus “Bedrängnis – Verfolgung – Martyrium” in Norbert Brox, Der Hirt des Hermas, KAV 7 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 471–76, with the relevant references. 91 Pearson, “Earliest Christianity,” 100; cf. Kraft and Luijendijk, “Christianity’s Rise after Judaism’s Demise,” 180. David Runia believes Philo’s work would have been preserved in the

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underestimated. Jennifer Otto argued in a recent monograph that early Christian invocations of Philo are best understood in the context of “ongoing efforts by Christians to conceptualize and demarcate the difference between two emerging but fluid collective identities, ‘Christianness’ and ‘Jewishness’.”92 In addition, it is important to take note of the variegated reception of biblical and extra-biblical traditions in Alexandrian Christian literature that is dependent not only on available texts but also on real people, on authors who have them at their disposal, and on readers who would accept them as authoritative, convincing, or encouraging. Enochic tradition, in particular, was in high regard both in Alexandrian Judaism (e.g., Wisdom) and in Alexandrian Christianity.93 Clement of Alexandria is a case in point. He was not only influenced by Philo but also drew on other Jewish sources like Demetrius, Aristobulos, Pseudo-Aristeas, Artapanus, Pseudo-Hecataeus, the poet Ezekiel, the Apocryphon of Ezekiel, and parts of the Sibylline Oracles.94 For instance, despite his predilection for Paul’s theology, he did not choose Abraham as a paradigm for Christian existence but chose Moses instead. “The honourable title ‘Gnostic Moses’ … not only promotes Moses as an ideal for Christians, but also emphasizes the value of the Old Testament as still containing a valuable message at the time of the new covenant.”95 On the other hand, according to Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 6.13.3), Clement wrote a treatise against “Judaizers.” We can only speculate about its content, but it likely presupposes a strong Jewish(-Christian) influence on the type of Christianity represented by Clement. 4.4 Jewish Tradition in “Gnostic” and Related Literature

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Jewish-Christian elements are also evident in what came to be labelled “Gnosticism”. Several decades ago, Roelof van den Broek set out to reconstruct the various theological strands of second-century Alexandrian Christianity, arguing that the Jewish milieu of the city merged with Platonic ideas and led to both Christian-Gnostic (e.g., Epistle of Eugnostos [NHC III 3] and non-Gnostic Catechetical School (David T. Runia, “Witness or Participant? Philo and the Neoplatonist Tradition,” in Philo and the Church Fathers: A Collection of Papers, ed. idem, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 32 [Brill: Leiden, 1995], 182–205 [191]): “How did Philo survive this early watershed? It is very likely that this happened in the so-called Catechetical school of the Christian diocese of Alexandria, perhaps through the special efforts of its first ‘director’ – (to use a modern term) – Pantaenus.” 92 Otto, Philo of Alexandria, 4. 93 Cf. Birger A. Pearson, “Enoch in Egypt,” in For a Later Generation: The Transformation of Tradition in Israel, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity, ed. Randal A. Argall, Beverly A. Bow, and Rodney A. Werline (Harrisburg: Trinity, 2000), 216–31. 94 Cf. Annewies van den Hoek, “How Alexandrian was Clement of Alexandria? Reflections on Clement and his Alexandrian Background,” HeyJ 31 (1990): 179–94. 95 Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski, Clement of Alexandria: A Project of Christian Perfection (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 42.

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“Christianities” (e.g., Authoritative Discourse [NHC VI 3], the Teachings of Silvanus [NHC VII 4], and the Sentences of Sextus [NHC XII 1]). In summary, he observed that “since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Library it has become increasingly clear that in second-century Egypt, Jewish-Christian conceptions and traditions played a part in several Gnostic speculations.”96 The inherent weakness of such reconstructions is obvious: they rely on fourth-century texts that no doubt include older traditions – but we cannot be certain what precisely they are. Christoph Markschies is quite critical of such hypotheses.97 He analyzed the fragments of Valentinus and noted that they shed new light on the early development of Alexandrian theology. According to Markschies, throughout his fragmentary work, Valentinus shows his relationship to Hellenistic Judaism as represented by Philo; this allocates him to an “intellectual intermediate stage between Philo and Clement.”98 4.5 Jewish Learning Center and Christian “School”

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Trajectories to the 1st century have also been identified on an institutional level. There are good reasons to assume that the unique shape of the Catechetical School in Alexandria as a Christian philosophical school originated as an indirect result of the structures of Jewish teaching institutions in the synagogues.99 The mysterious figure of Pantaenus has been described as the mediator between a Jewish-Christian and a Hellenistic type of Christianity100 and even as a

96 Roelof van den Broek, “The Shape of Edem according to Justin the Gnostic” (1973), in Studies in Gnosticism and Alexandrian Christianity, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 39 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 131–41 (140). See also Birger A. Pearson, “Jewish Elements in Gnosticism and the Development of Gnostic Self-Definition,” in The Shaping of Christianity in the Second and Third Centuries, ed. Ed P. Sanders (London: SCM, 1980) 151–60. 97 Markschies, Valentinus Gnosticus, 320–22. 98 Markschies, Valentinus Gnosticus, 323, 407 (“geistige Zwischenstufe zwischen Philo und Clemens Alexandrinus”). 99 Cf. Wyrwa, “Philosophie in der alexandrinischen Schule,” 198: “Vermutlich sind die jüdischen Einrichtungen von Synagoge und Lehrhaus in Alexandrien in der anfangs überwiegend judenchristlichen Kirche Alexandriens einfach beibehalten worden.” Wyrwa refers to the similar suggestion in Mimouni, “Communauté chrétienne d’Alexandrie,” 161: “Cette communauté judéo-chrétienne est peut-être à l’origine du Didascalée d’Alexandrie.” See also Gert J. Steyn, “Consequences of the Desecration and Destruction of Alexandrian Synagogues as Spaces of Learning and Living: An Orientation Based on Philo’s In Flaccum and Legatio ad Gaium,” in Tempel, Lehrhaus, Synagoge, Tempel: Orte jüdischen Lernens und Lebens – Festschrift für Wolfgang Kraus, ed. Christian Eberhart, Martin Karrer, Siegfried Kreuzer and Martin Meiser (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2020), 57–77. 100 Martiniano P. Roncaglia, “Pantène et le didascalée d’Alexandrie: Du Judéo-Christianisme au Christianisme hellénistique,” in Studies in early Christian literature and its environment, primarily in the Syrian East: FS Arthur Vööbus, ed. Robert H. Fischer (Chicago: The Lutheran School of Theology, 1977), 211–33.

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preserver of Philo’s works.101 Also, the presbyterate and the office of teachers in Alexandrian congregations as well as their counterparts in some “Gnostic schools” may have reflected leadership structures of the synagogue. Roelof van den Broek contends that:102 There are strong indications that in second-century Alexandrian Christianity the διδάσκαλοι and the πρεσβύτεροι continued the roles of the rabbis and elders of the Jewish community …. They were, however, no ecclesiastical officials but laymen. It was inevitable that their independent position and their claim to apostolic authority would lead to a clash with the Alexandrian bishop. In the end the bishop prevailed, and Origen had to leave the city definitively in 234.

Obviously, caution should be exercised: With Origen we are well in the 3rd century, and it is, of course, a highly speculative endeavor to extrapolate back such a long way. The same is true for the abovementioned institutional continuities. Due to our lack of data we are left with conjectures which receive argumentative weight only in conjunction with other supportive arguments.

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4.6 Scribal Habits and Nomina Sacra In his pithy but influential study on earliest Egyptian Christian literary papyri, Colin Roberts has argued that the scribes’ use of nomina sacra contribute “a footnote of some theological importance and at the same time shed some illumination, however sparse, on the dark period of the Church in Egypt.”103 He regards the Christian abbreviations of the nomina sacra as a “creation of the primitive Christian community,” indeed as “the embryonic creed of the first Church” in Jerusalem.104 He concludes that Christianity reached Alexandria from Palestine and put a specifically Jewish mark on it.105 His study was intended to contribute to the “orthodoxy-heresy” debate and engages Bauer’s thesis, suggesting that the earliest shape of Alexandrian Christianity had a Jewish-Christian profile and was only later “gnosticized” by Basilides and Valentinus. Although not every detail of Roberts’s hypothesis stands up to closer scrutiny, a valid case can be made that Jewish-Christian scribes established the practice of nomina sacra as part of their religious convictions. For instance, both the Epistle of Barnabas (9:7–8) and Clement (Strom. 6.278–80) comment on Abraham’s 318 servants (Gen 14:14), refer to the shape of the cross (T = 101 Runia, “Witness of Participant,” 191. See Wolfgang Grünstäudl’s contribution in this volume. 102 Roelof van den Broek, “The Christian ‘School’ of Alexandria in the Second and Third Centuries” (1995), in Studies in Gnosticism and Alexandrian Christianity, 197–205 (200–1). Cf. Pearson, “Earliest Christianity,” 105. 103 Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief, 48. The study goes back to his Schweich Lectures of 1977. 104 Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief, 46. 105 Cf. Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief, 49.

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300), and refer to the numerical value of the first two letters of ΙΗΣΟΥΣ (IH = 18). “Both of these writers were familiar with Greek copies of Genesis in which the number was written as TIH, and they both see in this letter compendium a foreshadowing of Jesus and his cross.”106 Yet again, this can be no more than a “footnote” in our quest for the Jewish beginnings of Christianity in Alexandria. 4.7 Onomastics

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Onomastic studies have identified both Old Testament and New Testament names among Christians in Egypt in Late Antiquity, but they do not allow for unequivocal inferences on the Jewish character of earliest Christianity.107 Rather, they affirm the complexity of the question of what constitutes “being a Christian” and of the inappropriateness of a simple correlation of religious conversion and onomastic change.108 While it therefore remains notoriously difficult to pinpoint the number or the percentage of Christians at a given stage in the process of the Christianizing of Egypt, onomastics might still provide certain clues. By the end of the 4th century, the proportion of Christians must have been significant. Estimates on the grounds of onomastic analysis range from 70% to 90%.109

106 Larry W. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 114, with reference to Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief, 37n2. Cf. ibid. 117: “Jesus’ name is an unsurpassed candidate in early Christian piety as a factor capable of generating the sort of special treatment that is represented in the scribal practice that we call nomina sacra.” See also AnneMarie Luijendijk, “The Gospel of Mary at Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy. L 3525 and P.Ryl. III 463): Rethinking the History of Early Christianity through Literary Papyri from Oxyrhynchus,” in Re-Making the World: Christianity and Categories – Essays in Honor of Karen L. King, ed. Taylor G. Petrey, WUNT 434 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 391–418 (395–96), on the fluidity of the use of nomina sacra in the third century. 107 Roger S. Bagnall, “Religious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early Byzantine Egypt,” BASP 19 (1982): 105–24; idem, “Conversion and Onomastics: A Reply,” ZPE 69 (1987): 243–50; Mark Depauw and Willy Clarysse, “How Christian was Fourth Century Egypt? Onomastic Perspectives on Conversion,” VigC 67 (2013): 407–35. 108 David Frankfurter, “Onomastic Statistics and the Christianization of Egypt: A Response to Depauw and Clarysse,” VigC 68 (2014): 284–89. See also the response Mark Depauw and Willy Clarysse, “Christian Onomastics: A Response to Frankfurter,” VigC 69 (2015): 327–29. 109 The higher number is suggested by Roger Bagnall, the lower number in the study by Mark Depauw and Willy Clarysse.

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4.8 Statistics Onomastic data can be combined with estimated growth rates that, of course, are even more hypothetical.110 If the population of Roman Alexandria was 500,000 and the proportion of Christians in the year 313 CE was 16.2 percent (i.e., 81,000), a growth rate of 40 percent per decade would statistically result in almost 100 Christians at the wake of the Kitos War in 115 CE and in more than 1,000 Christians at the beginning of the episcopate of Demetrius around 180 CE.111 In the earliest period of Alexandrian Christianity, the actual figures would be considerably higher since the proportion of Christians in the cities outnumbered the empire-wide average and since, at first, Christianity was generally most successful in Jewish communities. Those who suggest a late, pagan rise of Christianity without any Jewish-Christian pre-history have to reckon with almost miraculous rates of conversion or large-scale immigration. All population figures and statistical data are rough estimates, but if the numbers at least approximate the facts, then we should expect a Jewish-Christian community before the 2nd century.

5. Conclusion

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(1) The first goal of this essay was to revisit 2nd century Christian writings embedded in a “Jewish-Christian” milieu and to reweigh the pros and cons for their Alexandrian provenance. Behind those writings there are actual people who wrote and read them, there are friendly or polemical arguments with other schools and Jewish and non-Jewish individuals, and there is competition and debate among various Christ groups. The breadth of discourses is only explicable on grounds of a prevailing presence of Jewish-Christian groups that formed in the 1st century and battled their way through the riots under Trajan. We documented traces of what has been called a “Petrine discourse” in Alexandria in five texts (Barn., Kerygma Petrou, Apoc. Pet., 2 Pet, Sib. Or.)112 and 110 Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries (New York: Harper, 1997), 12–13, observes a remarkable correlation with his sociological and Bagnall’s onomastic findings, though up to the year 300 C.E., Bagnall arrives at higher numbers. 111 On the growth rate of 40 percent per decade in the Roman Empire, see Stark, The Rise of Christianity, 5–6. 112 See, again, Frey, “Second Peter in New Perspective.” The Epistula Apostolorum, which has been located in Alexandria by many (most prominently by Hornschuh, Anfänge 113–259), also has a “Jewish-Christian” profile and a Petrine coloring. For instance, it quotes from the Apocalypse of Peter and in EpAp 11 (22) Jesus not only invites Thomas to touch his wounds but also Peter. Currently, however, Asia Minor is favored as the place of origin, following the proposal of Carl Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu mit seinen Jüngern nach der Auferstehung: Ein katholisch-apostolisches Sendschreiben des 2. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1919), 361–

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discussed two writings that could be attributed to a “Jacobean discourse” in the widest sense (Gospel according to the Hebrews, Protevangelium of James).113 The Epistle of Barnabas (around 130 CE) stands at the margins of a “Petrine discourse” on account of the hint in the Pseudo-Clementine a (1:9.1–2) that Peter sent Barnabas from Jerusalem to Alexandria to preach the gospel there. The epistle displays a robust effort to demarcate his group (part of the “new people”) from the influence of Jewish ideas and symbols by beating the opponents at their own game (e.g., figurative hermeneutics). In the Kerygma Petrou (around 120–130 CE), we encounter a confident appraisal of the Christian identity as something “new,” that is, a “third” form of worship, while Jewish and Gentile worship are assigned to the older, outdated stage. Both the Epistle of Barnabas and the Kerygma Petrou witness to an anti-Jewish sentiment in the city resulting from the catastrophe of the revolt and, at the same time, establish a distinct “Christian” identity on the grounds of the Jewish beginnings of Christianity. The Apocalypse of Peter (around 140–150 CE) reflects on experiences of persecution and martyrdom under a messianic claimant and presents an amalgam of Hellenistic ideas and biblical reasoning. The author might have received and incorporated apocalyptic material from Palestine reacting to the Bar Kokhba revolt. He may have deemed the material fitting for the Alexandrian milieu and its own dynamic pre-history with Jewish opposition to the Jesus movement. 2 Peter (around 150–160 CE) is a witness to fierce intraChristian struggles. Remarkably, it forgoes any polemics against Jews but rather develops earlier Jewish-Christian traditions (Jude, Apoc. Pet.) for its own argumentative strategy and eagerly taps into current philosophical discourses. The Sibylline Oracles (around 160 or later), finally, rearranged, redesigned and “classicized” the Apocalypse of Peter, with sidelong polemical blows against Judaism. The notion of a “Jacobean discourse” in Alexandria as part of Jewish-Christian beginnings allows for the idea that both the Epistle of James and the Epistle of Jude (as a “Second James”, as it were) could be located in Alexandria as well.114 But the evidence is too scarce, and the counter-evidence is too strong. The provenance of 2 Clement is even more mysterious. It is certainly not part of a “Jacobean discourse” but has strong affinities to ethical and theological traditions of Jewish Christianity, above all James and Matthew.115 With greater 401, with additional supportive arguments such as its echo of earthquakes and a severe plague (cf. Bremmer, “The Apocalypse of Peter,” 89–90: the Antonine plague). 113 On the role of James in Alexandria, see also Lang, Spuren, 318: “Der Herrenbruder scheint die zentrale Identifikationsfigur dieser Gemeinschaft gewesen zu sein.” 114 See Jörg Frey’s reflections in this volume. 115 On the difficulties to determine date and provenance, cf. Ernst Baasland, “Der 2. Klemensbrief und frühchristliche Rhetorik: ‘Die erste christliche Predigt’ im Lichte der neueren Forschung,” ANRW 2.27.1 (1979): 78–157, 84: “Bei zahlreichen frühchristlichen Schriften stehen wir vor vielen Rätseln, wenn wir eine geschichtliche Einordnung versuchen. Was den 2.

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confidence we can propose an Alexandrian provenance of the Gospel according to the Hebrews; its roots could reach into the 1st century. It holds James in high regard and draws on Hellenistic-Jewish wisdom traditions. In the wake of “Gentile” Christianity its influence diminished, though it was still used unapologetically to invoke Jesus traditions not attested in the “canonical” gospels. The Protevangelium of James (ca. 180 CE) is an apologetic work with no antiJewish slants but with an interest in engaging in a dialogue with Jews and countering an anticipated bias against Jesus’s family and Mary. As this writing also draws on Jude, 1 Peter, and 2 Peter, it represents an interesting hybrid of “Petrine” and “Jacobean” fields of discourse. Incidentally, with the exception of 2 Peter, all these writings were used by Clement of Alexandria. This is an additional, though by no means compelling, indication of their Alexandrian origin. For, “writings of probable Alexandrian descent are dominant among those absorbed into Clement’s work,”116 as he could access and study such writings in his local libraries. (2) Second, we considered the anti-Christian treatise of Celsus which reveals a trajectory from the rather diplomatic Dialogue between Papiscus and Jason (ca. 120 CE), which Origen characterizes as addressed to the “simpleminded,”117 the alleged anti-Christian writing of a “Jew” (ca. 150–170 CE) via Celsus, as preserved by Origen, to Celsus himself (ca. 180 CE), again as reported by Origen. The diplomatic character of the Dialogue between Papiscus and Jason, which eventually leads to the conversion of the Jewish dialogue partner, seems to fit into a cultural atmosphere in which open conflicts are considered out of place and Christians are engaged in subtle propaganda. Celsus’s Klem. betrifft, gibt es fast nur Rätsel.” With the suggestion to reconsider Rome, Christopher Tuckett summarizes: “Probably any claim about the geographical origin can be, at the end of the day, no more than an educated guess. An Egyptian origin for the text (probably the most widely held view in current scholarship) is possible, though the lack of firm positive evidence makes it difficult to be certain” (Christopher Tuckett, 2 Clement: Introduction, Text, and Commentary, Oxford Apostolic Fathers [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012], 62). Alexandria is favored by Burnett H. Streeter, The Primitive Church (London: Macmillan, 1929), 244–53; Andreas Lindemann, Die Clemensbriefe, HNT 17/Die Apostolischen Väter I (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 92; Wilhelm Pratscher, “Der zweite Clemensbrief als Dokument des ägyptischen Christentums,” in Das ägyptische Christentum im 2. Jahrhundert, ed. Markus Lang and Markus Öhler, SNTU.NF 6 (Wien: LIT, 2008), 81–100; Lang, Spuren, 161–62 (with additional literature). In the case of an Alexandrian origin the observation of Christopher Tuckett would be all the more significant for the research question of the present contribution: “It would appear that the author of 2 Clement is living in a context where non-Christian Jewish neighbours are virtually non-existent…. He can assume, apparently without any challenge, that Jewish traditions are to be used for (predominantly Gentile) Christians” (Tuckett, 2 Clement, 75). 116 Van den Hoek, “How Alexandrian was Clement of Alexandria?,” 190–91. 117 Harnack, “Altercatio Iasonis et Papisci,” 118, assumes that the text contained some antiquated and possibly apocalyptic ideas that were no longer suitable for the intellectual Christian elite of Origen’s time.

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“Jew” – if an actual writer and not just a literary fiction – fits well in a time when the Jewish community started to reorganize and was even faced with antiJewish sentiments from the Christian side (Kerygma Petrou, Epistle of Barnabas), as well as with the missionary success of Jesus followers among both Jews and Greeks. His reaction includes slandering Jesus’s family background, an easy target for Celsus’s attacks. We get a glimpse into extensive religiousphilosophical debates with all these writings, as the literary products presumably condense a much wider earlier discourse, the starting point of which certainly reaches beyond the time of the revolt. (3) In a final step, we considered a bundle of secondary and tertiary evidence for Jewish beginnings of Alexandrian Christianity: the popularity of JewishChristian writings in Alexandria from other regions, Jewish scriptures, traditions and ideas in Christian and “Gnostic” literature, the figure of Apollos, Jewish learning institutions as a model for the Catechetical School, scribal habits and, finally, onomastic and statistical data. We will never be able to reconstruct the diverse topography of early Christianity in Alexandria, only roughly comparable to other cities such as Rome or Ephesus.118 The catastrophe of the diaspora revolt extinguished the Jewish beginnings of Christianity almost completely. There is no firsthand evidence such as 1st century texts or persons, with the possible exceptions of the Gospel according to the Hebrews or Apollos. We have to start from the shape of Christianity in the 2nd century and are dependent on hypothetical reconstructions. The authors, factions and groups of second-century Christianities in Alexandria seem to have been pluriform: Jewish Christianity, apocalyptically oriented Christianity, encratite Christianity, several types of Christian “Gnosticism” and Christian Platonism.119 Some of these groups “represent continuities with varieties of Alexandrian Judaism.”120 Indeed, the factionalizing among early Christianity in Alexandria has been said to be due “more to rifts within the existent Jewish community than to specific immigrant influences.”121 But this cannot be proven, as we hardly hear about Jewish community life, let alone Jewish factions until late in the 2nd century.122

See on this point also Nicklas, “Jewish, Christian, Greek?,” 40f. Jan N. Bremmer (in private conversation) rightly cautions not to jump too quickly from authors to groups. 120 Pearson, “Earliest Christianity,” 105. 121 William H. C. Frend, review of Manuscript, Society, and Belief in Early Christian Egypt, by Colin H. Roberts, JEH 31 (1980): 207–8, 208. 122 On the few second-century papyri referring to Jews, see Tal Ilan, “The Jewish Community in Egypt before and after 117 CE in Light of Old and New Papyri,” in Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in the Roman World, ed. Yair Furstenberg (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 203–24, 215: “The evidence for Jews [in Egypt] in the first two centuries after the revolt is scant, and they are only recognizable by their names.” 118

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Taken cumulatively, the traces of Jewish elements in the texts, traditions, and shapes of Alexandrian Christianity from the 2nd century onwards hardly allow for any other conclusion: there was a Jewish beginning of the Jesus movement in Alexandria. Once again, Adolf von Harnack’s erudition and intuition proves sound, despite Walter Bauer’s classic challenge of this view and Alfons Fürst’s more recent attempt. The lack of primary evidence is certainly lamentable for the historian but, at the same time, explainable. The tensions between the Jews and Greco-Romans in Alexandria, particularly the revolt from 115 to 117 CE but also the less violent disturbances, certainly had an impact on the process of “Christianizing” Alexandria. The theory of a complete annihilation of Jewish (and, by implication, Jewish-Christian) life is not plausible,123 as it cannot explain the substantial and many-faceted continuities between Alexandrian Judaism and Alexandrian Christianity after 117 CE.124 And it cannot explain that two generations later the church should have become – in Harnack’s words – “a stately church”.125 Not many questions in the history of Christianity deserve to be framed with the slogan “the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence”, but the question of when Christianity gained a foothold in Alexandria certainly does. Considering its rapid growth in other metropoleis of the Roman Empire as early as the 40s, such as Antioch and Rome, it would be strange to expect marks of the Christian movement only 60 years later.126 Earliest Alexandrian Christianity was Jewish. In Jerome’s words: Alexandriae prima ecclesia adhuc iudaizans.127 Christians perceived themselves, and were perceived, as part of the 123 Cf. Mélèze-Modrzejewski, The Jews of Egypt, 228: “If primitive Christianity had not left any marks on Egyptian soil until the end of the second century, it was because it had been annihilated along with the entire body in which it was immersed – the Jewish community of Alexandria.” Discussing the period from 117 to 337 CE, Victor Tcherikover had noted: “The general impression is that of a complete breakdown of Jewish life in Egypt, at least at the beginning of this period” (Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, vol. 1, ed. Victor Tcherikover [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957], 94. See, by contrast and more plausibly, Horbury, Jewish War, 233–34: “On the analogy of the survival of a Jewish community in the chora on a small scale, as attested in papyri, one may envisage a surviving remnant of the vast city population.” 124 Pearson, “Egypt,” 337. Cf. Mimouni, “Communauté chrétienne d’Alexandrie,” 161: “Par conséquent, il ne faudrait pas croire que la communauté judéo-chrétienne d’Alexandrie a totalement disparu à la suite de la révolte de 115–117.”; Kraft and Luijendijk, “Christianity’s Rise after Judaism’s Demise,” 185: “While at the individual level … a total purging (through annihilation, enslavement, exile, immigration, assimilation or whatever) may be unlikely, especially outside the urban centers, it could certainly be true as a feature of public life and official Roman-Egyptian policy.” 125 Harnack, Mission and Expansion, 2:158–59. 126 Cf. Udo Schnelle, Die ersten 100 Jahre des Christentums 30–130 n.Chr. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), 531n257. 127 Jerome, Vir. ill. 8.

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Jewish community until the Jewish upheavals of 115–117 CE. In the 2nd century, another type of Christianity arose – a second rise of Christianity, as it were, with strong ties to the earlier, Jewish stage. The two “rises” of Christianity in Alexandria are exceptional in emergent Christianity, a consequence of the unique political and cultural situation.

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The Interpretation of Pauline Understandings of Resurrection within The Treatise on the Resurrection (NHC I 4) ENNO EDZARD POPKES

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1. The Treatise on the Resurrection (NHC I 4) within Early Christian Discourses Regarding the Notion of Resurrection This essay gives insights into a larger research project. It is a translation of a chapter from the second volume of the monograph “Erfahrungen göttlicher Liebe.”1 The guiding theme of that larger publication can be outlined as follows: The fact that concepts of resurrection were central to all early Christian groups cannot be denied. Nevertheless, since the early beginnings of Christianity it was highly controversial how to understand the term or rather the phenomenon “resurrection” precisely. Corresponding controversies can already be found in different writings which have been included in the New Testament canon. They appear for example in different Pauline epistles respectively in documents of the Pauline school or in the history of development of the Resurrection narratives of Jesus. These debates become even more evident if we also consider those early Christian documents which have not been included in the New Testament canon, for example certain characteristics in the Gospel of Thomas or in the Gospel of Philip. The same holds true for texts from different early Christian writers concerned with the debates on resurrection.2 The question why there could be so many varying concepts of resurrection is related to another question that was present in early Christianity as well as in almost all philosophical and religious traditions in its ancient Mediterranean environment. It concerns the issue of how 1 Cf. Enno E. Popkes, Erfahrungen göttlicher Liebe, 2 vols. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018–). 2 Examples are writings bearing this topic in their headings, cf. Tertullian, De resurrectio carnis; Pseudo-Athenagoras of Athens, De resurrectio mortuorum; and corresponding characteristics in Irenaeus’s monumental work which in its Latin translation is called Adversus haereses; and representative differences between the remarks by Celsos, who criticizes Christianity, and Origenes, who challenges these views later. For a thorough discussion, cf. Origenes, Contra Celsum, ed. Michael Fiedrowicz, trans. Claudia Barthold, FC 50.1 (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2011), 73–74.

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certain aspects of human existence relate to each other, aspects which have been named “body,” “mind,” and “soul” in documents of the time in question. Or, to put it differently: Even if we can observe various debates concerned with the understanding of resurrection in early Christian traditions, at least at first glance, they are also implicitly influenced by a problem which tries to ascertain the conditions of human existence – namely, they are influenced by the so-called “body-soul-problem.” If we take a closer look at the multifaceted concepts of resurrection, it is no wonder that still today there is a gap already spotted by a professor emeritus from Kiel almost 40 years ago. In his article on this matter, published in the Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Reinhard Staats laconically states, “(Es) fehlt an einer umfassenden Darstellung der altkirchlichen Auferstehungslehre.”3 This statement still holds true until today. Surely, my studies do not seek to overcome this desideratum. Rather, they try to shape a new perspective on early Christian debates concerning the topic of resurrection. This is because of the fact that it should never be about the analysis of concepts of resurrection only, but also about the perception of debates on resurrection. To put it differently, I choose to interpret the texts from a discourse analytical perspective. This type of approach attempts to achieve more than only depicting which early Christian authors adopted and modified certain biblical or philosophical concepts, so it is not only about analyses from the perspective of religious history. My studies are also concerned with the question which part of the discussion has been formulated from which position and how it could have been received or problematized by other participants of the debate. The same holds for the question how these contrary positions are supported and represented. This essay gives an introduction to a small part from the overall concept relevant to the main topic of this volume regarding Alexandria ad Aegytum as a Hub of the Hellenistic World. But first, I have to give some information in advance regarding the topic of this essay: Some of its readers might be surprised by the title. This could be especially true for the plural form used in “Pauline concepts of resurrection.” It has to do with the fact that the subject area of eschatology in general and that of resurrection in particular are fields where it is heavily debated to what extent we can observe different stages of development in Pauline theology.4 Paul’s correspondence with the Christians 3 Cf. Reinhard Staats, “Auferstehung. I. Auferstehung der Toten. 4. Alte Kirche,” TRE 4:467–77 (468). 4 One position in the discourse which has been part of it for a long time, although often modified, is put forward by Sophie Rantzow, Christus Victor Temporis: Zeitkonzeptionen im Epheserbrief, WMANT 123 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2008), 228: “Die paulinische Eschatologie zeichnet sich durch eine hohe Variabilität aus (vgl. u.a. die größeren Begründungszusammenhänge in 1 Thess 4:13–5:11; 1 Kor 15; 2 Kor 5:1–10; Phil 1:21–24; Röm 8). Ihr Facettenreichtum hat zu der These geführt, dass sich das eschatologische Denken

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in Corinth already shows certain differences of emphasis. They become even more evident when we compare the widely known and discussed 1 Cor 15 with the relevant passages from 2 Corinthians. These passages have often not received the same and adequate appreciation in Pauline study, which is especially true for the argumentation Paul sets forth in 2 Cor 4:16–17. and 2 Cor 5:1–10. The extracts are preoccupied among other things with the PlatonicMiddle Platonic inspired motif of the “inward man” and the immediately following juxtaposition of an earthly-transient and a heavenly-eternal dwelling of human existence (cf. 1 Cor 4:16: ὁ ἔξω ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος διαφθείρεται, ἀλλʼ ὁ ἔσω ἡμῶν ἀνακαινοῦται ἡμέρᾳ καὶ ἡμέρᾳ ).5 If we also consider further Pauline motifs not directly focused on the topic of resurrection, the differences of emphasis in the above mentioned argumentation multiply even more. With respect to this, I want to draw attention to the relevant remarks in the 6th and 8th chapters of the letter to the Romans which deal with concepts of baptism and the motif of the freeing of the creation from its slavery to corruption (Rom 6:4–5; 8:19–23). Especially this subject was of great significance for the differentiation between genuine letters of Paul and the so-called Deutero-Pauline documents in the history of development of a historicalcritical exegesis. I want to point out the respective motifs in Colossians and Ephesians that speak about a resurrection of the baptized, already coming true at present (Col 2:12–13; Eph 2:6). On the other hand, there are certain aspects of the Pastoral epistles that criticize such an understanding of resurrection (2 Tim 2:18). This differentiation between Pauline and Deutero-Pauline condes Paulus von apokalyptisch geprägten hin zu individuellen, hellenistischen Vorstellungen entwickelt habe.” On the other hand one can find many interpretations almost contrary to such a position, as formulated by Christoph Landmesser, “Die Entwicklung der paulinischen Theologie und die Frage nach der Eschatologie,” in Eschatologie – Eschatology, ed. Christoph Landmesser, Hans-Joachim Eckstein, and Hermann Lichtenberger, WUNT 272 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 173–94 (194): “Die eschatologischen Vorstellungen des Paulus lassen in ihrer anthropologischen oder existentiell relevanten Substanz eine hohe Stabilität erkennen. Als guter Theologe entwickelt dieser seine Überlegungen freilich weiter im Kontext der Situation, mit der er aktuell konfrontiert ist. Diese Ausdifferenzierung bedeutet aber keine wesentliche Veränderung der entscheidenden Inhalte der eschatologischen Aussagen des Paulus.” 5 A variation of this motif can be found in the more recent letter to the Romans (Rom 7:22: συνήδομαι γὰρ τῷ νόμῳ τοῦ θεοῦ κατὰ τὸν ἔσω ἄνθρωπον). Cf. Hans-Dieter Betz, “The Concept of the ‘Inner Human Being’ in the Anthropology of Paul,” NTS (2000): 315–41 for a discussion of characteristics of Pauline anthropology. Frank J. Matera, “Apostolic Suffering and Resurrection Faith: Distinguishing between Appearance and Reality (2 Cor 4,7–5,10),” in Resurrection in the New Testament: Festschrift Jan Lambrecht, ed. Reimund Bieringer, Veronica Koperski, and Bianca Lataire, BETL 165 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002), 387–406; Theo K. Heckel, Der Innere Mensch: Die paulinische Verarbeitung eines platonischen Motivs, WUNT 2/53 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), passim; Christoph Markschies, “Innerer Mensch,” RAC 18:266–312.

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cepts of resurrection is of course an invention of modern times. When the first Christian schools were established, the Pauline letters canonically handed down were continuously taken as documents of Paul. This understanding can also be seen in the 4th tract of the 1st codex of the Nag Hammadi codices which is called The Treatise on the Resurrection. It will be the center of attention in the following sections of this essay. First, we will consider some basic questions concerning the background, date, and authorship of the writing, and then we will reflect on its contribution to our leading question.

2. Basic Information on The Treatise on the Resurrection (NHC I 4)

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The Treatise on the Resurrection (NHC I 4) is one of those early Christian documents of which we did not have any knowledge before the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices.6 Nevertheless, we can be thankful today for it being available to us again. It is an example for how diverse and also contrary early Christian formations of traditions could be, especially with regard to concepts of resurrection. As is the case with a lot of the Nag Hammadi documents, many linguistic features indicate that the text was originally written in Greek. According to its literary composition, the text claims to be a personal letter.7 A teacher figure devotes himself to an obviously younger pupil addressed as Rheginos. Rheginos is supposed to live in the country where Jesus was active, therefore Israel or rather Palestine. Author and addressee have been in contact for quite some time according to the literary composition. The author also encourages his reader to pose further questions regarding his explanations. The addressee represents a bigger community. In his final re-

6 Regarding the history and the main problem of its interpretation, cf. Willem C. van Unnik, “The Newly Discovered Gnostic ‘Epistle to Rheginos’ on the Resurrection,” JEH 15 (1964): 141–67; Jacques E. Ménard, Le Traité sur la Résurrection (NH I,4), BCNH.T 9 (Québec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1983); Malcom L. Peel, “The Treatise on the Resurrection: Introduction, Text and Translation,” in Nag Hammadi Codex I (The Jung Codex). Introductions, Texts, Translations, Indices, ed. Harold W. Attridge, NHC 22 (Leiden: Brill, 1985), 123–57; Hans-Martin Schenke, “Der Brief an Rheginus (NHC I,4),” in Nag Hammadi Deutsch: NHC I,1–V,1, ed. idem, Hans-Gebhard Bethge, and Ursula Ulrike Kaiser, translation and preface by members of the Berliner Arbeitskreis für Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften, 2 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001), 2:45–52. 7 Because of this, the tract is often called Rheginusbrief in German research. For a differentiation, cf. Simon Gathercole, “The Nag Hammadi Gospels,” in Die Nag-HammadiSchriften in der Literatur- und Theologiegeschichte des frühen Christentums, ed. Jens Schröter and Konrad Schwarz, STAC 106 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 199–218 (213).

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gards, the writer explicitly orders Rheginos to pass on this doctrine that has been entrusted to him to his circle of acquaintances. A fundamental question regarding the classification of the text in terms of its history of genre is the issue to what extent it is about a communication between real people or rather a literary fiction of such a contact. Regarding formal aspects, the tract is not a letter, because almost all characteristics that have to be present according to ancient epistolography in order to be classified as such are missing.8 Also, it has to be kept in mind that the tract contains a subscriptio which specifies the subject matter: The Treatise on the Resurrection. There have been different explanatory models in order to categorize those aspects with regard to the history of genre. It has been considered, for example, that during the translation of the text into Coptic the letter originally written in Greek was cleared of its epistolographically necessary formal characteristics. Hence, the translator only wanted to maintain the factual context of the letter and correspondingly added a thematically oriented subscription. Even if considerations of this sort can never reach beyond more or less plausible speculations, we can nevertheless state one aspect relevant to our guiding question: The translator of this text considered its contribution to the debates on resurrection to be worth keeping. To put it differently: The Letter to Rheginos is one of many documents from the time when Christian schools were established, and traditions built that introduces us to the complexity of a struggle for concepts of resurrection. This is one of the reasons why this actually short text is one of the most discussed and commented Nag Hammadi codices. This fact is connected to the question we will resume at the end of this essay, that is to say the question how to precisely locate the document regarding religious history. In anticipation of the end, I want to address the issue why it is justified to talk about the Letter to Rheginos within a volume regarding Alexandria ad Aegyptum. Concerning this matter, I have to admit that such a geographical location is solemnly based on presumptions.9 Since the beginnings of scientific analyses of this tract, the question has been posed as to what extent it can be understood as a document of Valentianism or rather a work by Valentinus himself. Re8 For an evaluation of such phenomena, cf. John D. Turner, “The Reception and Transformation of Philosophical Literary Genres in the Nag Hammadi Writings,” in Die NagHammadi-Schriften in der Literatur- und Theologiegeschichte des frühen Christentums, ed. Jens Schröter and Konrad Schwarz, STAC 106 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 37–66 (42– 43). He calls them “Religio-Philosophical Epistles” (at ibid., 44). 9 Just as with many Nag-Hammadi codices, Alexandria is often put forward as a possible place where this writing could have originated. For a recent discussion, cf. Lundhaug Hugo and Lance Jenott, The Nag Hammadi Codices in the Context of Fourth- and Fifth-Century Christianity in Egypt, STAC 110 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 1–10; Schenke, “Rheginus,” 45–46.

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garding this, I only want to state that as far as I can see, it has been sufficiently demonstrated why an authorship by Valentinus can hardly be verified. Nevertheless, it is highly possible that it represents a document of Valentinian theology.10 I want to explain this further by looking at the concept of resurrection within this tract.

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3. The Notion of Resurrection in The Treatise on the Resurrection The author of the Letter to Rheginos discusses different subjects important for notions of resurrection which in part cannot be reconciled with each other. These topoi are, for example, the fundamental rejection of any form of hope of resurrection, the idea of a collective resurrection of the dead accompanied by an eschatological last judgment, the contrast between a fleshly, psychic and spiritual resurrection. Occasionally, it has been stated that certain tensions or even contradictions could be observed between the different levels of argumentation. To my mind, those supposed tensions regarding subject matter can be explained by the style of argumentation, because the author deals with the different topoi in terms of a diatribe. Therefore, it cannot be regarded as a consistent treatise on early Christian eschatology or as a dogmatic teaching de novissimis. This means that the following explanations outline a systematization that cannot be found in the Letter to Rheginos itself. In my opinion, such systematization could be understood as follows: For the author, the center of the eschatological perfection consists in the verbatim “restoration into the Pleroma.” We have to keep in mind, hence, that he does not talk about a restoration of the Pleroma, but about a restoration into the Pleroma. This motif is based on a differentiation between the realm of the Pleroma or rather the space and the cosmos, therefore the present perceptible world. For the author of the tract, the Pleroma or space is uncreated, whereas the cosmos has liberated itself from that origin. The fact that the cosmos is described as a negative creation points to the proximity to Gnostic systems. On the one hand, it is supposed to be tiny in comparison with the Pleroma or space. On the other hand it is supposed to be an illusion (cf. NHC I 4, 48.28–29: The world is an illusion! [ⲟⲩⲫⲁⲛⲧⲁⲥⲓⲁ ⲡⲉ ⲡⲕⲟⲥⲙⲟⲥ]). Assigning those realms further shows impressively how such a school establishment could have made use of Platonic-Middle Platonic motifs and terminology and, at the same 10 Regarding this discussion, cf. Hugo Lundhaug and Lance Jenott, The Monastic Origins of the Nag Hammadi Codices, STAC 97 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), passim; Christoph Markschies, Valentinus Gnosticus? Untersuchungen zur valentinianischen Gnosis mit einem Kommentar zu den Fragmenten Valentins, WUNT 65 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 356– 61.

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time, differ from those references. On the one hand, the author uses a contrast between the sphere of transience and imperishability which corresponds to the concepts of the creation of the world and their middle-Platonic adaptations set forth by Plato in the dialogue Timaeus. This holds especially true for the terms “cosmos” and “aeon.” At the same time, the present cosmic dimension is described in a negative way, which does not correspond to the Platonic references. This can be demonstrated with the following passage: NHC I 4, 45.15–24: The Saviour swallowed up death [ⲡⲥⲱⲧⲏⲣ ⲁϥⲱⲛ︦ ⲕ ⲙ︦ ⲡⲙⲟⲩ] (...) for he put aside the world which is perishing. He transformed himself into an imperishable Aeon and raised himself up, having swallowed the visible by the invisible, and he gave us the way of our immortality [ⲁⲩⲱ ⲁϥϯ ⲛⲉⲛ ⲛ︦ ⲧⲉϩⲓⲏ ⲛ︦ ⲧⲛ︦ ⲙⲛ︦ ⲧⲁⲧⲙⲟⲩ].11

One of the central starting points for neoplatonic criticism of Gnostic adaptations of Platonic thinking was exactly to bring the present creation into disrepute. To illustrate this contrast, I want to quote the final hymn of the dialogue Timaeus, in which Plato describes the beauty and goodness of the present world effusively, both with regard to its mortal and immortal dimensions: Plato, Tim. 92 c 6–12: We may now say that our discourse about the nature of the universe has an end. The world has received animate beings, mortal and immortal, and is fulfilled with them, and has become a visible animate being containing the visible – the sensible God who is the image of the intellectual, the greatest, best, fairest, most perfect – the one only begotten heaven [εἰκὼν τοῦ νοητοῦ θεὸς αἰσθητός, μέγιστος καὶ ἄριστος κάλλιστός τε καὶ τελεώτατος γέγονεν εἷς οὐρανὸς ὅδε μονογενὴς ὤν].

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Accordingly, in the tract Enneads 2.9, which is highly critical of Gnosis, Plotinus emphasizes while referring back to Plato that such a Gnostic use of Platonic thinking is simply a distortion. The expression “way of our immortality” in NHC I 4, 45.4 directly leads to the notion of resurrection in the Letter to Rheginos. With respect to this, our anonymous author coins a definition in which he describes the concept of resurrection as “symbols and images.” This can be seen in the next passage: NHC I 4, 48.28–49.8: ... the resurrection ... is the truth which stands firm. It is the revelation of what is, and the transformation of things, and a transition into newness. For imperishability [[descends]] upon the perishable; the light flows down upon the darkness, swallowing it up; and the Pleroma fills up the deficiency. These are the symbols and the images of the resurrection [ⲛⲉⲉⲓ ⲛⲉ ⲛ︦ ⲥⲩⲙⲃⲟⲗⲟⲛ ⲙⲛ︦ ⲛ︦ ⲧⲁⲛⲧⲛ︦ ⲛ︦ ⲧⲁⲛⲁⲥⲧⲁⲥⲓⲥ].12

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In many respects, this compromised wording is remarkable. Although the author uses the term “resurrection,” his notion is different from biblical concepts. If we think of resurrection in biblical terms, we automatically think of Concerning problems of reconstruction and translation, cf. Peel, “Treatise on the Resurrection,” 150–51. 12 Concerning problems of reconstruction and translation, cf. Peel, “Treatise on the Resurrection,” 154–57. 11

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texts like Dan 12:1–3, Rev 20:11–15, or Matt 25:31–46. Those texts in turn have a multitude of reference points to traditions of early Jewish apocalypticism. In other words: It is about traditions that expect an apocalyptic resurrection of the dead. For the most part, this is taken as a bodily resurrection accompanied by the final judgment. This in turn leads to a scenario where it is decided who is taken to heavenly or infernal spheres. Paul, being a scribe educated in Pharisaic belief, is also familiar with such traditions. He mentions them occasionally in passing and it does not seem as if he can take his addressees’ knowledge for granted. In extenso, Paul talks about this notion in the widely known and thoroughly discussed in 1 Corinthians 15, where he tackles his addressees’ contrary concepts of resurrection. This chapter is generally referred to as locus classicus of Pauline concepts of resurrection. I especially want to point to the compromised naming of apocalyptic end time events, formulated by Paul in 1 Cor 15:23–28. It is highly instructive for our problem that those facets of Pauline eschatology are barely existent in the context of the Letter to Rheginos. Especially with regard to Pauline notions of resurrection, it can be stated that there are only few analogies with that chapter. However, the analogies regarding those passages taken from the letters undeniably written by Paul and hence genuine become considerably distinct when we ask, to what extent they represent modifications of Pauline eschatology. Examples are the motif of the inward man in 2 Cor 4:16–17. and the constructed contrast between an earthly-transient and a heavenly-eternal dwelling of human existence in 2 Cor 5:1–10. First, the resurrection is described as being the irrefutable truth in contrast to the illusionary character of the cosmos. After that, it is described as a process of transformation as it reveals the true circumstances of existence. The resurrection takes place in that the immortal “living parts” in the transient, mortal parts rise again. This could be an adaption of the Pauline contrast between a soma pneumatikon and a soma psychikon. The fact that the motif is embedded, though, indicates an interpretation of the corresponding characteristics in 1 Cor 15 in the sense of 2 Cor 4:16–17. or rather of the resurrection imagery immediately following. The same holds true for the motif “transition into newness” which shows a distinct affinity with the Pauline concept of a new creation. While the aspects mentioned thus far can only be understood as indirect analogies with Pauline arguments and motifs, we will now turn our attention to the passage that directly refers to Paul:

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NHC I 4, 45.24–26: Then, indeed, as the Apostle said, “We suffered with him, and we arose with him, and we went to heaven with him” [ⲧⲟⲧⲉ ϭⲉ ⲛ︦ ⲑⲉ ⲛ︦ ⲧⲁϩⲁⲡⲁⲡⲟⲥⲧⲟⲗⲟⲥ ϫⲟⲟϥ ϫⲉ ⲁⲛϣⲡ︦ ϩⲓⲥⲉ ⲛⲙ︦ ⲙⲉϥ ⲁⲩⲱ ⲁⲛⲧⲱⲱⲛ ⲛⲙ︦ ⲙⲉϥ ⲁⲩⲱ ⲁⲛⲃⲱⲕ ⲁⲧⲡⲉ ⲛⲙ︦ ⲙⲉϥ].13

It would not be precise to regard this as a quote. Rather, it seems to be a paraphrase of a statement that in the sense of historical-critical exegesis cannot be counted among Pauline, but deutero-Pauline notions of resurrection. It is a rewording of the concepts of resurrection of the letters to the Colossians and Ephesians. According to those notions, not only were the believers buried with Christ through baptism, but had already risen again (cf. Col 2:12–13; Eph 2:4–7).14 The statement of the Letter to Rheginos, according to which the already risen Christians had also gone to heaven with Christ, can be best understood as being a paraphrase of the heavenly enthronement alluded to in Eph 2:6. The immediately following development of this motif first presents a variation of the Pauline-deutero-Pauline clothing imagery of how to put on the new man. In this case, however, it is presented as “putting on Christ.” This motif is then directly transferred into a light imagery for which we have no analogy in Pauline-deutero-Pauline documents. Hans-Martin Schenke described this as “solar theology.” NHC I 4, 45.26–46.2: Now if we are manifest in this world wearing him, we are that one’s beams, and we are embraced by him until our setting, that is to say, our death in this life. We are drawn to heaven by him, like beams by the sun, not being restrained by anything. This is the spiritual resurrection which swallows up the psychic in the same way as the fleshly [ⲧⲉⲉⲓ ⲧⲉ ⲧⲁⲛⲁⲥⲧⲁⲥⲓⲥ ⲛ︦ ⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁⲧⲓⲕⲏ ⲉⲥⲱⲙⲛ︦ ⲕ ⲛ︦ ⲧⲯⲩⲭⲓⲕⲏ ϩⲟⲙⲟⲓⲱⲥ ⲙⲛ︦ ⲧⲕⲉⲥⲁⲣⲕⲓⲕⲏ].15

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Unfortunately, the author does not specify to which aspects the differentiation between a spiritual, psychic, and fleshly resurrection refers. Regarding the form being, this trinity can only be taken as an indication of how complex 13 Concerning problems of reconstruction and translation, cf. Peel, “Treatise on the Resurrection,” 150–51. 14 Concerning those discussions, cf. Horacio E. Lona, Die Eschatologie im Kolosser- und Epheserbrief, fzb 48 (Würzburg: Echter, 1984); Popkes, Begegnungen, passim; HansFriedrich Weiß, Frühes Christentum und Gnosis: Eine rezeptionsgeschichtliche Studie, WUNT 225 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 458–59; Malcom L. Peel, Gnosis und Auferstehung: Der Brief des Rheginus von Nag Hammadi. Mit einem Anhang: Der koptische Text, trans. Wolf-Peter Funk (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1974), 79–81 confirms parallels to Pauline guidelines such as Rom 8:17; even Andreas Lindemann, Paulus im ältesten Christentum: Das Bild des Apostels und die Rezeption der paulinischen Theologie in der frühchristlichen Theologie bis Marcion, BHT 58 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1979), 322, who normally criticizes such acquisitions in gnostic texts, claims in the face of clear allusions to Pauline and Deutero-Pauline guidelines: “… der Einfluß der Paulus-Tradition [ist] im Rheg[inusbrief] größer … als in jeder anderen gnostischen Schrift von Nag Hammadi.” 15 Concerning problems of reconstruction and translation, cf. Peel, “Treatise on the Resurrection,” 150–51.

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early Christian debates about resurrection could be. On the other hand, the writer states that the resurrection already fulfilled refers to the motif of ἀνάπαυσις, the eschatological silence, which is present in different Gnostic traditions. Already in his introductory remarks he emphasizes that all human beings are looking for this ἀνάπαυσις, whether consciously or unconsciously.16 They themselves have received it through participation in Christ’s redemption. Nevertheless, eschatological perfection will only take place after bodily death. In connection to this, Rheginos seems to have posed the question, when this final eschatological fulfillment will take place. The author has given a precise and short answer to that. We can find it in this last excerpt: NHC I 4, 47.32–35: But there are some (who) wish to understand … whether he who is saved, if he leaves his body behind, will be saved immediately. Let no one doubt concerning this.17

Concerning this, the argumentation in the Letter to Rheginos is again close to the later Paul. I want to draw attention to statements we can find in the Letter to the Philippians, in which Paul states his belief that he will be with Christ immediately after his death (Phil 1:21–24). These aspects consistently lead us to the question, how we can contextualize such an image of Paul as can be found in the Letter to Rheginos from the perspective of discourse analysis.

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4. Contextualizing Notions of Resurrection in The Treatise on the Resurrection from a Discourse Analytical Perspective and from the Point of View of Religious History If one takes a look at different articles concerning the question how to contextualize the Letter to Rheginos from the perspective of religious history, one might be wondering if the participants in the discourse can possibly talk about the same text. Throughout, there is agreement that the text is close to Valentinian concepts. Yet, we can find striking differences when it comes to the question which other references might have inspired the author of this 16 For a basic presentation of this motif, cf. Jan Helderman, Die Anapausis im Evangelium Veritatis: Eine vergleichende Untersuchung des valentinianisch-gnostischen Heilsgutes der Ruhe im Evangelium Veritatis und in anderen Schriften der Nag Hammadi-Bibliothek, NHS 18 (Leiden: Brill, 1984). According to Petr Pokorný, Die Zukunft des Glaubens: Sechs Kapitel über Eschatologie (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1992), 128, ἀνάπαυσις can be understood as a term for the “Ort der Unsterblichkeit, der Seligkeit und der wahren Erkenntnis, … sowohl der Gotteserkenntnis als auch der Selbsterkenntnis.” 17 Concerning problems of reconstruction and translation, cf. Peel, “Treatise on the Resurrection,” 152–53.

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text. This holds especially true for the issue of Pauline and Platonic influences. In order to illustrate the contrary debate, I want to introduce three different arguments which are put forward time and time again in the discussions. One of the first thorough studies of the text was conducted by Bentley Layton. He understands the Letter to Rheginos as a Valentinian document highly influenced by contemporary Platonic traditions. This also guides the systematization of the different Pauline motifs.18 The exact opposite opinion is expressed by Horatio E. Lona, who rejects Platonic influences in principle.19 Malcom M. Peel offers a mediating position between those opinions: “Thus, we must conclude ... that, like Valentinus himself and those of his school, our author’s thinking has been influenced by Platonic thought. Even so, this Platonism is radically altered by a Gnostically-inspired idea of resurrection that clearly owes something to the Apostle Paul.”20 I myself sympathize with the position mentioned last. In my study presented at the beginning of this article I analyzed phenomena which I call implicit considerations of Platonic body-mind-ideas in early Christian resurrection discourses. I think that the Letter to Rheginos regarding its references to Platonic and Pauline traditions is a prime example for that phenomenon. In other words: Even if the author refers explicitly to Christian documents, thought patterns and terminology, they themselves are shaped implicitly by reflections of Platonic-Middle-Platonic traditions. Explicit consideration of Platonic concepts can often not be found in the apocryphal Nag Hammadi texts. Even when those allusions may be as plain as a pikestaff, they are not explicitly shown off.21 18 Cf. Bentley Layton, “Vision and Revision: A Gnostic View of the Resurrection,” in Colloque International sur les textes de Nag Hammadi (Québec 22–25 août 1978), ed. Bernard Barc, BCNH Études 1 (Québec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1981), 190–217 (213): “The coherence of the Treatise is provided not by Paul’s theology or even that of the deuteroPauline school, but by common school Platonism.” 19 Cf. Horacio E. Lona, Über die Auferstehung des Fleisches: Studien zur frühchristlichen Eschatologie, BZNW 66 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993), 230: “Der Verfasser findet in den Evangelien und vor allem in der paulinischen Theologie die Grundlage für seine Darlegung, die er natürlich aus gnostischer Sicht interpretiert.” Ibid., 230n621: “Von platonischem Einfluß in Rheg darf keine Rede sein.” 20 Cf. Peel, “Treatise on the Resurrection,” 137. 21 In connection with this, I refer to the translation of the text Republic 588A–589B which can be found in the fifth tract of the sixth codex and which went completely wrong. Rereading James Brashler, “Plato Republic, 588b–589b: VI, 5:48,16–51,23,” in Nag Hammadi Codices V,2–5 and VI with Papyrus Berolinensis 8502, 1 and 4, ed. Douglas M. Parrott, NHS 11 (Leiden: Brill, 1979), 325–40 (325), it is just “a disastrous failure” and “hopelessly confused.” And Hans-Martin Schenke, “Platon, Politeia 588A–589B (NHC VI,5),” in Nag Hammadi Deutsch: NHC V,1–XIII,1, ed. idem, Hans-Gebhard Bethge, and Ursula Ulrike Kaiser, translation and preface by members of the Berliner Arbeitskreis für Koptisch-Gnostische

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Explicit references to Platonic-Middle-Platonic traditions can be found in writings by various Christian authors who participate in early Christian resurrection debates. References to Plato and his intellectual heirs can be very negative, but also very positive. For those phenomena Alexandria ad Aegyptum is very important. This not only holds true for the early Jewish religious philosopher Philo of Alexandria, but also for Christian authors such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Exactly those kinds of discussions seem to have close relations to the environment in which our Letter to Rheginos was created.22 For the overall theme of this volume in general and for my studies about notions of resurrection in particular it is not only instructive what the author has to say. From the perspective of discourse analysis, it is also important to observe how he phrases it. Neither the frank farewell, nor the thematic explanation show any signs that the author had to defend himself against charges of a supposed heresy. The only critical statements are aimed at “local philosophers” not identified more closely (NHC I 4, 46.1023). It is not perceptible that the author had to use special structures for an authorization of his concepts. In this aspect, the Letter to Rheginos differs from many other documents of the Nag Hammadi codices. A lot of Nag Hammadi texts ask their readers or rather listeners to not proclaim the doctrine that they have been entrusted with. I refer to the end of the long versions of the Apocryphon of John that even forbids passing on this document for payment. There are also different literary strategies that are supposed to give reasons for the fact that the documents communicate a secret and until then unknown doctrine of

Schriften, 3 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003), 3:495–97 (497): “Was man noch wissen möchte, ist vor allem, wann und wie auf diesem Wege eigentlich in Vergessenheit geriet, daß es sich um einen Platon-Text handelt. Wenn man nun nach der ‘natürlichsten’ Antwort auf diese Frage sucht, kann man leicht auf den Gedanken kommen, daß es nach dem ersten Mißgeschick einfach noch ein zweites gab: Erst wäre in der Schule einer an einer PlatonÜbersetzung gescheitert, und den ausrangierten Übungspapyrus hätte dann ein anderer entdeckt und darin eine ‘Offenbarung’ gesehen.” 22 I want to round off this aspect with a quote by Schenke, “Rheginus,” 45–46, who in my opinion legitimately claims that the chain of thought in this text can be compared to contemporary Greek parallels, especially to the writings by Clement of Alexandria: “Als Ursprache des Rheg muß das Griechische gelten, obgleich sich eindeutige Hinweise dafür nicht finden. Wohl aber kann das der Vergleich mit der Gedankenführung des Rheg mit den zeitgenössischen griechischen Parallelen, besonders den Schriften des Clemens von Alexandrien, zeigen.” 23 The fact that the author tries to distance himself from philosophical teachers can be taken as an indication that he sees himself primarily as a Christian theologian. He wants his arguments to be understood in discussions within theology.

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Jesus, for example.24 The remarkable thing about the Letter to Rheginos is that it does not contain those characteristics at all. How the author of the tract deals with the points of reference of his reasons is remarkable, too. On the one hand, he refers to a passage from a written gospel that cannot be assigned to any gospel we know of. On the other hand, he refers to a passage from the Pauline letters that – as we have seen – is close to the notions of resurrection in the letters to the Colossians and Ephesians. It does not become clear from this connection that there were supposed to be arguments about the legacy and the interpretation of Pauline thought. Instead, the author of the letter seems to be part of a religious and intellectual circle where contrary notions of resurrection could exist side by side. He is part of an open discourse also indicated by the works of the already mentioned authors Clement of Alexandria and Origen.

24 Concerning the relevant characteristics in the Gospel of Thomas (NHC II 2); the Book of Thomas the Contender (NHC II 7); or the Apocryphon of John (NHC II 1, III 1, V 1, and BG 2), cf. Enno E. Popkes, Das Menschenbild des Thomasevangeliums: Untersuchungen zu seiner religionshistorischen und chronologischen Verortung, WUNT 206 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 351–52.

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The Quest for Pantaenus Paul Collomp, Wilhelm Bousset, and Johannes Munck on an Alexandrian Enigma

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WOLFGANG GRÜNSTÄUDL Scholarship on the beginnings of Christianity is, like every scholarship, always aiming for innovation. Its proponents dedicate whole careers to the search for new sources, to the decoding of almost faded traces of the past and to the development of more plausible reconstructions of historical processes. However, every scholar’s search for new insights starts from tradition – from findings and hypotheses that had been (sometimes quite long ago) put to the test within the scholarly community and proved to be useful and reliable. Such old and honorable discoveries, reconstructions, and opinions tend to condense into confirming remarks included in footnotes of later publications and thereby enable each generation of scholars to concentrate on new or not yet resolved problems. Despite their usefulness, even the most venerated or most widely spread assumptions need to be re-evaluated from time to time within the light of recent research. This article is dedicated to such a reevaluation. It concentrates on a tiny detail within the history of scholarship on Clement of Alexandria, namely the reception of Johannes Munck’s (1904–1965) critique of Wilhelm Bousset’s (1865–1920) hypothesis regarding the literary heritage of Pantaenus, the alleged “master mind” of Clement. Although this article will deal for its bigger part with an argument published back in 1933 (itself directed against even older research), it aims to contribute to current scholarship on Clement of Alexandria by claiming that some observations lost in the history of research might dovetail quite nicely with current explorations of this early Christian teacher and his environment.

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1. An Enigmatic Teacher and a Thoroughly Refuted Hypothesis Everybody who enters the maze of early Christianity in Alexandria will sooner or later meet with Pantaenus, allegedly the last and most important teacher of Clement of Alexandria. Gathering reliable information about Pantaenus’s life, career and teaching, however, may frustrate even the most mo-

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tivated novices of early Christianity studies,1 as the data provided by the sources (as far as such exist) are rather sparse and partly contradict each other. In view of the massive body of writings produced by Clement, one could easily assume that Pantaenus also laid down at least some of his teachings in written form. It is true that Clement emphatically claims to be the first one to write down the apostolic παράδοσις (cf. esp. Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.1.11–12 and Ecl. 27.1 [οὐκ ἔγραφον δὲ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι]), but the extensive use of written works by the bookworm2 Clement demonstrates that such a claim has to be taken cum grano salis.3 But even if writings of Pantaenus existed,4 no single manuscript has been preserved. Far from being discouraged by this evidence, Wilhelm Bousset was convinced that Clement (a) had indeed access to texts stemming from Pantaenus and (b) used them in such a way that allows modern scholars to identify them within Clement’s works. A large part of Bousset’s landmark study on teachers and teaching in early Christianity5 is dedicated to the identification and description of a “Pantaenus source”6 in the writings of Clement. For valuable hints and encouragement, I am thankful to Mara Rescio, Christoph Riedweg, and Beatrice Wyss. Special thanks goes to my former Wuppertal colleague Jan Vondráček, who provided me with a translation of an article by Jana Plátová written in Czech (cf. n21). 2 This fitting label was applied by Annewies van den Hoek, “Techniques of Quotation in Clement of Alexandria: A View of Ancient Literary Working Methods,” VC 50 (1996): 223– 43 (227): “Clement compares closely to other ‘bookworms’ such as Plutarch and Eusebius….” 3 Moreover, “schließen seine [sc. Clement’s] Überlegungen über die Schwächen der Schriftlichkeit gegenüber der lebendigen Sprache, die von Platons Phaidros inspiriert sind und seine eigene Tätigkeit als Autor der Stromateis betreffen nicht aus, dass die Lehrer, deren mündliche Unterweisung er am Anfang des ersten Buches hervorhebt, auch schriftliche Werke verfassten.” Alain Le Boulluec, “Die ‘Schule’ von Alexandrien,” in Geschichte des Christentums I: Die Zeit des Anfangs, ed. Luce Pietri (Freiburg: Herder, 2003), 576–621 (578). 4 Eusebius tells us that Pantaenus was in fact an author, but strikingly he is unable to name any title (cf. Dietmar Wyrwa, “Religiöses Lernen im zweiten Jahrhundert und die Anfänge der alexandrinischen Katechetenschule,” in Religiöses Lernen in der biblischen, frühjüdischen und frühchristlichen Überlieferung, ed. Beate Ego and Helmut Merkel, WUNT 180 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005], 271–305 [294]). Later, Jerome knows about Bible commentaries written by Pantaenus which would fit the information of Clement and Eusebius; but, as almost always with Jerome, it is tricky to assess the value of that account. In any case, Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 27.1 should not be seen as decisive evidence against literary activity by Pantaenus (so Le Boullec, “Schule,” 578; differently, e.g., Ulrich Neymeyr, Die christlichen Lehrer im zweiten Jahrhundert. Ihre Lehrtätigkeit, ihr Selbstverständnis und ihre Geschichte, VC Suppl. 4 (Leiden: Brill 1989), 40; Wyrwa, “Religiöses Lernen,” 294n121. 5 Wilhelm Bousset, Jüdisch-Christlicher Schulbetrieb in Alexandria und Rom: Literarische Untersuchungen zu Philo und Clemens von Alexandria, Justin und Irenäus,

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However, Bousset’s thesis did not convince many and scholarly literature is full of negative and harsh evaluations of it. For example, François Sagnard declares: C’est le type te ces suppositions brillantes et gratuites qui semblent satisfaire à bon compte la curiosité, mais don’t la fécondité est nulle pour le travail vraiment constructif.7

We hear from Bousset’s “hypothèses audacieuses,”8 which he developed “in kühnen Kombinationen und oft leider ohne methodische Strenge,”9 and are told that these hypotheses “ont été réfutées par J. Munck,”10 who is praised for his “annihilating criticism.”11 In other words, Bousset’s approach should be regarded as “finalement condamnée.”12 To complete the picture, it is worth quoting the verdict of Walther Völker in full: Was Collomp noch mit Maß vorgetragen hat, hat Bousset in kühnen Kombinationen und oft leider ohne methodische Strenge weiter ausgebaut, bis er vor unsere erstaunten Blicke eine Pantaenus-Quelle zaubern konnte. Er fand damit anfangs sogar bei ernsthaften Forschern Anklang, aber Muncks scharfsinnige und allen Einzelheiten nachspürende Kritik hat dieser Hypothese wohl endgültig das Lebenslicht ausgeblasen. Der junge dänische Forscher erzielte mit seinen Darlegungen überall Zustimmung.13

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This last statement adds an important detail by mentioning the French scholar Paul Collomp (1885–1943) as Bousset’s inspiration but in its substance Völker’s judgment does not differ from all the others quoted above. Rather, Völker’s drastic language insinuates that Munck literally killed Bousset’s (and Collomp’s) hypothesis (“endgültig das Lebenslicht ausgeblasen”). FRLANT.NF 6 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1915); Pierre Nautin, “Pantène,” in Tome commémoratif du millénaire de la Bibliothèque patriarcal d’Alexandrie: Publications de l’Institut d’études orientales de la bibliothèque patriarcale d’Alexandrie (Alexandria, 1953), 145–52 (149): “un ouvrage célèbre.” 6 See, especially, Bousset, Schulbetrieb, 157–204, but cf. also ibid., 236–71. 7 François Sagnard, “Introduction,” in Clément d’Alexandrie, Extraits de Théodote: Texte grec, introduction, traduction et notes, SC 23 (Paris: Cerf 1970), 5–51 (20). 8 André Méhat, “Pantène,” Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire 12, 1:159–61 (160). 9 Walther Völker, Der wahre Gnostiker nach Clemens Alexandrinus, TU 57 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1952), 23. 10 Méhat, “Pantène,” 160. 11 Einar Molland, The Conception of the Gospel in the Alexandrian Theology (Oslo: I Kommisjon Hos Jacob Dybwad, 1938), 13n2: “The theories of Bousset have been subjected to a thorough, and one might almost say, annihilating criticism by Munck, pp. 127–223, who partly criticizes Bousset from his own presuppositions, showing that terminology, conceptions, and opinions which according to him were confined to passages in which the extraneous sources are recognizable, occur also in other passages, and in such a way that it is impossible to isolate different sources.” 12 Claude Mondésert, Clément d’Alexandrie: Introduction a l’étude de sa pensée religieuse a partir de l’écriture, Théologie 4 (Paris: Aubier, 1944), 255–56n4. 13 Völker, Gnostiker, 23–25.

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Thus, an article on Bousset’s “Pantaenus source” could end at this point. Everything seems to be perfectly clear: by 1933 Johannes Munck demonstrated the fragility, the wrongness and the methodological weakness of a fanciful hypothesis that should not bother anyone today. Despite their convinced and convincing tone, however, the various statements on the “ultimately refuted” proposal of Bousset are only partly correct, as Johannes Munck did indeed accept some of Boussets observations and arguments. Because of this, a careful reconstruction of the Bousset-Munck debate as well as an evaluation of its implications for current Clementine scholarship seems to be necessary. To avoid any misunderstanding, I would like to underline that in what follows, I aim neither trying to rehabilitate Wilhelm Bousset and his proposal nor to refute Johannes Munck and his critique. I just want to emphasize that we might still learn something from this long-forgotten debate if we look beyond reductions like “Bousset proposed, Munck refuted.” In order to achieve this goal, the rest of the present article will deal with three (maybe rather obvious) questions. First, what do we know (and what do we not know) about Pantaenus based on the evidence from ancient sources? Second, what did Collomp, Bousset, and Munck actually say? And finally – and also most importantly – why should such details of a source-critical debate from the beginning of the last century be of any relevance to present or future research on Clement and early Christianity in Alexandria?

2. What Do We (Not) Know about Pantaenus

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The oldest reference to Pantaenus14 comes from Clement himself and can be found in section 56 of his so-called Eclogae propheticae.15 The relevant text is only preserved within two medieval manuscripts, namely Codex Laurentianus 5.3 from the 11th century and Codex Parisinus suppl. Graecus 250 from the 16th century. Because the latter manuscript is a direct copy of the

14 An easy to access presentation of ancient sources on Pantaenus (and the presbyters of old mentioned by Clement) is given by Adolf von Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius, vol. 1.1: Die Überlieferung und der Bestand, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Hinrichs 1958), 291–96. For helpful introductions, cf. Marco Frenschkowski, “Pantaenus,” Biographisch-bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon 16, 3:1186–89; Alfons Fürst, Christentum als Intellektuellen-Religion: Die Anfänge des Christentums in Alexandria, SBS 213 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2007), 36–42; and Wyrwa, Religiöses Lernen, 271–305 (291– 301). 15 Clemente Alessandrino: Estratti profetici, ed. Carlo Nardi, Biblioteca patristica (Florence: Nardini, 1995). Cf. idem, “Il battesimo in Clemente Alessandrino: Interpretazione di Eclogae propheticae 1–26,” SEAug 19 (1994).

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former, we are basically left with just one textual witness.16 In the Laurentianus, the Eclogae propheticae are placed after books 1–7 of the Stromateis together with two other rather obscure texts of Clement: the so-called Eigth Book of the Stromateis17 (which differs significantly from the other seven books both in content and structure) and the so-called Excerpta ex Theodoto (which are well-known for their discussion of Valentinian teaching). These “Florentine attachments” are not only placed at the end of Codex Laurentianus but also at the margin of scholarly interest, demonstrated, e.g., by an almost complete absence of up-to-date translations into modern languages.18 Nevertheless, the history of scholarship has seen a heated debate about the nature of these texts. While the majority view identifies the Excerpta ex Theodoto as well as the Eclogae propheticae as something like “note books” or “private notes” crafted by Clement himself, scholars like Theodor Zahn and Pierre Nautin fiercely argued that actually only a later excerptor built these texts as a compilation of extracts taken from already existent works of Clement.19 While this article is not the proper place for a detailed presentation and evaluation of the arguments brought forward for both views, it has to be remembered that any decision will inevitably affect one’s judgement regarding Clement’s mention of Pantaenus in Ecl. 56. As already stated elsewhere, I am inclined to accept the majority view (“note books” by Clement himself) as a working hypothesis.20 The text (Ecl. 56) presents itself as an interpretation of Psalm 18:5–6 (LXX) which was a much debated Christological prooftext in early Christianity.21 In Ecl. 56.222 the commentator quotes a hermeneutical rule of “our For the manuscript evidence, including later excerpts, cf. Otto Stählin and Ursula Treu, eds., Clemens Alexandrinus: Protrepticus und Paedagogus, GCS Clemens Alexandrinus 1, 3rd ed. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1972), XXXIX–XLII, XLVII–LI; Otto Stählin, Ludwig Früchtel, and Ursula Treu, eds., Stromata I–VI, GCS Clemens Alexandrinus 2, 4th ed. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1985), VII–XV; iidem, eds., Stromata VII–VIII: Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae Propheticae, Quis Dives Salvetur, Fragmente, GCS Clemens Alexandrinus 3 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1970), IX–X. 17 Cf. now Matyás Havrda, The so-called eigth Stromateus by Clement of Alexandria: Early Christian reception of Greek scientific methodology, PhA 144 (Leiden: Brill, 2016). 18 Cf. Bogdan G. Bucur, “The Place of the Hypotyposeis in the Clementine Corpus: An Apology for ‘The Other Clement of Alexandria’,” JECS 17 (2009): 313–35 (314n2). 19 For a helpful overview cf. Bucur, “Hypotyposeis,” 313–18. 20 Cf. Wolfgang Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus: Studien zum historischen und theologischen Ort des zweiten Petrusbriefes, WUNT II 353 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 245– 49. 21 Cf. the brief overview in Katharina Greschat, Apelles und Hermogenes: Zwei theologische Lehrer des zweiten Jahrhunderts, VC Suppl. 48 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 264–66. For an in-depth treatment of Clement’s exegesis of Psalm 18 LXX, see Michel Cambe, Avenir solaire et angélique des justes: Le Psaume 19 (18) commenté par Clément d’Alexandrie, Cahiers de Biblia Patristica 10 (Straßburg: Université de Strasbourg, 2009). Cf. also Carlo

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Pantaenus” (ὁ Πάνταινος ... ἡμῶν) in order to defend a reading of Ps 18:6 (LXX) that understands σκήνος (“tent”) as referring either to the creation of the highest class of angels, the πρωτόκτιστοι (“the first created,” cf. Ecl. 56.7), or to the eschatological formation of the heavenly church as Christ’s body (with allusion to Eph 4:13; cf. Ecl. 56.3–6) but not to the exalted (“physical”) body of Christ (cf. Ecl. 56.2).23 Because of the fact that Pantaenus’s rule emphasizes the different meanings of the present tense in BibliNardi, “Note di Clemente Alessandrino al Salmo 18: Ecl. proph. 51–63,” VH 6 (1995): 9–42; and Remi Gounelle, “Il a placé sa tente dans le soleil (Ps. 18[19], 5c[6a]) chez les écrivains ecclésiastiques des cinq premiers siècles,” in Le Psautier chez les Péres, Cahiers de Biblia Patristica 4 (Straßburg: Centre d’Analyse et de Documentation Patristiques, 1994), 197–220; and Jana Plátová, “Na slunci si postavil svůj stan: Nejstarší křest’anské výklady Žl 18 LXX, zvláště v. 5c,” (ET: “In the sun he pitched his tent: The oldest Christian commentaries on Psalm 18 LXX, with special focus on verse 5c,”) Studia Theologica 16 (2014): 70–81. 22 The text of Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 56, reads as follows, words and phrases of special importance within the argument of this article are underlined): Ecl. 56.1: “Καὶ ἐν τῷ ἡλίῳ ἔθετο τὸ σκήνωμα αὐτοῦ.” ἐν ταῦθα ὑπερατόν ἐστι· περὶ γὰρ τῆς παρουσίας τῆς δευτέρας λόγος. οὕτως οὖν ἀναγνωστέον τὸ ὑπερβατὸν κατὰ ἀκολουθίαν. “καὶ αὐτὸς ὡς νυμφίος ἐκπορευόες ἐκ παστοῦ αὐτοῦ ἀγαλλιάσεται ὡς γίγας ῖν ὁδὸν αὐτοῦ. ἀπ’ ἄκρου τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἡ ἔξοδος ῦ· οὐκ ἔστιν ὃς ἀποκρυβήσεται τὴν θέρμην αὐτοῦ.” καὶ τότε· “ἐν τῷ ἡλίῳ ἔθετο τὸ σκήνωμα αὐτοῦ.” (2) ἔνιοι μὲν οὖν φασι τὸ σῶμα τοῦ κυρίου ἐν τῷ ἡλίῳ αὐτὸν ἀποτίθεσθαι, ὡς Ἑρμογένης, σῶμα δὲ λέγουσιν οἳ μὲν τὸ σκῆνος αὐτοῦ, οἳ δὲ τὴν τῶν πιστῶν ἐκκλησίαν, ὁ Πάνταινος δὲ * ἡμῶν ἔλεγεν “ἀορίστως τὴν προφητείαν ἐκφέρειν τὰς λέξεις ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πλεῖστον καὶ τῷ ἐνεστῶτι ἀντὶ τοῦ μέλλοντος χρῆσθαι χρόνῳ καὶ πάλιν τῷ ἐνεστῶτι ἀντὶ τοῦ παρῳχηκότος,” ὃ καὶ νῦν φαίνεται. (3) τὸ γὰρ “ἔθετο” καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ παρῳχηκότος καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἐσομένου τάσσεται· ἐπὶ μὲν τοῦ ἐσομένου, ὅτι πληρωθείσης ταύτης τῆς κατὰ τὴν παροῦσαν κατάστασιν περιόδου ὁ κύριος ἐλεύσεται πρὸς τοὺς δικαίους τοὺς πιστούς, οἷς ἐπαναπαύεται καθάπερ σκηνῇ· ἓν γὰρ σῶμα οἱ πάντες ἐκ τοῦ αὐτοῦ γένους τὴν αὐτὴν πίστιν καὶ δικαιοσύνην ἑλόμενοι, εἰς τὴν αὐτὴν ἑνότητα ἀποκαταστησόμενοι· (4) ἀλλ’ οἳ μὲν ὡς κεφαλή, οἳ δὲ ὡς ὀφθαλμοί, οἳ δὲ ὡς ὦτα, οἳ δὲ ὡς χεῖρες, οἳ δὲ ὡς στήθη, οἳ δὲ ὡς πόδες ἐν ἡλίῳ τεθήσονται φωτεινοί, “λάμψαντες ὡς ὁ ἥλιος” ἢ ἐν ἡλίῳ, ἐπεὶ ἀρχοντικὸς ἄγγελος ἐν ἡλίῳ · (5) εἰς ἀρχὴν γὰρ ἡμερῶν τέτακται, καθάπερ ἡ σελήνη εἰς τὸ ἄρχειν νυκτός· ἡμέραι δὲ ἄγγελοι ἐκλήθησαν. (6) μετὰ τῶν μεθ’ ἡλίου ἀγγέλων, φησί, ταγήσονται (ἓν ὥσπερ κεφαλὴ σώματος, ὄντος ἑνός, ὁ ἥλιος), ἐσόμενοί ποτε κατά τινα περίοδ καὶ αὐτοὶ ἄρχοντες ἡμερῶν, ὡς ἐκεῖνος ὁ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἡλίου ἐπὶ τὸ μεῖζον , ἐφ’ ὃ μετῆλθεν πρὸ ατο ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ. καὶ πάλιν ἐπαναβησόμενοι κ προκοπὴν ἀφίξονται ἐπὶ τὴν πρώτην μονήν. (7) κατὰ τὸν παρῳχηκότα “ἔθετο” τοὺς [τε] πρωτοκτίστους ἀγγέλους εἰς τὸ μηκέτι κατὰ τὴν πρόνοιαν τῷ ὡρισμένῳ λειτουργεῖν, ἀλλ’ εἶναι ἐν ἀναπαύσει καὶ πρὸς μόνῃ τῇ θεωρίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ· οἱ δὲ προσεχέστεροι τούτοις προκόψουσιν εἰς ἣν ἐκεῖνοι ἀπολελοίπασι τάξιν, καὶ οὕτως οἱ ὑποβεβηκότες ἀναλόγως. 23 The text attributes this last interpretation to Hermogenes (mentioned by name) and anonymous “others,” cf. Greschat, Apelles und Hermogenes, 259–73. Bousset, Schulbetrieb, 191n1, rightly notes a slight inconsistency in the commenator’s interpretation: “Der Psalmvers soll nach dem Anfang scheinbar nur eschatologisch ausgelegt werden, am Schluß wird doch noch eine zweite Deutung angefügt.” Bousset assumes this to be an indication of Clement’s redactional activity.

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cal texts, while the commentator’s interest clearly focuses on the aorist ἔθετο (and its alleged future meaning),24 some scholars think that Clement used Pantaenus’s rule very deliberately25 or even misunderstood its intention.26 In any case, two things become sufficiently clear from the reference in Ecl. 56.2: (a) Pantaenus was closely connected to Clement (hence the expression “our” Pantaenus) and (b) he was regarded as an undisputed exegetical authority. Like Clement, Origen also mentions Pantaenus as an example of distinguished scholarship. In a letter quoted by Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 6.19.13) and written as a defense against pious critics who problematized Origen’s engagement with non-Christian philosophy, Origen points to Pantaenus who did the same before him (πρὸ ἡμῶν) and whom Origen imitates (μιμεσάμενοι) as some sort of a role model. Thus Origen not only refers to Pantaenus’s example in an extremely important moment of his life and career, but by doing so also reveals that Pantaenus’s integrity must have been beyond doubt even in the eyes of Origen’s opponents (e.g., Demetrius).27 In another letter quoted by Eusebius and written, according to Pierre Nautin’s reconstruction28 in response to Origen’s apology mentioned above, Alexander of Jerusalem joins Origen in honoring the heritage of Pantaenus and

24 Bousset, Schulbetrieb, 191, summarizes the argument as follows: “Man müsse, um den Satz καὶ ἐν τῷ ἡλίῳ ἔθετο τὸ σκήνωμα αὐτοῦ zu verstehen, ihn an das Ende des Verses Ps. 18,6 rücken. Denn er beziehe sich auf die Parusie des Herrn. Man müsse wissen, daß die Prophetie die Tempora vertausche und statt des Praesens oft das Präteritum setze (und umgekehrt) u.s.w. (der Satz des Pantainos ist verkürzt wiedergegeben). So sei auch hier das ἔθετο sowohl als Präteritum wie als Futurum zu fassen. Fasse man es als Futurum, so besage der Vers, daß am Ende dieses bestehenden Weltlaufes der Herr zu den Gerechten, den Gläubigen komme und über sie wie auf einem Zelte seine Wohnstätte nehmen werde (folgt eine längere zusammenhängende Ausführung). Fasse man das ἔθετο als Präteritum, so beziehe sich der Satz auf die Erhöhung der ἄγγελοι πρωτόκτιστοι.” 25 According to Greschat, Apelles und Hermogenes, 263, Clement makes use of Pantaenus’s rule “in einer sehr eigenwilligen Aneignung.” 26 Cf. Neymeyr, Lehrer, 41, following Manfred Hornschuh, “Die Anfänge des Christentums in Ägypten” (PhD diss., University of Bonn, 1959), 353. Maybe the quotation from Homer, Il. 1.70, in Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 55.2, could be seen as a preparation for the juggling with tenses in Ecl. 56. As an intriguing example for a similar combination of “hermeneutical rule” and “concrete interpretation,” cf. Justin, Dial. 113.6–14.4 (regarding Josh 5:2–3). 27 Wyrwa, “Religiöses Lernen,” 296, rightly states: “Auf jeden Fall gilt es zu sehen, dass Origines’ ganze Verteidigungsstrategie zusammengebrochen wäre, wenn auf Pantänus auch nur der Schatten einer kirchlichen Beanstandung hätte zurückfallen können. Er, Pantänus, muss auch in Demetrius’ Augen ein Musterbeispiel eines kirchlichen Lehrers und Katecheten gewesen sein.” 28 Cf. Pierre Nautin, Lettres et écrivains chrétiens des IIe et IIIe siècles, Patristica 2 (Paris: Cerf, 1961), 132–34.

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praises Clement and Pantaenus as his and Origen’s “fathers” (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.14.9). At the beginning of the 4th century we finally find the most extensive and maybe also most debated account(s) of Pantaenus in Eusebius’s Historia Ecclesiastica. Eusebius presents Pantaenus as the first head of the famous Catechetical School of Alexandria, mentions his teaching in both the spoken and the written word, calls him a former Stoic philosopher and tells us about his missionary journey to India (cf. Hist. eccl. 5.10). Moreover, Eusebius is the first in a long row of historians that identifies Pantaenus with Clement’s last and most important teacher which Clement himself cryptically labels as “the Sicilian bee” at the very beginning of his Stromateis (Strom. 1.11.2). Moreover, Eusebius stresses the fact that Clement followed Pantaenus closely in his Hypotyposeis (a writing now almost entirely lost)29 and that Clement mentioned Pantaenus therein “by name” (Hist. eccl. 5.11.2; 6.13.2). To begin with the last point, it is puzzling that the presence of Pantaenus’s name in the Hypotyposeis is mentioned twice by Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 5.11.2; 6.13.2) while in the extant texts of Clement Pantaenus’s name only appears in Ecl. 56.2. If one wants to harmonize the evidence, the presence of Pantaenus’ name in Hist. eccl. 5.11.2; 6.13.2 and Ecl. 56.2 could be understood as an indication that Ecl. stands in some literary relationship to the lost Hypotyposeis. Further support for this assumption is provided by the work of Bogdan Bucur, who demonstrated that Ecl., Exc. and the Latin Adumbrationes30 – widely held to be a part of the Hypotyposeis31 – share several striking thematic and semantic features. To put it another way, these primarily exegetical texts (fragmentary and opaque as they are) form a distinct group within Clement’s writings which is noticeably linked to the memory of Pantaenus (cf. 4.1 below). Regarding the former point, Eusebius’s reading of Strom. 1.11 as a reference to Pantaenus still appears perfectly reasonable for some scholars32 while others doubt the reliability of Eusebius at this point.33 In any case, early undisputable evidence for Pantaenus being Clement’s teacher seems to be miss-

29 The remainders are listed by Jana Plátová, “Bemerkungen zu den HypotyposenFragmenten des Clemens Alexandrinus,” StPtr 46 (2010): 181–87. 30 Cf. now the excellent edition and commentary Clemente Alessandrino: Adombrazioni, ed. Davide Dainese, Letture Christiane del primo millennio 51 (Milan: Paolino, 2014). 31 For a different view, cf. Davide Dainese, “Clement’s Exegesis of 1 John in the Adumbrationes,” in Clement’s Biblical Exegesis: Proceedings of the Second Colloquium on Clement of Alexandria (Olomouc, May 29–31, 2014), ed. Veronika Černušková, Judith L. Kovacs, and Jana Plátová, VC Supp.139 (Brill: Leiden, 2017), 292–324. 32 Cf., e.g., Wyrwa, “Religiöses Lernen,” 293. 33 Cf. Neymeyr, Lehrer, 42.

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ing.34 In addition to that, recent research is inclined to treat Eusebius’s account of an Alexandrian Catechetical school – and especially the reported διαδοχή of Pantaenus, Clement and Origen – more as the construct of a fourth-century church historian than as the correct representation of the situation in Alexandria at the end of the second and the beginning of the third centuries.35 Information regarding Pantaenus provided by later authors demonstrates that Pantaenus’s fame as an erudite scholar persisted throughout the centuries but appears to be even less reliable if not “worthless”36. Notwithstanding this fragmented evidence, modern reconstructions of Pantaenus’s biography and teaching bear witness to great creativity. Pantaenus has been described as a transmitter of Jewish Christian traditions,37 as preserver of Philo’s works,38 as model of the “perfect gnostic” (i.e., the ideal Christian) in the Stromateis,39 and even as “the Hebrew” referred to by Origen.40 A sober portrait of Pantaenus based on the reliable evidence is given by Alfons Fürst:

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Mit seiner, soweit die rudimentären Indizien erkennen lassen, exegetischen und philosophischen Lehrtätigkeit dürfen wir uns Pantainos wohl als einen Christen vorstellen, der die Bibel mit den Mitteln griechischen Denkens interpretierte. So gesehen, erinnert Pantainos nicht wenig an Basilides und passt problemlos in das für Alexandria seit Philon typische Milieu.41 34 Fürst, Intellektuellen-Religion, 39: “Einen soliden alten Beleg dafür, dass Pantainos der Lehrer des Clemens war, gibt es also nicht.” 35 However, Annewies van den Hoek, “The ‘Catechetical’ School of Early Christian Alexandria and Its Philonic Heritage,” HTR 90 (1997): 59–87 (85), rightly warns: “Exchanging Eusebius’ alleged reconstructions for equally hard to prove modern versions of them is risky.” 36 Thus Frenschkowski, “Pantaenus,” 1187, with reference to Jerome, Philipp of Sides, Maximus Confessor, and Photius (“wertlos”). For Anastasius of Sinai, who mentions Pantaenus’s spiritual exegesis of Genesis, cf. Nautin, “Pantène,” 149. 37 Cf. Martiniano P. Roncaglia, “Pantène et le didascalée d’Alexandrie: Du JudéoChristianisme au Christianisme hellénistique,” in Studies in early Christian literature and its environment, primarily in the Syrian East: FS Arthur Vööbus, ed. Robert H. Fischer (Chicago: The Lutheran School of Theology, 1977), 211–33. 38 David T. Runia, “Witness or Participant? Philo and the Neoplatonist Tradition,” in Philo and the Church Fathers: A Collection of Papers, ed. idem, VC Suppl. 32 (Brill: Leiden, 1995), 182–205 (191): “How did Philo survive this early watershed? It is very likely that this happened in the so-called Catechetical school of the Christian diocese of Alexandria, perhaps through the special efforts of its first ‘director’ – (to use a modern term) – Pantaenus.” 39 Méhat, “Pantène,” 160, cautiously states: “Il se pourrait que le portrait du ‘gnostique’ dans les derniers Stromates … soit un portrait idéalisé de Pantène.” 40 Cf. Ronald E. Heine, Origen: Scholarship in the Service of the Church, Christian Theology in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 56n133, with reference to a forthcoming publication, which seems to be still unpublished. 41 Fürst, Intellektuellen-Religion, 41.

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3. Collomp, Bousset, and Munck 3.1 Paul Collomp (1913)

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When the French scholar Paul Collomp wrote his article on a source in Clement of Alexandria’s writings in 1913,42 he could refer to an already quite extensive debate regarding the nature of the so-called Excerpta ex Theodoto. Scholars like Paul Ruben,43 Theodor Zahn,44 Otto Dibelius45 and others had argued that the Exc. are divided into parts that display Valentinian theology and exegesis and other parts that display a non-Valentinian view. This principal division was further developed by François Sagnard in his commentary in the Sources Chrétiennes series and is still accepted today.46 As the nonValentinian material is partly directed against Valentinian exegesis,47 Christoph Markschies fittingly labeled Exc. a “fragmentary counter commentary.”48 Taking Exc. 10–16 as his starting point, Collomp stressed the fact that even the alleged non-Valentinian material is far from being uniform and cannot be easily attributed to Clement across-the-board. Two remarkable features of Exc. 10–16 arrested the attention of the French scholar. First, these seven paragraphs seem to presuppose some sort of a pneumatic corporality of celestial beings (including God himself) and express this idea by terms like μορφή (Exc. 10.1; 11.2), σχῆμα (Exc. 10.1; 11.2; 14.1; 15.2) and σῶμα (Exc. 10.1; 11.2; 14.1; 15.2). Such a concept appears to contradict Clement’s well known emphasis on divine immateriality, for which Collomp points to Strom. 6.163.1 as one example among many. Although the Frenchman’s noblesse did not allow him to claim that “[o]nly a perverse ingenuity

42 Paul Collomp, “Une source de Clément d’Alexandrie et des homélies pseudoclémentines,” Revue de philologie, de littérature et d’histoire anciennes 37 (1913): 19–46. 43 Paul Ruben, Clementis Alexandrini Excerpta ex Theodoto (Leipzig: Teubner, 1892). 44 Theodor Zahn, Forschungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons und der altkirchlichen Literatur, 3. Theil, Supplementum Clementinum (Erlangen: Andreas Deichert, 1884). 45 Otto Dibelius, “Studien zur Geschichte der Valentinianer,” ZNW 9 (1908): 230–47 (329–40). 46 Clement of Alexandria, Extraits de Théodote, ed. François Sagnard, SC 23 (Paris: Cerf, 1970). 47 Cf., e.g., Judith Kovacs, “Clement of Alexandria and Valentinian Exegesis in the Excerpts from Theodotus,” StPtr 41 (2006): 187–200. 48 Christoph Markschies, “Valentinian Gnosticism: Toward the Anatomy of a School,” in The Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years: Proceedings of the 1995 Society of Biblical Literature Commemoration, ed. John D. Turner and Anne McGuire, Nag Hammadi and Manichean Studies 44 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 401–38 (434).

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would attempt to reconcile these differences,”49 Collomp left no doubt that in his view the author of Strom. 6.163.1 could not have written something like Exc. 10–16.50 Second, these chapters know of a distinct hierarchy of celestial beings consisting of three classes of angels (ἄγγελοι, ἀρχάγγελοι, πρωτόκτιστοι), the Son (the Face of the Father) and God (the Father).51 Within this system, the ἄγγελοι are located at the lowest level while the ἀρχάγγελοι are angels of a superior class. Again, the ἀρχάγγελοι are subordinated to yet another – the highest – class of angels, namely the πρωτόκτιστοι. The πρωτόκτιστοι (the “First Created”) are described as seven angels (Exc. 10.4) acting as a unity and constantly contemplating the Son, who himself is ἡ ἀρχή of the vision of the Father (τῆς πατρικῆς ... θέας; Exc. 12.1). Moreover, Collomp identifies certain technical terms (προκοπή, προσεχῶς, λειτουργία) as typical for the description of the dynamics within this celestial system. Both phenomena (divine corporality and celestial hierarchy) are linked together by an interpretation of Matthew 18:10 that reads the Matthean expression “their angels constantly see the face of the father” as hinting towards the πρωτόκτιστοι and their contemplation of the Son (cf. Exc. 10.6; 11.1; 12.1). After reaching the conclusion that Exc. 10–16 is hardly authored by Clement, Collomp claims that these chapters should be grouped together with Exc. 27, where the celestial hierarchy of ἄγγελοι, ἀρχάγγελοι and πρωτόκτιστοι reappears within an exegesis of the High Priest’s entrance into the Most Holy.52 Finally, Collomp finds this hierarchy (and the related technical terminology) also in Ecl. 51, 56–57, i.e., exactly in those chapters that are not only designated to the interpretation of Psalm 18 (LXX) but that also contain the famous explicit reference to Pantaenus in Ecl. 56.2.

49 Robert P. Casey, The Excerpta ex Theodoto of Clement of Alexandria: Edited with Translation, Introduction and Notes (London: Christophers, 1934), 14. Casey does, however, try “to reconcile these differences” by pointing to “the different character of the Stromateis and Excerpta” as well as by calling the reasoning of Clement of Alexandria, Exc. 10–16 “rather experiments in thought, the result of thinking on paper” (ibid., 14). He says, “we may therefore conclude, provisionally, that although the materialism of Excerpta is in real contradiction to the Platonism of the Stromateis, it is not impossible that Clement played with Stoic ideas when confronted by the necessity of reconciling philosophy and the Bible” (ibid., 15). 50 Cf. Collomp, “Source,” 21. Also Sagnard, “Introduction,” 12, feels the tension, but tries to explain it with the characteristic of Clement’s thinking, ibid., 21: “parfois obscure, imprécise, parfois même peut-être d’apparence contradictoire.” 51 For a helpful description of this celestial hierarchy, cf. Bogdan G. Bucur, “The Other Clement of Alexandria: Cosmic Hierarchy and Interiorized Apocalyticism,” VC 60 (2006): 251–68 (254–60). 52 See Judith L. Kovacs, “Concealment and Gnostic Exegesis: Clement of Alexandria’s Interpretation of the Tabernacle,” StPatr 31 (1997): 414–37.

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Collomp comes to the conclusion that Exc. 10–16, 27 and Ecl. 51, 56–57 form a coherent unit (“un ensemble cohérent”53) and should not be attributed to Clement himself but rather to one of his sources.54 The French scholar detects further traces of this source within the Pseudo-Clementine writings55 – but because this part of his theory is of no relevance for the history of research on Clement, I am happy to leave this thorny issue for another study. More important for us is the fact that although Collomp briefly mentions the larger context of Ecl. 51, 56–57, he does not consider the relationship between the interpretation of Psalms 17–19 (LXX) in Ecl. 42–65 and his πρωτόκτιστοι-source – a tiny detail that had huge consequences. 3.2 Wilhelm Bousset (1915) Only two years later, Wilhelm Bousset continued exactly where the French scholar had stopped. In his important book on early Christian teachers, the famous co-founder of the “Religionsgeschichtliche Schule” not only expanded Paul Collomp’s source quite significantly but also identified Pantaenus as its “author.”56 After a brief summary of Collomp’s thesis57 Bousset identifies several other paragraphs of Exc. as belonging to the πρωτόκτιστοι-source. In the course of only four pages filled with very energetic but not very careful reasoning, Bousset develops an argument that almost all of Exc. 6–28 (or even Exc. 4–2858) belongs to Collomp’s source.59 After several repetitions of this procedure, Bousset’s version of Collomp’s source finally consists of Exc. (4?–)6–20; 23.5; 24*; 27; 69–8660 and Ecl. 3–8; 12–20; 24; 27–37; (38.2?–) 42–6561 as well as of several passages in Strom. 6 and 7. In other words, while Collomp attributed only some minor parts of Exc. and Ecl. to his Collomp, “Source,” 25. However, Collomp believes that Clement of Alexandria made use of Exc. and Ecl. in his major works and that this accounts for some parallels between the reconstructed source and the Stromateis, e.g., the one and only mention of πρωτόκτιστοι in Strom. 5.35.1 (cf. Strom. 6.143.1), cf. Collomp, “Source,” 29–34. 55 Cf. Collomp, “Source,” 34–46. 56 More precisely, Bousset, Schulbetrieb, 198, thinks of “lecture notes” produced by Clement while listening to Pantaenus’s oral teaching (“Schulaufzeichnungen, die er sich bei seinem Lehrer Pantainos [vielleicht auch bei anderen Lehrern] machte”). 57 Cf. Bousset, Schulbetrieb, 157–58. 58 Cf. Bousset, Schulbetrieb, 160n4. 59 Bousset, Schulbetrieb, 161: “So stellt sich fast für den gesamten ersten Teil (bis § 28) ein quellenmäßiger Zusammenhang heraus.” 60 Vgl. Bousset, Schulbetrieb, 161–62.165. 61 It is not always easy to reconstruct the “real” extension of Bousset’s source (cf. the questionmarks; Exc. 24 is only partly attributed to the source. E.g., Bousset, Schulbetrieb, 188–89, summarizes the hypothesis in regard of Ecl. but neglects Ecl. 24 (cf. ibid., 164). 53

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source, in Bousset’s view almost the entirety of Exc. and Ecl. stems from the πρωτόκτιστοι-source.62 Moreover, Bousset emphasizes that Ecl. 51, 56–57 is a part of a commentary on Psalms 17–19 (LXX) running from Ecl. 42 to 65 (the very end of the Ecl.) and argues – in my view, correctly – that if Ecl. 51, 56–57 is attributed to a pre-Clementine source, the same has to be done for the whole commentary fragment. Even more important is Bousset’s problematizing of the fact that Pantaenus’s name appears exactly in this allegedly non-Clementine and pre-Clementine context (cf. Ecl. 56.2). He writes: Nun hat Collomp bewiesen …, daß gerade die gesamte Auslegung des § 56 nicht von Clemens selbst, sondern von einer Quelle des Clemens stamme. Nach dem vorgelegten Befunde müßte nun also die Quelle des Clemens wiederum von Pantainos abhängig sein. Pantainos aber ist andererseits, wie aus der Tradition genugsam bekannt ist, der direkte Lehrer des Clemens. Was für eine Quelle sollen wir aber dann noch annehmen, die zwischen Clemens und Pantainos läge?! Soweit ich sehe, drängt alles auf die Vermutung hin, daß die Quelle des Clemens für den ganzen Abschnitt, nicht blos für den Satz, in dem er ihn ausdrücklich zitiert, Pantainos ist. … Clemens hat von sich aus die Meinung einiger anderer (ἔνιοι, οἱ μὲν, οἱ δέ) eingefügt, und das veranlaßte ihn bei der Wiederaufnahme des Fadens uns zufällig seine Hauptquelle zu nennen!63

Bousset asks: if it is correct that Ecl. 56 (and its context) does not stem from Clement himself (cf. Collomp) and if it is also correct that Pantaenus was Clement’s teacher, how shall we explain the presence of Pantaenus’s name in Ecl. 56? Bousset answers: Clement took over a portion of a Psalm commentary drafted by Pantaenus, added some other opinions regarding a crucial verse (e.g., the interpretation of Hermogenes) and mentioned Pantaenus’s name when continuing his citation of the “quoted” commentary. The details and problems of this ingenious solution will be discussed below, for now I would like to underline the importance of Bousset’s question.

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In 1933, Johannes Munck devoted more than fifty pages of his “Untersuchungen über Klemens von Alexandria” to Bousset’s hypothesis.64 Munck demonstrated convincingly that Bousset’s extended πρωτόκτιστοι-source as well as Bousset’s reconstruction of the relationship between Pantaenus and Clement are based on severe methodological flaws. The young Danish schol-

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62 Nevertheless, the statement of Cambe, Avenir, 91, exaggerates a bit: “Si, en EP 56, 2, Clément se référe à son maître pour rapporter un de ses principes de lecture des écrits prophétiques, il n’en résulte pas pour autant que les Églogues dans leur ensemble soient des notes de cours que Clément aurait prises à l’école de Pantène.” Cf. also Nardi, Estratti, 11. 63 Bousset, Schulbetrieb, 191–92. 64 Cf. Johannes Munck, Untersuchungen über Klemens von Alexandria, Forschung zur Kirchen- und Geistesgeschichte 2 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1933), 151–204.

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ar obviously enjoyed his task of dismantling Bousset’s argument when he wrote sentences like the following: Die Beweisführung Boussets ist hier so schlecht, dass seine eigenen Worte die beste Widerlegung darstellen….65

This is a harsh critique indeed. And it is true. Bousset’s exaggeration forms an easy target and there is no need to repeat or even to summarize Munck’s refutation. However, it is necessary to correct the reception of Munck’s critique of Bousset (cf. section 1 above). Scholarship on Clement of Alexandria was seemingly so impressed by Munck’s evaluation that it completely overlooked a crucial detail: Munck did not disagree with Bousset in every single aspect of the latter’s reconstruction. To set things right and to provide a new starting point for future scholarship on Clement and his sources, it might be helpful to start with Johannes Munck’s own summary of his treatment of Bousset:

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Diese Verwerfung der Hypothese Boussets von einer ‘Pantainos’-Quelle kann in vier Punkten zusammengefasst werden: 1) die Collomp-Quelle wird aufrecht erhalten, während die Erweiterungen Boussets abgelehnt werden. 2) Excerpta und Eklogai sind unzusammenhängende Sammlungen von Auszügen, die von Klemens herrühren. Ihre Schwierigkeiten sind nicht durch eine Hypothese zu überwinden, sondern durch geduldige Einzelexegese. 3) Die Katechetenschule in Alexandria ist später als Klemens gestiftet. Die Schulen des Pantainos und Klemens waren freie Unternehmungen, die mit ihrer persönlichen Lehrtätigkeit entstehen und mit ihr auch vergehen. 4) Pantainos ist der eigentliche Lehrer des Klemens, sodass an einer weitgehenden Übereinstimmung in den wesentlichen Punkten ihrer Lehre festgehalten werden muss. 66

Let us begin with the last point. There is – if Pantaenus was Clement’s teacher (cf. the discussion above) – no need to assume “an extensive congruence regarding central topics of their teachings,” as modern (Rudolf Bultmann vs. Ernst Käsemann on the “historical Jesus”) and ancient (Plato vs. Aristotle on almost everything) examples manifestly illustrate. Second, Munck’s third point on the nature of the so-called “Catechetical School of Alexandria” is certainly valuable but hardly an argument against Bousset’s hypothesis. The same is true of Munck’s second point on the literary character of both Ecl. and Exc. Bousset would have certainly agreed that Ecl. and Exc. received their final shape by Clement. Furthermore, Munck’s insistence on “careful and detailed exegesis” does not prove anything. Thus, we are left with Munck’s very first summarizing remark. This one, however, is quite surprising: Munck accepts the core and starting point of Bousset’s hypothesis, i.e. the πρωτόκτιστοι-source of Paul Collomp (“die Collomp-Quelle wird aufrecht erhalten”). To put it another way: while Johannes Munck is remem65 Munck, Untersuchungen, 184n1: “At this point Bousset’s argument is so bad that his own words present the best refutation of it.” 66 Munck, Untersuchungen, 185 (emphasis mine).

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bered for refuting the reconstruction of written sources in the nonValentinian parts of Ecl. and Exc., he actually argued that Exc. 10–16, 27 and Ecl. 51, 56–57 stem from a written source excerpted by Clement. This observation alone would force a rewriting of all the accounts of Munck’s study cited above.67 However, there is even more that challenges the traditional view. Munck does not only accept Bousset’s starting point (i.e. Collomp’s πρωτόκτιστοι-source) but also Bousset’s observation68 of a commentary on Psalms 17–19 (LXX) running from Ecl. 42 to Ecl. 65: Dagegen ist der fragmentarische Kommentar zu Versen aus den Psalmen 17, 18 und 19 kaum auf andere Weise erklärlich denn als Vorarbeit zu oder als Auszug aus einem Kommentar zu mehreren einander folgenden Psalmen.69

Munck, again agreeing with Bousset, is sure about the non-Clementine origin of this fragmentary commentary: Wenn diese drei Stücke [sc. Exc., Ecl. and Hyp.] Notizbücher sind, rufen solche Abschnitte wie die erwähnte Psalmenauslegung Schwierigkeiten hervor, ausser wenn man begründen kann, dass sie nicht von Klemens stammen.70

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This second concession to Bousset can easily be overlooked because Munck does not mention it in his summary.71 In some respect it even contradicts Munck’s first concession to Bousset regarding the πρωτόκτιστοι-source (cf. chart A below). How can Ecl. 51, 56–57 be attributed simultaneously to Collomp’s πρωτόκτιστοι-source (first concession) and to Bousset’s Psalm commentary (second concession)? Munck makes no attempt to clarify the relationship of both propositions. Hence, Munck’s study should not be read as the very end of any discussion about possible sources in the Florentine attachments and their connection with Pantaenus but as an important contribution which added new questions to a debate that has to be continued.

67 Bogdan G. Bucur, “Revisiting Christian Oeyen: ‘The Other Clement’ on Father, Son, and the Angelomorphic Spirit,” VC 61 (2007): 381–413 (397n59), points to several authors who more or less followed Collomp’s proposal. It is, however, an exaggeration that “the thesis of a Jewish and Jewish-Christian literary source behind Clement remains solidly established.” 68 It is true that already Collomp, “Source,” 24, mentioned this commentary but it was Bousset who gave it the deserved interest. 69 Munck, Untersuchungen, 165. 70 Munck, Untersuchungen, 170. 71 One is reminded of Einar Molland’s comment on Munck’s writing style: “Munck has some good remarks on the ‘Unbestimmtheit’ of Clement’s thoughts, scattered and hidden in his literary analyses, almost as if he were imitating Clement’s manner of writing” (Molland, Conception, 12n2).

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4. Open Questions and New Perspectives The reflections above demonstrated that the Bousset-Munck controversy is not always represented correctly by secondary literature. The last part of this article will discuss how this debate could be re-read in light of more recent research. Three aspects seem to be of special importance: first, Bogdan Bucur’s plea for a fresh look at the “other Clement” (i.e. the Clement of Exc., Ecl. and Adumbr.); second, recent insights into Clement’s literary working techniques; third, a closer look at the presence of Pantaenus’s name within the Psalm commentary (“Bousset’s question”).

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4.1 The Other Clement Recently Bogdan Bucur reminded us that Clement’s works beyond the “big three” – Stromateis, Protreptikos, and Paidagogos – are unduly neglected by scholarship and that these minor works deserve to be studied in greater depth than has been done before.72 In order to underline the unique characteristics of works such as Exc. and Ecl., Bucur coined the expression “the other Clement” and offered several case studies of important theological topics (such as pneumatology and angelology).73 While this is not the place to discuss Bucur’s insightful proposal in full, it is necessary to point to at least one of its core elements that seems to be of special relevance for the discussion we have followed in the works of Collomp, Bousset, and Munck. Bucur emphasizes the close connections (regarding, e.g., exegesis, theology and terminology) between Exc., Ecl. and the remnants of the otherwise lost Hypotyposeis (under which the Latin Adumbr. deserve a special place). More precisely, he identifies all of these texts (Exc., Ecl., the Latin Adumbr. and the Greek fragments of the Hyp.) as parts of Clement’s Hypotyposeis. Surprisingly, the connections between these texts include both of the elements Paul Collomp had used to characterize his πρωτόκτιστοι-source in Exc. and Ecl. They not only employ similar terminology of the Adumbr. (esp. profectus [cf. προκοπή] in Adumbr. in 1 Petr 1:3; 1:12; 3:22; 4:13; in Jud 6; in 1 Jo 2:1074), they are also aware of a celestial hierarchy in which Michael’s rank is too high to engage directly in the debate over Moses’s corpse

72 Bucur, “Place,” 335: “Studying Clement of Alexandria’s Excerpta, Eclogae and Adumbrationes promises to be very rewarding in terms of a better understanding of Clement’s theology. Our first and indispensable step should be a new translation of these works into English. The time has come to take more interest in the ‘other Clement,’ the Clement of the Excerpta, the Eclogae and the Adumbrationes.” 73 Cf. Bucur, “Place,” idem, “Oeyen,” idem, “Other Clement.” 74 Cf. Zahn, Supplementum Clementinum, 98.

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(cf. Adumbr. in Jud 9).75 In line with this focus on the Hypotyposeis as the matrix of the “other Clement,” one could integrate two Eusebius-based connections into the picture. I am thinking of Eusebius’s information (given twice!) that he had found Pantaenus’s name in the Hypotyposeis and of Eusebius’ claim that Clement had treated the Apocalypse of Peter within his Hypotyposeis (cf. Hist. eccl. 6.14.1). It is definitely striking that in the extant works of Clement Pantaenus’s name is mentioned only in Ecl. 56.2 and that the Apocalypse of Peter is referred to, again, only in Ecl. 41.1–2; 48–49. By including Adumbr./Hyp., Bucur’s approach adds further context to Collomp’s source and underlines the special character of this “Clement within Clement.”76 4.2 Techniques of Quotation and the Apocalypse of Peter

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In a fascinating article published 15 years ago, Clemens Scholten demonstrated convincingly that in Exc. 4–5 “a hitherto overlooked fragment of an early Christian Quaestiones-commentary has been preserved.”77 While earlier scholars like Sagnard saw Exc. 4–5 only as a rather loosely structured passage,78 Scholten identifies a careful structure designed to present and to discuss different interpretations of Jesus’s transfiguration. This finding provides not only a striking parallel to the fragment from a Psalm commentary in Ecl. 42–65 but encourages the search for further traces of re-used commentary literature within Ecl. and Exc. As Scholten points out, such a search should focus on typical “technical” terminology as well as on patterns of thought and argumentation which are characteristic of commentaries (as known from antique commentary literature). In a similar way, Annewies van den Hoek, well-known for her groundbreaking study on the reception of Philo in Clement,79 as well as for numerous other contributions to the study of Clement, highlighted typical “techniques of quotation” used by Clement. According to van den Hoek, “it is striking how abruptly the material is sometimes presented”80 even giving the 75 Zahn, Supplementum Clementinum, 99: “… auch bei dem Streit um Mosis Leiche soll man sich trotz des Wortlauts von Judae 9 und der Assumtio Mosis einen untergeordneten Engel denken, durch welchen der in höchsten Regionen gedachte Erzengel sein Geschäft verrichtete….” 76 Another characteristic of “the other Clement” – and one which would deserve a study on its own – is his close connection to traditions about οἱ πρεσβύτεροι. 77 Clemens Scholten, “Ein unerkannter Quaestioneskommentar (Exc. Theod. 4f.) und die Deutung der Verklärung Christi in frühchristlichen Texten,” VC 57 (2003): 389–410 (389). 78 Cf. Scholten, “Quaestioneskommentar,” 392. 79 Cf. Annewies van den Hoek, Clement of Alexandria and His Use of Philo in the Stromateis: An Early Christian Reshaping of a Jewish Model (Leiden: Brill, 1988). 80 Annewies van den Hoek, “Techniques of Quotation in Clement of Alexandria: A View of Ancient Literary Working Methods,” VC 50 (1996): 223–43 (235).

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impression of a “rather brutal cut-paste-and-twist technique.”81 Of course, Clement was “also capable of clever and ingenious inventions,”82 but the fact that this early Christian “bookworm”83 focused strongly on written texts gives scholars a rather detailed impression of his working techniques. One phenomenon, which could be called “the jump backwards,” is of special interest regarding the Psalm commentary at the end of Ecl. Van den Hoek describes it in the following way: Clement did not always start from the earliest point within the source he was using; he would begin with a reminiscence and then leap back to the beginning of his source and restart with quotations in a sequence, selecting a few lines from each column until he had run through the whole scroll. The practice could be explained in a visual way; the author first cited from memory and then looked for the specific text; leafing through the manuscript, or rather, unrolling the scroll, he became more and more interested in it and read through the whole work. This method could be observed several times.84

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A visual representation of this technique is presented in chart B (see below). I have already argued elsewhere that considering this specific working method of Clement could be the clue to another riddle connected to the end of Ecl., namely the explicit references to the Apocalypse of Peter in Ecl. 41.2, 48.1 and 49.1 which overlap with the fragment from a Psalm commentary in Ecl. 42–65.85 Although Eusebius reports that Clement’s Hypotyposeis even contained a commentary on the Apocalypse of Peter, no other extent work of Clement refers to any Apocalypse of Peter. In Ecl., however, all three quotations are solemnly introduced with [ὁ] Πέτρος ἐν τῇ Ἀποκαλύψει [φησίν/φησί]. Moreover, in Ecl. 41.1 some sort of an echo or loose parallel to the second quotation (Ecl. 48.1) appears, this time introduced with ἡ γραφή φησί. This evidence provokes various questions. (1) Some scholars found it difficult to understand how Clement could treat the Apocalypse of Peter as a writing of very high authority (cf. the cluster of explicit quotations at the end of Ecl., the introduction formula in Ecl. 41.1, the commentary in Hyp. remembered by Eusebius) while he never referred to it in any of his major works. For Hermann Kutter this discrepancy was simply “unbegreiflich.”86 (2) Furthermore, the arrangement of the quotations is awkward. Immediately after material obviously stemming from the Apocalypse of Peter (cf. its reapVan den Hoek, “Techniques,” 236. Van den Hoek, “Techniques,” 236. 83 Van den Hoek, “Techniques,” 227. 84 Van den Hoek, “Techniques,” 235. 85 For a more detailed presentation of the following argument, see Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus, 268–81. 86 Hermann Kutter, Clemens Alexandrinus und das Neue Testament (Giessen: J. Richer’sche Buchhandlung, 1897), 91. 81

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pearance in Ecl. 48.1!) is introduced in Ecl. 41.1 with ἡ γραφή φησί, Ecl. 41.2 uses the formula διὸ καὶ ὁ Πέτρος ἐν τῇ Ἀποκαλύψει φησίν as if a different source should be introduced. (3) Finally, the fact that at least two quotations from the Apocalypse of Peter (Ecl. 48.1; 49.1) appear within the fragment from a Psalm commentary described by Bousset and Munck demands an explanation. Surprisingly, all of these questions find a plausible answer if one assumes that Clement employed his “jump backwards”-technique during the integration of “a truncated ‘chunk’”87 of an early Christian Psalm commentary into Ecl. From this perspective, the first, rather vague reference to the Apocalypse of Peter in Ecl. 41.2 can be identified as Clement’s starting “reminiscence”88 – he “first cited from memory and then looked for the specific text.”89 Clement found the text he searched for – the narration of a guiding angel for the unborn/aborted children in Apocalypse of Peter – not in a manuscript of the Apocalypse but in a commentary on Psalm 17:51 (LXX) (now: Ecl. 48:1). This is nothing unusual for Clement who regularly took Old Testament quotations not from Old Testament manuscripts but from writings like First Clement or The Letter of Barnabas.90 After finding the text he had searched for, Clement “leap[t] back to the beginning of his source and restart[ed] with quotations in a sequence.”91 In our case, this “jump backwards” towards the beginning of the source was not such a big one, as Clement went from the interpretation of Psalm 17:51 (LXX) back to the interpretation of Psalm 17:15 (LXX), which seems to have been the original context of Ecl. 41.2.92 Maybe the quotation from Apocalypse of Peter included in Ecl. 41.2 was also the very first appearance of the Apocalypse of Peter in the underlying Psalm commentary, but of course there is no way to prove this. In any case, the odd difference between Ecl. 41.1 and Ecl. 41.2 becomes clear. While in Ecl. 41.1 Clement is quoting the Apocalypse of Peter from memory (introduced by ἡ γραφή φησί), in Ecl. 41.2 he quotes from a written Psalm commentary (in my view: on Psalm 17:15 [LXX]) which itself is quoting the Apocalypse of Peter. If the assumption is correct that Clement used the “jump backwards”technique at the end of Ecl., this leads to a twofold result. First, it helps to determine more precisely where in Ecl. the quotation from a commentary on Psalms actually begins. The appearance of the first lemma (from Ps 17:26 [LXX]) in Ecl. 42 led Bousset and Munck to identify Ecl. 42. as the beginning of the fragment. However, taking the “jump backwards”-technique into Van den Hoek, “Techniques,” 235. Van den Hoek, “Techniques,” 235. 89 Van den Hoek, “Techniques,” 235. 90 Van den Hoek, “Techniques,” 235. 91 Van den Hoek, “Techniques,” 235. 92 For this, cf. Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus, 276–77. 87 88

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account, it is more probable that Ecl. 41.2 is actually part of the fragment from the commentary.93 Second, all three of the explicit quotations from the Apocalypse of Peter (Ecl. 41.2, 48.1 and 49.1, each one introduced with [ὁ] Πέτρος ἐν τῇ Ἀποκαλύψει [φησίν/φησί]) in the entire existent works of Clement are part of a source text used by Clement. This important observation sheds new light on the reception history of the Apocalypse of Peter94 as well as on Clement’s relationship to this text. If we trust Eusebius’s claim that Clement built especially on Pantaenus’s work when writing his Hypotyposeis (including some sort of commentary on the Apocalypse of Peter), it might not be too bold to claim that the Apocalypse of Peter was not so much a personal favorite of Clement but appears in his writings when he relies on older Christian traditions. Is it mere coincidence that at both places where Clement treated the Apocalypse of Peter (Psalm commentary in Ecl. and commentary on Apocalypse of Peter in Hyp. [according to Eusebius]) Pantaenus somehow lurks in the background (mentioned in Ecl. 51.2; as exegetical authority behind Hyp. [according to Eusebius])? Perhaps. But a fresh look on Bousset’s and Munck’s work in combination with more recent research on literary techniques employed by Clement will open up further windows into the world of early Christianity in Alexandria. 4.3 The Mention of Pantaenus in the Commentary on Psalms (“Bousset’s Question”)

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Finally, the relationship between Pantaenus and Clement’s written sources awaits further discussion. Simply put, Bousset’s question (cf. 3.2) still remains unanswered: how do we explain the presence of Pantaenus’s name in a written source taken over by Clement? It makes little difference if one sees Pantaenus more as a “teacher” or a “colleague” of Clement – in any case it is puzzling that Clement should have used texts that already included references to Pantaenus and his teaching. As noted above, Bousset’s interpretation of the evidence, that Clement interpolated the first part of Ecl. 56.2 with references to early Christian teach93 This is supported by an old observation of Montague R. James, “A New Text of the Apocalypse of Peter II,” The Journal of Theological Studies 12 (1911): 362–83 (369–70): “Zahn and others have referred § 1 [sc. Ecl. 41.1] to another Apocalypse, unnamed, because in § 2 the A. P. is named definitely. But nothing surely can be clearer than that § 2 is a separate excerpt; by no possibility can Διό be connected with § 1. The excerptor has simply copied all the references to the A. P. which he noticed.” 94 With typical emphasis Adolf von Harnack, Das Neue Testament um das Jahr 200: Theodor Zahn’s Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, vol. 1/1 (Freiburg: Mohr Siebeck, 1889), 85, called the fact that Clement mentions the Apocalypse of Peter as γραφή while Origen does not mention it at all “das Interessanteste in der Geschichte der unter dem Namen des Petrus stehenden Literatur….”

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ers (Hermogenes and others) and included Pantaenus’s name when returning to the latter’s commentary in the final part of Ecl. 56.2,95 is hardly convincing. On the one hand, the series of different interpreters (Hermogenes and others, Pantaenus) with different opinions regarding Psalm 18:6a (LXX) reads like a coherent unit. On the other hand, no semantic or syntactical indication supports such a splitting of Ecl. 56.2. Johannes Munck’s explanation, however, suffers from similar weaknesses. The Danish scholar sees Clement as author of the last part of Ecl. 56.2 (ὃ καὶ νῦν φαίνεται) as well as of Ecl. 56.3–596 and identifies φησί in Ecl. 56.6 as the introduction to Collomp’s πρωτόκτιστοι-source.97 This silent modification of Collomp’s proposal98 is highly unlikely because with φησί in Ecl. 56.6 the futuric reading of Psalm 18:6a (LXX) (beginning in Ecl. 56.3 with ἐπὶ μὲν τοῦ ἐσομένου) is continued, not introduced. The reading in the past tense (κατὰ τὸν παρῳχηκότα) only begins in Ecl. 56.7. Munck thus overlooks the fact that already Ecl. 56.3 (τὸ γὰρ “ἔθετο” καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ παρῳχηκότος καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἐσομένου τάσσεται) points to both readings (in future and in past perspective) which makes his division between Ecl. 56.2b–5 and Ecl. 56.6–7 simply not possible. In his edition of the Excerpta, Robert Casey likewise emphasizes the importance of the φησί in Ecl. 56.6 when criticizing Bousset. In Casey’s view, “Bousset supposed it [sc. the subject of φησί] to be Pantaenus and his whole case for the authorship of the disputed sections in Excerpta and Eclogae rests on this assumption.”99 This is, however, just another severe misunderstanding of Boussets’s argument by Casey. Bousset does not mention φησί in Ecl. 56.6 during his argument for Pantaenus’s authorship of Ecl. 42–65 at all.100 But even if the subject of φησί should rather be identified as the psalm95 Cf. Bousset, Schulbetrieb, 191–92. Greschat, Appelles und Hermogenes, 263n36, thinks that Bousset “vermute[t], daß das gesamte Kapitel 56 der Eclogae eine von Pantainos ausgearbeitete Exegese zu Ps. 18,5f. enthält, die Clemens hier lediglich referiert,” and refers to Walter Bauer, Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum: Zweite, durchgesehene Auflage mit einem Nachtrag, ed. Georg Strecker, BHTh 10 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1964), 202, as holding the same view. However, Bauer’s very brief remark, at ibid., (“So glaubte Hermogenes Ps 18[,]6 [LXX = hebr. 19[,]5) als Stütze seiner Auffassung verwerten zu dürfen, daß Christus bei seiner Heimkehr nach oben seinen Leib in der Sonne zurückgelassen habe [Clemens Alex., Eclog. proph. 56,2. Hippolyt, Elench. VIII,17]. Die Rechtgläubigen legten die Stelle anders aus, und Pantänus beanstandete auch aus sprachlichen Gründen die Deutung des Ketzers [Clemens Alex. a.a.O. 2ff].”) is not completely clear. 96 According to this view, Clement added Pantaenus’s name and his rule. 97 Munck, Untersuchungen, 183: “Bei der Ausführung dieser beiden Bedeutungen des Psalmenverses geschieht es, dass Klemens mit einem φησί einen Zusammenhang einführt, der, wie Collomp nachgewiesen hat, zu der von ihm gefundenen Quelle gehört.” 98 Collomp attributed all of Ecl. 56–57 to his source. 99 Casey, Excerpta, 13. 100 Cf. Bousset, Schulbetrieb, 190–98.

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ist,101 God or Scripture102 instead of Pantaenus, this would not affect Bousset’s case because it is based on different observations.103 If Bousset’s question is neither answered convincingly by himself nor by his critics, in which direction should we search for a solution? One (rather safe) possibility would be to describe the author of the Psalm commentary cautiously as yet another Christian teacher in late 2nd century Alexandria. This would be someone who, like Clement, aligned himself with Pantaenus and included one of the latter’s exegetical principles into his commentary on Psalms – a commentary almost immediately used by Clement. Alternatively, one could try to follow Bousset’s idea by pointing to a special feature of Exc. and Ecl., namely their focus on distinguishing between exegetical ideas of “others” and “us.” For example, in Exc. 8.1 ἡμεῖς δὲ ... φαμεν introduces a Christological argument that counters a Valentinian interpretation (cf. Exc. 6.1) of the prologue of John’s gospel presented in Exc. 6–7. In Exc. 17.3 a critical reaction to the Valentinian idea that Jesus, the church and wisdom form a κρᾶσις (“mixture,” cf. Exc. 17.1) begins with ἐμοὶ δὲ δοκεῖ. The same scheme reappears in Ecl. 26.5 where a dual power is ascribed to the “fire thrown on earth” (Luke 12:49). For the “saints” the power of the fire is a purifying one, for the “hylics” the power of the fire is a destroying one (“like they say,” ὡς μὲν ἐκεῖνοί φασιν) or an educating one (“like we say,” ὡς δὲ ἡμεῖς ἂν φαίημεν). Further examples could be added, but the pattern should be sufficiently clear: a presentation of a rivaling exegetical idea is followed by the author’s own interpretation whereby the latter is marked by a short introduction in the first person plural or singular (Exc. 8.1: ἡμεῖς δὲ ... φαμεν, Exc. 17.3: ἐμοὶ δὲ δοκεῖ; Ecl. 26.5: ὡς δὲ ἡμεῖς ἂν φαίημεν). Interestingly, similar patterns occur in the recently edited “Berlin Coptic Book” (P.Berolinensis 20915), a fascinating text which maybe originated in an Alexandrian environment at the end of the second or the beginning of the third centuries.104 Annewies van den Hoek notes the “surprisingly frank and

Cf. Casey, Excerpta, 13: “It seems therefore more likely that the subject of φησί is the psalmist….” Gounelle, “Tente,” 209n35, asks: “On peut cependant se demander quel est le sujet du φησὶ qui apparaît au cours de l’exposé clémentin…. S’agit-il du psalmiste? de Pantene?” In the end, he leaves the question open. 102 Cambe, Avenir, 97–98: “Puisque l’auteur argumente à partir du Ps 19 et de Gn 1, le sujet sous-etendu n’est autre que Dieu lui-même ou l’Écriture, selon un usage fréquent dans les argumentations bibliques, juives ou chrétiennes.” 103 Nardi, Estratti, 91, 137–38, neither translates nor interprets φησί in Ecl. 56.6 (cf. also idem, Note, 25–32). 104 Das Berliner “Koptische Buch” (P 20915): Eine wiederhergestellte frühchristlichtheologische Abhandlung, ed. Gesine Schenke-Robinson, Hans-Martin Schenke and UweKarsten Plisch, CSCO 610–11 / Scriptores Coptici 49–50, 2 vols. (Löwen: Peeters, 2004). 101

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rather neutral”105 treatment of contradicting theological opinions within the “Berlin Coptic Book” (one is reminded of Ecl. and, especially, Exc.) and explains that its author integrates numerous references to exegetical authorities (“key texts”) according to a clearly defined scheme: From a formal point of view the key texts are applied either to strengthen or to contrast with the opinion of the author. The author sets up an argument along the following – somewhat simplified – lines: the biblical text says this, others claim that – and their opinions are also confirmed by so and so – but this is what I think.106

Without claiming that all of these texts (and probably texts within texts) stem from the same source,107 the similarity of these expressions might point to a “scholarly atmosphere” with a strong interest in linking exegetical concepts with concrete persons who invented or adopted those concepts. If the rather stable sequence – “other” positions followed by the author’s own interpretation – and the corresponding introductory formula (“they say” etc.) are taken into account and if bold scholarly guesses are allowed, the evidence may lead to the following questions regarding the Psalm commentary integrated at the end of Ecl.: Should we imagine that the series of exegetes (Hermogenes says, others say, …) listed in the commentary on Psalm 18:5–6 (LXX) (now: Ecl. 56.2) was originally followed by a similar first person expression (e.g., ἐμοὶ δὲ δοκεῖ; ἡμεῖς δὲ φαμεν)? And should we imagine that Clement, maybe triggered by Hermogenes’s name, changed such a first person expression to “our Pantaenus etc.” when excerpting the commentary? And should we therefore dare to assume that Clement treated this very commentary on Psalms – which he partly included into his Ecl. – as a writing of Pantaenus? Perhaps. Most probably we will never know, but if they are not useful for anything else, such questions could at least be of some heuristic value.

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5. Conclusion Building on the research of Paul Collomp, who attributed Exc. 10–17 and Ecl. 51, 56–57 to a non-Valentinian source of Clement, Wilhelm Bousset 105 Annewies van den Hoek, “Papyrus Berolinensis 20915 in the Context of Other Early Christian Writings From Egypt,” in Origeniana octava: Origen and the Alexandrinian Tradition – Papers of the 8th International Origen Congress Pisa, 27–31 August 2001, ed. Lorenzo Perrone, Paolo Bernardino, and Diego Marchini, BEThL 164 A/B, 2 vols. (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 75–92 (79). 106 Van den Hoek, “Papyrus Berolinensis,” 79. 107 Van den Hoek, “Papyrus Berolinensis,” 85: “As the author behind the Berlin codex, one might think of Clement’s teacher Pantaenus, had it not been for the fact that his name has already been (mis)used too often in the context of anonymous texts.”

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developed the hypothesis that large parts of Clement’s extant writings are formed out of notes which Clement had taken when listening to the teaching of Pantaenus. Johannes Munck’ seminal work Untersuchungen über Klemens von Alexandria (1933) is widely remembered for an “annihilating criticism”108 of this proposal. Unsurprisingly, Bousset’s “Pantaenus source” has hardly found acceptance. There is no doubt that Bousset’s hypothesis is flawed in several respects and that the forceful response by Munck is an important contribution to the history of scholarship. However, the often told story of Bousset’s complete refutation by Munck overlooks two crucial details. First, Munck did not disagree with Bousset on every single source-critical topic but rather accepted Bousset’s discovery of a fragment that Clement obviously took from an earlier Christian Psalm commentary and that now runs from Ecl. 42 to Ecl. 65. On the other hand, Munck still followed Collomp’s description of a source limited to Exc. 10–17 and Ecl. 51, 56–57 (against Bousset’s far more extended source). The tension between both overlapping concepts is evident (cf. chart A below), but neither Munck nor scholarship after him felt the need to clarify how Collomp’s smaller source and Bousset’s Psalm commentary could and should be related to each other. Second, Munck did not offer a convincing answer to Bousset’s question about how the mention of Pantaenus (Ecl. 56.2) – i.e., of a “teacher” or “colleague” of Clement – found its way into a source that was already used by Clement. It is possible to combine this reassessment of the Bousset-Munck debate with at least three aspects of current research on Clement in a fruitful way: (a) While texts like Exc., Ecl., and Adumbr./Hyp. stood at the margin of scholarly interest for quite a long time, they recently attracted the attention of scholars in early Christianity. Bogdan Bucur especially has demonstrated that a closer look at the “other Clement” is rewarding both in historical and theological perspective. Following this new approach to the “minor” writings of Clement, a careful study of source critical questions (including those already discussed in older scholarship) might lead to a better understanding of “the Other Clement’s” characteristic features like angelology, traditions of οἱ πρεσβύτεροι, Enoch traditions, “interiorized apocalypticism,”109 and Petrine texts (ApocPetr, KerPetr, 1 Peter). (b) In a similar way, new descriptions of techniques of quotation employed by Clement dovetail nicely with source critical discussions of old. Annewies van den Hoek’s description of the “jump backwards”-technique makes it possible to propose a plausible solution to several riddles connected to the quotations from Apocalypse of Peter in Ecl. 41.1–2, 48.1, and 49.1 as 108 109

Molland, Gospel, 13n2 An expression coined by Bucur, “The Other Clement.”

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well as to identify Ecl. 41.2 precisely as the beginning of a quotation from a Psalm commentary running until the end of Ecl. in Ecl. 65. (c) Both of these aspects make it rather unlikely that the Psalm commentary quoted in Ecl. 41.2–65 stems directly from Clement. Ascribing it to Pantaenus, whose name is mentioned in Ecl. 56.2, remains a fascinating possibility for which the present article proposed a new scenario based on patterns of exegetical argumentation in Ecl., Exc. and the newly discovered “Berlin Coptic Book.” However, with no undisputed text of Pantaenus left in our hands such reasoning remains highly speculative and it might thus be safer to describe the author of the Psalm commentary just as an exegetically skilled Christian teacher with a strong interest in merging apocalyptic and angelological concepts, philosophy, Petrine traditions and the idea of γνῶσις – an “other Clement” indeed. In any case, the place of this commentary within the history of 2nd century Christianity in Alexandria as well as its connections with Exc. and Adumbr./Hyp. await further clarification. It was the aim of the reflections above to illustrate how a closer look at the history of research regarding the Alexandrian enigma Pantaenus may contribute to the current study of Clement of Alexandria and his fascinating intellectual environment. Let me close these observations on a shadowy figure of early Christianity in Alexandria with a still valid remark made by Johannes Munck:

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Obgleich unser Wissen über Pantainos äußerst gering ist, haben wir doch die Möglichkeit, einzelne Schlüsse mit einer gewissen Sicherheit zu ziehen, und es ist von Wichtigkeit, die Grenzen unseres Wissens und Nicht-Wissens zu präzisieren, damit die Phantasie keinen Übergriff begehe.110

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Chart A: Conflicting Assessments of Ecl. in Munck’s Critique of Bousset

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The Quest for Pantaenus Chart B: Clement’s “Jump Backwards”-Technique (According to Annewies van den Hoek)111 Source text excerpted by Clement

Clement’s own text

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This chart is taken from Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus, 275.

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Alexandria, City of Knowledge Clement on “Statues” in His Protrepticus (chapter 4) THOMAS J. KRAUS 1. Introduction Πῇ δὴ οὖν μύθοις κενοῖς πεπιστεύκατε, θέλγεσθαι μουσικῇ τὰ ζῷα ὑπολαμβάνοντες; Ἀληθείας δὲ ὑμῖν τὸ πρόσωπον τὸ φαιδρὸν μόνον, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἐπίπλαστον εἶναι δοκεῖ καὶ τοῖς ἀπιστίας ὑποπέπτωκεν ὀφθαλμοῖς. How in the world is it that you have given credence to worthless legends, imagining brute beasts to be enchanted by music, while the bright face of truth seems alone to strike you as deceptive, and is regarded with unbelieving eyes?

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Titus Flavius Clemens, who we better know as Clemens of Alexandria today, asks this fundamental and decisive question rather early in his Προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας (Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 1.2.1).1 The sharp rebuke that immediately follows may also be understood as a rhetorical question that does not require an answer and has consequently been translated as such.2 Clement’s addressees (πεπιστεύκατε, ὑμῖν) are evidently subject to a misunderstanding because they do not regard “the bright face of truth alone” (ἀληθείας … τὸ πρόσωπον τὸ φαιδρὸν μόνον); on the contrary, they look at “worthless legends” and think of “brute beasts to be enchanted by music.” The Greek lexeme which “legends” translates is μύθοι and would be more appropriately translated as “myths.” Before he poses his double question, Clement opens his Protrepticus with brief accounts about two legendary minstrels. By asking the questions, he All the Greek quotations from Clement’s Protrepticus are from the standard critical edition by Otto Stählin and Ursula Treu, eds., Protrepticus und Paedagogus, vol. 1 of Clemens Alexandrinus, GCS 12, 3rd ed. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1972 [11909]), and from the edition dependent on Stählin by Claude Mondésert and André Plassart, eds., Clement d’Alexandrie: Le Protreptique, SC 2, 3rd ed. (Paris: Cerf, 1976), both ad loc. 2 English translations are taken from George W. Butterworth, Clement of Alexandria: Exhortation to the Greeks, Rich Man’s Salvation, To the Newly Baptized, LCL 92 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 5 (for the translation of 1.2.1 above). Mondésert and Plassart, Clement d’Alexandrie, Le Protreptique, 53, also translate the text with a double question (“Comment donc pouvez-vous croire de vaines légendes et supposer que la musique apprivoise les bêtes sauvages, tandis que le visage resplendissant de la vérité, seul peut-être, vous paraît fardé et subit vos regards de défiance”). 1

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does not leave any doubt that his addressees should prefer matters that are impure, untrue, painted, decorated, veiled, or masked to the “bright face of truth.” The two episodes are about (i) Amphion of Thebes and Arion of Methymna or, to be more precise, about their commemorated musical skills and (ii) a myth about “a Thracian”3 (in other words Orpheus4), who tamed wild beasts just by singing. Then follows the story of Eunomos the Locrian (Εὔνομος τὸν Λοκρόν), another minstrel, and the Pythian (= Delphian) grasshopper (cicada). It is this last story that is crucial for what Clement wants to illustrate. The grasshopper decides to fly to the lyre to replace a broken string in order to guarantee that the beautiful and enchanting song can continue. For Clement it was not just pure responsiveness to sound and song that prompted the grasshopper to jump to the musical instrument like the “Greeks” erroneously thought (Protr. 1.1.1–3). It happened because “the grasshopper flew of its own accord, and sang of its own accord” (ὃ [= ὁ τέττιξ] δὲ ἑκὼν ἐφίπταται καὶ ᾄδει ἑκών; Protr. 1.1.3). In the following passages of the first chapter of the Protrepticus, Clement makes repeated recourses to the Eunomos, who he uses to develop the contrast between him, the minstrel, and an “Eunomos of mine” (ὁ Εὔνομος ὁ ἐμός), who eventually sings “the new song, with its eternal strain that bears the name of God.”5 To underline this notion Clement even employs a play on words (Εὔνομος for εὖ + νομός as “good” or “nice” + “chord”).6 The example above demonstrates how Clement succeeds in interweaving thoughts, ideas, and arguments with each other so that they serve the purposes and aims he pursues in his Protrepticus. And it is not entirely surprising 3 It might be interesting that Clement considered the Thracians to be especially superstitious and backward (cf. Protr. 2.13.1–5; though he mentions the Phrygians and the Greeks as well). 4 For the Orphic tradition as represented in (early) Christian literature, see Miguel H. de Jáuregui, “Las fuentes de Clem. Alex. Protr. II 12–22: un tratado sobre los misterios y una teogonía órfica,” Emerita 75 (2007): 19–50; idem, Orphism and Christianity in Late Antiquity, Sozomena 7 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 127–218 (for Clement of Alexandria, ibid., 132); Alain Le Boulluec, “Clément d’Alexandrie,” in Histoire de la Littérature Grecque Chrétienne des origines à 451. III: De Clément d’Alexandrie à Eurèbe de Césarée, ed. Bernard Pouderon and L’Âne d’Or (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2017), 90–93. 5 For more details on Eunomos and the grasshopper (cicada) as a reference to Plato, Phaedr. 230C, 258e–259a and 259b–d (Socrates), see George W. Butterworth, “Clement of Alexandria’s Protrepticus and the Phaedrus of Plato,” CQ 10 (1916): 198–205 (198–99, 205); Thomas Lechner, “Süße Lust des Logos: Die Vorrede zum Protreptikos des Clemens von Alexandrien und die prolaliai der Zweiten Sophistik,” in Logos der Vernunft – Logos des Glaubens, ed. Ferdinand R. Prostmeier and Horacio E. Lona, Millenium Studies (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 149–205 (195). 6 Cf. Annette von Stockhausen, “Ein ‘neues Lied’? Der Protreptikos des Klemens von Alexandrien,” in Ad veram religionem reformare: frühchristliche Apologetik zwischen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit, ed. Christoph Schubert and Annette von Stockhausen, Erlanger Forschungen: Reihe A, Geisteswissenschaften 109 (Erlangen: Universitätsbibliothek, 2006), 75–96 (81–82).

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that Clement of Alexandria is renowned for his broad and cultural knowledge, his attractive philosophical reasoning, and his fine rhetorical skills,7 though there was a time in which Clement’s language was regarded as plain and even erratic.8 Moreover, it appears as most appropriate and profitable to analyze his language and style from a perspective that considers his individual writings as being embedded into a certain genre of literature and as being intertwined with a specific philosophical tradition9 (e.g., Plato, to mention just one of the most apt sources).10 But could a person in the 2nd and 3rd century CE acquire such an astoundingly broad, profound, and concise knowledge? He was a learned and studied person,11 for sure, but his knowledge even comprises philosophy and philosophers, literature and authors, pieces of art and artists, myths and heroes, and, of course, the Old and New Testament texts. How could he accumulate these pieces of information and how were they available to him? In other words, where could he have taken them from and where could he have studied written records and have had the opportunity to have qualified discussions and inquiries? These questions already point in the direction of Alexandria, the

For instance, see Wolfram Kinzig, “The Greek Christian Writers,” in Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period 330 B.C.–A.D. 400, ed. Stanley E. Porter (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 633–70 (644) (with additional references in n49). Kinzig only touches briefly on Clement’s rhetorics. 8 Cf. the detailed study by Henricus Steneker, ΠΕΙΘΟΥΣ ΔΗΜΙΟΥΡΓΙΑ: Observations sur la fonction du style dans le Protreptique de Clément d’Alexandrie, Graecitas Christianorum Primaeva 3 (Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt N.V., 1967), 4–76; Dietmar Wyrwa, “Clemens von Alexandrien,” in Lexikon der antiken christlichen Literatur, ed. Siegmar Döpp and Wilhelm Geerlings, 3rd ed. (Freiburg: Herder, 2002), 152–54 (153). 9 On this, see Le Boulluec, “Clément d’Alexandrie,” 55–170, here 76–86. See further Thomas Lechner, “Rhetorik und Ritual: Platonischen Mysterienanalysen im Protreptikos des Clemens von Alexandrien,” in Frühchristentum und Kutlur, ed. Ferdinand R. Prostmeier, Kommentar zu frühchristlichen Apologeten, Supplement 2 (Freiburg: Herder, 2007), 196–221; Davide Dainese, “Il Protrettico ai Greci di Clemente Alessandrino: Una proposta di contestualizzazione,” Adamantius 16 (2010): 256–85. 10 For Platonic influence on Clement, see Albert C. Outler, “The ‘Platonism’ of Clement of Alexandria,” The Journal of Religion 20 (1940): 217–40; Salvatore R. C. Lilla, Clement of Alexandria: A Study in Christian Platonism and Gnosticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971); John Ferguson, Clement of Alexandria (New York: Twayne, 1974), 52–56; Dietmar Wyrwa, Die christliche Platonaneignung in den Stromateis des Clemens von Alexandrien, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 53 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1983); Cornelia J. de Vogel, “Platonism and Christianity: A Mere Antagonism or a Profound Common Ground?” VC 39 (1985): 1–62; Christoph Riedweg, Mysterienterminologie bei Platon, Philon und Klemens von Alexandrien, UaLG 26 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1987 [repr. 2015]), especially 30–59, 116–61. 11 Clement’s literacy has been repeatedly underlined. See, for instance, C. Wilfred Griggs, Early Egyptian Christianity from its Origins to 451 CE (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 59, 75 (n97).

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city of knowledge and home of some of the most vertiginous buildings and institutions of the ancient world and late antiquity.12 Clement was born in Athens and not, in all likelihood, Alexandria. Instead, he moved to Alexandria some time later and he composed his works there, though he obviously had to leave the city again and might have lived thereafter in the east.13 Of course, Alexandria definitely is the ideal place for accumulating diverse material and information on a potpourri of subjects for his writings. It is natural to assume that Clement had abundant possibilities there to listen to talks, to discuss matters, to borrow and purchase rolls and codices of relevant authors and their texts, to get access to archives, records, and documents. That is why there is no need to prove that Clement’s knowledge – at least parts of it – might have come from or could have been increased and sharpened in Alexandria and by the Alexandrian setting in which he was exposed. Moreover, the aim pursued in this study is to demonstrate how Clement utilizes this available and almost inexhaustible knowledge in his rhetorics and lines of argument. In order to visualize that as specific as possible the reference text has to be narrowed down some more. Although the Protrepticus as a whole might be seen as a pedagogical work that “consists of an attack on Greek image-worship,”14 this central feature concisely unfolds in its fourth chapter, in which Clement writes about τὰ ἀγάλματα, “the statues,”15 12 For a general background to the present study, cf. Wilhelm Bousset, Jüdischchristlicher Schulbetrieb in Alexandria und Rom: Literarische Untersuchungen zu Philo und Clemens von Alexanria, Justin und Irenäus, FRLANT 23 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1915 [2nd repr. as N.F. H 6, Hildesheim: Olms, 2004]). 13 For details on Clement’s life, about which not much is known at all, see Griggs, Early Egyptian Christianity, 56–61; Wyrwa, “Clemens von Alexandrien,” 152–53; Le Boulluec, “Clément d’Alexandrie,” 58–74. Further see Ralf Sedlak, “Klemens – ein christlicher Autor in Alexandria,” in Alexandria, ed. Tobias Georges et al., COMES 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 435–44 (435–36). 14 George W. Butterworth, “Clement of Alexandria and Art,” JTS 17 (1916): 68–76 (68). 15 Although focussing on the time of the Roman Empire, the Last Statues of Antiquity Database (LSA) offers a broad and illustrative possibility to track published evidence in order to illustrate what “statues” looked like and how they were used. The project description reads as follows (http://laststatues.classics.ox.ac.uk): “Here you will find a searchable database of the published evidence for statuary and inscribed statue bases set up after AD 284, that were new, newly dedicated, or newly re-worked. This database was completed and made public in May 2012 (with only some minor revisions thereafter).” For the project, see also Roland R. R. Smith, “Statue practice in the late Roman empire: Numbers, costumes, and styles,” in The Last Statues of Antiquity, ed. Roland R. R. Smith and Bryan Ward-Perkins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 1–27 (esp. 1–3). See further the studies in Franz Alto Bauer and Christian Witschel, eds., Statuen in der Spätantike (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2007); Troels M. Kristensen, “Statues,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology, ed. William Caraher, Thomas Davis, and David Pettegrew (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 333–49 (focussing on the Christian use and reception of statues from the 3rd to the 7th century); idem, “Statues in Late Antique Egypt: From

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and various artistic representations of gods that the “Greeks” admired and worshiped. What other reasons are there to single out chapter four? (a) Clement employs a rich variety of vocabulary to designate the different pieces of art that are often plainly translated as “statues.”16 He refers to the material they are made of (ἡ ὕλη), names their artists and occasionally mentions their professions, and utilizes all of that for an inherent logical argumentation culminating in a climax at the end of the chapter. With this Clement shares terms and argumentative strategies with other writers to a certain extent. Pausanias and his Description of Greece (Ἑλλάδος Περιήγησις; Graecae descriptio)17 comes to mind, in which τὰ ἀγάλματα appear to be almost omnipresent.18 And there is Dion of Prusa (Dio Chrysostomos) and his Olympian Oration (Ὁλυμπικός; Oratio 12),19 in which the “statues” and one of their artists, Pheidias (or Phidias) of Athens, are also dealt with (Or. 44–48) in a specific way. This Pheidias defends himself in an elaborate and eloquent speech (Or. 55–83).20 One might also think of Tatian and his Address to the Production and Display to Archaeological Record,” in Statues in Context: Production, Meaning, Re(uses), ed. Aurélia Masson-Berghoff, British Museum Publications on Egypt and Sudan 10 (Leuven: Peeters, 2019), 269–80. 16 For a useful overview of terminology and background for the present study, see Tanja S. Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild: Untersuchungen zur Funktion griechischer Kultbilder in Religion und Politik, Zetemata 105 (Munich: Beck, 2000); Jan N. Bremmer, “The Agency of Greek and Roman Statues: From Homer to Constantine,” Opuscula 6 (2013): 7–21; Tanja S. Scheer, “Art and Imagery,” in The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion, ed. Esther Eidinov and Julia Kindt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 165–78 (172– 73) (especially on “cult image” and “votive offering”); Rainer Hirsch-Luipold, “Imagery III. Greco-Roman Antiquity,” in Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, vol. 12, ed. Hans-Josef Klauck and Ho Tsun Shen (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 919–22. Hirsch-Luipold lists the relevant terms according to “language” (μεταφορά, ἀλληγορία, παραβολή, ὁμοιότης, σύμβολον, μύθος, αἴνιγμα), “visual arts” (εἴδωλον, ἄναθημα, πίναξ, ξόανον, γλυφή, σφραγίς, κολοσσός, σῆμα, τύπος, ἐκμαγεῖον), and “image” (εἰκών) as “the most comprehensive ancient term.” The following should be added since they are used by Clement and, thus, have a significance for the present study: ἄγαλμα, ἀνδριάς, βρέτας, and ἱδρύμα (but see below). 17 Pausanias, Description of Greece, trans. W. H. S. Jones (vol. 4: W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod; vol. 5 [Illustrations and Index]: R. E. Wycherley), LCL, 5 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1918–1936 [repr. 1995]). 18 The significance of Pausanias in this respect already becomes evident when simply leafing through pages of Johannes A. Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der bildenden Künste bei den Griechen (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1868 [repr. Elibron Classics 2007]). 19 Hans-Josef Klauck, ed., Dion von Prusa: Olympische Rede oder über die erste Erkenntnis Gottes, SAPERE 2 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2000). 20 Indispensable reference tools are, for instance, Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen, 113–44 (nos. 618–807 for Pheidias); Gisela M.A. Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks, 4th ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970); Andrew Stewart, Greek Sculpture: An Exploration. Vol. I: Text; Vol. II: Plates (New Haven: Yale University Press,

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Greeks (Πρὸς Ἥλληνας; Oratio ad Graecos, above all chapters 33–35),21 who will have his say but will only be considered on the surface here and there in the following. And, of course, others would be of interest as well, such as Strabo and his Geographa (Γεωγραφικά; Geographica) with general references to “statues,” for which he employs a fine array of terms,22 or even Macrobius and his Saturnalia, though the latter is rather late and refers to “statues” primarily just as simulacrum for underlining his main interest of justifying “statues” as “symbols” for and not as similar visual resemblances of gods.23 To what extent do ancient or late antique authors – above all, Pausanias, Dion, and, to a minor degree, Tatian – share the use and understanding of certain terms (and/or how and where do they differ from each other)? (b) Clement supplies many references to authors and other people. Mostly he explicitly identifies his sources and names the artists and persons he refers to or writes about. Sometimes he does not give names but alludes or attributes and, thus, leaves no doubt about who he means. He directly and literally quotes from sources, which he introduces by their authors or titles, while some of his sources, however, are not so unambiguously identified. Which sources does Clement use for which purpose? When and how do they occur in the outline of chapter four of his Protrepticus? Does a certain strategy of argument become visible? (c) After having read the Protrepticus as a whole and having studied chapter four in more detail,24 my impression was that Clement used specific terms and sources deliberately in certain passages. That is to say, he utilized the rather technical standard terms for “statues” and the artists together with references and/or literal quotations for his objective. To what extent can this strategy be identified by means of a closer look at the use of different terms and the contextualization of pieces of information on artists and their “stat1990); idem, “One Hundred Greek Sculptors, Their Careers and Extant Works: Collections/Texts, Greek and Roman Materials,” Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus. tufts.edu/hopper. 21 Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, ed., Gegen falsche Götter und falsche Bildung: Tatian, Rede an die Griechen, SAPERE 28 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016). 22 John R. S. Sterett and Horace L. Jones, eds., Strabo, 8 vols., LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917–1932). Searching the Perseus Digital Library reveals the different terms Strabo uses for “statues,” their occurrence, and frequency: See “Collections/Texts, Greek and Roman Materials: Strabo,” Perseus Digital Library, https://www. perseus.tufts.edu/hopper. 23 Robert A. Kaster, ed., Macrobius: Saturnalia, 3 vols., LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011). For Macrobius’s understanding of “statues,” see Gian F. Chiai, “Ablehnung oder Umdeutung? Macrobius und die traditionellen Götterbilder,” in Bilder von dem einen Gott: Die Rhetorik des Bildes in monotheistischen Gottesdarstellungen der Spätantike, ed. Nicola Hömke, Gian F. Chiai, and Antonia Jenik, Philologus Supplemente 6 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 235–61. 24 Cf. Thomas J. Kraus, “Zur näheren Bedeutung der ‘Götzen(bilder)’ in der Apokalypse des Petrus,” ASE 24 (2007): 147–76 (166–73).

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ues”? And what is this strategy at all? There, observations from (b) and (c) are brought together. (d) At the end I want to draw a few conclusions from (a) to (c) in order to reflect briefly upon the audience addressed by Clement’s Protrepticus. Since the title of this work is traditionally given as Προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας, as Exhortation to the Greeks, or the subscriptio reads κλήμεντος προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς ἕλληνας,25 the protreptic is often seen as a literary piece to convince the “Greeks” (i.e., the pagans) to realize that being Christian is the best and only way of existence. Is this assumption correct? Or, in other words, does Clement’s use of terms and sources let us speculate in more detail about the audience addressed, for instance, if he just wants to persuade and convince them of their failures? Or does he just regard himself as belonging to them? In order to fulfil all these tasks, a monograph or a series of specialized articles would be necessary to deal with (a) to (d) in a sound, profound, and an in-depth manner. Therefore, restricting this lone essay to chapter four of the Protrepticus on the one hand and concentrating primarily on (c), the vocabulary employed for “statues,” and (b), the “artists,” occasionally appended to their works, a quick aside on Pheidias of Athens and other artists mentioned and known by name,26 philosophers, and biblical and non-biblical sources should be sufficient to demonstrate how Clement strategically draws from various sources and how he arranged the information he collected for his own rhetorical and argumentative aims.

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The Greek text that remains the standard and that will be used in this study is is the third edition of Otto Stählin’s critical edition published by Ursula Treu in 197227 accompanied by a separate index volume.28 Very helpful are the editions by Claude Mondésert together with André Plassart,29 who mainly relies on Stählin, and George William Butterworth,30 since they both offer interesting comments and relevant references for the Greek text and the transCf. Mondésert and Plassart, Clement d’Alexandrie, Le Protreptique, 193. The focus will be put on literary sources. Cf. Dimitris Plantzos, “Greek Sculpture in the Roman Empire: The Literary Sources,” in Handbook of Greek Sculpture, ed. Olga Palagia (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019), 7–21; Stewart, Greek Sculpture I, 19–22, but inscriptions (22–24), (copies of the) monuments (24–27), the terms chronology (27–29), and the history of research (29–32) play a role in assessing ancient and late antique sculpture. 27 Stählin and Treu, Clemens Alexandrinus I. 28 Otto Stählin and Ursula Treu, Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 4: Register, GCS 39.3, 2nd ed. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980 [repr. 2015]). 29 Mondésert and Plassart, Clement d’Alexandrie, Le Protreptique. 30 Butterworth, Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation. 25

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lations. The numbering of chapters and paragraphs is that of Stählin and followed by Mondesert, such that chapter four consists of paragraphs 46 to 63 (Protr. 4.46–63). The most recent edition by Miroslav Marcovich31 has been consulted, but the conjectures made there might be matters of discussion that lead astray for the purpose of this study.32 In English, Clement’s Protrepticus is often captioned as Exhortation to the Greeks, which implies that Clement wishes to persuade, inspire or encourage “the Greeks” or that he earnestly advises them or conveys urgent recommendations to them. How do we know that the Protrepticus is actually addressed to the “Greeks” and which of the aforementioned directions its reasoning really takes? First, it is sound to stick to the title Protrepticus until final conclusions are drawn from its analysis to define its nature more closely. Second, the editions of the text supply us with a title – Προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας – and, thus, we may take it as proven on the surface and as a plain presumption that Clement’s Protrepticus is meant for the “Greeks,” in other words for non-Christians or pagans, in order to convince them of the “truth”33 that they would only find within Christianity and its writings. Consequently, the “Greeks” should adapt to and accept the Christian truth.34 Eusebius, Jerome, and Photius preserved the titles of Clement’s works in indices and these provide additional information about the aims and the denomination of the text:35 at least Eusebius offers a concrete descriptive title for the Προτρεπτικός, as he qualifies them as πρὸς Ἕλληνας λόγος ὁ προτρεπτικός that are Clement’s second work after the Stromateis. Jerome names the Προτρεπτικός adversus gentes liber unus, while Photius employs a longer and more telling title (προηγούμενον καὶ συνταττόμενον λόγον ἕτερον, ἐν ῷ τὴν Ἑλλήνων διελέγχει ἀθεότητα τίς ὁ σῳζόμενος πλούσιος). Only Eusebius names the work Προτρεπτικός, but they all refer it to the “Greeks,” either for (Eusebius) 31 Miroslav Marcovich, Clementis Alexandrini Protrepticus, VC Suppl. 34 (Leiden: Brill, 1995). 32 See a list of and comments on debatable conjectures by Bengt Alexanderson, Critique de texte et interprétations de Clément d’Alexandrie et d’Orgène, Acta regiae societatis scientarium et litterarum Gothoburgensis, Humaniora 49 (Göteborg: Kungl. Vetenskapsoch Vitterhets-Samhället, 2017), 7–11. 33 “Truth” is emphasized as crucial term of the Protrepticus. Cf. Annette von Stockhausen, “Ein ‘neues Lied’?,” 79–80: “Im Protreptikos ruft Klemens allein dazu auf, sich zur Wahrheit zu bekennen bzw. ihr zu folgen….” On “truth,” “clarity” (σαφήνεια), and “simplicity” (ἀφέλεια) and their impact on style, see Kinzig, “The Greek Christian Writers,” 638–39. 34 Cf. von Stockhausen, “Ein ‘neues Lied’?,” 83. For a rough definition of Clement’s Exhortation, see Wyrwa, “Clemens von Alexandrien,” 153: “Der Protrecticus ... ist eine chr. Missions- und Werbeschrift, die, bei Anerkennung eines relativen Wahrheitsgehaltes der Philosophie, den Leser auffordert, sich von der Torheit und Unmoral des heidnischen Götterglaubens loszusagen und sich zur Anerkennung der vollen Offenbarung des LogosChristus zu bekehren.” 35 For the following see von Stockhausen, “Ein ‘neues Lied’?,” 83–85.

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or against them (Jerome). But what about Clement himself? In his Προτρεπτικός he does not call his work as such, though he clearly refers to it in Strom. 7.4.22.3 (καὶ περὶ μὲν τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς δεισιδαιμονίας ἱκανῶς, οἶμαι, ἐν τῷ Προτρεπτικῷ ἐπιγραφομένῳ ἡμῖν λόγῳ παρεστήσαμεν κατακόρως τῇ κατεπειγούσῃ συγκαταχρώ. “And respecting the Hellenic superstition we have, as I think, shown enough in the book entitled by us The Exhortation, availing ourselves abundantly of the history bearing on the point.).36 But there he does not add the “Greeks.” However, by choosing legendary minstrels in the beginning – Amphion of Thebes, Arion of Methymna, and Eunomos the Locrian – and by referring even the first example cases he uses to the “Greeks” himself in his treatise, Clement does not leave any doubt about addressing the “Greeks” directly in order to demonstrate the superiority of the Christian belief and to convince them of becoming (or remaining) Christians. The major point, however, will be what sort of “Greeks”37 he addressed or, in other words, who those “Greeks” were.38 Be that as it may so far, Clement deliberately chose the genre “protrepticus” as he states in his Strom. 7.4.22.3. The genre – as it is well known – developed above all from Plato’s Euthydemus, his Phaedo, and – whether it is by him or other author – Epinomis,39 from Isocrates’s epideictic language, and Aristotle. However, Galen, Seneca, and many others might also be of interest when the development and elaboration of this genre is central.40 A definition may read as follows:41 36 Quote according to Otto Stählin and Ludwig Früchtel, Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 3: Stromata, Buch VII–VIII: Excerpta ex Theodoto – Eclogae propheticae quis dives salvetur – Fragmente, GCS 17 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1970), ad loc. ET by Arthur C. Coxe, Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria (entire), Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of The Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1885 [repr. 1979]), 2:529. 37 Cf. Mondésert and Plassart, Clement d’Alexandrie, Le Protreptique, 52n1: “Les Gentils (Ἕλληνες): non seulement les païens opposés aux Juifs au sens de la Bible des Septante, mai les païens opposés aux chrétiens au sens de saint Paul (v. g. Rom., 1, 16; etc.).” 38 English translations occasionally name the “Greeks” simply “pagans,” but that might determine Clement’s attitude towards his audience addressed too definitely as “outsiders” from Christian knowledge and belief. For a potential catechetical tendency within Clement’s Protrepticus see below. 39 André-Jean Festugière, Les trois Protreptiques de Platon: Euthydème, Phédon, Epinomis (Paris: J. Vrin, 1973), above all, 22–31. 40 Cf. James H. Collins, Exhortations to Philosophy: The Protreptics of Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). But see also the critical reviews by Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, ClW 109 (2016): 433–34; and Diego De Brasi, BMRC 12 (2015), no. 16: http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2015/2015-12-16.html. See further, Mark D. Jordan, “Ancient Philosophic Protreptic and the Problem of Persuasive Genres,” Rhetorica 4 (1986): 309–33. 41 Beate R. Suchla, “Protreptikos,” in Döpp and Geerlings, Lexikon, 522. ET mine. In addition, see Mondésert and Plassart, Clement d’Alexandrie, Le Protreptique, 51n1: “discours pour exhorter; les προτρεπκτικοί un genre littéraire classique de la littérature grec-

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Protreptikos … ist ein rhetorischer und literarischer Begriff; er bezeichnet urspr. die Aufforderung, Philosophie zu betreiben (Sophistik, Sokratik, Aristoteles), danach eine von drei … bzw. vier … traditionellen, verschiedenen Arten des Philosophierens, später dann die Werbung zur Beschäftigung mit einer Disziplin oder einem Thema und Werbung für ein Handeln. Protreptikos … is a rhetorical and literary term; it originally denotes the invitation to do philosophy (Sophism, Socraticism, Aristotle). Then it stands for one of three … or four … traditional, different types of philosophizing; later on it meant advertising for devoting oneself to a discipline or a topic and for advertising for action.

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The persuasive genre itself might have been responsible for shaping a complete work or have just formed major passages of a text. We may think of letters (Seneca), dialogues (Plato), or an oration (Clement or Basilius of Caesarea, leg.lib.gent.). In general, “protreptic,” as the word itself suggests, means: “turning or converting someone to a specific end” and “protreptic discourses use a ‘rhetoric of conversion.’”42 Besides, the verb προτρέπω might imply that previous ideas or opinions and a certain way of life is abandoned, just as ἀποτρέπω indicates.43 A distinction between the nature of apologetic and protreptic texts may not always be easy to make, and what Wolfram Kinzig writes about the Apologists can be applicable to Clement and his Protrepticus: “They attempt to “translate” the Christian faith into Greek philosophical categories and thus to make it acceptable to pagan élite.”44 According to James H. Collins “protreptic” has four characteristics: (a) it is dialogic, (b) agonistic, (c) situational, and (d) rhetorical.45 Consequently, by not regarding “protreptic” as a strictly defined category and by taking (c) as a crucial point, we may be content with Alain Le Boulluec who identifies Clement’s Protrepticus as an “[i]nsertion dans un genre littéraire et une tradition philosophique.”46 Moreover, the sources cited in the Protrepticus, above all the references to texts known among Christians, even make it likely that Clement wrote in a catechetical way for an educated audience that had at least some contact with Christian circles and/or slight knowledge of Christian texts and backgrounds. Some of the addressees might have been in the first phase of their catechumenate.47 In order to achieve his goal Clement employed a

que, en usage, en particulier, dans la stoïcisme; ils étaient destinés à la lecture, mais de forme oratoire, et le plus souvent des invitations à étudier les sciences ou la philosophie. Tels le Protreptique dʼAistote … et lʼHortensius de Cicéron.” 42 Collins, “Exhortations,” 1. 43 Cf. De Brasi summarizing the introduction of Collins, “Exhortations.” 44 Kinzig, “The Greek Christian Writers,” 642. 45 Cf. Collins, “Exhortations,” 17–18. 46 Alain Le Boulluec, “Clément d’Alexandrie,” in De Clément d’Alexandrie à Eusèbe de Cesarée, vol. 3 of Histoire de la littérature grecque chrétienne des originies à 451, ed. Bernard Pouderon (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2017), 58–170 (76). 47 Cf. von Stockhausen, “Ein ‘neues Lied’?” 89–90.

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rhetorical strategy48 and used consciously chosen terminology of mysteries, which he shares – to a certain degree – with others (like Plato and Philo),49 though he attacks the pagan (or non-Christian) mysteries heavily50 and, consequently, writes against the worship of all sorts of idols.51

3. Clement and His Account of the “Statues” in Protr. 4 3.1 In General: Clement’s Conception of the Protrepticus and Its Chapter 4

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All in all, Clement writes about the “truth,” as delineated above at the beginning of this study. His addressees should reflect upon the value of philosophy, their own standpoint and perspective, their beliefs, and their cultic and ritual practices. The aim and purpose of the Protrepticus might be to persuade and even more convince the addressees to turn away from their “old” way of life and to a “new” Christian one. Only this new way brings them to the “truth,” in other words to really true insights, and prompts them to recognize and acknowledge the “new minstrel,” “the word of God,” the “new song,” as he coins it in the first chapter; and this alone reveals God to humankind.52 Thus, Clement deals with a descriptive and rhetorical depiction of the Greek Mysteries (chapter 2) and of the Greek Gods (chapter 3), writes about the worship of statues (chapter 4), explicitly states the witnesses of philosophy (chapter 5), poetry (6), and Hebrew prophecy (7), before he describes the claims of custom (i.e., should humans abandon their traditional way or not), 48 See Steneker, ΠΕΙΘΟΥΣ ΔΗΜΙΟΥΡΓΙΑ, who focuses on the linguistic side of the “art of persuasion,” the πειθοῦς δημιουργία, and also deals in detail with the citations from classical authors, philosophers, and the Old and the New Testament, though he largely neglects the influence of the mysteries. Cf. Robert Joly, “Review of: Steneker, ΠΕΙΘΟΥΣ ΔΗΜΙΟΥΡΓΙΑ,” AnCl 37 (1968): 705. 49 For more details, see Herbert G. Marsh, “The Use of Μυστήριον in the Writings of Clement of Alexandria with Special Reference to his Sacramental Doctrine,” JTS 37 (1936): 64–80; Harry A. Echle, “Sacramental Initiation as a Christian Mystery-Initiation according to Clement of Alexandria,” in Vom christlichen Mysterium: Gesammelte Arbeiten zum Gedächtnis von Odo Casel OSB, ed. Anton Mayer, Johannes Quasten and Burkhard Neunheuser (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1951), 54–65; Steneker, ΠΕΙΘΟΥΣ ΔΗΜΙΟΥΡΓΙΑ, 141– 74; Christoph Auffarth, “Mysterien (Mysterienkulte),” RAC 25 (2013): 422–71; Riedweg, Mysterienterminologie, esp. 116–61. 50 Cf. Jan N. Bremmer, Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World, Münchner Vorlesungen zu Antiken Welten 1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 225–26, 627. 51 For the Christian attitude towards idolatry, see for instance the articles in Stephen C. Barton, ed., Idolatry: False Worship in the Bible, Early Judaism and Christianity (London: T&T Clark, 2007); Johannes Woyke, Götter, “Götzen,” Götterbilder: Aspekte einer paulinischen “Theologie der Religionen,” BZNW 132 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005); Kraus, “Zur näheren Bedeutung,” 161–73. 52 See Frederick H. Brigham Jr., “The Concept of New Song in Clement of Alexandria’s Exhortation to the Greeks,” Classical Folia 16 (1962) 9–13.

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until he practically ends with God’s plan of redemption (8) and a summarizing final exhortation (9): the ultimate choice everybody has to make between life and destruction, that is, between following Christ or staying in and continuing with the “old” accustomed life. All in all, book four of Clement’s Protrepticus represents an impressive line of argument and a dramatic build up to a clear climax (chapters 8–9). Suspense is gradually built up and the book culminates in unveiled ultimate cognition and “truth” at its very end. For all of that the naming, description, and discussion of “statues” and the attribution to their artists and places, the support by known sources, and the references to philosophy all serve as the golden thread, and the consecutive line of thought is arranged along it. Even this brief and vague outline already demonstrates that and how Clement utilized specific knowledge about philosophers, religious cults, pieces of art and artists, legends and mysteries, and much more in his reasoning. Nonetheless, he permanently and always is after and argues for biblical, that is, Christian superiority (cf. chapter seven and the effect on the way of life this should have and chapter eight dealing with redemption). The first sentence of chapter four provides us with the overall message, indicates the aim of the reasoning to follow, and manifests the starting point for the rest of chapter (Protr. 4.46.1):

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Εἰ δ’ ἔτι πρὸς τούτοις φέρων ὑμῖν τὰ ἀγάλματα αὐτὰ ἐπισκοπεῖν παραθείην, ἐπιόντες ὡς ἀληθῶς λῆρον εὑρήσετε τὴν συνήθειαν, «ἔργα χειρῶν ἀνθρώπων» ἀναίσθητα προστρεπόμενοι. If, in addition to this, I bring the statues themselves and place them by your side for inspection, you will find on going through them that custom is truly nonsense, when it leads you to adore senseless things, “the works of men’s hands.”

After his treatment of the Greek gods (chapter 3), Clement moves on to write about their representations as pieces of art in temples and sanctuaries, in other words he turns towards the “statues.” He employs the term ἄγαλμα in general and here to denote the “statues” and mostly uses the plural form τὰ ἀγάλματα within chapter 4.53 Not only does he leave no doubt about their nature – they are “senseless things” (ἀναίσθητα) – and the stupid custom of adoring them, he justifies his statement by pointing out that “statues” are “the works of men’s hand” (ἔργα χειρῶν ἀνθρώπων). In support of this claim, he simply quotes Psalm 113:12 and/or 134:15 from the Septuagint. He only uses verse b of the latter and ignores the preceding verse a, which includes mention of the materials from which the idols are made (“the idols of the people are silver and gold”). He will write about the topic of materials – what materials are used and the fact that they can definitely not be representatives of a real (i.e., the real) God – in detail in the passages to follow. The aim of the treatise on the “statues” can be seen at the end of chapter 4 (Protr. 4.63.5): 53

Cf. Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 8–19 (ἄγαλμα).

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Καὶ μὴ τὸν ἥλιόν τις ὑμῶν προσκυνείτω, ἀλλὰ τὸν ἡλίου ποιητὴν ἐπιποθείτω, μηδὲ τὸν κόσμον ἐκθειαζέτω, ἀλλὰ τὸν κόσμου δημιουργὸν ἐπιζητησάτω. Μόνη ἄρα, ὡς ἔοικεν, καταφυγὴ τῷ μέλλοντι ἐπὶ τὰς σωτηρίους ἀφικνεῖσθαι θύρας ὑπολείπεται σοφία θεϊκή· ἐντεῦθεν ὥσπερ ἐξ ἱεροῦ τινος ἀσύλου οὐδενὶ οὐκέτι ἀγώγιμος τῶν δαιμόνων ὁ ἄνθρωπος γίνεται σπεύδων εἰς σωτηρίαν. Let no one deify the universe; rather let him seek after the creator of the universe. It seems, then, that but one refuge remains for the man who is to reach the gates of salvation, and that is divine wisdom. From thence, as from a holy inviolate temple, no longer can any daemon carry him off, as he presses onward to salvation.

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This is about the real God, and thus it is about the “truth.” Everything has been created by the one and only who is God, “the creator of the universe,” who is to be sought after; and this is divine wisdom (σοφία θεϊκή), which leads one to the gates of salvation (ἐπὶ τὰς σωτηρίους ἀφικνεῖσθαι θύρας), the refuge (καταφυγή). Thus, it is no surprise that only here Clement introduces the term σωτηρία, which represents the ultimate last word of chapter four in order to sum it up and to underline emphatically the goal the previous exposition. Hence, the aforementioned somewhat sketches Clement’s overall overall but clear-cut program. The “truth” is not to be found in the “statues” and the temples, in the traditional customs and rituals of sacrifice and adornment, but it is represented by God alone who in addition is the sole way to “salvation.” But this alone would not be enough for a “protreptic” writing like Clement’s to persuade and convince others of the insipidity of their behavior and practice, and to call them to turn away from the “old” to the “new” right way. Clement must develop a line of fine, complex, and yet clear reasoning, and must prove himself to be an expert in those affairs he unmasks, criticizes heavily, and tries to reinterpret by means of Christian contents and practices. After his first paragraph (Protr. 4.46.1) Clement lists the achievements of earlier peoples in order to hold up a mirror to the “Greeks”: already others have done peculiar and very characteristic things and there is nothing for the “Greeks” to be proud of. 4.46.2 Πάλαι μὲν οὖν οἱ Σκύθαι τὸν ἀκινάκην, οἱ Ἄραβες τὸν λίθον, οἱ Πέρσαι τὸν ποταμὸν προσεκύνουν, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀνθρώπων οἱ ἔτι παλαιότεροι ξύλα ἱδρύοντο περιφανῆ καὶ κίονας ἵστων ἐκ λίθων· ἃ δὴ καὶ ξόαν προσηγορεύετο διὰ τὸ ἀπεξέσθαι τῆς ὕλης. 3 Ἀμέλει ἐν Ἰκάρῳ τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος τὸ ἄγαλμα ξύλον ἦν οὐκ εἰργασμένον, καὶ τῆς Κιθαιρωνίας Ἥρας ἐν Θεσπείᾳ πρέμνον ἐκκεκομ μένον· καὶ τὸ τῆς Σαμίας Ἥρας, ὥς φησιν Ἀέθλιος, πρότερον μὲν ἦν σανίς, ὕστερον δὲ ἐπὶ Προκλέους ἄρχοντος ἀνδριαντοειδὲς ἐγένετο. Ἐπεὶ δὲ ἀνθρώποις ἀπεικονίζεσθαι τὰ ξόανα ἤρξατο, βρέτη τὴν ἐκ βροτῶν ἐπωνυμίαν ἐκαρπώσατο. 4 Ἐν Ῥώμῃ δὲ τὸ παλαιὸν δόρυ φησὶ γεγονέναι τοῦ Ἄρεως τὸ ξόανον Οὐάρρων ὁ συγγραφεύς, οὐδέπω τῶν τεχνιτῶν ἐπὶ τὴν εὐπρόσωπον ταύτην κακοτεχνίαν ὡρμη κότων. Ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἤνθησεν ἡ τέχνη, ηὔξησεν ἡ πλάνη. 4.47.1 Ὡς μὲν οὖν τοὺς λίθους καὶ τὰ ξύλα καὶ συνελόντι φάναι τὴν ὕλην ἀγάλματα ἀνδρείκελα ἐποιήσαντο, οἷς ἐπιμορφάζετε εὐσέβειαν συκοφαντοῦντες τὴν ἀλήθειαν, ἤδη μὲν αὐτόθεν δῆλον· οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀποδείξεως ποσῆς ἐπιδεομένου τοῦ τόπου οὐ παραιτητέον.

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4.46.2 In ancient times, then, the Scythians used to worship the dagger, the Arabians their sacred stone, the Persians their river. Other peoples still more ancient erected conspicuous wooden poles and set up pillars of stones, to which they gave the name xoana, meaning scraped objects, because the rough surface of the material had been scraped off. 3 Certainly the statue of Artemis in Icarus was a piece of unwrought timber and that of Cithaeronian Hera in Thespiae was a felled tree-trunk. The statue of Samian Hera, as Aëthlius says, was at first a wooden beam, but afterwards, when Procles was ruler, it was made into human form. When these rude images began to be shaped to the likeness of men, they acquired the additional name bretē, from brotoi meaning mortals. 4 In Rome, of old time, according to Varro the prose writer, the object that represented Ares was a spear, since craftsmen had not yet entered upon the fair seeming but mischievous art of sculpture. But the moment art flourished, error increased. 4.47.1 It is now, therefore, self-evident that out of stones and blocks of wood, and, in one word, out of matter, men fashioned statues resembling the human form to which you offer a semblance of piety, calumniating the truth. Still, since the point calls for a certain amount of argument, we must not decline to furnish it.

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With all due respect to Clement’s harsh criticism and argumentative skills, it is necessary to take the Greeks’ own attitude towards “statues” into account. They were fully aware of the concrete earthly materials these were composed of and that mortal human artists – it was assumed that they might have had a special relation and connection with the gods – made them; and they realized the defenselessness of the “statues,” in other words that they could be moved away, polluted, mutilated or completely demolished so that they were incapable of defending themselves (e.g., Protr. 4.53.1–2: fire and earthquakes endanger and destroy temples and “statues”)54 or even of sensing anything at all (cf. also Protr. 4.52.4). Needless to say, some Greek writers or philosophers were rather skeptical and critical to certain representations of gods (e.g., anthropomorphism),55 expressed in very individual nuances by some Stoics.56 The attitude towards certain “statues” might have even changed over time from worship and imitation of certain “statues” to outrage against, damage of, or even destruction of those same “statues.”57 Besides, “statues” or parts of 54 “Statues” needed protection by others. Cf. Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 108, with reference to Aristophanes, Aves 1115. 55 For more details and examples, see Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 98–111. 56 Cf. Winfried Elliger, “Einleitung,” in Dion Chrysostomos, Sämtliche Reden, Die Bibliothek der Alten Welt (Zürich: Artemis, 1967), vii–xliv (xxxviii–xl). See further Gian F. Chiai, Akzeptanz, “Ablehnung oder Umdeutung?” (see Gian Franco Chiai, “Akzeptanz, Ablehnung oder Umdeutung? Macrobius und die traditionellen Götterbilder,” in Bilder von dem einen Gott: Die Rhetorik des Bildes in monotheistischen Gottesdarstellungen der Spätantike, ed. Nicola Hömke, Gian F. Chiai, and Antonia Jenik, Philologus Supplemente 6 [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016], 235–61 [235, abstract, 237]). 57 For the “statues” of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who killed the tyrant Hipparchus (cf. Pausanias 1.8.5), and their story, cf. Vincent Azoulay, The Tyrant-Slayers of Ancient Athens: A Tale of Two Statues, trans. Janes Lloyd (Oxford: Oxford Universtiy Press, 2017). For a more general context of reactions to and practices with “statues,” see the studies in The Afterlife of Greek and Roman Sculpture: Late Antique Responses and Practices, ed. Troels M. Kristensen and Lea Stirling (University of Michigan Press, 2016), above all

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them were reused.58 Naturally, the Greeks’ attitude towards “statues” did not really facilitate the task of Christian writers to argue against senseless and abhorrent idolatry as performed in front of or with “statues.” Nonetheless, Christian writers did not refrain from attacking pagan practices precisely on these points and utilized them for their own rhetoric and argumentative aims and purposes.59 It might have also been left to the eye of the ancient worshipper whether or not to understand that gods were actually present in their “statues” or that these “were markings in the space in which, and near which, one could imagine the gods as temporarily present,” probably nothing more than “an aid by which one hoped to be able to evoke the godlike presence.”60 As Clement’s line of reasoning proves, his writing about the material “statues” of gods, which were formed by the hands of human beings, and his pointing out that “statues” were powerless and had to endure whatever happened to them, marked important starting points for a successful argumentation for the real “truth,” for the one and only God who does not require any material representation formed by any artist (cf. Wisdom 13–15).61 Clement shares the criticism of anthropomorphic representations of gods (Protr. 4.46.3)62 with Greek writers (see Dion of Prusa, Or. 12.52, but then 12.55– 63), so he refers to Bion of Borysthenes and Heraclit for support (see below); but his skillful etymological explanation of the word βρέτας with the the lexeme βροτός (which is not its cognate) in order to combine a term for “statues” with the meaning “mortal” is rather innovative and a fine example of how he actually argues (also see Protr. 4.83.3 Ποντικὸν εἶναι βρέτας τὸν Σάραπιν, so

Nadin Burkhardt, “The Reuse of Ancient Sculpture in the Urban Spaces of Late Antique Athens,” 150–76, and Christina Murer, “The Reuse of Funerary Statues in Late Antique Prestige Buildings at Ostia,” 177–98. 58 The reuse of certain parts of “statues” (above all, of bases) is an eminent topic in The Last Statues of Antiquity. The contributions are organized according to “Regions,” “Cities,” and “Chronology, Honorands, Style.” For instance, see Smith, “Statue Practice,” 4 and 20. See further, Troels M. Kristensen and Lea Stirling, “The Lives and Afterlives of Greek and Roman Sculpture: From Use to Refuse,” in The Afterlife, 1–25. 59 For further details, see Troels M. Kristensen, Making and Breaking the Gods: Christian Responses to Pagan Sculpture in Late Antiquity, ASMA 12 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2013), who also focuses on Alexandria (118–35) and other geographical areas. See also Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 105–6; Troels M. Kristensen, “Religious Conflict in Late Antique Alexandria: Christian Responses to ‘Pagan’ Statues in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries,” in Alexandria: A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot, ed. George Hinge and Jens A. Krasilnikoff, ASMA 9 (Aarhus, Aarhus University Press, 2009), 158–75. 60 Scheer, “Art and Imagery,” 175. 61 See Helga Völkening, Imago Dei versus Kultbild: Die Sapientia Salomonis als jüdisch-hellenistischer Beitrag zur antiken Bilderdebatte, BZNW 508 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020), esp. 189–200 and 292–402. 62 Cf. Stewart, Greek Sculpture I, 45; Kristensen, Making and Breaking the Gods, 66.

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that the representation of Sarapis [or Serapis] is denoted as not being immortal or godly).63 Besides, Clement substantiates his notion that the Greeks should not be proud of certain achievements in Strom. 1.15.66–73: the ancient Greek philosophers actually were not of Greek origin and received their education from non-Greeks (66); and the Barbarians developed further so that it came in full bloom (71). Even other achievements (Strom. 1.16.74–80) were adopted by the Greeks from other peoples, nations and countries. This is not a chain of thought availed by Clement alone. In his Address to the Greeks (Oratio ad Graecos), Tatian attempts to condemn any Hellenistic influence so that he starts right away with a sharp rebuke (chapter 1):64 Μὴ πάνυ φιλέχθρως διατίθεσθε πρὸς τοὺς βαρβάρους, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἕλληνες, μηδὲ φθονήσητε τοῖς τούτων δόγμασιν. ποῖον γὰρ ἐπιτήδευμα παρ’ ὑμῖν τὴν σύστασιν οὐκ ἀπὸ βαρβάρων ἐκτήσατο; Be not, O Greeks, so very hostile disposed towards the Barbarians, nor look with ill will on their opinions. For which of your institutions has not been derived from the Barbarians?

Tatian, too, leaves no doubt that for him the Greeks have nothing at all to praise themselves.65 Divining by dreams (Telmessians), prognosticating the stars (Carians), augury by the flight of birds (Phrygians), knowledge from inspecting victims (Cyprians), even astronomy (Babylonians), magic (Persians), geometry (Egyptians), and the instruction of alphabetic writing (Phoenicians) came from outside and are achievements made by others.66 Of course, the term “Barbarians” plays a significant role in Tatian’s line of argumentation, because, evidently, other writers denounced Christianity as “philosophy of Barbarians” (Tatian, Or. Graec. 35.2) and Tatian himself uses “barbarian” for “barbarian wisdom” (Tatian, Or. Graec. 1.1 and 30.3) and “our philosophy” (Or. Graec. 31.1).67 Whatever their interrelation is or was, both Tatian and Clement utilized the same motive for relativizing Greek Cf. Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 26–27. For the Greek text, see Nesselrath, Gegen falsche Götter [Tatian], 38. ET is taken from Jonathan E. Ryland, “Tatian’s Address to the Greeks,” in Fathers of the Second Century, 65. 65 The similarity between Clement and Tatian in this respect is underlined and discussed in detail by Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, “Einführung in die Schrift,” in Nesselrath, Gegen falsche Götter, 20–23, and idem, “Anmerkungen zur Übersetzung,” 114 (referring to Strom. 1.74.1 and 1.77.1). 66 Tatian, Or. Graec. 1.1: Τελμησσέων* μὲν γὰρ οἱ δοκιμώτατοι τὴν δι’ ὀνείρων ἐξεῦρον μαντικήν, Κᾶρες τὴν διὰ τῶν ἄστρων πρόγνωσιν, πτήσεις ὀρνίθων Φρύγες καὶ Ἰσαύρων οἱ παλαίτατοι, Κύπριοι θυτικήν, ἀστρονομεῖν Βαβυλώνιοι, μαγεύειν Πέρσαι, γεωμετρεῖν Αἰγύπτιοι, τὴν διὰ γραμμάτων παιδείαν Φοίνικες. 67 Cf. Adolf M. Ritter, “Spuren Tatians und seiner Oratio ad Graecos in der christlichen Literatur der Spätantike,” in Nesselrath, Gegen falsche Götter, 287–303 (299–300). See further Kinzig, “The Greek Christian Writers,” 636–37 (with reference to Or. Graec. 22– 28). 63

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knowledge and philosophy and, at the same time, for demonstrating the superiority and exclusiveness of Christian “truth” and the way of the one and only God.68 Moreover, they even focused – both individually to a different extent – on a “protreptic” text.69 3.2 Terms for “Statues” and How Clement Used Them Already the first verse of Clement’s Protrepticus unveils that the general term for what he is going to talk about is ἄγαλμα/ἀγάλματα (Protr. 4.46.1; for the text see above), and Clement leaves no doubt that he despises these “statues” (“senseless,” “the works of men’s hands”) or, to be more precise, the cults and practices performed with and in front of them. The term might correspond best with English “statue”/”statues” that has already been used in a generic sense throughout this study so far and will be used that way hereafter instead of more specific alternatives (see below).70 The lexeme appears as general and unspecific enough to integrate all forms of sculptors that are addressed in the following. Clement, however, does not only employ this term but differentiates between the outer appearance, the making of, and the material used for those “statues” by selecting from a rich variety of terms. As W. Kendrick Pritchett in his comprehensive analytical two volume monograph on Pausanias Periegetes writes on the Greek traveller:71 The many words for statue in Greek include ἄγαλμα, κολοσσός, βρέτας, εἰκών, εἴδωλον, ζῴδιον, ἵδρυμα, ἄθυρμα, τύπος, ξόανον, ἀνδριάς, ἕδος, ἀνδρείκελον. All exhibit a variety of meanings, literal and figurative, over a period of a thousand years.

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Clement could have used ἄγαλμα only and his negative attitude towards “statues,” above all the cults and rites associated with them, comes to the fore from the very beginning of chapter four; or he might have dealt with the phenomenon as the Septuagint and/or the writers of the New Testament did and could have limited his choice of words for “statues” to just a few (and then to some of the most common if not mainly generically used) terms. In the Sep-

68 The thematic link made here between Tatian and Clement does not represent the claim that the first influenced the latter or that they definitely had contact with each other, which itself depends on the interpretation of Strom. 1.1.11.2. Cf. the critical thoughts of Ritter, “Spuren Tatians,” 287–88. 69 For Tatian, see Peter Gemeinhardt, “Tatian und die antike Paideia: Ein Wanderer zwischen zwei (Bildungs-)Welten,” in Nesselrath, Gegen falsche Götter, 247–66 (247), with reference to Ferdinand R. Prostmeier, “Tatians Oratio ad Graecosund der Diskurs über ‘Religion’ in der frühen Kaiserzeit,” in Nesselrath, Gegen falsche Götter, 193–223, (204). 70 See, for instance, Scheer, “Art and Imagery,” 171–73. 71 W. Kendrich Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes, ΑΡΧΑΙΑ ΕΛΛΑΣ, Monographs on Ancient Greek History and Archaeology 6 (Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 1998), 1:209. Besides, see Bremmer, “The Agency,” 7–21, and Hirsch-Luipold, “Image, Imagery III,” 919.

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tuagint72 the most prominent term is εἴδωλον with ninety-one occurrences, mostly used in an unambiguously pejorative sense for “idol” (e.g., Gen 31:19; 34:35; Lev 19:4; Ps 96:7; 113:12 and 134:15).73 Especially influential was the ban of images of Exod 20:4 and Deut 5:8 as a consequence of Exod 20:3//Deut 5:7 and the insistence on the sole belief in God alone. As a logical consequence, the production and adoration of idols of foreign gods was also prohibited (cf. Exod 20:4–5; Deut 5:8–9). “Idols” are manmade (χειροποίητος; e.g., Isa 2:18; 10:11; 16:12 etc.; Lev 26:1) and are seen in contrast to the true, real, living, and sovereign creator God (cf. 1 Chron 16:26//Ps 95:5; 113:12; 134:15; Wis 15:15; and consequently 1 Thess 1:9 θεῷ ζῶντι καὶ ἀληθινῷ). The elaborate production of such “idols” is mentioned (cf. Ps 113:12; 134:15) but God cannot be depicted by any image or statue (see Lev 26:30:74 God will place the dead bodies of those who committed idolatry on the dead bodies of their “idols”). It is not necessary to go into detail about the “golden calf” here (Exod 32:1–29). Then there is εἰκών for the representation of something but mostly someone else and for the likely image of God (Gen 1:26 κατ᾽ εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν καὶ καθ᾽ ὁμοίωσιν; and Gen 1:27 κατ’εἰκόνα θεοῦ),75 the latter influencing the impartial use of the term in the Old and the New Testament in the meaning “image” (cf. Matt 22:20//Mark 12:16//Luke 20:24; but see also Rom 1:23 with its criticism of anthropomorphic and theriomorphic depictions of God).76 The term occurs 56 times. The generically used ἄγαλμα is used only in Isa 19:3 (the “statues of the Egyptians”), Isa 21:9 (the “statues of the Babylonians”), and 2 Macc 2:2 (in a sort of warning against the temptations of pompous rites and adoration). The term ξόανον is only left as a varia lectio in Ezek 6:4. Other terms do not occur. The New Testament does not really differ much from the Old, though there εἴδωλον is used even more generically for pagan “idols,” while εἴκων remains the mostly impartial designation for an “image” or representation of a per-

72 For the individual terms, see Johan Lust, Erik Eynikel, and Katrin Hauspie, GreekEnglish Lexicon of the Septuagint (rev. ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2013); Takamitsu Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Leuven: Peeters, 2009). See further Kraus, “Zur näheren Bedeutung,” 161–64. For Hebrew/Aramaic equivalents of the Greek terms for “statue” used in the Septuagint, see Takamitsu Muraoka, A GreekHebrew/Aramaic two-way index to the Septuagint (Leuven: Peeters, 2010). 73 See the poignant discussion in Woyke, Götter, 37–103 (37–39). 74 Lev 26:30: καὶ ἐρημώσω τὰς στήλας ὑμῶν καὶ ἐξολεθρεύσω τὰ ξύλινα χειροποίητα ὑμῶν καὶ θήσω τὰ κῶλα ὑμῶν ἐπὶ τὰ κῶλα τῶν εἰδώλων ὑμῶν, καὶ προσοχθιεῖ ἡ ψυχή μου ὑμῖν. KJV: “And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.” Further see Num 33:52 and 2 Macc 12:40. 75 But see also Plato, Rep. 6 (and Proclus, Hymni 1.33–34) with Hermes as εἰκών of a god and gods as εἰκόνες of a proto-god. 76 Cf. Woyke, Götter, 370–444, esp. 381–84.

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son.77 We may think of the “golden and silver εἴδωλα” in Rev 9:20 (cf. Ps 113:12 // 134:15) and reflect on the criticism of εἴδωλα ἄφωνα in 1 Cor 12:2 or the warning in 1 Thess 1:9. Furthermore, there is the prominent discussion of εἰδωλόθυτας/εἰδωλολατρέω. Interestingly, εἴδωλον is not present in the Gospels and is used only four times outside the Pauline literature (Acts 7:41; 15:20; 1 John 5:21; Rev 9:20; but see Acts 17:16 with κατείδωλος “full of idols”). Paul heavily criticizes any form of “idols” and all the practices associated with them. Moreover, the “eating of sacrificial meat,” εἰδωλόθυτος, εἰδωλατρία-εἰδωλολατρέω-εἰδωλολάτρης, is to be mentioned here, too. It is no surprise that early Christian literature thereafter focuses on εἴδωλον and its compounds as combat terms. Be that as it may, other terms apart from εἴδωλον and εἴκων are not present in the New Testament.78 But what about Clement and chapter four of his Protrepticus? As delineated above, he employs a definitely richer variety of terms for “statues” than the Septuagint and the New Testament. By far the most prominent term is ἄγαλμα, which he uses thirty-six times for “statue,” followed by nine occurrences of ξόανον, six of εἴδωλον and εἰκών, two of ἀνδριάς and βρέτας, and one of ἵδρυμα (in a quote from the Sibylline Oracles together with βωμός and ναός). Clement’s overwhelmingly use of ἄγαλμα might also be presupposed in sentences where Clement enumerates various “statues,” their artists and places, and, hence, does not always write “the statue of” but “and that of” or simply provides the name of the god represented by a “statue.”79 77 Cf. James H. Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and other non-literary Sources (London: Hodder and Stoughton Limited, 1914–1929 [repr. 1972]); Walter Bauer, Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur, ed. Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, 6th ed. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988); Frederick W. Danker, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BDAB) Based on Walter Bauerʼs Griechich-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur, 3rd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000); Woyke, Götter, esp. 34–103, 288–319. Further see Kraus, “Zur näheren Bedeutung,” 164–66. 78 In addition, there is εἰδωλομανεῖς and ξόανα in the Greek Apocalypse of Peter (the latter in chapter 33, the first on P.Vindob.G 39756, verso lines 6–7; cf. verso lines 6–7 with τούτων πλανῶν εἰδώλων. Cf. Thomas J. Kraus, “P.Vindob.G 39756 + Bodl. MS Gr. th. f. 4 [P]: Fragmente eines Codex der griechischen Petrus-Apokalypse,” BASP 40 (2003): 45–61 (55–61); Thomas J. Kraus and Tobias Nicklas, Das Petrusevangelium und die Petrusapokalypse: Die griechischen Fragmente mit deutscher und englischer Übersetzung, GCS NR 11 = Neutestamentliche Apokryphen 1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004), 116–17, 124– 25, 129; Kraus, “Zur näheren Bedeutung,” 150–55. 79 Apart from the standard dictionaries, lexicons, and encyclopedias, see Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes I, 61–66; Scheer, Gottheit und ihr Bild, 8–19; Kirsten Koonce, “ΑΓΑΛΜΑ and ΕΙΚΩΝ,” AJPh 109 (1988): 108–10; Yannis Augier, “Le financement de la construction et de l’embellissement des sanctuaires de Syrie du sud et d’Arabie aux époques hellénistique et romaine,” Topoi 9 (1999): 741–76 (747–48).

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In other words, such sentences imply the term ἄγαλμα or any other for “statue” in the event of an ellipsis (or an elliptical construction).80 In sum, ἄγαλμα is Clement’s generic term for “statue” such that what Pritchett wrote about Pausanias may also be said of Clement:81 The work, which was titled Περιήγησις τῆς Ἑλλάδος in antiquity, might be subtitled Περὶ ἀγαλμάτων. Pausanias uses the word 694 times, often in the plural. Moreover, it was not infrequently his practice to write, “There is an Apollo” or the like, where it is obvious that his reference is to a statue.”

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In contrast to Pausanias,82 who might have used ἄγαλμα not exclusively for statuary sculptures but maybe also for reliefs (cf. Pausanias 1.33.3; 2.3.1)83 or – more unlikely – for paintings (Pausanias 9.11.3),84 Clement sticks to a clearly discernible consequent application of the term to figures that are sculptured in the round,85 at least this is what makes most sense for the “statues” to which he refers. But Clement just naturally used ἀγάλματα for “statues” of gods and not for those of human beings, something that is also true for Dion of Prusa,86 but not for Pausanias.87 Be that as it may, all in all Clem-

80 It was a general custom not to employ a specific term for a “statue” but to use the name of the god (elliptically) for it. Cf. Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 33 and 47–48. 81 Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes I, 61. 82 For some handy background information on Pausanias, see for example, Christian Habicht, “An Ancient Baedeker and his Critics: Pausanias’ Guide to Greece,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 129 (1985): 220–24; idem, Pausanias und seine Beschreibung Griechenlands (Munich: Beck, 1985); idem, Pausanias’ Guide to Ancient Greece (Sather Classical Lectures), Sather Classical Lectures 50 (Berkeley: California University Press, 1999). See further Karim W. Arafat, Pausanias’ Greece: Ancient Artists and Roman Rulers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) and the review by Christian Habicht, Gnomon 72 (2001): 109–11. 83 Cf. Johann H. C. Schubart, “Die Wörter ἄγαλμα, εἰκών, ξόανον, ἀνδριάς und verwandte in ihren verschiedenen Beziehungen nach Pausanias,” Philologus 24 (1866): 561– 87. 84 So Andreas Rumpf, “Ein etruskischer Krater,” Bjb 158 (1958): 253–61, here 259, while Tanja S. Scheer (Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 17) does not regard this suggestion as a plausible one. 85 However, that might also be true for Pausanias with the exception of Pausanias 8.48.4 (Ἄρεως ἄγαλμα). Cf. James G. Frazer, Pausanias’ Description of Greece, vol. 2: Commentary on Book I (London: Macmillan and Co. Limited, 1898), 54. 86 Cf. Hans-Josef Klauck, “Interpretationen: 2c) Die kultischen Götterbilder,” in Klauck, Dion von Prusa, Olympische Rede, 205–14 (209); and see Or. 72.5. The term is used for the “statue” of Zeus (Or. 12.25, 49, 54, 84) and other “statues” of gods (Or. 12.25, 44, 48, 59, 84). 87 Cf. Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes I, 65–66; Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 18. However, Frazer, “Pausanias’ Description,” 70, suggests that Pausanias restricts his use of ἄγαλματα primarily to “statues” of gods.

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ent does not differ from others in his use of the more or less generic term ἀγάλματα.88 Pausanias’s second favorite term was ξόανον with ninety-seven occurrences, while εἰκών and ἀνδριάς are there one hundred and eight times, the latter just used at the beginning of chapter four for “a human-like image” or “an image of a human.” Also βρέτας only occurs at the beginning of Pausanias’s Description of Greece.89 The use of that term for “wooden, carved statues/images” is also there in chapter four of the Protrepticus. All the other terms given above (cf. κολοσσός, ζῴδιον, ἵδρυμα, ἄθυρμα, τύπος, ἕδος, ἀνδρείκελον) are used in Pausanias’s Description of Greece, too, but to a clearly minor degree. The term ἀνδρίας represents the root *ἀνδρ- (for “human”; ἀνήρ and genitive ανδρός) and marks the “statue of a human being.” Clement also denotes “statues” of heroes and gods as ἀνδρίας.90 This is practice is also found in Pausanias and Dion of Prusa. Pausanias designates the “statues” of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who killed the tyrant Hipparchus, as ἀνδριάντες (1.8.5), a term he consequently applies to the “statues” of the Egyptian kings in front of the Odeon (1.8.6).91 Although, Dion does not used ἀνδρίας in his Olympian Oration (but see ἀνδριατοποιῶν in Or. 12.44), he consistently applies it in another oration (Or. 31) to the “statues” the people of Rhodes recycled for benefactors.92

88 It has to be noted that the term ἄγαλμα could also express “glory, delight, honour” or stand for a “pleasing gift, esp. for the gods” (Henry G. Liddell and Robert Scott, eds., A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. [rev. and augm. by Henry S. Jones, with a revised supplement 1996; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940/1996], s.v. ἄγαλμα 1 and 2; also see Franco Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, ed. of the English ed. Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder [Leiden: Brill, 2015], s.v. ἄγαλμα: A “ornament, glory, pride”; Stewart, “Greek Sculpture I,” 45: “Agalma means ‘delight,’ and can denote anything that pleases, or evokes admiration or pride”), while to assume an understanding of ἄγαλμα as a “statue in honour of a god” (3) and a “statue (more general than ἀνδρίας …)” (4) for Clement is more applicable. 89 For an analysis of the images of gods in Pausanias’s Description, see Vinciane Pirenne-Delforges, “Image des dieux et rituel dans le discours de Pausanias: De l’«axiologie» à la théologie,” Mélanges de l’école française de Rome Année 116 (2004): 811–25. 90 On ἀνδρίας, cf. Nesselrath, Gegen falsche Götter [Tatian], 207–8; Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes I, 61–66. 91 For Pausanias 1.8.5, cf. Azoulay, The Tyrant-Slayers, 15, 28, 36. The story of Harmodius and Aristogiton is also reported by Thucydides, Hist. 6.53.3–59.2, within Platonic (Ps.-Plato, Hipparch. 228B–229D) and Aristotelian circles (Ps.-Aristotle, Ath. pol. 17.3– 19.1), and Diodorus Siculus (Bibliotheca historica 9.1.4 and 10.17.1–3). Cf. Azoulay, The Tyrant-Slayers, 15, 197n3–4. 92 Cf. Klauck, “Interpretationen: 2c),” 205–14, esp. 207–8; Smith, “Statue Practices,” 11–12.

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Clement even distinguishes between ἄγαλμα, ξόανον and ἀνδρίας in just one sentence, which is impressively illustrated in what follows (Protr. 4.47.8): Ἐγενέσθην δὲ καὶ ἄλλω τινὲ δύο Κρητικὼ οἶμαι ἀνδριαντοποιὼ (Σκύλλις καὶ Δίποινος ὠνομαζέσθην)· τούτω δὲ τὰ ἐν Ἄργει τοῖν Διοσκούροιν ἀγάλματα κατεσκευασάτην καὶ τὸν ἐν Τίρυνθι Ἡρακλέους ἀνδριάντα καὶ τὸ τῆς Μουνυχίας Ἀρτέμιδος ξόανον ἐν Σικυῶνι. There were also two other sculptors, Cretans I believe, whose names were Scyllis and Dipoenus. This pair made the statues of the Twin Brothers [the Dioscuri] at Argos, the figure of Heracles at Tiryns and the image of Munychian Artemis at Sicyon.

Pliny reports about “this pair” (the Greek sculptors Scyllis and Dipoenus) that they should have been the first to sculpt statues out of marble and that they made several “statues” of gods in Sicyon (Pliny, Nat. 36.9 has Apollo Pythius and continues later on as follows: fuere autem simulacra ea Apollinis, Dianae, Herculis, Minervae quod e caelo posteatactum est; for Dipoenus also see Pliny, Nat. 36.14),93 while Pausanias relates the two sculptors to Daidalos (2.15.1) and knows that they produced a group of statues of the Dioscuri in Argos out of wood and chryselephantine,94 i.e., gold and ivory (2.22.5).95 Obviously, Clement had a profound knowledge of their background and work. For the “statues” of different materials and their construction in Argos he uses ἀγάλματα; for that of the mythological hero Heracles, who was raised up to the Olympian gods only after his death, ἀνδρίας; and for that of the goddess Artemis in Munychia ξόανον, which is not often used.96 Thus, he consequently distinguishes the terms from each other. A similar application and an attempt to distinguish between the three terms can be observed in 4.48.2, when Clement writes about the “Egyptian Sarapis,” about whom it is claimed it “is made without hands” (τοῦτον ἀχειροποίητον εἰπεῖν), while others say Sarapis (or Serapis) was a “statue” from Pontus (4.48.3 ἄλλοι δέ φασι Ποντικὸν εἶναι βρέτας τὸν Σάραπιν) with ἄγαλμα to follow twice. And so it is likely that Clement deliberately chose ἀνδρίας to imply the connotation “human” and he was in good company doing so (4.47.8; 4.48.3).97 His addressees (ὑμεῖς) produce (and worship) wonderful humanCf. Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftsteller, 55–56 (nos. 321–17). See Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes I, 66, 170–204 (Daidalos), here 197–204 (Daidalos in Pausanias). 95 For the production of chryselephantine “statues,” see Richard Neudecker, “Goldelfenbeintechnik,” DNP 4 (1998): 1140–42. 96 For Munychia (or Munichia), see Walter Wrede, “Munichia,” RE 16.1 (1933): 565– 68; Erwin Mehl, “Munichia,” DKP 3:1464. Pausanias refers to “a temple of Artemis Munychia” (1.1.4; cf. Strabo 14.1.21) and has the lexeme ξόανον for the “Artemis Brauronia” (1.23.7). Interestingly, Pausanias uses ξόανον repeatedly for “statues” of Artemis in diverse places (cf. Pausanias 1.33.1; 2.10.7; 2.19.7; 2.25.6; 3.16.7; 3.25.3). 97 For specific attitudes towards public honorific “statues” (of humans), cf. John Ma, Statues and Cities: Honorific Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World, Oxford Studies in Ancient Culture and Representation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1–

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like statues. But God has not created anything only human-like but humans themselves (4.63.2: Ὅλον ἴδε τὸν κόσμον, ἐκείνου ἔργον ἐστίν· καὶ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἥλιος καὶ ἄγγελοι καὶ ἄνθρωποι “ἔργα τῶν δακτύλων αὐτοῦ/“See the whole universe; that is His work. Heaven, the sun, angels and men are ‘the works of His fingers.’”). The quote from the Ps 8:4 (“the works of His fingers,” which are “heaven,” “moon,” and “stars”;98 also see Isa 17:7–8) might be enough to back the use of δακτυλός in that context. A δακτυλός, however, was already addressed by Clement previously, when he wrote about Pheidias whom he denounces of having attributed the Zeus of Olympia not to Zeus but to his beloved Pantarces by inscribing on the finger of the god’s statue: Παντάρκης καλός (4.53.4). I will come back to that again later on. Once more back to Protr. 4.47.8: Clement uses ξόανον for the “Munychian Artemis at Sicyon” and the use of that specific term is rather realistic99 because the two sculptors are known for their specialization in certain materials, such as marble, ebony and ivory, and wood. Thus, ξόανον fits pretty well here.100 And, of course, the goddess Artemis is associated with Sicyon (Pliny, Nat. 36.4) and Munychia (Pausanias 1.1.4), where an annual cultic festival was celebrated in commemoration of the victory at Salamis. Clement avails the term ξόανον nine times in the fourth chapter of his Protrepticus: three times in 4.46.2–4 (see above); twice for the discussion of the “statues” of Hera on Samos and Tiryns in 4.47.2–4; once for the Munychian Artemis; and then three times in combination with ἄγαλμα in very close proximity. In 4.48.2 (εἶναι δὲ τὸ ξόανον τοῦτο ἄγαλμα Πλούτωνος “and this image was a statue of Pluto”) and 4.51.4 (ἀλλά γε ἀμείνους εἰσὶ τῶν ξοάνων τούτων καὶ τῶν ἀγαλμάτων τέλεον ὄντων κωφῶν· “yet these are better than those images and statues which are entirely dumb”), the two lexemes are clearly distinguished from each other. In 4.62.1 Clement also has ξόανα together with ἄγαλμα, but here he verbally quotes Or. Sib. 4.24 and 27–30 (cf. fragment 3.29) and specifies the usual “wooden” ξόανα as λίθινα ξόανα (λίθινα ξόανα καὶ ἀγάλματα χειροποίητα). Thus, 4.62.1 is the only proof of the use of ξόανον without any reference to “wood,” while the other verses imply the

14 (for introductory remarks and definitions). Cf. the review by Tonio Hölscher, Klio 98 (2016): 332–37. 98 In addition, Ps 8:5–9 underlines that God created human beings and subordinated the creation (v. 7: “the works of his hands”) to them. 99 Cf. n98. 100 On ξόανον, cf. Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes I, 61–66, 204–94. See further Florence M. Bennett, “A Study of the Word ΞΟΑΝΟΝ,” AJA 21 (1917): 8–21; Augier, “Le financement de la construction,” 746; Alice A. Donohue, Xoana and the Origins of Greek Sculpture, American Classical Studies 15 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988); Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 19–21; Jean-Christophe Vincent, “Le xoanon chez Pausanias: littératures et réalités cultuelles,” Dialogues d’Histoire Ancienne 29 (2003): 31–75.

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connection of lexeme and material.101 Pausanias also is said to have consistently used ξόανον for “statues” of gods that are “wooden” and “ancient,”102 while this term for “statue” is missing in Dion’s Olympian Oration, who only uses ξόανον with specific meaning for different techniques in his speech, which painters, sculptors, stonemasons, and others could use (Or. 12.44 ξοάνων ἐργασίαις “works of woodcarving”).103 In the passage about the Hera on Samos (Protr. 4.61.3; cf. Pausanias 7.4.4 and 7; Plutarch, Mor. frag. 158)104 the terms ξόανον and βρέτας are used alongside one another as if they were synonyms, with the latter simply emphasizes the meaning of the first like the second part of a hendiadys (see above), though the first is the more commonly used and semantically wider term. Clement’s use of βρέτας (4.46.3 and 4.48.3)105 also corresponds with its usage in the works of Pausanias and others. The comic poet Anaxandrides had already pointed out that a βρέτας is “without any sensation,” so it is ὁ ἀναίσϑητος. Remarkable is that in Protr. 4.46.3, Clement explains that specific “statues” which were shaped according to “the likeness of man” got the name βρέτη made out of brotoi (ἐκ βροτῶν) “meaning mortals” (or “having the name” according to ἐπωνυμία).106 So, by making up his own etymological explanation he defines these types of “statues” to a greater extent than had been done before him.107 In addition, it should be taken into account that βρέτας was a functional term to be preferably used in poetry, while it came into use in prose for a “statue” that is very old and is linked with “wood” as material.108 101 According to Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 33, ξόανα implies a certain degree of technical skill and an etymological misapprehension that the morphology of the lexeme has anything in common with “wooden” or “wood.” 102 Cf. Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 20; idem, “Art and Imagery,” 175. See further Schubart, “Die Wörter,” 561–87; Hanna Philipp, Tektonon Daidala: Der bildende Künstler und sein Werk im vorplatonischen Schrifttum, Quellen und Schriften zur bildenden Kunst 2 (Berlin: B. Hessling, 1968), 103–8; Jeanette Papadopoulos, Xoana e Sphyrelata: Testimonianze delle fonti scritte, Studia archaeologica 24 (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1980). 103 Cf. Klauck, “Interpretationen: 2c),” 208. 104 Cf. Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes I, 287. 105 In addition to the standard dictionaries, lexicons, and encyclopedias, cf. Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes I, 209–10; Giuseppina Matino, “Terminologia della scena nella tragedia attica,” in Dramaturgia y puesta en escena en el teatro griego, ed. Elsa G. Novo and Manuel I. R. Alfageme (Madrid: Ed. Clásicas, 1998), 151–66 (158); Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 24–33. 106 Against a real etymological connection between βρέτας and βροτός (e.g., in lexicons), cf. Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 25–26, 32. 107 Cf. Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes I, 209n100 (with references and literature): “The individuality in the selection of a word for statue is illustrated by the fact that Aischylos and Euripides frequently use βρέτας, whereas their contemporary Herodotos never employs the word, but prefers ἄγαλμα (66 times).” 108 Cf. Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 18.

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Another lexeme that is used for “statues” elsewhere is also present in Clement’s Protrepticus: ἵδρυμα.109 The one and only occurrence of the term is within a quote from the Sibylline Oracles, the one already addressed when the focus was on λίθινα ξόανα. In Or. Sib. 4.24 and 27–30 (= Protr. 4.62.1) the sequence καὶ βωμούς, εἰκαῖα λίθων ἱδρύματα κωφῶν might determine the meaning of ἱδρύματα: first, there are “temples” and then “senseless stones” and “foolish ἱδρύματα” are intertwined with each other. According to the use of the terms within Clement’s Protrepcticus, the attributes and the material point to the meaning “statues,” as well as the secondary, pejorative connotation, “[false] idols.”110 However, it must not be forgotten that the word is not used by Clement himself but is used within a quote. Then there are the two terms also present in the Septuagint and the New Testament. It might not be astounding that εἴδωλον is among them, because it is used as a rather biased and, to a certain extent, ambiguous term.111 Clement has to argue for certain view and to convince a particular audience, whereas Pausanias fulfilled the task of providing a description of something, and giving an account of it. These varied purposes makes a difference in use and the connotations implied by a term. The word εἴδωλον could also have any of the following meanings: (i) an “illusion,” a “phantasmagoria” (in contrast to ἀληθές and connected to ψεῦδος), (ii) even a “ghost” (e.g., Plato, Theaet. 150C; Aeschylus, Ag. 839; Plato, Rep. 7.532), or (iii) represent the “shadows” of the deceased, as they lack nature or essence (Homer, Od. 11.476; Il. 23.72). Clement utilized the term to denote “statues” as “idols,” lifeless and senseless, and, thus, he presented an understanding of εἴδωλον in between the three meanings (i)–(iii). Chapters 46 to 49 of book four lack the term and Clement employs it again only after he used it in 50.1, in a quote from the Sibylline Oracles (4.4–7), wherein the prophetic Sibyl (τὴν προφῆτιν Σίβυλλαν) calls the “idols speechless framed from polished stone, while the great God was not made by anyone’s hand.” Further on, also underlined by predicting verses from the Sibylline Oracles (5.294–96, 5.483–84, and 5.486– 87), the fall and destruction of the Ephesian Artemis and the “statues of Isis and Sarapis” in Egypt are used to demonstrate how void and ephemeral those pieces of art are (Protr. 4.50.2–3). The initial contrast with them is again marked by a quote from the Sibyl (παραθήσομαι τὴν προφῆτιν Σίβυλλαν) that Cf. Augier, “Le financement de la construction,” 746. See the translation by Jörg-Dieter Gauger, Sibyllinische Weissagungen: Griechischdeutsch (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1998), 113: “… Tempel …, wo törichte Götzen aus stummen Stein sind errichtet,” while Butterworth, Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation, 141, gives the translation: “And altars, useless shrines of senseless stones,” and Mondésert and Plassart, Clement d’Alexandrie, Le Protreptique, 125, have: “les temples …, vulgaires constuctions de pierres brutes.” 111 For εἴδωλον, see, apart from dictionaries, lexicons, and encyclopedias, Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 21–23; Terry M. Griffith, “Εἴδωλον as ‘Idol’ in Non-Jewish and Non-Christian Greek,” JTS 53 (2002): 95–101; Woyke, Götter, 39–66, 90–103. 109

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follows after the fundamental claim that “temples are tombs of the gods” (4.49.3). The Sibyl denounces the prophet Phoebus as being falsely called god by foolish human beings and underlines that the “divine words” do not originate from him, “but from great God, whom no man’s hands have made, / like speechless idols framed from polished stone” (ἀλλὰ θεοῦ μεγάλοιο, τὸν οὐ χέρες ἔππλασαν ἀνδρῶν / εἰδώλοις ἀλάλοισι λιθοξέστοισιν ὅμοιον; Or. Sib. 4.4–7, here 6–7). The difference between right and correct, true and false, the one and only God and the pseudo-gods could not have been pronounced more blatantly. In 50.4, however, Clement has to switch back to the impartial ἄγαλμα himself as he refers to Heraclit of Ephesus for support, whom he cites literally and who employs exactly that term himself. Heraclit also criticized the ἄγαλμα for “their want of feeling” and those who worship them because “they pray to these statues just as if one were to chatter to his house,” according to Clement.112 The following rhetorical questions each demand a clear “yes” or “yes, they are” from the addressees. Interestingly, by stating that Heraclit is “your prophet” (σου … φιλοσόφου), Clement implies that the Sibyl might be “his,” so that it and the Sibylline Oracles appear to be analogous to Judeao-Christian oracles (cf. Protr. 4.50.4–5).113 The use of εἴδωλον (see above Or. Sib. 4.7 in Protr. 4.50.1) culminates in 4.55.4–56.1:

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You are right then in having yourselves called the gods “shadows” and “daemons.” For Homer spoke of Athena herself and her fellow-deities as “daemons,” paying them a malicious compliment. But she was gone to Olympus, Home of shield-bearing Zeus, to join the rest of the daemons. How then can the shadows and daemons any longer be gods, when they are in reality unclean and loathsome spirits, admitted by all to be earthly and foul, weighed down to the

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Εἴδωλα γοῦν εἰκότως αὐτοὺς καὶ δαίμονας ὑμεῖς αὐτοὶ κεκλήκατε, ἐπεὶ καὶ τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν αὐτὴν καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους θεοὺς κακίᾳ τιμήσας Ὅμηρος δαίμονας προσηγόρευσεν: ἡ δ̓ Οὔλυμπόνδε βεβήκει δώματ̓ ἐς αἰγιόχοιο Διὸς μετὰ δαίμονας ἄλλους. Πῶς οὖν ἔτι θεοὶ τὰ εἴδωλα καὶ οἱ δαίμονες, βδελυρὰ ὄντως καὶ πνεύματα ἀκάθαρτα, πρὸς πάντων ὁμολογούμενα γήινα καὶ δεισαλέα, κάτω βρίθοντα, ‘περὶ τοὺς τάφους καὶ τὰ μνημεῖα καλινδούμενα,’ περὶ ἃ δὴ καὶ ὑποφαίνονται ἀμυδρῶς ‘σκιοειδῆ φαντάσματα’; ταῦθ̓ ὑμῶν οἱ θεοὶ τὰ εἴδωλα, αἱ σκιαὶ καὶ πρὸς τούτοις αἱ ‘χωλαὶ’ ἐκεῖναι καὶ ‘ῥυσαί, παραβλῶπες ὀφθαλμώ, αἱ Λιταὶ αἱ Θερσίτου μᾶλλον ἢ Διὸς θυγατέρες, ὥστε μοι δοκεῖν χαριέντως φάναι τὸν Βίωνα, πῶς ἂν ἐνδίκως οἱ ἄνθρωποι παρὰ τοῦ Διὸς αἰτήσονται τὴν εὐτεκνίαν, ἣν οὐδ̓ αὑτῷ παρασχεῖν ἴσχυσεν; οἵμοι τῆς ἀθεότητος·

112 Protr. 4.50.4: Σὺ δὲ ἀλλʼ εἰ μὴ προφήτιδος ἐπακοῦεις, τοῦ γε σοῦ ἄκουσον φιλοσόφου, τοῦ Ἐφεσίου Ἡερακλείτου, τὴν ἀναισθησίαν ὀνειδίζοντος τοῖς ἀγάλμασι· «καὶ τοῖς ἀγάλμασι τουτέστιν εὔχονται, ὁκοῖον εἴ τις δόμοις λεσχηνεύοιτο. “If, however, you refuse to listen to the prophetess, hear at least your own philosopher, Heracleitus of Ephesus, when he taunts the statues for their want of feeling: ‘and they pray to these statues just as if one were to chatter to this house.’” 113 Cf. Steneker, ΠΕΙΘΟΥΣ ΔΗΜΙΟΥΡΓΙΑ, 81 (Heraclit) and 86 (Or.Sib.).

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ground, and “prowling round graves and tombs,” where also they dimly appear as “ghostly apparitions”? These are your gods, these shadows and ghosts; and along with them go those “lame and wrinkled cross-eyes deities,” the Prayers, daughters of Zeus, though they are more like daughters of Thersites; so that I think Bion made a witty remark when he asked how men could rightly ask Zeus for goodly children, when he had not even been able to provide them for himself. Alas for such atheism!

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Clement demonstrates the helplessness and limited power of the “statues” of gods (e.g., he underlines that the “will” of Zeus was overcome and he points out near the end of the chapter that only the creator God made everything just by means of his “will.” He praises those who have ever denounced the gods as εἴδωλα (“idols”), as “shadows,” maybe “wrong depictions” or something similar, and connects them with δαίμονες “demons” which usually do not stand for real gods (cf. 1 Cor 10:19–20a)114. And the same he applies to Athena here: she is one of the “demons” and where she is at home, there are also “demons,” that is, the other so-called gods, as even Homer proves (cf. the quote from Il. 10.502–3). These “gods” are purely “ghostly appearances,” just “phantasmagoria” (Plato, Phaedr. 81CD; Origen, Cels. 7.5). They are lame and cross-eyed just as they are visually represented by their ἄγαλμα. Even the ancient Greek philosopher Bion of Borysthenes has already recognized this flagrant misunderstanding: “How can men rightly ask Zeus for goodly children, when he had not even been able to provide them for himself? Alas for such atheism!”115 Consequently, the lexeme εἴδωλον serves the purpose of supporting the rhetoric strategy Clement pursues near the end of chapter four of his Protrepticus (4.50.1; 53.1; 55.4; 55.5; 56.1 [οἱ θεοὶ τὰ εἴδωλα καὶ οἱ δαίμονες]; 61.4): the εἴδωλα are “demons,” but they are nothing actually divine, that is, εἴδωλον cannot denote a god and certainly not the God.116 Just as the use of εἴδωλα demonstrates that Clement uses a term more or less in a specific way in certain passages – something which applies to some other terms for “statues” employed by Pausanias117 or by Dion of Prusa (in his Olympian Oration) – the same is also true for Clement’s use of εἰκών. Its six occurrences (Protr. 4.49.2; 53.6; 59.2 [2x]; 61.1; 61.2) may help shed further light on Clement’s argumentative strategy and his nuanced choice of Cf. Woyke, Götter, 215–40. Cf. Friedrich W. A. Mullach, Fragmenta philosophorum Graecorum, vol. 2: Pythagoreos, Sophistas, Cynicos et Chalcidii in priorem Timaei Platonici partem commentarios continens (Paris: Ambrosio Firmin Didot, 1867 [repr. Aalen: Scientia, 1968]), 427. On Bion of Borysthenes see, for instance, Klaus Döring, “Bion aus Borysthenes,” in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie: Die Philosophie der Antike, ed. Hellmut Flashar (Basel: Schwabe, 1998), 2.1:306–10. 116 For the opposition of θεοί versus δαιμόνια and εἴδωλα in the Septuagint, see Anna Angelini, “Naming the Gods of Others in the Septuagint: Lexical Analysis and HistoricalReligious Implications,” Kernos 32 (2019): 241–65. 117 Cf. Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes I, 61–66 (62). On εἰκών, see also Augier, “Le financement de la construction,” 746; Steneker, ΠΕΙΘΟΥΣ ΔΗΜΙΟΥΡΓΙΑ, 158. 114

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words by playing with meanings and ambiguities. In 4.49.2 εἰκών stands for the potential beauty of an “image,” a representation of a person who became “king over beauty.” In 4.53.6 Clement points out how detestably artists worked and clearly condemns the anthropomorphisms and egocentrism that guide them. Many painters made “images” of Aphrodite according to the beautiful face of the Thespian hetaera Phryne (but see the stories told by other authors of ancient and late antiqity, such as Athenaeus, Deipn. 13.590d– 591f, Pausanias 1.20.1 and 9.27.3, and Pliny, Nat. 34.19). Consequently, εἰκόνες are simply “images.” It is not the gods who assume human form, but artists depict their own idea or imagination of gods in “images” according to the shape of human beings, mostly of those they adored or loved themselves. The use of εἰκών changes when Clement quotes Homer again in 4.59.1 (Od. 8.267–70) and immediately continues with a direct address to the poet (4.59.2): Κατάπαυσον, Ὅμηρε, τὴν ᾠδήν· οὐκ ἔστι καλή, μοιχείαν διδάσκει· πορνεύειν δὲ ἡμεῖς καὶ τὰ ὦτα παρῃτήμεθα· ἡμεῖς γάρ, ἡμεῖς ἐσμὲν οἱ τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ θεοῦ περιφέροντες ἐν τῷ ζῶντι καὶ κινουμένῳ τούτῳ ἀγάλματι, τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ, σύνοικον εἰκόνα, σύμβουλον, συνόμιλον, συνέστιον, συμπαθῆ, ὑπερπαθῆ· ἀνάθημα γεγόναμεν τῷ θεῷ ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ·

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Cease the song, Homer. There is no beauty in that; it teaches adultery. We have declined to lend even our ears to fornication. For we, yes we, are they who, in this living and moving statue, man, bear about the image of God, an image which dwells with us, is our counsellor, companion, the sharer of our hearth, which feels with us, feels for us. We have been made a consecrated offering to God for Christ’s sake.

First, he seemingly wants to introduce a “beautiful song” by Homer, whom he directly addresses by using the vocative, and then he orders him to stop abruptly. Homer’s song is about Ares and Aphrodite and according to Clement it is an evident example of adultery. He emphatically changes from “you” to “we” (see the repeated personal pronoun and the finite verb in ἡμεῖς γάρ, ἡμεῖς ἐσμέν) and alludes to Gen 1:26–27 (τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ θεοῦ).118 Clement applies the meaning of εἰκών to the “images” of God, the moving and living “statue” (ἐν τῷ ζῶντι καὶ κινουμένῳ τούτῳ ἀγάλματι) that is a human being and, thus, God’s creature is the real “statue.” The rhetorically well-formed rhythmic sequence of compounds alliteratively starting with the preposition σύν puts further emphasis on the qualities of God’s εἰκών (σύνοικον εἰκόνα, σύμβουλον, συνόμιλον, συνέστιον, συμπαθῆ), which culminates in the climatic two compounds of the stem *παθ (via aorist ἔπαϑον; cf. πάσχω), i.e., συμπαθέω and ὑπερπαθέω (“feel with us” and “feel for us”).119 In Protr. 4.61.1–2 Clement uses εἰκών again in the sense of inadequate and senseless representations of “Pan, naked girls, drunken satyrs” and blames his addressees for the practice of using εἰκόνες as if these were actual “images” of gods. Although the English translation employs “image” as equivalent, εἰκών can 118 119

Further see Steneker, ΠΕΙΘΟΥΣ ΔΗΜΙΟΥΡΓΙΑ, 124. On “jeu phonique” with συν-, cf. Steneker, ΠΕΙΘΟΥΣ ΔΗΜΙΟΥΡΓΙΑ, 23.

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also and maybe better be understood as “statues” (cf. Plato, Rep. 931a),120 a meaning suggested by the use of ἄγαλμα in this passage. Next Clement quotes 1 Pet 2:9–10, John 8:23 (and alludes to 3:31), and Rom 6:4 in a row, with which he starts to turn away from Greek authoritative sources (“you”) and towards the true and decisive Christian and biblical ones (“we”).121 The whole “truth” is what Clement and his Christians were taught and have learned. Hence, the last two uses of εἰκών in 61.1 and 61.2 are prompted by 59.2, and are more or less meant ironic and polemic, but not in the previously determined meaning (τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ θεοῦ). They are simply so-called false “images” (εἰκόνες) that are and mean nothing at all. With this Clement begins the conclusion of chapter four hy writing about those who so far were his companions and – at least, partly – helping hands: “here the host of philosophers turn aside” (ἐνταῦθα φιλοσόφων παρατρέπεται χορός), as he states in Protr. 4.63.4. The real δημιουργός is not an artist, but God alone. From 4.63.2 onwards, the verbal form δημιουργέω is exclusively used for God and his active work of creation, and is no longer used in connection with δημιουργική for “craftsmanship” or “artistic creative capability” in 4.57.4 or in the enumeration in 4.58.2 (δημιουργοί – λιθοξόοι – ἀνδριαντοποιοί – γραφεῖς – τέκτονες – ποιηταί), in which δημιουργοί might simply represent “artisans” and “artists” in general.122 In 4.63.2 a contrasting juxtaposition is made with “human handiwork” (ἠ … ἀνθρωπεία τέχνε … δημιουργεῖ) on the one side and God “making” everything on the other (θεός … ὅσα ποιεῖ), i.e., δημιουργέω versus ποιέω. In 4.63.3 God’s creative work is again linked with ποιέω just before δημιουργεῖ eventually is attributed to God and his work, that is, his sovereign “will” which alone caused everything to come into being (ψιλῷ τῷ βούλεσθει δημιουργεῖ καὶ τῷ μόνον ἐλελῆσαι αὐτοῦ ἕπεται τὸ γεγενῆσθαι). Thus, here the focus is placed on δημιουργέω which is used together with consecutive γίνομαι (γίγνομαι).123 The philosophers “admit that man is beautifully made for the contemplation of heaven, 120 Cf. Károly Kerényi, “Ἄγαλμα, εἰκών, εἴδωλον,” in Demitizzazione e imagine: atti del convegno indetto dal Centro internazionale di studi umanistici e dell’Istituto di studi filosofici, Roma, 11–16 gennaio 1962, ed. Enrico Castelli and Archivio Filosofia (Padova: Cedam, 1962), 161–71 (169–71). 121 Protr. 4.59.3: “We are the elect race, the royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, who in time past were not a people, but now are the people of God.” We are they who, according to John, are not “from below,” but have learnt the whole truth from Him who came from above, who have apprehended the dispensation of God, who have studies “to walk in newness of life.” 122 On δημιουργός, cf. Danker, Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. δημουργός (“craftsworker,” “builder,” “maker,” “creator”); Franko Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, ed. of the English edition Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder (Leiden: Brill, 2015), s.v. δημιουργός (“artisan,” “employee”; “creator god,” “demiurge”; “public magistrate”). 123 On γίνομαι (γίγνομαι), see Danker, Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. γίνομαι, above all “2 to come into existence, be made, be created, be manufactured, be produced.” See further Montanari, The Brill Dictionary, s.v. γίγνομαι.

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and yet worship the things which appear in heaven and are appreciated by sight.” The “heavenly bodies are not the works of humankind” (μὴ ἀνθρώπινα τὰ ἔργα τὰ ἐν οὐρανῷ), they are “created for humankind” (ἀνθρώποις δεδημιούργηται). In a rhetorically skillful manner, Clement argues that people should not “worship the sun” but “yearn for the maker of the sun,” should not “deify the universe” but “seek after the creator of the universe” (4.63.5), which is reminiscent of Plato and his doctrine of forms. The search or longing for the “creator of the universe” involved the term δημιουργός, the one and only God who created everything and who is the ultimate “truth” behind everything. The series of terms that initiates the ultimate way of a human being (καταφυγή – σωτηρία + θύραι – σοφία θεϊκή) culminates in the final “salvation” and, thus, ends with σωτηρία; and no demon can drag that human being away from or out of that sort of “temple asylum” (ἐξ ἱεροῦ … ἀσύλου). Consequently, Clement unmasks the “statues” adored and worshiped by the Greeks as void, as being nothing at all, and as being the simple products of human artisans and artists. At the same time, he puts in their place the real “statues” and their one and only creator (cf. Dion of Prusa124), that is, human beings and the only God, who is origin and creator of everything. This is the “truth” in support of which Clement successfully provides a chain of evidence.

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3.3 Sources, Artists, Professions, and Philosophers in Protr. 4 The total number of the occurrences of the various terms for “statues” in Clement’s fourth chapter of the Protrepticus and in Pausanias’s Description of Greece prove, as delineated above, that both have a predilection for ἄγαλμα, which they use as a generic term. Furthermore, they both differentiate between materials use and the making of “statues” with their selection of other terms. The most frequently used terms among them are ξόανον, εἰκών, εἴδωλον, βρέτας and ἀνδρίας.125 However, the numbers also demonstrate that both authors have their own preferences. The same is true for Dion of Prusa and his use of specific words for “statues.” By taking into account that Strabo, for instance, employs an even richer array of words than Dion does and uses certain words quite often (e.g., ἵδρυμα), this should be proof enough that authors obviously choose the terms according to their own inclination and vocabulary. The following conclusion can be offered: “The individuality in 124 Dion of Prusa argues in a different way. For him anthropomorphic “statues” apparently are a kind of compromise, artistic products that embody the only possibility to represent the divine. For further details, cf. Elliger, “Einleitung,” xxxviii–xl; Klauck, “Interpretationen: 2c),” 212–13. Nevertheless, anthropomorphism plays a role in the charge against Pheidias (Or. 12.52) and in his defence speech (above all, Or. 12.55–63). 125 This is not meant to assert the claim that a certain frequency of use by Clement is compared with the use by Pausanias. Needless to say, the length and topic(s) of the texts do not lead to any reliable numbers from which sound conclusions could be drawn. The total numbers just show certain tendencies of use.

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the selection of a word for statue is illustrated by the fact that Aeschylus and Euripides frequently use βρέτας, whereas their contemporary Herodotos never employs the word, but prefers ἄγαλμα (66 times).”126 In addition, the terms Clement uses for artists and associates help illustrate how he works and reasons. He writes about ζωγράφοι / ποιηταί / γραφεῖς / τέκτονες / λιθοξοόι / ἀνδριαντοποιοί / ἀγαλματουγοί / δημιουργοί (cf. the sequence in Protr. 4.58.2). Basically, all of these are just common denominations of professions, arts, or handicraft trades. The crucial term, however, appears to be δημιουργοί, because it is reinterpreted near the end of chapter four (cf. the discussion above). The only real δημιουργός is, of course, God, the “creator” of everything. But Clement does not only reinterpret or redefine, he also directly polemicizes when he denotes artists as so-called θεοποιοί (Protr. 4.51.6). With that he underlines his point that the “statues” should represent “real” and “living” gods but they, according to Clement, are nothing at all, just handmade objects by human beings. They are made of material that comes from the earth (i.e., they are earth [γῆ]), a fact which Clement emphasizes whenever he mentions or even lists the various materials “statues” are made up of. Consequently, when θεοποιοί produce “statues” from such materials, they actually worship earth (4.51.5–6). Thus, Clement’s lists of materials (especially 4.48.5, 4.51.2 and 56.3) are intended to subsume these “statues” under the term “earth” (γῆ) and to emphasize the fact that “statues” in their very nature are senseless, lifeless, and lack the ability to perceive. Even primitive animals (4.51.3–5) that do not possess all the senses (worms and caterpillars), are imperfect (moles and field-mice) and blind and terrible (for the field-mouse only; cf. Nicander, Ther. 815),127 lack sight, hearing and speech (oysters) are better than entirely “dumb” (κωφῶν) “statues” (ἀγάλματα). Even monkeys cannot be deceived by toys or “waxen or clay figures” (4.58.1). With κωφῶν as a linking term, Clement succeeds in disclosing the real nature of earth as being “dumb” and nothing at all (κωφὴν … γαῖαν). So, artists misuse earth, when they urge people to worship it in the form of “statues,” which are only earth and art (γῆν δὲ καὶ τέχνην). In sum, Clement draws the follwing conclusion about “statues” in this rhetorical question (4.56.3): Οὐχὶ γῆ τε καὶ ἐκ γῆς; “Are they not earth, and made from earth?” In a witty and rhetorically provocative manner Clement ends this line of argument in an ironic manner 126 Cf. Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes I, 209n100. Further see Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 18. 127 Nicander, Theriaca, 185, reads as follows: τυφλήν τε σμερδνήν τε βροτοῖς ἐπὶ λοιγὸν ἄγουσαν μυγαλέην. Cf. the note by Butterwort, Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation, 115nc (“Nicander calls the field-mouse ‘terrible’ in reference to its plague-bearing powers”). Possibly, Clement regarded the use of βροτός (“mortal”) in that context to be unsuitable or the use of the word itself might have inspired him to utilize it for reinterpreting βρέτας in Protr. 4.46.3. But this is just a matter of pure speculation. Another reference to Nicander can be found in Protr. 2.39.2.

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(4.56.6): Γῆν δὲ ἐγὼ πατεῖν, οὐ προσκυνεῖν μεμελέτηκα· “But my practice is to walk upon earth, not to worship it.” So he can resume “the hope of the soul” that is not directed to “soulless things” (τοῖς ἀψύχοις τὰς τῆς ψυχῆς ἐλπίδας) does not rest on things like these. This is not the only example of irony and a fresh style of writing. Clement deliberately forms several rhetorical questions that have an ironic tone and effect (see 1.2.1; 4.50.5, 4.55.5; 4.56.1, 3–4). His direct address to Hippo (4.55.1 Εὖ γε, Ἵππων “Well done, Hippo”) after citing the philosopher’s assumed epitaph128 (cf. 2.24.2, where Hippo is named among the atheist Greek philosophers), he even directly communicates with Hippo – a rather paradoxical anachronism but a fine rhetoric trick – and seems to shout to him: Εὖ γε, Ἵππων “Well done, Hippo,” which has a pungent and cutting ironic effect. A similar direction is taken when Clement challenges his audience with the harsh and resultative rebuke οἴμοι τῆς ἀθεότητος· “Alas for such atheism!” (4.56.2), which he repeats verbatim some time later (4.58.3). All in all, it might be both noticeable and observable how he changes his tone towards the end of chapter four, above all around the transition between 4.56 and 4.57.129 Clement refers to and quotes from a wide array of philosophers and sources so that he must have had texts and writings available and knew them in some detail.130 The exactness and verbatim agreement of his sources makes it more than likely that he had access to written texts, be it via copies, with the help of the book market or by means of libraries. Remarkably, he employs philosophers first and switches to biblical texts. This goes together with the move from an impersonal (or second person perspective) to “we” in Protr. 4.59.2 when he orders Homer to be silent and emphatically starts off with ἡμεῖς γάρ, ἡμεῖς ἐσμέν, a triple and repetitive pronunciation of the firstperson plural, and then connects it with an allusion to Gen 1:26–27 (τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ θεοῦ). Thereafter, Clement includes 1 Peter 2:9–10, John 8:23 (and alludes to 3:31), and Rom 6:4 (4.59.1–3), Exod 20:4 and Deut 5:8 (4.62.2), Ps 95:5 LXX (4.62.4); Gen 1:14 and Ps 32:6 LXX in (4.63.1), and

128 Hippo, frag. 2 (DK 38 B 2 = Hermann Diels and Walther Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker: Griechisch und Deutsch, vol. 1, 6th ed. (Hildesheim: Weidmann, 1951 [repr. 2004]): Ἵππωνος τόδε σῆμα, τὸν ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσιν / ἶσον ἐποίησεν Μοῖρα καταφθίμενον. “Behold the tomb of Hippo, whom in death / Fate made an equal of the immortal gods.” The only source mentioned for this quotation is Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 4.55.1. 129 Cf. Mondésert and Plassart, Clement d’Alexandrie, Le Protreptique, 120n2: “Le lecteur remarquera comment, dans cette fin de chapître, le ton s’élève, et surtout à mesure que l’auteur se dégage de l’érudition.” It might be a matter of discussion, to what extent Clement leaves the focus on learned erudition from Protr. 4.57.1 onwards, and what at all is to be understood by “erudition.” 130 For a quick survey, the notes in the editions of Butterworth, Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation; and Mondésert and Plassart, Clement d’Alexandrie, Le Protreptique, also see 195–99 (indexes), are sufficient. A complete discussion of these sources is beyond the scope of the present study and would require its own article.

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Ps 8:4 und Ps 32:9 LXX (4.63.2–3). Thus, it seems that he now turns to biblical sources. However, it is not to be forgotten that: (a) the Sibylline Oracles play a crucial role in his address to the “Greeks” as well as (b) philosophers he deliberately calls in as witnesses for the aims of his line of thought.

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Obviously, for Clement, the Sibylline Oracles are a well-acknowledged authority and he insinuates that his addressees accept and regard them as authoritative. He makes candid use of them and explicitly introduces quotations from them (Or. Sib. 4.4–7 in 4.50.1; Or. Sib. 4.24 and 27–30 [+ frag. 3.29] in 4.62.1).131 Most telling is how he integrates Or. Sib. 5.295.296, 483–84 and 487–88 in the context of Protr. 4.50.2–3, when he deals with the temple of Isis and Serapis in Egypt. There he involves Heraclit of Ephesus, who questions the vitality and sensitivity of “statues.”132 Clement directly approaches his audience (σύ) and asks them challengingly that, if they do not believe what the Sibyl says, they should listen to “their own philosopher” Heraclit, who ridicules the “statues” because of “their want of feeling.” By linking the Sibylline Oracles and Heraclit, Clement subtly implies that both sources agree in their criticism of statues and that they are seen as being on the same qualitative and authoritative level.133 Heraclit might have had a certain significance for Clement because he also involves him quite often elsewhere in his writings (Protr. 2.22.1–2; 2.34.5; 10.92.4; 11.113.3; Strom. 1.1.2 [cf. 2 Peter 2:22]; 2.8.1; 2.17.4; 3.21.1; 4.10.1; 4.141.2–3; 5.104.2; 5.115.1, 3; 5.140.6; 6.17.2; Paed. 2.99.5). Additionally, Clement refers to another philosopher in the Protrepticus, Bion of Borysthenes, and his criticism of the paradoxical behavior of people who pray to Zeus for “goodly children,” while Zeus himself was unable “to provide them for himself” (4.56.1). Clement adds his own harsh οἴμοι τῆς ἀθεότητος· (“Alas for such atheism!”) to that.134 Philosophers 131 For other references to and quotations from the Sibylline Oracles, see the notes in Butterworth, Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation; and Mondésert and Plassart, Clement d’Alexandrie, Le Protreptique. 132 See Stewart, Greek Sculpture I, 45. 133 However, Heraclit’s attitude towards the Sibyl might have been governed by recognition and respect. See, for instance, Plutarch, Pyth. orac. 397A (cf. DK 28 B 92): Σίβυλλα δὲ μαινομένῳ στόματι καθʼ Ἡράκλειτον ἀγέλαστα καὶ ἀκαλλώπιστα καὶ ἀμύριστα φθεγγομένη χιλίων ἐτών ἐξικνεῖται τῇ φωνῇ διὰ τὸν θεόν. “The Sibyl, who – according to Heraclitus – announces with her mouth what cannot be ridiculed, made up or embellished, reaches with her voice through thousands of years – through god.” Or Plutarch, Pyth. orac. 404DE (cf. DK 22 B 93): ὁ ἄναξ, οὗ τὸ μαντεῖόν ἐστι τὸ ἐν Δελφοῖς, οὔτε λέγει οὔτε κρύπτει, ἀλλὰ σημαίνει. “The master who owns the oracle of Delphi does not explain, does not hide, but hints.” 134 For citations of authors in Clement’s Protrepticus, see Steneker, ΠΕΙΘΟΥΣ ΔΗΜΙΟΥΡΓΙΑ, 81–82.

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are also important authorities for Dion of Prusa, at least to a certain extent, when it comes to talk about “interpreters and teachers” of the “gods” (Or. 12.47),135 but Clement’s interweaving and intertwining strategy appears as something extraordinary. While Dion focusses on one of the most famous sculptors of antiquity, Φειδίας (Pheidias or Phidias), and his trial – see the accusations in Or. 12.49– 54 and Pheidias’s defense speech in 12.55–83) – because of the price charged for the statue of Zeus of Olympia, one of the world wonders, and the appropriateness or inappropriateness of its human-like representation of the god, Clement involves various ancient artists in chapter four of his Protrepticus (cf. Pausanias):136

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(1) of course, Clement knows about Pheidias (of Athens).137 He mentions him three times (Protr. 4.47.2; 47.4; 53.4) and utilizes his own and his audience’s knowledge about the renowned artist for his argumentative and rhetorical purposes. This will be discussed in more detail later on as an example of Clement’s attitude towards artists and their work. (2) Praxiteles (of Athens)138 was the best-known of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BCE. He is acclaimed to have been the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size “statue.”139 Clement reports about a “statue” 135 Dion names “the philosopher” (τὸν φιλ/σοςον ἄνδρα) as a fourth “interpreter and teacher” in addition to “poets, legislators, artists” ( ποιητικῆς καὶ νομοθετικῆς καὶ δημιουργικῆς). 136 For the following, see Stewart, “One Hundred Greek Sculptors.” For each artist, references are provided in Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen; Stewart, Greek Sculpture: An Exploration, 1:369–77 (index) for page references to sculptors and plates (in the second volume). 137 Cf. Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen, 113–55 (nos. 618–856) and 485 (index); Volker M. Strocka, “Pheidias (I),” in Künstlerlexikon der Antike, vol. 2: L–Z. Addendum A–K, ed. Rainer Vollkommer (Munich: Saur, 2004), 210–36; Evelyn B. Harrison, “Pheidias,” in Personal Styles in Greek Sculpture, ed. Olga Palagia and Jerome J. Pollitt, Yale Classical Studies 30 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 16–65; Clair C. Davison, Pheidias: The Sculptures and Ancient Sources, 3 vols., BICS.Supp. 105 (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2009); Mario Baumann, “Phidias,” DNP.Supp. 8 (2013): 751–58; Aileen Ajootian, “Praxiteles,” in Personal Styles in Greek Sculpture, ed. Olga Palagia and Jerome J. Pollitt, Yale Classical Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 91–129. Also see Gisela M. Richter, A Handbook of Greek Art: A Survey of the Visual Arts of Ancient Greece (London: Phaidon, 1987 [repr. 2003]), 430 (index) and figs. 137–54, 161. Further idem, Sculpture and Sculptors, 215–33. 138 Cf. Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen, 236 (no. 1227 with Bryaxis and Scopas). See further Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors, 259–68; idem, A Handbook of Greek Art, 430 (index) and figs. 188–94; Antonio Corso, The Art of Praxiteles, 5 vols., Studia archaeologica 133, 153, 177, 190, 198 (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2004–2014); Aileen Ajootian, “Praxiteles,” in Personal Styles in Greek Sculpture, 91–129. 139 On Praxiteles and his art, see also Stewart, Greek Sculpture I, 176–79, 277–81 (references to Praxiteles by authors) and Christine Mitchell-Havelock, The Aphrodite of

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(ἄγαλμα) of the Cnidian Aphrodite140 (Protr. 4.53.5; cf. Pliny, Nat. 36.20–21) resembling closely Praxiteles’s mistress Cratina so that “the miserable people might have the sculptor’s mistress to worship” (for Praxiteles’s famous mistress Phryne, see below). Clement directly names Posidippus as the informant he relies on for this information.141 (3) Smilis142 is mentioned in 4.47.2 with the attribute “son of Euclides” and he is mainly associated with the “statue” (ξόανον) of Hera on Samos (also see Pausanias 7.4.4 and 7).143 (4) Scopas follows immediately after Smilis in 4.47.3. He made two of the “goddesses at Athens called ‘venerable’” (i.e., the Erinyes called “Eumenides, the kindly ones, and at Athens Semnai, the venerable ones, these titles being euphemistic substitutes for their real and dreaded name”;144 also see Pausanias 1.28.6). He was a Greek sculptor and architect well-known for a number of sculpted “statues” (of Meleager, Aphrodite or Asklepios and Hygieia)145 but also for his involvement in the works for “the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea, the temple of Artemis at Ephesos, and the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos” (see below, on Bryaxis [of Athens]).146 (5) Bryaxis (of Athens)147 marks the end of a brief enumeration of sculptors and their main works in 4.47.4. He is “one of those sculptors” (ἔχεις καὶ

Cnidos and Her Successors: A Historical Review of the Female Nude in Greek Art (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), 39–54. 140 See also Protr. 4.57.3 for the Cnidian Aphrodite. For more details on that “statue,” cf. for instance Stewart, Greek Sculpture I, 177–78, 279–80, 292 (T 128); MitchellHavelock, The Aphrodite of Cnidos, above all 9–38; Maria Efthymiou, Aphrodite von Knidos: Das berühmteste Werk des Praxiteles und seine Geschichte (Riga: Akademiker Verlag, 2018). 141 Cf. Posidippus, “frag. 2,” in Fragmenta Historicum Graecorum, ed. Karl Müller, Scriptorum graecorum bibliotheca 59 (Paris: A.F. Didot, 1851 [reprinted Frankfurt a.M.: Minerva, 1975]), 4:482. 142 See the references provided by Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen, 59 (nos. 340– 44), that focus on the “statue” of Hera on Samos; Jerome J. Pollitt, The Art of Ancient Greece: Sources and Documents (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 19–21; Stewart, Greek Sculpture I, 241–42. 143 On the Hera on Samos, cf. Stewart, Greek Sculpture I, 104, 241–42; Michael Scott, “Temples and Sanctuaries,” in The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion, ed. Esther Eidinow and Julia Kindt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 227–40 (230–32). 144 Butterworth, Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation, 103 n.d. 145 See Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen, 222–23 (nos. 1155–58), 227–28 (1176 and 1178 [with Bryaxis and/or Praxiteles]). See further Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors, 269– 76; Marion Muller-Dufeu, La Sculpture grecque: Sources littéraires et épigraphiques (Paris: École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 2002), 463–69; Andrew Stewart, Skopas of Paros (New York: Noyes, 1977); Stewart, Greek Sculpture I, 284–86, 376 (index). 146 Richter, A Handbook of Greek Art, 149–53 (quote 150) and figs. 198–200. 147 See Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen, 144 (no. 807 with Pheidias, Praxiteles and others), 227–28 (nos. 1176–78 [with Scopas and/or Praxiteles]), 252–54 (nos. 1316–27).

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τοῦτον ἀγαλματουργόν) and he or Pheidias made “the statues of Zeus and Apollo in Lycian Patara,” though Clement leaves the decision to his audience or addressees (ὁπότερον αὐτοῖν βούλει ἐπίγραφε). According to Pliny, Nat. 36.30, “Bryaxis, Leochares, and Timotheos, as well as the great Skopas … were engaged in the decoration of the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos….”148 (6) Telesius of Athens marks the end of a brief enumeration of sculptors and their main works (4.47.5). Clement – who is the only literary source – claims that he created “the nine-cubit statues of Poseidon and Amphitrite in Tenos” and refers to Philochorus as his authority.149 He might belong to a “large but almost faceless throng of Hellenistic sculptors who, despite major commissions and handsome rewards, have nevertheless been all but erased from history.”150 (7) Clement knows of another artist by the name Bryaxis and he is ὁ δημιουργός but οὐχ ὁ Αθηναῖος (4.48.5).151 Thus, he explicitly distinguishes him from Bryaxis of Athens. Unfortunately, we do not learn much about him other than the short remark that he produced a “statue” of Osiris and that he is said to have crushed diverse materials (“fillings of gold, silver, bronze, iron, lead, and even tin” and “sapphire, hematite, emerald, and topaz also”), mixed them, “stained the mixture dark blue” and mingled in the remains from the funeral rites of Osiris and Apis, so that he could have formed Sarapis (Serapis). Wittily Clement involves the explication of the term Ὀσίραπις from “Osiris” and “Apis.” (8) According to Clement, Sicon, son of Eupalamos, sculpted the “statue” (ἄγαλμα) of Morychian Dionysus at Athens which was formed from a special

See further Carl Robert, “Bryaxis,” in PRE 3.1 (1897): 916–20; Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors, 281–83. 148 Richter, A Handbook of Greek Art, 154 and 155 (fig. 207). 149 Cf. Philochorus, “frag. 185,” in Karl Müller, Fragmenta Historicum Graecorum, Scriptorum graecorum bibliotheca 34 (Paris: A.F. Didot, 1841 [repr. Frankfurt a.M.: Minerva, 1975]), 1:44–45. 150 Stewart, Greek Sculpture I, 297 (see also 67 and 71). On Teles or Telesias, cf. Peter Heesen, “Teles (?),” in Künstlerlexikon der Antike 2, 438. See further Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen, 261 (n1371), who also refers to Philochoros (and, additionally, to Strabo). 151 Cf. Stewart, Greek Sculpture I, 300–1, referring to Wilhelm Hornbostel, Sarapis: Studien zur Überlieferungsgeschichte, den Erscheinungsformen und Wandlungen der Gestalt eines Gottes, EPRO 32 (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 36–58 (taking this Bryaxis as being identical with Bryaxis of Athens and not being his son/grandson, the latter favored by Stewart himself), and 282, on the basis of Peter M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 1:246–76, who convincingly demonstrated that there were actually two sculptors by that name, the Athenian Bryaxis and the maker of the Sarapis (see above).

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stone (ἐκ τοῦ φελλάτα καλουμένου λίθου; 4.47.7).152 With this, Clement offers a unique piece of information about Sicon. The mention of Eupalamos, however, is reminiscent of the famous and legendary Daidalos. It is said that Eupalamos (or Metion) is the father of the famous and legendary author. Nonetheless, Clement refers to a guarantor for this piece of information on Sicon and his “statue,” Polemon.153 (9) Scyllis and Dipoenus were already discussed when the focus was on Protr. 4.47.8 (see above). The two of them were always seen in some relation to the legendary Daidalos.154

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In sum, there are a host of famous and/or legendary sculptors, not to say the crème de la crème, and their “statues” that Clement interweaves in his argumentation. He could have drawn his details from common knowledge or could have included in his treatise what was well known in his days. But there are so many exact pieces of information that it is more than likely that Clement had certain sources available. In any case, Bryaxis (not the Athenian), Sicus, and Telesius are rather extraordinary and Clement can put forward authoritative sources to guarantee that he is correct in the things he reports. Besides, on the basis of the artists and their works of art, which are explicitly mentioned in chapter four of the Protrepticus, it becomes evident that Clement explicitly focuses on representations of gods (or, in some passages, human beings) that are sculptured in the round and not around reliefs or the like (see above, in comparison with Pausanias).155 For instance, Clement does not refer to Pheidias’s assignment as main responsible person for the work on the Akropolis and, thus, does not report on the many and impressive reliefs worked out by a number of artists and, at least partly, by Pheidias himself. But he focuses on one of the most famous monumental “statues” which the outstanding artist created.156 Analogously, he does not include anything about Skopas’s or Bryaxis’s artworks performed for the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, that could also have consisted of reliefs for the building facades.157 The same observation – that his focus is on “statues” in the round – is applicable to the other artists Clement includes in his web-like reasoning. 152 Butterworth, Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation, 107nb: “The scholiast describes this as a rough stone quarried from Phelleus, a rocky district of Attica; cp. Aristoph. Clouds 71.” 153 Cf. Polemon, “frag. 73,” in Fragmenta Historicum Graecorum, ed. Karl Müller, Scriptorum graecorum bibliotheca 40 (Paris: A.F. Didot, 1849 [reprinted Frankfurt a.M.: Minerva, 1975]), 3:136. 154 See Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen, 55–56 (nos. 321–17); Pritchett, Pausanias Periegetes I, 66. For literature, cf. Stewart, Greek Sculpture I, 242. 155 Cf. notes 85 and 87. 156 Cf. Richter, A Handbook of Greek Art, 113. 157 Cf. Richter, A Handbook of Greek Art, 48 and 150.

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While Clement covers artists and their sculptors mostly in a concise and brief manner, he leaves no doubt about his view of the abominable aberrations of cultic worship. For instance, Protr. 4.53.6 says that the hauntingly beautiful Thespian hetaera Phryne158 was regarded as a role model by painters for their pictures and by sculptors for their “statues” of Aphrodite, and that stonemasons used the fine outer appearance of Alcibiades for busts of Hermes at Athens (also see Plutarch, Demetr. 26). Athenaeus tells the story of enchantingly beautiful Phryne in more detail and knows that the sculptor (ὁ ἀγαλματοποιός) Praxiteles “was a lover of hers, modelled the Aphrodite of Cnidus of her body,” and made a dedicatory inscription at the base of his statue of Eros (Deipn. 13.590d–591–92). The love of Praxiteles for the courtesan Phryne and his statue for her is also mentioned or reported on by Pausanias (1.20.1 and 9.27.3) and Pliny (Nat. 34.19). Tatian just has a short note indicating that Praxiteles made a statue of the hetaera Phryne (Or. 33), while Aelianus only knows that the intemperate among the Greeks erected a statue for Phryne (Var. hist. 9.32).159 Evidently, stories about Phryne and, above all, her trial for impiety, in which she was defended by the orator Hypereides, were widespread and well known. Nevertheless, Clement does not seize the opportunity to cast the sculptor Praxiteles in a bad light by such compromising details on his love for the courtesan Phryne, though he knew about the Thespian courtesan Phryne, her beauty and lascivious charism (4.53.6). But he uses her to indicate en passant that human beauty decays and marble representations are nothing more than pure copies of it (φρύνη δὲ ὁπηνικα ἤνθει ἡ ἑταίρα ἡ Θεσπιακή, οἱ ζωγράφοι πάντες τῆς Ἀφροδίτης εἰκόνας πρὸς τὸ κάλλος ἀπεμιμοῦντο Φρύνης “When Phryne the Thespian courtesan was in her flower, the painters used all to imitate her beauty in their pictures of Aphrodite”). Besides, he could also have utilized Φρυνή, a nickname for the courtesan Μνησαρέτη (cf. Plutarch, Pyth. orac. 14), meaning “toad,” to mock her and the loving sculptor. However, Clement relates the Cnidian Aphrodite to another courtesan, Cratina, and Praxiteles’s love for her (Protr. 4.53.5), directly after he accounts the Pheidias-Pantarces episode (4.53.4). At the same time, Clement knows of other episodes that were at least similarly delicate to that of Phryne: outstandingly pretty and naked “statues” (for instance, of Aphrodite) enchanted and could even beguile men so much that they fell in love and even tried to have sexual intercourse with them (4.57.3). For these episodes, Clement again refers to authorities such as Philostephanus160 and Posidippus.161 But how can someone fall in love with marble and demons? A “statue” only beguiles an irrational human being, because “no man in his 158 For more details on Phryne, cf. Anthony E. Raubitschek, “Phryne,” RE 20.1 (1941): 893–907; Laura McClure, Courtesans at Table: Gender and Greek Literary Culture in Athenaeus (New York: Routledge, 2003), esp. 127–36, 150–51. 159 See the references given by Stewart, Greek Sculpture I, 278–81, 296 (T 136). 160 Philostephanus, “frag. 13,” in Müller, Fragmenta Historicum Graecorum, 3:31. 161 Posidippus, “frag. 1,” in Müller, Fragmenta Historicum Graecorum, 4:482.

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senses would have embraced the statue of a goddess, or have been buried with a lifeless paramour, or have fallen in love with a daemon and a stone” (4.57.4–5). In some regard, it fits the direction Clement takes with his argumentation that he also denounces the Romans, who place their goddess Tyche (i.e., Fortuna), to whom “they ascribe their greatest successes … and believe her to be the greatest deity,” of bringing her (“statue”) into their latrines, just as if these were temples (4.51.1), a custom that was thought to be improbable, unless findings in Ostia came to light and proved it. In summary it can be said that Clement complains about the behavior of people, their illogical and pointless treatment of and attitude towards “statues,” whereas the “statues” themselves are described as what they are: works of art. It is not surprising that Pheidias receives the most interest in the fourth chapter of Clement’s Protrepticus, just as he does in other authors’ writings, too. Dion of Prusa places him at the center of his Olympian Oration (cf. Or. 12.49–83). Pausanias mentions him several times, describes his artworks, and reports lively episodes about him (e.g., Pausanias 5.11.1–11). Plutarch informs about a trial of Pheidias in Pericles’s days and his death in prison (Pericl. 31.2–5) as does Diodorus Siculus in his Bibliotheca historica (12.1.4; 12.39.1–2; 12.40.6). Pliny the Elder involves him several times in his Naturalis Historia (7.39; 16.5; 33.55; 34.19; 35.34; 36.4, 55), and Plato also mentions him (Prot. 311E: ὥσπερ περὶ Φειδίου ἀγαλματοποιὸν καὶπερὶ Ὁμήρου ποιητήν). And what does Clement do? He mentions him three times in Protr. 4.47.2, 47.4 and 53.4 and lists him among οἱ δημιουργοί.162 First, Pheidias is just mentioned as the famous artist who produced the Olympian Zeus and the Athena Polias (from gold and ivory mainly, but no term for “statue” mentioned). Both may be fancied as ξόανα and, therefore, as wooden constructions covered by precious materials.163 Besides, Clements attributes the “statues” (4.47.2) of Zeus and Apollo in Patara in Lycian Patara as well as “the lions that were dedicated along with them” (4.47.4) to Pheidias. Implicitly, Clement seems to praise Pheidias when he attributes to him the ἀγάλματα of Zeus (Διός) and Apollo in Lycian Patara, because these are so famous that everybody knows them. However, later on in 4.53.4 he scolds the sculptor severely: Φειδιάς namely inscribed a dedication on a finger of the famous statue of Zeus of Olympia to his beloved Pantarces: Παντάρκης καλός (4.53.4). With this the statue was not an expression of adoration of the god Zeus anymore but actually represents a plain example of the love of a human for a human.164 Even more, Clement harshly points out: οὐ γὰρ καλὸς αὐτῷ ὁ Ζεύς, ἀλλ’ ὁ ἐρώμενος ἦν (“though it was not Zeus whom he thought beautiSee Scheer, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild, 105–8. Cf. Balbina Bäbler, “Der Zeus in Olympia,” in Klauck, Dion von Prusa, Olympische Rede, 217–38. 164 It should be noted that Clement neither blames nor scolds Pheidias for his love for a man, for Pantarces, as it might have been expected from most of the early Christian writers. 162 163

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ful, but his own favourite of that name”). In the literate meaning of the name, Pantarces might be taken as an attribute for Zeus “all-powerful” so this might represent another wordplay. According to Pausanias the statue had an inscription under the feet of Zeus (“Pheidias, son of Charmides, an Athenian, made me”; 5.10.2) and it should have resembled in appearance Pantarces, Pausanias’s lover. Plutarch reports that Pheidias was accused of having depicted himself as a bald-headed old man next to a likeness of Pericles fighting an Amazon on the shield of Athena (Per. 31.4).165 The criticism in the Protrepcticus becomes even harsher when Pheidias is called a δημιουργός, if taken into account and remembered what δημιουργέω is used for near the very end of that chapter or if the end is just read thereafter. Then it turns out that even the great Pheidias is not really a δημιουργός. The one and only δημιουργός is God alone. Although it would certainly have been beneficial to take a closer and more detailed look at the works of art mentioned by Clement, at least best known among those (e.g., the “statues” of Hera on Samos, Zeus of Olympia, Athena Polias,166 Sarapis [or Serapis] and the three reported versions of its origin [4.48.1–6; above all, the detail Clement highlights that the Sarapis statue is not made by human hands], or the extraordinary Cnidian Aphrodite),167 space restrictions prohibited this. Thus, these works and as well as their conceptual embedding in chapter four of the Protrepticus cannot be discussed any further here. Of no less interest would be a complete survey of all the artists, their works of art, and the informants Clement makes use of, especially those who are mentioned rather early in that chapter (see, above all, 4.46.1–48.6).

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4. The “Greeks” as the Audience Addressed But why does Clement need all these details and facets of knowledge? Not only does he intend to impress his addressees, but he obviously demonstrates that he knows about the religious rites and cults, about the pieces of art, how they were produced and who produced them, about philosophers and philosophy, opinions of “statues” and their nature, and authoritative sources he could fade in at the right places for support. Somehow Clement proves that he is one of them, one of those for whom he uncovers the real “truth.” He does not necessarily urge them to abandon their Greekness, their philosophers, their knowledge, and the artwork they are accustomed to. For him, however, Cf. Scheer, “Art and Imagery,” 172. For “statues” of Athena Polias, cf. Scheer, “Art and Imagery,” 168–69. 167 See Richter, A Handbook of Greek Art, 141: “Pliny (XXXVI, 20) called it the finest statue ‘not only by Praxiteles but in the whole world.’ It was placed in an open shiren and was visible from all four sides, and from all four sides, Pliny says, it was equally admired. Lucian (Eikones, 6) speaks of ‘the smile playing gently over her parted lips’ and of ‘the melting gaze of the eyes with their bright and joyous expression.’” 165

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ἀναισθής, and this is what the “statues” and consequently the gods they represent are, is the opposite to νόησις, based on reasoning and understanding; and it is the latter he demands from his addressees. Therefore, it is not surprising that at last from Protr. 4.56 or 4.57 onwards the tone becomes looser and the writing does not strictly depend upon quotations,168 artists, philosophers, pieces of arts, materials and so on. He had already utilized all of these for his argumentation and the aims he attempts to achieve. Towards the end of chapter four, Clement is able to pick up the points he had already made for his final and climatic conclusions. Fancy talk, gossip, traditional and wellknown stories and general knowledge could have helped, especially among intellectuals in a city like Alexandria. And, of course, there is the famous library of Alexandria,169 and there are other places where he could have obtained books. He would also have had people who fulfilled the task of finding relevant sources for him so that he had copies of books available or could simply purchase them. Again, for whom does Clement write his Protrepticus? Is it for the “Greeks,” defined as pagans, in order to make them convert to Christianity and follow the “truth,” as might be assumed after a first and shallow glance at chapter four of the Protrepticus? Or does the use of so many and diverse sources, of various usual philosophers and writers to substantiate his intentions, and the quotations from and allusions to the Old and New Testament imply that his addressees might not belong to the “others”? All in all, his readers had to have at least some knowledge of the sources unless the workintensive network of information would be in vain. Citing biblical scriptures does only make sense if their meaning and message are understood and their significance and authority are – at least to a certain degree – accepted. The elaborate, well thought out and witty transitions and interlocking of such a wickerwork of sources makes the most sense if the addressees and recipients of Clement’s Protrepticus have a certain level of education and knowledge. Hence, Annette von Stockhausen plausibly argues in favor of (well-)educated people who have already had contact with Christian circles and who are in the first phase of their catechumenate. Thus, they need further encouragement to remain steadfast and not to fall back into their former lives and beliefs.170 The argumentative direction Clement takes in the Protrepticus proves that he wrote in a catechetical way, as von StockCf. Mondésert and Plassart, Clement d’Alexandrie, Le Protreptique, 120n2. In general, see Luciano Canfora, “La Bibliotheque d’Alexandrie et l’histoire des textes,” Cahiers du CeDoPaL 1 (2004): 15–32 and the bibliography by Nathaël Istasse, “Alexandria docta: bibliographie générale,” Cahiers du CeDoPaL 1 (2004): 33–82. 170 Von Stockhausen, “Ein ‘neues Lied’?” 89–90 (89): “Der Protreptikos wendet sich nicht an Heiden, die vom Christentum keine Ahnung haben, die auf es erst aufmerksam gemacht und für es gewonnen werden sollen, sondern Menschen, die diesen ersten Schritt schon hinter sich haben und auch bereits ein gutes Stück Weg in Richtung Christentum gegangen sind.” 168 169

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hausen convincingly showed, even if – as she asked herself – it might be a matter of discussion whether or not he was a teacher at the Alexandrian catechetical school and, thus, backed by an institution.171 Clement writes directly to and for Ἕλληνες, people who are deeply rooted in Greek culture and who have a profound knowledge of classical Greek philosophy and poetry like he has himself. Moreover, quoting from the Old and New Testament – above all increasingly often when Clement comes closer to the end of chapter four – would not serve the author’s aim and purpose in the least had he not expected his audience to know or understand the biblical background to a certain extend.172 Consequently, the quotation from selected sources, the incorporation of many artists and their artworks, the terminological differentiation between the individual “statues” as well as the skillful use of background knowledge are what make the entire work attractive to the intended audience. However, is it really necessary to assume catechumens in the first phase of their catechumenate as addressees? Is it necessary to assume that Clement wants to strengthen them, perhaps in respect to potential attacks from the outside world, so that they do not suffer a relapse into their old way of life?173 An answer to another question in order to discuss these two issues: is it absolutely necessary to know the precise origin of the Old and New Testament references and allusions? Clement does not introduce the biblical citations in chapter four, but he names the philosophers and the Sibyl (cf. the introductions to the quotations from the Sibylline Oracles). Even without a knowledge of Genesis 1:26–27, Clement’s intention of using εἰκών in connection with the “true” and only God can be understood pretty well. If Clement addressed fresh catechumens, why then did he not take the chance of teaching them more about that God and the fact that humans are made in the image of exactly that God? Why did he not seize the chance of communicating more genuine Christian elements, to take these catechumens even further on in their Christian belief? Does he have to put so much effort in arguing the way he 171 Cf. von Stockhausen, “Ein ‘neues Lied’?” 92: “Ob Klemens nun Lehrer an der »alexandrinischen Katechetenschule« war und ob es jene in dieser oder einer anderen Form gegeben hat, kann ich hier nicht erörtern.” For the discussion of the or a (potential) catechetical school at Athens, see for example Gustave Bardy, “Aux origines de l’École d’Alexandrie,” Recherches de science religieuse 27 (1937): 65–90; Roelof van den Broek, “The Christian ‘School’ of Alexandria in the Second and Third Centuries,” in Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East, ed. Jan W. Drijvers and Alasdair A. MacDonald (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 39–47; Clemens Scholten, “Die alexandrinische Katechetenschule,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 38 (1995): 16– 37; Annewies van den Hoek, “The ‘Catechetical’ School of Early Christian Alexandria and its Philonic Heritage,” HThR 90 (1997): 59–87. For a critical evaluation of the different positions and of the relevant literature, see Willem H. Oliver, “The Catechetical School in Alexandria,” Verbum et Ecclesia 36 (2015; Art. #1385, http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ve.v36i1.1385). 172 Cf. von Stockhausen, “Ein ‘neues Lied’?,” 87–89. 173 Cf. von Stockhausen, “Ein ‘neues Lied’?,” 90.

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does, arrange his argument so elaborately, and formulate so eloquently and rhetorically just to enumerate a few verses from the Old and New Testament in the last third of chapter four? The composition of chapter four suggests the answer “no.” Or, to be more cautious, not necessarily. Since Clement shares so much cultural background and knowledge, the language and rhetorics and, probably, his socialization (at least to a certain degree) with the ones he addresses, he understands himself as someone who is a “Greek” and, thus, belongs to those “Greeks,” whether or not they have any Jewish and Christian knowledge. They certainly have “Greek” knowledge, which Clement also has. They would have heard of Christianity and somewhat of biblical sources in order to understand better and more clearly what Clement seeks to accomplish near the end of chapter four of his Protrepticus. He does not disparage Greek philosophy but he parallels, complements, or subtly substitutes it. Clement wants to make his addressees think, decide, and become philosophical believers. All in all, the “Greeks” to whom he writes and to whom he directly speaks might be seen as catechumens or, maybe even more appropriate, as future formal catechumens, but this assumption is not required. What is certain is Clement’s intention to convey his message in a catechumenal manner as he – somehow – did in his Paedogogos.174 And Alexandria was the ideal environment and the fertile breeding ground to draw from all the sciences and cultural areas known to him and to utilize this knowledge to formulate his treatises accordingly.175 One last remark on an aspect that has not been addressed explicitly and has only been touched on en passant so far: Clement does not call for “statues” to be damaged or destroyed. His main aim is to unmask the worship of handmade “statues” (i.e., pieces of art) as something void, senseless and illogical; and he debunks that vane and insipid practice step by step.176 By doing so, he mentions famous sculptors and their fine artistic achievements, both wellknown among the people of his time. Neither does he denounce, mock, or scorn the artworks as they are, nor the artists as representatives of their profession. What he unveils and rectifies is the behavior of some of the artists and the nature of the “statues,” in other words, the practices of worshipers: artists are human beings with human fallibility and their artwork are pieces of art. On the one hand Clement writes about the human desire of love and the wish to sculpt the outer appearance of the beloved as a “statue,” to inscribe a 174 Cf. Adolf Knauber, “Ein frühchristliches Handbuch katechumenaler Glaubensinitiation: Der Paidagogos des Clemens von Alexandrien,” MthZ 23 (1972): 311–34. 175 Similar to Sedlak, “Klemens,” 444. 176 Cf. Kristensen, Making and Breaking the Gods, 66: “Before this time [the end of the 3rd century; note of the author], iconoclasm existed only as a rhetorical field that frequently rehashed Biblical topoi. Pagan idols were a common target of scorn and ridicule in early Christian literature, but these treatises were heavily theological in nature. Authors such as Tertullian and Clement repeated over and over again that pagan cult images were nothing but man-made pieces of wood or stone, worthy only of contempt….”

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dedication for a beloved person into the “statue” of a god, or to venerate “statues” as the visual representation of gods. On the other he criticizes the unacceptable, aberrant and blasphemous worship of man-made artwork that is formed from earthly material and, thus, is lifeless. On the contrary, the one and only God does not require any representation by any piece of art, because the ultimate representation is humankind (as the real living and sensitive “statue”) and everything that is created by that God. Clement’s iconoclasm is, thus, a subtle and intellectual one and his critique of idolatry sharpens the more he seems to know about and understand the nature and the fame of artists and artworks. There is no need for him to call for beheading, mutilating, or completely destroying those “statues,”177 just as it is going to happen later on. For instance, crosses were added, genitals removed, or “statues” were rechiseled one way or another, if they were regarded as not being offensive or dangerous, or stood somewhere off the well-trod streets or areas. Others, however, were completely destroyed.178 There are literary sources that attest to the fact that sculptures survived in Alexandria up to the 7th century, while others were obviously burnt or destroyed by brute force, though the evidence available today is difficult to interpret.179 That there were other approaches and views on how to deal with pagan temples and “statues” of gods is demonstrated by other Christian texts. The Acts of John, chapters 37 to 45,180 should serve here as one example: they report about a risky prayer contest and the destruction of the temple of Artemis.181 On the feast day of the goddess Artemis, John is the only one dressed 177 For further details of and reflections on that issue, with – mostly – a focus on late antiquity and Roman sculpture, see Troels M. Kristensen, “Embodied Images: Christian Destruction and Response in Late Antique Egypt,” Journal of Late Antiquity 2 (2009): 224– 50; idem, “Religious Conflict in Late Antique Alexandria: Christian Responses to ‘Pagan’ Statues in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries AD,” in Alexandria – A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot, ed. George Hinge and Jens A. Krasilnikoff, Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity 9 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2010), 158–76; “Iconoclasm,” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture, ed. Elise A. Friedland, Melanie G. Sobocinski, and Elaine K. Gazda (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 667–80. See further Stewart, Greek Sculpture I, 45. 178 For such demands and possibilities, see Rachel Kousser, The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture: Interaction, Transformation, and Destruction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 223–29, esp. 228–29. 179 Cf. Kristensen, “Religious Conflict,” 167–68. 180 Hans-Josef Klauck, Apokryphe Apostelakten: Eine Einführung (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2005), 10, suggests “ca. 150–160 n.Chr.,” while Karl Schäferdieck, Johannesakten, NTApo6 II, 143, proposes the 3rd century. See the critical edition by Eric Junod and Jean-Daniel Kaestli, Acta Johannis, 2 vols., CCSA 1 and 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1983), and an English translation in J. Keith Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 303–49, above all 310–46. 181 For further information on this “wonder of the world,” see for example Bluma L. Trell, “The Temple of Artemis at Ephesos,” in The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, ed. Peter A. Clayton and Martin J. Price (New York: Routledge, 1988), 78–99; Guy Mac-

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in black to challenge the worshippers. Of course, John (i.e., God who heard and answered his prayer) wins the contest, resulting in the complete destruction of the temple and all the “statues” and “images” in it. After a former priest of Artemis, who is accidentally killed in the destruction of the temple, is brought back to life (42–43), the people (of Ephesus) acknowledge the vanity of their “statues” (44) and convert to Christianity. Evidently, Clement proceeds differently. He might have accepted the “statues” he embedded into his witty rhetorical reasoning as what they are, as pieces of art. But he did not accept them as they were seen, as actual representations of gods. This is the sort of idolatry from which he wants to dissuade his addressees, from its vanity and blasphemous fatality. Thus, he does not differ so much from Dion of Prusa and Macrobius in respect to one aspect: they offer an individual understanding of “statues,” but do not criticize the “statues” fundamentally for what they are nor do they call for their destruction. All the three authors argue for a refined understanding and reinterpretation of those “statues” so that they remain pieces of art, as fine artworks and expressions of “Greek” culture and tradition. Clement also – though a Christian – belonged to that “Greek” culture and to the “Greeks.”182

Lean, The Mysteries of Artemis of Ephesos: Cult, Polis, and Change in the Graeco-Roman World, Synkrisis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), esp. 259–92; Michael Immendörfer, Ephesians and Artemis: The Cult of the Great Goddess of Ephesus as the Epistle’s Context, WUNT 2/436 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), esp. 123–78. The Temple of Artemis was destroyed in 356 BCE and again in 262 CE “by a severe earthquake and in the following plundered by Goths” (Immendörfer, Epehsians and Artemis, 133). 182 Necessarily, Clement had to compose his Protrepticus in a certain philosophical and rhetorical style, when he wanted to attract his addressees’ attention to what he intended to tell them. Cf. Sedlak, “Klemens,” 436, who solely focuses on the Stromateis (and does not refer to the Protrepticus), and Kinzig, “The Greek Christian Writers,” 644: “Just as Christian philosophy had to reach the high level of conceptual sophistication developed in contemporary Middle and Neoplatonism, if it wanted to make substantial inroads into the pagan élite, Christian rhetoric, too, needed further refinement…. One of the breedinggrounds for both Christian rhetoric and Christian philosophy was the school of Alexandria and its main protagonists Clement and Origen.” Neither does Kinzig discuss the issue of the school of Alexandria (see n174 above), nor does he offer more about Clement’s rhetorics in his survey article with a very helpful bibliography (655–70).

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Origen and the “Heterodox” The Prologue of the Commentary on John within the Christian Alexandrian Context1 ANNA VAN DEN KERCHOVE

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Scholarship about Origen is well developed, particularly thanks to the numerous conferences dedicated to Origenian studies.2 One finds, in the past and today still, three main representations of Origen in the reception within Christian tradition and scholarship: Origen as a man of the Church, as a heretic, or as a scholar.3 In fact, modern scholars took an interest in Origen as an Alexandrian scholar, with the epithet “Alexandrian” pointing not only to a geographical location but also to the “constellation historico-culturelle qui l’aida à réaliser sa vocation de maître et d’écrivain.”4 There was also some concern about Origen and the Valentinians, especially Heracleon.5 These studies have two main related perspectives: what were the polemics between Origen and “heretics”?6 What was the influence of some “heretics” on Origen?7 Keeping

1 I would like to thank Valérie Nicolet and Judith Dore who revised the English of the paper. I am the only one responsible for any errors. 2 Twelve conferences on “Origeniana” have been held since 1975 until 2017. 3 Cf. Arthur P. Urbano, “Difficulties in Writing the Life of Origen,” in The Oxford Handbook of Origen, ed. Ronald E. Heine and Karen J. Torjesen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). 4 Lorenzo Perrone, “Le commentaire biblique d’Origène entre philologie, herméneutique et réception,” in Des Alexandries II: Les métamorphoses du lecteur, ed. Christian Jacob (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2003), 271–84 (271). 5 The most recent one is Ansgar Wucherpfennig, Heracleon Philologus: Gnostische Johannesexegese im zweiten Jahrhundert, WUNT 142 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002). See also Manlio Simonetti, Eracleone e Origene, Vetera Christianorum 3 (Bari: Instituto di Letteratura Cristiana Antica, 1966). 6 Alain Le Boulluec, “La place de la polémique antignostique dans le Peri archôn,” in Origeniana: Premier colloque international des études origéniennes (Montserrat, 18–21 septembre 1973), ed. Henri Crouzel, Gennaro Lomiento and Josep Rius-Camps, Vetera Christianorum 12 (Bari: Instituto di Letteratura Cristiana Antica, 1975), 47–61, repr. in Alexandrie antique et chrétienne: Clément et Origène, ed. Carmelo G. Conticello (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2006); Jean-Daniel Dubois, “Le ‘Traité des principes’ d’Origène et le ‘Traité tripartite’ valentinien: Une lecture comparée de leurs prologues,” in Entrée en matière: Les prologues, ed. idem and Bernard Roussel (Paris: Cerf, 1998), 53–63; Alain Le Boulluec, La

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both these perspectives in mind, I will focus on the introduction to the Commentary on John. The aim of this paper is to study the circumstances of the Commentary on John and to see how and why, according to Origen, its composition belongs to a broader trend in his scholarship. The question of the addressees of the Commentary on John will also be raised as well as that relating to the polemical aspect of the first books when compared to the ones written in Caesarea Maritima.

1. The Commentary on John: A Mandated Writing

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The Commentary’s introduction, or “the things that precede the reading (or: study) of Scripture” (as Origen qualifies the first words of his Commentary8), is rather long – Com. Jo. 1.1.1–15.89 – especially compared to other prologues, such as that of the Peri archon (Princ.) written shortly before, at the end of the 220s or beginnings of the 230s.9 However, Origen gives only parsimonious information about the circumstances of the writing of the Commentary: its recipient and a relative date. As scholars have noted, Origen is “a man who did not like to speak about himself.”10

Notion d’hérésie dans la littérature grecque IIe–IIIe siècles, 2 vols. (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1985). 7 Henri-Charles Puech, Von der Mythologie zur mystischen Philosophie, vol 2.1 of Gnosis und Spätantiker Geist (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1954), 171–223, even wonders if Origen could be a Gnostic, with a definition of “Gnostic” which differs from now. For the influence of Gnostics on Origen: Jean Daniélou, Origène (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1948), 190–98 (repr. Paris: Cerf, 2012); Gilles Quispel, “Origen and the Valentinian Gnosis,” Vigiliae Christianae 28 (1974): 29–42. This question of the link between Origen and heretics is already asked in Antiquity: see Herman-Josef Vogt, “Warum wurde Origenes zum Häretiker erklärt?” in Origeniana Quarta: Die Referate des 4. Internationalen Origeneskongresses (Innsbruck, 2.–6. Septembre 1985), ed. Lothar Lies (Innsbruck: Tyrolia-Verlag, 1987), 78– 99; Jon F. Dechow, “Seminar II: The Heresy Charges Against Origen,” in Lies, Origeniana Quarta, 112–22. 8 Origen, Comm. Jo. 1.15.88: “τὰ πρὸ τῆς συναναγνώσεως τῶν γεγραμμένων.” Translations of Origen, Commentary on John, are ours. 9 The introduction of the Comm. Jo. spans 25 pages, the prologue of the Peri archon (Princ.) spans 7 pages. For the datation, see Gilles Dorival, “Origène,” in De Clément d’Alexandrie à Eusèbe de Césarée, vol 3 of Histoire de la littérature grecque chrétienne des origines à 451, ed. Bernard Pouderon (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2017), 173–308 (265). 10 Adele M. Castagno, L’agiografia Cristiana antica: Testi, contesti, pubblico (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2010), 5; cf. Henri Crouzel, Origène (Paris: Editions Lethielleux Cultures et Verité, 1985), 46; Urbano, “Difficulties”; see however Lorenzo Perrone, “Origen’s ‘Confessions’: Recovering the Traces of a Self-Portrait,” in Studia Patristica LVI: Papers presented at the Sixteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2011, vol. 4 of Rediscovering Origen, ed. Markus Vinzent (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 3–27.

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Origen introduces the principal recipient of the Commentary, Ambrose, briefly; not at the beginning but later, in Comm. Jo. 1.2.9: “But what does all of this mean, will you ask, as you read these words, Ambrose, truly a man of God, also a man in Christ, and eager to be spiritual and not only a man (ἀληθῶς θεοῦ ἄνθρωπε, καὶ ἐν Χριστῷ ἄνθρωπε καὶ σπεύδων εἶναι πνευματικός, οὐκέτι ἄνθρωπος)?” Even later, in Comm. Jo. 1.4.21, he mentions, almost in passing, the commission from Ambrose: “As for me, I think that, the Gospels being four as the elements of the belief (πίστις) of the Church, the first fruits of the Gospels are what you have enjoined us (i.e., me) to research according to (our [i.e. my]) powers, that is the gospel according to John, which speaks of the one whose genealogy is traced; I then begin with what has no genealogy.” Later, in the prologue to Comm. Jo. 6.2.6–12, written when Origen arrived at Caesarea, Ambrose is again addressed and presented as providing Origen with financial and human help to honor the commission. In neither passage does Origen explain why Ambrose commissioned a commentary on John. To gather more information, one needs to look elsewhere than the Commentary on John. The tenth-century Sudas and the byzantine historian Cedrenus transmit fragments of a letter from Origen to an anonymous person. According to Nautin, the letter can be identified as the one addressed to Fabian, bishop of Rome (236–250), to which Jerome also refers in Epist. 84.10.11 This identification is not accepted unanimously, and the letter could date from the Alexandrian period of Origen’s life.12 Regardless of the date and the recipient, the content of the letter may well describe the intellectual atmosphere surrounding Origen when he was in Alexandria. Origen describes his work and Ambrose’s intellectual zeal: Ambrose is φιλόπονος and loves the “holy sciences” (τὰ ἄγια μαθήματα). Origen adds that he encounters some difficulties in answering all of Ambrose’s propositions (ὥστε κινδυνεύειν ἀπαυδᾶν πρὸς τὰς αὐτοῦ προτάσεις).13 The idea of a commentary on John could have emerged during one of their discussions. Such discussions occurring in Origen’s intellectual environment may be compared to what happened within contemporary philosophical circles. At that time, Alexandria is known as an important center to read and study Plato and his treatises, on a philosophical and a philological level.14 Origen himself indicates that he meets

11 Pierre Nautin, Lettres et écrivains chrétiens des IIe et IIIe siècles (Paris: Cerf, 1961), 250–51. 12 Urbano, “Difficulties”; Dorival, “Origène,” 193 (where he states that the identification of the recipient to Fabian is “non sans vraisemblance”), and ibid., 196–97: “il se pourrait que le destinataire ne soit pas Fabian,” and ibid., 273. 13 Greek text in Nautin, Lettres et écrivains, 250–51. 14 Christoph Markschies, Valentinus Gnosticus? Untersuchungen zur valentinianischen Gnosis, mit einem Kommentar zu den Fragmenten Valentins (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,

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philosophers in his so-called “autobiographical letter,” transmitted by Eusebius in Historia ecclesiastica 6.19.12.15 Eusebius may be used to round out the picture. Before becoming bishop of Caesarea, his native city, Eusebius was in charge of Origen’s library, and thus had access to many of Origen’s books and to more than a hundred letters.16 In his Hist eccl. 6.18.1, he claims that Ambrose was a member of the Valentinian church17 and that he abandoned the Valentinians after hearing Origen. Nautin argues that this conversion took place when Origen returned to Alexandria after a stay in Rome, therefore between 217 and 222 CE.18 Since that time and for a long time (as Contra Celsum, written around 248 CE, demonstrates),19 Ambrose was Origen’s patron. As Wucherpfennig wrote,20 “das Verhältnis zwischen Origenes und Ambrose ist eines der bekanntesten Beispiele für das Patronatsystem der christliche Antike.” Not only did Ambrose give the impetus to write some texts, he probably also possessed a private library, as was possible in some cases at that time. He purchased books, and he made them accessible to others. If we admit that the Eusebian information about Ambrose is reliable, Ambrose may have rendered Origen attentive to some Valentinian ideas, hermeneutics, and writings. As he himself changed his mind after interacting with Origen – as Eusebius reports – he may have wanted the same to happen to others, through access to Origen’s written word. In particular, he could have provided Origen with the commentary that a certain Heracleon had written on the Gospel of John. The existence of such a commentary, or at least annotations,21 is implied by what Origen writes when first mentioning Heracleon in passing. When he comments on John 1:3 in Comm. Jo. 2.14.100, he writes, “I think it is in a violent manner and without proof that Heracleon, who is said to be a disciple 1992), 324; the author refers to Roger Pack, The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from GrecoRoman Egypt (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1952). 15 Nautin, Lettres, 126–32, 145, identifies the “autobiographical letter” as a letter to Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem and dates it at the time of the stay of Origen at Athens in 232. Cf. Dorival, “Origène,” 191, who thinks it is a possibility; Urbano, “Difficulties.” 16 In Hist. eccl. 6.32.3, Eusebius says he classifies the works of Origen and put the tables in his Life of Pamphilus. In Hist. eccl. 4.36.3, he claims he gathers more than one hundred letters of Origen. 17 We have to compare with the statement made later by Jerome – who considers that Ambrose was a disciple of Marcion, in De viri illustribus 56 – and by Epiphanius – who considers that Ambrose might be a Marcionite or a Sabellian, in Panarion 64.3, which could be called an “antibiography,” following Dorival, “Origène,” 207. 18 Pierre Nautin, Origène: Sa vie et son œuvre (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977), 409. 19 In the prologue of this text written in 248 CE, Origen states that it was Ambrose who gave him a copy of the work (suggramma) of Celsus; Origen, Cels. 4.l, 25–26 (prologue). 20 Wucherpfennig, Heracleon, 15. 21 Bart Ehrman, “Heracleon, Origen, and the Text of the Fourth Gospel,” Vigiliae Christianae 47 (1993): 105–18 (105).

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(or ‘friend’) of Valentinus (τὸν Οὐαλεντίνου λεγόμενον εἶναι γνώριμον Ἡρακλέωνα), interprets….” Later in the Commentary on John, especially in the books written in Caesarea, the existence of a commentary or annotations of Heracleon is made more explicit, since we find quotations.22 It is noticeable that Origen does not speak of Heracleon in his introduction. Moreover, when he first mentions him, it is with some distance: “λεγόμενον,” as if he only knows by hearsay who Heracleon is. Of course, it is possible that Origen knows the existence of Heracleon and of his work without having direct access to the text, at least when he starts writing his commentary. It could be that he gains access to Heracleon’s writings at a later stage.23 It seems sure that he has not met him personally.24 Moreover, if we compare with what Clement says about the same Heracleon a few years before – namely that Heracleon was one of Valentine’s most important disciples25 – Origen seems to diminish Heracleon’s importance. However, Clement says nothing about a commentary written by Heracleon. He may not know of its existence, which might have been revealed to Origen thanks to Ambrose. To date the commission of Ambrose, we must rely on what Origen writes in Comm. Jo. 1.2.12–13: After we were bodily separated from one another, should the study need to be different from the study of the Gospel? Indeed one must dare to say that the first fruits of the whole Scripture is the Gospel. Then, was it not necessary that the first fruits of our (i.e., my) activity, from the time we came back to Alexandria, be no other than the first fruits of Scripture.

Origen claims he begins the commentary after returning to Alexandria, and after being separated from Ambrose. The separation and the return may refer to the same event, a stay away from Alexandria. During his Alexandrian period, Origen travels five times: to Rome, Syria-Palestine, Arabia, Antioch, and Greece. Because Origen qualifies his commentary as “first fruits of my See for example: Origen, Comm. Jo. 13.32.200; 50.336 or 53.363, etc. At least, the situation seems different from the one involving Basilides. As Nautin has shown, Origen has neither direct knowledge of Basilides nor of his idea of suffering and Origen acquires his knowledge of Basilides only thanks to Clement. See Pierre Nautin, “Les fragments de Basilide sur la souffrance et leur interprétation par Clément d’Alexandrie et Origène,” in Mélanges d’histoire des religions offerts à Henri-Charles Puech, ed. Suzanne Lassier (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1974), 393–403 (401–3). 24 Wucherpfennig, Heracleon, 21. 25 About Heracleon, see Clement of Alexandria, who claims to be one of the most important disciples of Valentine, in Strom. 4.19. See Wucherpfennig, Heracleon, 21. Some scholars follow the statement found in Hippolytus, Haer. 6.30, and claim Heracleon, like Ptolemy, is a representative of the Italian branch of the “Valentinian church.” See Ehrman, “Heracleon,” 105; Quispel, “Origen Valentinian,” 33; Einar Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the “Valentinians” (Leiden: Brill, 2006), s.v. However, this statement has to be revised if we consider that the passage of the Elenchos is mostly held in polemical tone. 22

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activity” and further distinguishes the first fruits from the first growths, a dating in 218/219 CE as suggested by some scholars seems too early.26 We prefer the dating proposed first by Nautin, then by Thümmel and Dorival: End of the 220s or beginning of the 230s.27 Moreover, we agree with Nautin who links the return to Alexandria, to which Comm. Jo. 1.2.13 refers, with the first stay in Palestine.28 Indeed, in Comm. Jo. 1.2.9, just after Origen has mentioned Ambrose, he speaks of Levites and priests, claiming that those among the Christians who study the word of God should be named “Levites and priests.” Perhaps, Origen is referring to his first journey to Caesarea of Palestine, during which he interprets Scripture although he is not a priest.29 Therefore, Origen begins to write his Commentary on John just after returning from his first stay in Palestine, and before two other journeys – the one to Antioch (231 or 232 CE), where Julia Mamaea, mother of the emperor Severus Alexander (222–235 CE), summoned him, and the first journey to Greece (232–233 CE) – as well as before leaving Alexandria for the last time (233/234 CE).30 Just as he gives little information about the immediate reason for his commentary and is very discreet about Ambrose’s commission, and about its date, he also does not mention any possible link with the Valentinians in general, and Heracleon and his commentary on John in particular. As mentioned before, Origen does not discuss Heracleon in the introduction, but later, when he interprets some Gospel passages from the Gospels. He does so only twice in the books written in Alexandria: Comm. Jo. 2.19.100, to which we have already referred, and 2.21.137–38.31 This quasi-absence of Heracleon in the Alexandrian books contrasts with Heracleon’s more important presence in the Caesarean books: Origen quotes him forty-six times, mostly in books 13 and 20. Therefore, the polemical aspect of the Commentary on John is more explicit and more assumed in the Caesarean books compared to the Alexandrian ones. Everything seems to point to the supposition that Ambrose’s mandate and the existence of a previous commentary or annotations on John are mere26 As, for example, Wucherpfenning, Heracleon. The same date of 218 CE is given by Cécile Blanc, “Introduction,” in Origen, Commentaire sur S. Jean, ed. Cécile Blanc (Paris: Cerf, 1996), 1:8, however, Blanc dates from 218 CE the journey to Antioch near Julia Mamaea, mother of the emperor Severus Alexander. 27 Nautin, Origène, 366–67. He considers that in book Comm. Jo. 5.1 Origen refers to the stay in Antioch. Compared to Hans G. Thümmel, Origenes’ Johanneskommentar Buch I–V, Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity 63 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 6 and to Dorival, “Origène,” 193–94, 244–45. 28 Nautin, Origène, 366–67. 29 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19.16–18. 30 Dorival, “Origène,” 208–9. for a recapitulation of the chronology related to the Alexandrian period of Origen. 31 Cf. infra, 11.

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ly a pretext and that Origen suggests a different agenda in writing his commentary.

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2. The Commentary on John within Origen’s Scholarship In the course of his prologue, Origen seems to justify that his commentary is not a hapax but fully finds its place inside his own entire scholarship. This justification may be all the more necessary since, provided that the commentary is not his first work, it is composed after several years during which Origen mostly preoccupied himself with the Old Testament. Indeed, he devoted most of his time during the 220s to writing about the Old Testament and to gathering documentation for his Hexaples.32 As for the other books composing what was becoming the New Testament, Origen will write about them later, at the end of the 230s and during the 240s.33 Even for these texts, it would seem that he does not write commentaries, but rather homilies. Therefore, within the context of Origen’s Alexandrian career, the Commentary on John appears as a novelty. Justifying this novelty might explain, at least partially, the length of the prologue. The reader may be surprised by the first words of the commentary. Indeed, one can wonder if they really constitute a prologue, since Origen does not present the outline of his work and announces, very succinctly, his skopos: a commentary. Origen abruptly begins by speaking of the people of God and of the people of Christ, saying that like the people of God, the people of Christ “in quite a mysterious manner have characteristics of the tribes” (ἔχειν τὰς ἰδίοτητας μυστικώτερον τῶν φυλῶν, Comm. Jo. 1.1.1). He then quotes the Apocalypse of John (7:2–5 and 14:1–5; in Comm. Jo. 1.1.2–3), whose canonicity, at the time of Origen, is far from being accepted by most Christians. Apparently, for Origen, the John of the Gospel and the one of the Apocalypse are identical. He continues by developing the common characteristics between the people of God and the people of Christ. Therefore, the first paragraphs of the Comm. Jo. 1.1.1–8 read more like a treatise. Origen is aware that such an opening may surprise the reader, beginning with Ambrose, his patron. In Comm. Jo. 1.2.9, he directly – and, as we have already indicated, for the first time – addresses Ambrose and has him object: “But what does all of this mean, will you ask, as you read these words, Ambrose?” Origen immediately answers his own question in a long development (Comm. Jo. 1.2.9–4.26) during which he presents Ambrose – and the rest of his readership – with a comparison between the people of God and the people of Christ, that leads him to the topic of the first fruits that both people must 32 33

Dorival, “Origène,” 216. Dorival, “Origène,” 241–53.

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offer to God; the first fruits are the activities accomplished by both. He then identifies the first fruits of all activities as Scripture and, elaborating further the use of the expression “first fruits,” he identifies the first fruits of Scripture with the Gospel: “Indeed one must dare to say that the first fruits of the whole scripture is the Gospel” (Comm. Jo. 1.2.12).34 Origen defines what he considers to be the Gospel: it is the whole καινὴ διαθήκη, the “new covenant,” that is, what we now call the New Testament.35 It includes not only the four gospels, but also the other writings which are not titled “εὐαγγέλιον,” like the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of Paul.36 Origen then goes on with the identification of part of Scripture with the first fruits and he ends up identifying the first of the first fruits with the Gospel of John (Comm. Jo. 1.4.21).37 Origen thus identifies the Gospel of John with the first fruits of the four gospels and therefore of the Gospel, that is, the New Testament, and also of Scripture as a whole. John’s special status is justified by the absence of a genealogy for Jesus in this text. Origen adds two other reasons: John speaks divinely about Christ and he has teachings which are absent from the other gospels (Comm. Jo. 1.4.22). In this passage, Origen probably uses and develops a conception that Clement already had about John, when he defined the fourth gospel as the “spiritual gospel.”38 Moreover, just as Origen extended the interpretation of “first fruits of activities for God,” he also stretches the meaning of the word “εὐαγγέλιον.” Indeed, after having defined the Gospel of John as truly the first fruits of Scripture, he uses the word “Gospel” to encompass the Old Testament (Comm. Jo. 1.6.32–36). Such a broad meaning of first fruits and of “εὐαγγέλιον” seems to explain why Origen would take an interest in the Gospel of John, at first without needing to mention Ambrose and Heracleon and, second, in relation to his previous works on the Old Testament. Then, in Comm. Jo. 1.8.44–45, Origen further develops the relation between the Commentary on John and the studies of the Old Testament. He 34 In passing, he answers a possible objection according to which the Gospel is more recent than the whole Scriptures. As we have said above, Origen distinguishes between first fruits and first growth: “It is necessary that we know that first fruits (ἀπαρχήν) and first growth (πρωτογέννημα) are not the same. Indeed the first fruits are offered after all the fruits (are collected) and the first growth before all” (Comm. Jo. 1.2.13). The first books of the Scripture, among which Genesis is in the first place, are only a “first growth.” Only the Gospel is the first fruits: Comm. Jo. 1.2.14. 35 Origen takes the expression καινὴ διαθήκη which Clement has already previously used in his Stromateis (e.g. Strom. 5.13.85.1 where we read: “διά τε τῆς παλαιᾶς διά τε τῆς νέας διαθήκης”). See Origen, Comm. Jo. 1.3.19. 36 See Origen, Comm. Jo. 1.3.15–19. 37 Cf. the quotation supra, 3. 38 Clement’s opinion about the Gospel of John is attested only by Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.14.7. There, Eusebius quotes from the Hypotyposes of Clement, a passage relating to the four gospels. In this quote, Clement claims that “John … wrote a spiritual gospel.”

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does so by distinguishing two kinds of Gospel, the sensory one (αἰσθητὸν εὐαγγέλιον) and the spiritual one (πνευματικὸν εὐαγγέλιον). He then claims that, after having commented on and searched the Old Testament, that is, the sensory Gospel, it is time to study the Gospel of John, the spiritual Gospel par excellence, to understand the sensible one better. Therefore, the study of the Gospel of John appears as the climax of his previous task as a commentator. By disconnecting the Commentary on John from an immediate and circumstantial reason – the commission of Ambrose – and from a specific polemical reason – a reaction to the commentary or annotations written by Heracleon – and by inserting it within the broader aim of his previous research, Origen widens the scope of his writing. This is not without repercussions for the recipients of the commentary.

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3. The Commentary on John: A “Spiritual” Gospel for a “Spiritual” People The first of the recipients is Ambrose himself. When Origen mentions him for the first time, in Comm. Jo. 1.2.9, he says: “Ambrose, truly a man of God, also a man in Christ, and eager to be spiritual (πνευματικός) and not only a man (οὐκέτι ἄνθρωπος).” The distinction between “only a man” and being spiritual is made clearer by what follows in 1.2.9–11. Indeed, Origen continues with a distinction between three levels within the people of God and the people of Christ. These three levels correspond to distinct activities accomplished at each level and to the manner in which an activity is performed: “those of the tribes” (2.9) or “the most numerous ones among us who follow Christ …, who dedicated only few actions to God” (2.10), that is the simple ones; “the levites and priests” (2.9) or those of the people of Christ “who devote themselves to the divine logos and who enter into the sole service of God” (2.10); finally, the “high priest” (2.9) or, among the Christians, “those who differ from the multitude and who seem to be the first among their generation” (2.11). Thus, the way Origen characterizes Ambrose may apply more generally to the people who could be the intended recipients of the commentary: not the simple people, the most numerous ones who have only a tenuous relationship to God and are still too attached to a bodily life; for them, only the sensory Gospel is available. The recipients of the spiritual gospel, namely the Gospel of John, must be those who “devote themselves to the divine Logos” and even more those “who differ from the multitude,” that is, the ones who do not content themselves with living in a bodily manner. They must become another John, as Origen demands in Comm. Jo. 1.4.23, or another son of Mary, like John himself. As O’Leary writes, “Devenir un autre ‘Jean’ est

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une vocation d’élite qui élève les parfaits au-dessus des simples croyants.”39 We could connect this requirement with the position Origen seems to hold within the catechetical school of Alexandria. When he begins to write his Commentary on John, if we follow Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.15, Origen has allowed Heraclas to teach the new catechumens so that he could devote all of his time to the more advanced Christians – the date of this decision would be not later than 217 CE.40 One question remains: could Origen also address some “heretics”? Eusebius says that many “heretics” went to hear Origen (Hist. eccl. 6.18.2). He probably gets this information from what Origen himself writes in the “autobiographical letter” quoted by Eusebius in Hist. eccl. 6.19.12–14. In this letter,41 Origen apparently defends himself from the accusation of frequenting “heretics.” Regardless of the apologetic aspect of the letter, it is “useful for understanding Origen as both a student and teacher in the fluid intellectual community of Alexandria.”42 Ambrose is an example of the kind of “heretics” coming to Origen. Could this mean that, when Origen teaches and writes, he does so also for “heretics”? Commenting about the Peri archon (Princ.), Le Boulluec says that, contrary to what was the case with Plotinus, no gnostic was present in Origen’s audience.43 He concludes: Quand Origène lutte dans son ouvrage contre l’hérésie, il n’a en face de lui, dans le public auquel il s’adresse, que l’image atténuée, réduite par les raccourcis de la polémique traditionnelle, qui ne suscite plus de conversion, qui représente à peine une tentation, tout au plus un danger de se tromper si par quelque voie mal assurée on rencontre l’ombre du chemin qu’est devenue la doctrine gnostique.… Du gnostique lui-même il ne reste plus qu’une image stéréotypée elle aussi, visible au revers de la polémique.… Les premiers destinataires de l’ouvrage se situaient à l’intérieur d’une orthodoxie qui s’était précisée depuis Clément, et qui avait établi une frontière, dessinée par les habitudes des controverses antérieures, entre elle et l’hérésie.44

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Joseph S. O’Leary, Christianisme et philosophie chez Origène (Paris: Cerf, 2011), 140. Cf. Roeloff van den Broek, “The Christian ‘School’ of Alexandria in the Second and the Third Centuries,” in Centers of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East, ed. Jan W. Drijvers and Alasdair A. MacDonald (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 39–47 (46–47); see also Dorival, “Origène,” 188–89, 192. Scholars base their information on Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.15. 41 See supra, 4 and n15. 42 Urbano, “Difficulties.” 43 Le Boulluec, “La place,” 60. 44 Le Boulluec, “La place,” 60–61. 39

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However, Jean-Daniel Dubois challenges precisely this evaluation in his comparison between the prologue of the Peri archon and that of the Tripartite tractate. He states: Faut-il penser qu’au temps d’Origène et de la rédaction anti-valentinienne du Traité des principes les adversaires gnostiques ne représentaient plus qu’un vague souvenir, ou mieux, qu’Origène avait recours à des arguments hérésiologiques stéréotypés à cause de l’absence de véritables adversaires ? Nous croyons, au contraire, que l’effort d’Origène s’explique par le danger que représentait encore la vogue de la gnose valentinienne au début du IIIe siècle.45

In our opinion, Dubois’s conclusion corresponds to the situation which may be behind the redaction of the Commentary on John: the Valentinian ideas and hermeneutic are still considered as a danger for (“orthodox”) Christians. The letter to friends in Alexandria, which may have been written when Origen went to Greece for the first time, in 232–233 CE,46 shows that the debate with “heretics” is a real concern for Origen. The Dialogue with the Valentinian Candidus is another witness for this situation.47 Yet, it still is not proof that there are “heretics” in the audience. At least, it indicates that the danger of “heresy” is still real. Even if Heracleon is nearly completely absent, his shadow is always present and a threat. In Comm. Jo. 1.2.9–11, there might be a polemical touch to the way Origen exhorts being spiritual over being just a man, as well as to the mention of the three levels. By speaking of “spiritual,” Origen may implicitly refer to the third group of the Valentinian tripartition: the pneumatic or spiritual one. Moreover, Cécile Blanc48 rightly links this statement to what Origen says in Comm. Jo. 2.21.137–38:

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Heracleon, when he arrives at this passage, ‘What was made in Him was life,’ interprets it in a totally violent manner, replacing ‘in him’ by ‘to those men, the spiritual ones,’ as if he thought that the logos and the spiritual are identical, even if he did not say that clearly.… (138) He did not pay attention to the words relating to the spirituals in Paul, that is he (Paul) was silent about them as men. ‘A natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; but the spiritual judges all things.’ Indeed, as for us, we said that it is not vainly that he did not add ἄνθρωπος to πνευματικός. Indeed, the spiritual is better than man.

Dubois, “Le ‘Traité des principes’ d’Origène,” 63. This letter is preserved in two fragments in Rufin, De adult. lib. Orig. 7; and Jerome, Ruf. 2.19. Both of them read the letter probably from the Apology for Origen, written by Pamphilus and Eusebius. Cf. Nautin, Origène, 161–68; and idem, Lettres, 245–48; Dorival, “Origène,” 203–4; Urbano, “Difficulties.” 47 A summary of the Dialogue is given in Jerome, Ruf. 2.19. 48 However, Blanc does not explain which link it could be. 45

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The polemical tone is obvious in this passage. Here, for the second time in his Commentary on John, Origen mentions Heracleon. He criticizes Heracleon’s interpretation of John 1:4a49 and his association of ἄνθρωπος and πνευματικός, blaming Heracleon’s mistaken reading because Heracleon does not use Paul. Indeed, Origen links John with 1 Cor 2:4–15 through an “argument from silence”:50 According to him, the absence of ἄνθρωπος in Paul signifies that the spiritual is more than a man. One finds the same idea in Comm. Jo. 1.2.9 when Origen presents Ambrose. What is more, in Origen’s portrayal, Ambrose is not a spiritual person, rather he tries to be one. By using σπεύδων, Origen may counter the Valentinian tripartition, at least as he understands it, namely as a repartition based not on progression but on difference of nature.51 Contrary to this supposed Valentinian position, Origen assumes the possibility of becoming spiritual without changing one’s nature.52 In a later passage, in Comm. Jo. 1.7.43–8.46, Origen expresses this idea more clearly. First, he proclaims that “it is the reason why it is necessary to live as Christians in a spiritual and bodily manner (Διόπερ ἀναγκαῖον πνευματικῶς καὶ σωματικῶς χριστιανίζειν)” (7.43), that is, to be spiritual does not mean to keep spirit and body separate. Furthermore, it also means that one should not live bodily only, as Origen argues in 8.44–45. Rather, one needs to pass from the corporal level to the spiritual one, because the body is not an end in itself. This process is equivalent to painful activity – Origen speaks of struggles (8.46) – and requires suppressing all tupoi, whether they be rhetorical tools or typological relations between the two testaments. The goal of this process is to access what is hidden, the “naked truth” which is found within the Gospel.53 To submit to this process, one must already be well educated, just like Ambrose. This spiritual evolution takes place within the tripartition Origen describes in Comm. Jo. 1.2.9–11. “Spiritual” may refer not only to the Valentinian pneumatic; it may also suggest the tripartition itself: the hylic people, the psychics, and the pneumatics.54 This is indeed confirmed by the passage in which Origen distinguishes 49 We can remark that Origen is aware that he compelled the thought of Heracleon. This awareness is not an excuse for Origen; it is a way to criticize the way of writing of Heracleon: Origen considers that the writing of Heracleon is not clear and is intent to dupe the reader. 50 John J. A. Trumbower, “Origen’s Exegesis of John 8:19–53: The Struggle with Heracleon over the idea of Fixed Natures,” Vigiliae Christianae 43 (1989): 138–54 (146), who takes the example of Comm. Jo. 2.21.137–38. 51 Cf. what Origen arguments against the “by nature” for light and obscurity in Comm. Jo. 2.20.134. 52 In fact, Origen is near to what the Valentinian says in Valentinian texts. 53 About the naked truth, see Pierre Courcelle, “Verissima philosophia,” in Epektasis: Mélanges patristiques offerts au cardinal Jean Daniélou, ed. Jacques Fontaine and Charles Kannengiesser (Paris: Beauchesne, 1972), 653–59 (657). It is possible that Origen takes this notion from Philo who opposes this truth to what is ambiguous: Philo, Spec. 1.63. 54 See Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed.

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between three levels. This passage has a polemical tone and is opposed to what Origen supposes the Valentinian tripartition to be. In the Origenian tripartition, there is no change of nature when one passes from one level to another, and the three levels constitute the whole Christian community, whereas, in the Valentinian tripartition, only the third level concerns the Valentinian community. Origen addresses Ambrose and any Christian who tries to be spiritual in order to give them the tools to achieve this goal. Just as he opposes the Valentinian understanding of the spiritual person and the Valentinian tripartition, he may also contest the tools that the Valentinians offer to become spiritual, and thus proposes his own commentary on a spiritual gospel. He wants to prevent that Christians would seek the manner to become spiritual elsewhere and more importantly outside the Christian “orthodoxy.” Rather, he aims to keep them within the Christian community alongside simple Christians. In the Peri archon, Origen claims that two pitfalls have to be avoided: that of the “heretics” and the “nonsense” of the simple ones.55 Here, the danger is not the “nonsense” of the simple persons but the high level of the teaching of the “heretics” which may attract more advanced Christians, eager for spiritual (and intellectual) instruction. If there were no danger, one would hardly understand the development about the people of God and the people of Christ, or what Origen says about Scripture and Gospel. The length of the passage (Comm. Jo. 1.1.1–15.89) seems to indicate that Origen wants to persuade and to clarify three points which are related to one another and which are still controversial at his time: the extension of Scripture (to include New Testament texts), the link between various parts of Scripture, and the number of gospels. To speak of the Gospel, which is understood in a broad manner, as the first fruit of Scripture as a whole, makes it possible to include it within Scripture, alongside the Jewish texts. It also makes clear the nature of the link between the two parts, which he named, after Clement, old and new Testaments: the Gospel represents a step further in the knowledge of, and the relation to, God. Finally, he reminds his reader that the gospels, here understood as individual writings, are four; no more, no less.56 Origen discusses at length the status of the different parts of Scripture and the value of each part, probably because neither is clear or precise at his time in Alexandria. And he presents the position of “heterodox-

Origen, Princ. 2.6.2; Le Boulluec, “La place,” 18. When Origen speaks of “the Gospels being four as the elements of the belief (πίστις) of the Church,” he may have Irenaeus in mind when he speaks of the elements of the faith of the Church. Le Boulluec asks the same question for the Princ.: Alain Le Boullec, “Y a t’il des traces de la polémique antignostique d’Irénée dans le Peri archôn d’Origène?” in Gnosis and Gnosticism: Papers Read at the Seventh International Conference on Patristic Studies (Oxford, September 8th–13th 1975), ed. Martin Krause (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 138–47. 55 56

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ies”57 only as a negative and incomprehensible norm in Comm. Jo. 1.13.82, at the end of his demonstration.58 Yet, the reference to “heterodoxies” is vague and there is no precise mention of Valentinians or of Heracleon. Here, we think that Origen adopts the same tactic found in his Peri archon, according to Dubois: Et dans ces conditions, l’allure « abstraite » de la réfutation du valentinisme dans le Traité des principes trouverait son explication dans la stratégie hérésiologique d’Origène, si bien décrite par A. Le Boulluec dans La Notion d’hérésie.59 La proximité de l’adversaire est annihilée par un choix tactique de l’hérésiologue : en choisissant de ne pas donner la parole à l’adversaire gnostique, Origène lui dénie toute importance ; il donne l’illusion que l’adversaire n’a pas de consistance réelle dans le débat théologique : l’hérésie n’est ainsi qu’un faux-semblant.60

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The same tactic is found in the introduction and the first books of the Commentary on John: no real consistence, no reality, is given to Heracleon. Origen prefers to speak of a more general group in order to emphasize his own ideas and his conception of the spiritual Gospel and the spiritual teaching, rather than to afford more exposure to ideas which may still attract some Christians. This could explain Heracleon’s quasi absence in the books written in Alexandria and, in contrast, his presence in the books written in Caesarea Maritima. Indeed, in the books written in Caesarea, Heracleon appears to be a real adversary. Paradoxically, Heracleon’s heightened reality may be connected to the absence of a Valentinian danger in the Christian Caesarean community. There are probably other reasons as well. First, in Caesarea, Origen is hardly doing any teaching any more.61 Second, we know that he faces some accusa57 They might be some disciples of Marcion. See Judith M. Lieu, Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 136. 58 Without discussing directly their arguments, thanks to his previous development, Origen disqualifies their position. We could relate this to what Origen said in the prologue of the Peri archon about doctrines which the apostles taught – doctrines as credenda to be believed without discussion and often without stating the rational grounds underlying their authoritative affirmation. As Alain Le Boulluec said, this opinion has some consequences for polemics: When “heretics” are obviously against credenda, Origen refutes them in length; when “heretics” discuss things which are not precise by the apostles, Origen summarizes their ideas, presenting them as a negative norm. See Le Boulluec, “La place,” 221–23. This could be the case in the prologue of the Comm. Jo. See also Henry Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin, Clement and Origen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 79. 59 Alain Le Boulluec, De Justin à Irénée, vol. 2 of La notion d’hérésie dans la littérature grecque IIe–IIIe siècles (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1985), 484–88 and 507–18. 60 Dubois, “Le ‘Traité des principes’ d’Origène,” 63; this quotation is just following the previous quotation we made of Dubois, Supra, 11. 61 Dorival, “Origène,” 197.

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tions about links with “heretics.” Speaking of Origen’s letter to Fabian, in Epist. 84.10, Jerome says that Origen regrets having written some of the Alexandrian passages. More likely, Origen may have regretted that his books became largely diffused and were read by uneducated people.62 Moreover, in the autobiographical letter preserved by Eusebius in his Hist. eccl. 6.19.12– 14,63 Origen refutes the accusation of being influenced by “heretics.” The same defense may be present in Princ. 1.6.1. It is possible that, to answer these accusations and in relation to a relatively less important Valentinian danger in Caesarea, Origen makes the polemical tone clearer, thus showing that he is different from “heretics” and therefore not influenced by them.64

4. Conclusion

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We interpret the Commentary on John as testifying to an evolution in Origen’s situation between his Alexandrian period and the Caesarean one. This evolution could be related to the fact that both Christian communities are different, with a lesser presence of Valentinians in Caesarea than in Alexandria. Studying the introduction of the Commentary on John indicates that Valentinian ideas are still a danger and require a specific answer from Origen in continuity with the Peri archon, which the Commentary on John may complete. The aim is not only to speak about the archai and how one must interpret Scripture theoretically; now the aim is to propose a commentary to provide the more advanced Christians with what they might otherwise search for outside the “orthodox” way. Origen stresses how these Christians differ from the simple ones, trying to be spiritual and not only men (or women), while also highlighting the fact that they all belong to the same community. In Caesarea, the situation of the Christian community and of Origen himself are different. This may explain Heracleon’s greater presence in the books written there.

Dorival, “Origène,” 195. Nautin, Lettres, 126–29. 64 We can also propose a suggestion of Nautin, “Les fragments de Basilide,” 394: “Nous n’y pensons pas assez: les discussions avec un hérétique, faites en l’absence de celui-ci, sont toujours peu ou prou des exercices d’école.”

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“Monotheistic” Discourses in Pseudo-Justin’s De monarchia The “Uniqueness” of God and the Alexandrian Hegemony LUCA ARCARI

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1. Structure and Contents of the De monarchia As observed by Miroslav Marcovich, the work transmitted in the pseudoJustinian corpus with the title of De monarchia (περὶ θεοῦ μοναρχίας) is a “pastiche consisting of thirty-one passages taken from Greek tragedy (Mon. 15), comedy (Mon. 12), Orphic (Mon. 1) and Pythagorean poetry (Mon. 1)”;1 there is also a quotation from Plato’s Timaeus – this is the only passage in prose we find in the work – and a final excerptum from Homer’s Odyssey. These excerpta are “sandwiched”2 between a very short introduction (Mon. 1) and an even briefer conclusion (Mon. 6). These Greek excerpta are quoted in order to support various apologetic arguments: the unity of God (Mon. 2), the future judgment (Mon. 3), the uselessness of sacrifices (Mon. 4), and the futility of false gods (Mon. 4). Concerning the first argument, this is the order of the fragments as we find them in our treatise: Aeschylus (Mon. 2.1), Sophocles (Mon. 2.2), Philemon (Mon. 2.3), Orpheus (Mon. 2.4), and Pythagoras (Mon. 2.5). Concerning the second argument, the future judgment, our anonymous writer quotes passages from Sophocles (Mon. 3.1), Philemon (Mon. 3.2), and Euripides (Mon. 3.3). As regards the uselessness of offering sacrifices – according to our anonymous writer, God does not desire sacrifices but righteousness – the order of quotations is the following: Philemon (Mon. 4.1), and Plato (Mon. 4.2). On the last point – the vain pretensions of false gods – the Greek authors that testify to this argument are the following: Menander and Diphilus (in many cases the compiler also reminds us of the comedies from which these quotations come from: the Auriga, and the Sacerdos in Mon. 5.1–2; Piscatores, and Fratres in Mon. 5.11–13), Afranius (from Depositum: Mon. 5.4), and Euripi1

Pseudo-Iustinus, Cohortatio ad Graecos, De Monarchia, Oratio ad Graecos, ed. Miroslav Marcovich, PTS 32 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 81 (the volume here referred to as PTS). 2 PTS 32, 81.

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des (the anonymous compiler quotes passages from Orestes, Hippolytus, Ion, Archelaus, Bellerophon, Phrixus, Philoctetes,3 and Hecuba: Mon. 5.5–11). A last quotation, from Homer, is included in the conclusion of the treatise (Mon. 6.1). As I have mentioned, all the excerpta are likewise enclosed by an introduction and a conclusion. In the introduction, the anonymous compiler states that humans, although at first they received a union of intelligence and safety to discern the truth, and the worship due to the one Lord of all, turned people towards idolatry and polytheism. For the compiler, the men of former generations have instituted private and public rites in honour of deified mortals (a classical euhemeristic interpretation of ancient myths and cults); on the contrary, he aims at demonstrating – starting from Greek poets’ old speeches – the fact that traditional “polytheistic” cults stemmed from a great ignorance. In the introduction, the author stresses that he wants to use demonstrations drawn from the old poetry of Greek history (κατὰ τὸ παλαιὸν εἰς τὸ παντελὲς τῆς ἑλληνικῆς ἱστορία),4 specifying that these writings were very common (ἐκ τῶν πᾶσι κοινῇ δεδομένων γραμμάτων).5 At the end, the compiler reinforces his conclusions. He states that it is necessary to accept the true and invariable name of the unique God (the God of Israel), which is not proclaimed by the compiler’s words only, but by the words of those who have introduced people to the elements of truth, i.e. the Greek poets. As Marcovich has observed, The question of the source of this true knowledge about the one God in Greek tragic and comic poets is left unanswered by our author. For the author of the Cohortatio ad Graecos, the source of the Mosaic teaching were the priests in Egypt. All our author says about Orpheus’ late preaching about the one God is that it was a fruit of his “repentance” (2.32, μετανοῶν) – a motif which he shares with the Cohortatio (15.1–4), Clement (Protr. 64.3), and Theophilus (Ad Autol. 3.2). Anyway, the attack is directed against Greek ‘wise’ legislators who had introduced polytheism and idolatry ([Mon.] 1.23–25), not against Greek poets, and the practice itself of worshiping many gods is explained by a parádosis mataía.6

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This essay addresses the crucial issue of cultural and/or political implications connected to the “monotheistic” passages assembled in pseudo-Justinian work.

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This is a tragedy on the same topic as Sophocles’s work. Pseudo-Justin, Ouvrages Apologétiques, ed. Bernard Pouderon et al., Sources chrétiennes 528 (Paris: Cerf, 2009), 322 (the volume here referred to as SC). 5 SC 528, 322. 6 PTS 32, 81. 4

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2. The Report by Eusebius of Caesarea, Hist. eccl. 4.18.4 An important terminus for the composition (and/or redaction) of our florilegium seems to be 311–312, as provided by Eusebius’ mention in Hist. eccl. 4.18.4. In his excursus on the figure and the works by Justin Martyr,7 Eusebius recalls the treatises now included in the pseudo-Justinian corpus, attributing all of them to second-century apologist and philosopher. Among these works, Eusebius mentions a treatise on the sovereignty of God (περὶ θεοῦ μοναρχίας), underlining that Justin deals with such a topic not only using Christian Scriptures, but also the books of the Greeks (οὐ μόνον ἐκ τῶν παρ' ἡμῖν γραφῶν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν συνίστησιν βιβλίων).8 Such a report has created a vivid scholarly debate. Some scholars think that there is not a discrepancy between the content of the work as we read it and Eusebius’s explanation – especially for the fact that in the treatise Eusebius has recognized several allusions to the New Testament and the Greek Bible.9 Others underline that Eusebius’s description of the work does not correspond exactly with the content of the De monarchia as we read it today, in which no Christian, or explicitly Christian, testimonies are employed.10 Simonetti’s scepticism about the full identification of our treatise with the work on the sovereignty of God attributed to Justin Martyr, possibly a lost work, is not as unjustified, and Eusebius’ mention could be the cause of the erroneous inclusion of our florilegium in the pseudepigraphical corpus attributed to Justin Martyr. The role of Eusebius’s account for the transmission of De monarchia among the works included in the pseudo-Justinian corpus has been emphasized by B. Pouderon in his critical edition published in 2009.11 It is likely that the inclusion of our florilegium in the pseudo-Justinian corpus, maybe under the influence of Eusebius’s account in his Historia ecclesiastica, has led to a process of re-functionalization of a pre-existent collection of testimonia, especially concerning the inclusion of an introduction and a conclusion, and possibly of some sentences in connecting the different testimonia to each other. But nevertheless, at least in his definitive version, De monarchia does not offer any decisive element for a precise date of composition and/or redac7 For the Greek and Latin texts, see Eusebius’ Werke II/1: Die Kirchengeschichte, ed. Eduard Schwartz and Theodor Mommsen, GCS 9/1 (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1903), 364–65 (the volume here referred to as GCS 9/1); for the English translation, see Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History, vol. 1, ed. Kirsopp Lake et al., LCL 153 (London: William Heinemann, 1926), 368–73. 8 GCS 9/1, 364. 9 See PTS 32, 82. 10 See Manlio Simonetti, “In margine allo Pseudogiustino,” Aug 51 (2011): 6–7. Here I use the term “Christian” in the sense of the explicit apologetic mention of Jesus Christ. 11 SC 528, 105–9.

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tion. At most we can say Eusebius’s account probably involved the necessity of introducing into the pseudo-Justinian corpus a pre-existent work which appears more or less coincidental with the topic of the sole governance of God.

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3. Clement of Alexandria and the De monarchia The introduction and the conclusion of our treatise include some parallels with expressions and sentences used by Clement of Alexandria elsewhere in his works. If this element represents another important terminus for the final redaction of the De monarchia, it does not necessarily mean that any contact between Clement and the De monarchia may be due to a dependence of the second upon the first. As Simonetti has recently reminded us, for many cases – and this is evident especially for the various testimonia by which the De monarchia is composed – it is necessary to assume an inverse relationship. Nevertheless, in a very intriguing case, it seems that Clement of Alexandria has adopted the same perspective of pseudo-Justinian treatise; the presence of this very important parallel at the same time in the introduction and in the conclusion of De monarchia is no coincidence. In Mon. 1.1, we find the expression συζυγίαν συνέσεως καὶ σωτηρίας,12 a reference to the union between intelligence and safety to discern the truth, i.e. the worship due to the one Lord of all; the same words return in Mon. 6.1, when the compiler uses the expressions ἐπαναδραμεῖν ἐπὶ τὴν τῆς συζυγίας κοινωνίαν καὶ προσάψαι ἑαυτὸν συνέσει εἰς σωτηρίαν13 – here the text states that it is a proof of virtue, and of a mind loving prudence to return to the communion of the unity, and to attach one’s self to prudence for salvation and prefer better things (i.e. the worship due to the one God) according to the free will placed in man. Both the mentioned passages recall Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 1.2.3, ὀρέγουσα … τὴν σύνεσιν εἰς σωτηρίαν14 and Strom. 5.4.19.1, μήτε τῇ γνώσει εἰς σωτηρίαν.15 The first passage is inserted in the demonstration concerning the contraposition between Greek Paganism and Christianity, that is built by defining two opposed fields, that of superstition and that of religion. As Miguel H. de Jáuregui has emphasized, “the former is represented by the misleading song of pagan poets (mainly Orpheus), the latter by the song of the Logos. Clement proposes, according to the paradigm of conversion, the substitution of one song for another one. Christianity is therefore presented in

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SC 528, 320. SC 528, 346. 14 SC 2, 54. 15 Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata Buch I–VI, ed. Otto Stählin, GCS 52 (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1906), 338. 13

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traditional Greek categories …, just as it will be presented along the whole work as the true philosophy or the true mystery,”16 and for this Clement states that the “truth, sending forth her rays of light into the farthest distance, shines everywhere upon those who are wallowing in darkness, and delivers men from their error, stretching out her supreme right hand, even understanding, to point them to salvation.”17 De monarchia plays on the same dualistic oppositions like falsehood/truth, darkness/light, slavery/freedom, or the insistence on the “true” or “real” song, freedom, truth or God, revealing the effort to neatly separate both fields on the basis of those that our text considers as its real authoritative protoi heuretai, i.e. the Greek poets of antiquity. The second of Clement’s passages is found in the fifth book of Stromata, at the beginning of the section dedicated to the divine things wrapped up in figures both in the sacred and the “non-Christian” writers. Just before it, Clement emphasizes a general principle, clearly modelled on Biblical precedents (Prov 26:5, “Answer a fool according to his folly”), as well as on Greek authors (i.e. the famous adagio similes cum similibus, which is attested in authors like Plato and others), i.e. to outsiders that ask for the wisdom of the believers in Christ, believers in Christ must show things suitable, so that the former – through their own ideas – will be able to arrive at the faith of the latter. Such a general principle is further illustrated by Clement in the following section of the fifth book, where the concept of the Good is deepened. Clement states that it is necessary to deal with those things that “outsiders” (i.e. those whom Clement represents as “outsiders”) are capable of hearing, i.e. the Good that is traceable among the Greeks. In Clement’s argument all things are God’s, so there is Good also among the Greeks and it has proceeded from the Jewish people to them thanks to Egyptian wisdom. This is the ideological scenario in which the compiler(s) of the De monarchia has also enclosed the Greek excerpta that we find as components of a “treatise” on the sole governance of God.

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4. The Alexandrian Provenance of the De monarchia The association of our florilegium with the work on the sole government of God attributed to Justin Martyr must have taken place during or soon after the 4th century and certainly before the date of the first manuscript of our treatise,

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Miguel H. de Jáuregui, “The Protrepticus of Clement of Alexandria: A Commentary” (PhD diss., University of Bologna, 2008), 109. 17 Clement of Alexandria, The Exhortation to the Greeks; The Rich Man’s Salvation; To the Newly Baptized, transl. George W. Butterworth, LCL 92 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1919), 7.

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the Parisinus graecus 450, fol. 461, copied in 1364.18 The final redaction of our composition has a long history and scholars essentially agree with this assumption. Marcovich’s thesis, according to which the De monarchia is a work posterior to Clement in its entirety, does not seem to be justified. It is possible to hypothesize the existence of an extant well-known and widespread Jewish anthology rooted in the Alexandrian context. The attestation of the same excerpta in Clement of Alexandria’s works19 as well as the quotation of various tragic and comic fragments, seem both to testify to the Alexandrian provenance of our florilegium. With regard to the first subject (the attestation in Clement of Alexandria’s works of the same excerpta quoted in the De monarchia), we found all the quotations reported in the De monarchia in the fifth book of the Stromata (sometimes with different attributions), and on top of that, more or less in the similar sequence attested in the pseudo-Justinian treatise. Regarding the second aspect (i.e. the presence of massive tragic and comic fragments), this seems to connect our florilegium to the cultural Alexandrian environment, at least after the redaction of the canonical corpus of Greek comedy and tragedy – quotations from works by Diphilus and Menander are more or less related to the same cultural background. With the De monarchia we are in the presence of a real anthologie du plagiat,20 a collection of quotations of “Jewish” provenance, which Clement and other Christian authors have supposedly reused and re-worked. Nevertheless, the Jewish allure of this florilegium is also not quite so explicit. Apart from the problematic allusion to Isa 66:1 in Mon. 2.4, in the excerptum from the Testament of Orpheus, it is exactly (and only!) the quotation of this fragment, certainly from a Jewish-Alexandrian hymn,21 that confirms the same roots for 18 On this manuscript, see the description in Denis Minnis and Paul Parvis, trans. and eds., Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 3–5. For the text of De monarchia transmitted by this manuscript, see SC 528, 109–10. 19 See SC 528, 361–64. 20 Nicole Zeegers-Vander Vorst, Les citations des poètes grecs chez les apologistes chrétiens du IIe siècle (Leuven: Publications Universitaires, 1972), 180–228. On this terminology, see the recent assessment by Vadim Wittkowsky, Warum zitieren frühchristliche Autoren pagane Texte?: Zur Entstehung und Ausformung einer literarischen Tradition, BZNW 218 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 7–9. 21 Further bibliography in Luca Arcari, “The Testament of Orpheus, Aristobulus, and the Derveni Papyrus: Between ‘Didactic’ Hymnography and Alexandrian Exegesis,” in Second Temple Jewish “Paideia” in Context, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini and Jason M. Zurawski, BZNW 228 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 113–30. On the ‘Testament of Orpheus’, see the seminal studies by Christoph Riedweg, Jüdisch-hellenistische Imitation eines orphischen Hieros Logos: Beobachtungen zu OF 245 und 247 (sog. Testament des Orpheus), Classica Monacensia 7 (Munich: Münchener Universitätsschriften, 1993); and Giulia S. Gasparro, Dio unico, pluralità e monarchia divina: Esperienze religiose e teologie nel mondo tardo-antico, Scienze e Storia delle Religioni, N.S. 12 (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2010), 89–91.

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our florilegium or, at least, the links between our collection and the JewishAlexandrian environment. The pseudo-Justinian work has certainly originated during or after the 3rd century BCE, especially given its mention of various dramatic works. As is well known, at least according to various sources, Ptolemy II commissioned Alexander Aetolus to make a collection of all the tragedies and satyr dramas that were extant and Lychophron was entrusted by Ptolemy Philadelphus with the task of arranging the “canon” of classical comedies.22

5. “Monotheistic” Discourses and the Alexandrian Cultural Hegemonic System

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The use by Jewish Alexandrian writers of thematic anthologies is well known. Philo of Alexandria’s Allegorical Commentary, for instance, consists of at least three recognizable incomplete anthologies, and each anthology bears a particular thematic orientation.23 Criticism often directed at Clement for his using anthologies and other synoptic works rather than the original works directly is rather nonsensical, especially since in so doing, Clement emerges as an author that is completely ensconced in the Alexandrian cultural environment. The collection preserved in the De monarchia shares the basic idea of other Alexandrian texts and/or contexts, the existence of a universal principle that contains and produces all things. Concerning this, a very illustrative starting point is that of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise De mundo.24

22 See Evina Sistakou, Tragic Failures: Alexandrian Responses to Tragedy and the Tragic, Trends in Classics, Supplementary Volumes 38 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 25–30; see also Nick Lowe, “Comedy and the Pleiad: Alexandrian Tragedians and the Birth of Comic Scholarship,” in Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres, ed. Emmanuela Bakola et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 343–56. 23 See Jang Ryu, Knowledge of God in Philo of Alexandria, WUNT 405 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 26–27. 24 If the Alexandrian provenance of the De mundo is highly controversial, its influence on Alexandrian figures and/or texts is quite clear. If Max Pohlenz, “Die Schrift von der Welt,” NAWG 5 (1942): 480–87 contended that the treatise took over “Oriental-Jewish” ideas and that it had its origin in the same spiritual environment as Philo, many scholars maintain that the Hellenistic Jewish authors were probably influenced by De mundo. See Roberto Radice, La filosofia di Aristobulo e i suoi nessi con il “De mundo” attribuito ad Aristotele: Con due appendici contenenti i frammenti di Aristobulo (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1995); Riedweg, Jüdisch-hellenistische Imitation, 88–95; David T. Runia, “The Beginning of the End: Philo of Alexandria and the Hellenistic Theology,” in Traditions of Theology: Studies in Hellenistic Theology, Its Background and Aftermath, ed. Dorothea Frede and André Laks, PhA 89 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 305. On the pseudo-Aristotelian De mundo, see the general assessment in Cosmic order and Divine Power: Pseudo-Aristotle,

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The strong influence of Aristotelian (and/or pseudo-Aristotelian) elements and traditions in the definition of paideia and its hegemonic programs in the history of both Alexandrian and Egyptian culture of Hellenistic-Roman periods is well known.25 These elements emerge as a kind of selective criterion variously adopted and re-used by groups and authors in order to share, and consequently re-adapt a “hegemonic” cultural posture in and for different contexts and aims. A particular worship of the ruler seems to appear in Ptolemaic Egypt as early as the reign of Ptolemy II and seems to have spread from there to Seleucid Syria and possibly elsewhere.26 The social consequences of such a kind of veneration in the characterization of Ptolemaic patronage in Hellenistic period are well known, as it is shown, inter alia, in Herodas’s first Mimiambus. When one of the protagonists of this poetic work, Gyllis, tries to persuade Metrike that her husband has deserted her and gone to Alexandria (Mim. 1.26–33), the text states as follows: κεῖ δ' ἐστὶν οἶκος τῆς θεοῦ· τὰ γ̣ὰρ πάντα, ὄσσ' ἔστι κου καὶ γίνετ', ἔστ' ἐν Αἰγύπτωι· πλοῦτος, παλαίστρη, δύναμι[ς], εὐδίη, δόξα, θέαι, φιλόσοφοι, χρυσίον, νεηνίσκοι, θεῶν ἀδελφῶν τέμενος, ὀ βασιλεὺς χρηστός, Μουσῆιον, οἶνος, ἀγαθὰ πάντ' ὄσ' ἂν χρήιζηι, 27 γ̣υναῖκες, ὀκ̣όσους οὐ μὰ τὴν Ἄ̣ιδεω Κούρην ἀ̣σ̣τ̣έ̣ρας ἐνεγκεῖν οὐραν[ὸ]ς κεκαύχηται….

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The home of the Goddess is there. For everything that exists and is produced in Egypt – wealth, wrestling schools, power, tranquillity, fame, spectacles, philosophers, gold, youth, the sanctuary of the sibling gods; the king is a good chap; the Museum, wine, everything he could desire, women – as many by Hades’s maid as the stars that heaven boasts of bearing….28 On the Cosmos, ed. Johan C. Thom, Scripta Antiquitatis Posterioris ad Ethicam Religionemque pertinentia 23 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014). 25 Concerning the Aristotelian influence on Alexandrian paideia, see Maren R. Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 38–57. On Greek paideia in Jewish Alexandrian schools and groups, see Gregory E. Sterling, “The School of Moses in Alexandria: An Attempt to Reconstruct the School of Philo,” and Benjamin G. Wright, “Greek Paideia and the Jewish Community of Alexandria in the Letter of Aristeas,” in Boccaccini and Zurwaski, Second Temple Jewish “Paideia,” 141–66 and 93–112. 26 See Duncan Fishwick, The Imperial Cult in the Latin West, Volume 3: Provincial Cult, Part 1: Institution and Evolution, RGRW 145 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 42. 27 For the Greek text, see Herodas: Mimiambi, ed. Ian C. Cunningham, BSGRT 1258 (Leipzig: K.G. Saur, 2004), 2. 28 For the English translation, see Oswin Murray, “Ptolemaic Royal Patronage,” in Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his World, ed. Paul McKechnie and Philippe Guillaume, Mnemosyne Supplements (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 21. On Herodas’s description of the Egyptian (i.e. Alexandrian, at least according to his view!) scenario, see also Ivana Petrovic, “Posidippus and Achaemenid Royal Propaganda,” in Hellenistic Studies at a Crossroads: Exploring Texts, Contexts and Metatexts, ed. Richard Hunter et al., Trends in Classics, Supplementary Volumes 25 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 273–300. I lament Erich S. Gruen’s statements in The Construct of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism: Essays on Early

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As observed by O. Murray, “this is the characterization of his court that Ptolemy Philadelphus (and I would add many of the Ptolemaic rulers after him) actively sought to promote, and the reason why he welcomed poets and intellectuals who could both enhance and celebrate his cultural aims.” 29 5.1 “Philosophy” and the Hegemonic Alexandrian Paideia

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There seems to be a striking contrast in Ptolemaic Alexandria between scientific and literate scholars and the field of philosophy. The city does not seem to have anything as remarkable to offer as regards a relationship between philosophy and the patronage system orbiting around the Museum and the Library. But this seems to depend on the fragmentary status of our sources. In spite of this documentary shipwreck, there are signs that the initial set-up of Alexandria’s centers of learning took place under some philosophical influence, notably from the Peripatos. There are references to a close relationship between Demetrius of Phalerum and Ptolemy I Soter (Diogenes Laertius, Vit. 5.78; Aelian, Var. hist. 3.17; Plutarch, Exil. 7 [601F]), and of attempts by that monarch to secure Theophrastus’s services as tutor for his son. Eventually it was Strato of Lampsacus who was persuaded to come to Alexandria for a handsome reward (Diogenes Laertius, Vit. 5.37, 58). There is decisive evidence for philosophers enjoying royal patronage under the early Ptolemies. Stilpo spent time in the court of Ptolemy I Soter, where he had the opportunity to humiliate Diodorus Cronus (see Diogenes Laertius, Vit. 2.111–12, 2.115). The Epicurean Colotes addressed a philosophical treatise to Ptolemy Philadelphus (Plutarch, Adv. Col. 1 [1107E]), “but it is not clear whether he had any particular Alexandrian connections or whether this was in compliment for Ptolemy’s support of Athens during the Chremonidean war in the 3rd century BC.”30 Diogenes also attests that in the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopator Chrysippus turned down the lucrative prospect of a sojourn at Alexandria, while Sphaerus of Borysthenes went instead (Diogenes LaertiJewish Literature and History, DCLS 29 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 434: “In Herodas’ mime about the matchmaker, also in the time of Philadelphus, the speaker pauses to recount the numerous and varied advantages of living in Egypt (1.26–31). They include wealth, gymnasia, power, glory, spectacles, philosophers, young men, the Museum, endless numbers of beautiful women; in short everything one could wish. Amidst this catalogue of delights, there is just a single passing mention of the ‘good king’ – and that appears in conjunction with the shrine of the brother-sister gods. The monarch is nothing more than one of the sights to see in Alexandria. Herodas’ allusion hardly serves as a great compliment, and plainly comes tongue-in-cheek.” Herodas’s text seems to show otherwise, especially given the fact that the mention of the king appears in a context in which such a mention was unnecessary (at least theoretically!). 29 Murray, “Ptolemaic Royal Patronage,” 21. 30 Myrto Hatzimichali, Potamo of Alexandria and the Emergence of Eclecticism in Late Hellenistic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 26.

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us, Vit. 7.177, 185). All these passages focus on special relationships between philosophy and the Ptolemies, aiming to bring to Alexandria philosophers that were already established elsewhere. Myrto Hatzimichali has observed that “gradually the philosophical influence became less pronounced, as the distinguished position of tutor to the royal princes passed on to the great Alexandrian scholars such as Zenodotus, Eratosthenes and Aristarchus, often in conjunction with the librarianship.”31 This assumption seems to underestimate the fact that Alexandrian exegetical work on Homeric texts was entirely founded on Aristotelian program. As observed by Maren Niehoff, “Homeric scholarship in the broad sense can be traced back to very early times, reaching an important climax in Aristotle’s Aporemata Homerica and the twenty-fifth chapter of his Poetics.”32 This is why a clear separation between philosophy and other cultural activities appears to be anachronistic as regards the Alexandrian Hellenistic culture. Such a separation is perhaps due to the developments carried out by the Imperial and Late-Antique philosophical schools, on which most of our fragile information on Hellenistic period depends. 5.2 Greek-centric Reinventions of Tradition and the Alexandrian Cultural Hegemony

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In the Alexandrian courtly environment, a particular Greek-centric (or, more precisely, Atheno-centric) representation of culture, mainly focused on specific reconstructions and interpretations of Homeric texts,33 remained the main focus for expressing the relationship between intellectuals and their patron (i.e. the king and his court), and for the demonstration and the celebration of the courtly virtues of a civilized king. That this became a permanent aspect of the Ptolemaic culture is shown also “by the mise-en-scène adopted by the Jewish writer called Aristeas in his imaginary description of the reception of the 72 translators of the Septuagint by Philadelphus.”34 This hegemonic Alexandrian paideia highlights the superiority of the Greek-speaking groups of cities over the Egyptian-speaking peasants of the villages; it connects cultural products to elites outside Egypt, i.e. the educated groups of the 31

Potamo of Alexandria, 27. Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis, 9. 33 Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis, 9. 34 Murray, “Ptolemaic Royal Patronage,” 21–22. On the relationships between Alexandrian paideia and the Letter of Aristeas, see Wright, “Greek Paideia.” In contrast to current views, Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis, 19–37 argues that Aristeas was conservative and rejected the application of critical Homeric methods to the Jewish Scriptures, providing an important mirror image of some of his colleagues’ scholarship. Aristeas’s rejection seems to reinforce the representation of the Alexandrian cultural system provided by the Letter, as a centralized framework under which also (more or less) contrary voices against the “pillar” of Greek education in Hellenistic Egypt were forced to live and to work.

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Greek East and of the Latin West, whose cultural products were founded on the same Greek models. Hegemonic paideia assumes a pivotal role also in the counter-discourse and in the various forms of resistance to hegemonic culture.35 Articulating and promulgating counter-discourses implies competing re-uses and relocations of discursive elements ascribable to the same hegemonic discourses. In the ancient world, hegemony (according to Antonio Gramsci’s assessments)36

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35

An intriguing case of Jewish counter-discourse, in which elements of the hegemonic cultural system are re-used for asserting “common cultural bonds that could encompass” Jewish and Greek groups, is the collection of oracles gathered in the third book of the Sibylline Oracles, although it is not clear when this was reassembled in its definitive form. See Gruen, The Construct of Identity, 451–73. 36 See Antonio Gramsci, Selection from the Prison Notebooks, ed. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey N. Smith (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1971), 7–8, 9–10. For an application of Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to the Hellenistic era, see Anathea E. Portier-Young, Apocalypse against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 3–45. It is important to underline that Egyptian papyri written in both Greek and demotic testify that the supposedly widespread “Hellenization” of the Eastern Mediterranean – firstly prompted by Gustav Droysen to designate “Hellenistic period” – has undoubtedly been overestimated: on this topic, see Susan I. Rotroff, “The Greeks and the Other in the Age of Alexander,” in Greeks and Barbarians: Essays on the Interaction between Greeks and Non-Greeks in Antiquity and the Consequences for Eurocentrism, ed. John E. Coleman and Clark A. Walz, Department of Near Eastern Studies: Occasional Publications of the Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Program of Jewish Studies 4 (Bethesda: Southgate, 1997), 221–36 and Jonathan M. Hall, Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2002), esp. 221–22; on the “invention” of Hellenism by Gustav Droysen and the theological Nachleben of this concept, see Luciano Canfora, “Ideologies of Hellenism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies, ed. George Boys-Stones et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), esp. 173– 79; and Luca Arcari, “Hellenismus e pluralismo religioso: Le ambiguità di un’associazione nella riflessione storico-religiosa tedesca tra Otto e Novecento,” Annali di Storia dell’Esegesi 34 (2017): 603–24. When we refer to Greek (more precisely “Athenocentric”) paideia, we deal with both elites and groups of individuals who adopt (also countering) this “Greek” hegemonic culture in order to define themselves in the same elite context or in cultural contexts more or less connected to the hegemonic “platform.” In this regard, it is important also to recall that postcolonial studies and related fields of research pay great attention to the problem of hegemony as well as to its intrinsic ambivalence. The concept of cultural hybridity as introduced by Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), is only understandable in the context of the ambivalence of hegemony and power. Whereas in the past ethnicity was a central category in the study of ancient and modern colonisations, postcolonial criticism emphasizes the role of ethnicity as one category among others to define power relations. Inspired by the work of Gramsci, postcolonial authors started to shift the perspective toward cultural hegemony and subalternity. I have applied Gramsci’s concept of hegemony and postcolonial analysis in the study of Alexandrian context in Luca Arcari, “Introduction: Cultural and Religious Cohabitations in Alexandria and Egypt between the 1st and the 6th cent. CE,” in Beyond Con-

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is very often a violent form of physical coercion exercised through enslavement, policing actions, murders, torture, and so on; but it also assumes the aspect of more subtle forms of control conveyed through cultural institutions, systems of patronage and social networks as well as the structured practices of everyday life. This is also the case of the Ptolemaic power in Egypt and this control-system was assumed and at the same time re-oriented under the Roman hegemony. As the case of the Jewish-Hellenistic florilegium preserved in the De monarchia shows, Greek past authorities stand as normative and universal patterns entirely based on assumptions constructed (or re-invented) as traditional and, as a consequence, monolithic. Greek past, in this case, deliberately obliterates what is particular and contingent, emerging as the unique way in both perceiving the world and mapping the universe, and the place of men in it. In the case of the De monarchia, monotheistic Greek “traditions” are able to separate inside from out-side, normal from aberrant; their logic legitimates claims about truth and authority.

Keeping in mind the delineated conceptual framework, I would like to emphasize some last points. The first concerns the supremacy of Greek ancient poetry according to De monarchia. As is well known, in antiquity poetry refers to a performance entirely based on the process of representative recollection, a sort of collective communication with elements reconstructed as traditional in a context that uses and re-uses poetry as an instrument of political (and religious, especially in a context as that of Ptolemaic Alexandria) consensus and/or propaganda. The modern separation between literature and utilitarian function of texts is not useful to shed light on this typology of documents. What we often define as “literature” emerges as a practical tool of great impact in a context like the Alexandrian one, a context in which re-invention of the Greek (or Atheno-centered) traditions and Ptolemaic politics are often inseparable. Particularly significant, for this analysis, is the fourth hymn by Callimachus (the so-called Hymn to Delos), a composition which takes its inspiration from Homeric hymns and in which the Egyptian reign of Ptolemy II is praised. The events of the city of Delos represent the traditional element

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6. The Uniqueness of the Divine Principle and Judaism(s) in the Alexandrian Patronage System

flicts: Cultural and Religious Cohabitations in Alexandria and Egypt, between the 1st and the 6th cent. CE, ed. idem, STAC 103 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 1–22.

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through which Philadelphus’s victory against the Galatans is celebrated;37 it is no coincidence that Callimachus’s hymn shows connections with other texts of Homeric nature originating from the same Egyptian background (see the Hymn to Philadelphus by Theocritus,38 or P.Lit.Goodspeed 2, a papyrus of the 2nd century CE presenting hexametric carmina perhaps dating back to the Ptolemaic period).39 As for the use of poetic stylistic elements and meters in Jewish literature written in Greek, the examples by Theodotus and Philo (respectively, 47 and 23 verses) quoted by Eusebius in his Praeparatio evangelica (by way of Alexander Polyhistor) are well-known.40 The hexametric fragments by Theodotus deal with the city of Shechem and the kidnapping of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, while those written by Philo deal with Isaac’s sacrifice and Jerusalem’s water system. In both the cases, reinventions of Jewish “tradition” – under the guises offered by the official poetic forms – are perceived as non-arbitrary and as products of a self-evident and natural order, that of the Alexandrian cultural context. In spite of the genre difference, the florilegium collected in the De monarchia appears as a very similar case of re-invention of tradition. Experiences of forced or intensive cultural contact open up possibilities for mutual re-negotiations of different traditional (or constructed as traditional) elements, not only in naming and thinking what was previously unnamed and unthinkable, but also in re-thinking and re-defining what was ignored or rejected by a specific élite, in order to react to hegemony with counter-discourses that articulate the official forms of cultural activity. Concerning the relationships between the “uniqueness” of the divine (or the hierarchy of the divine principles) and the Alexandrian Hellenistic kingship, especially in a philosophical discursive context, evidence is scarce. As it is well-known, in the extant post-Hellenistic philosophical works, Philo of Alexandria offers one of the most accurate occurrences of the image of YHWH as the great king surrounded by his satraps (Philo, Decal. 60–61). As observed by Peter van Nuffelen,

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See Massimo Giuseppetti, “Mito e storia nell’Inno a Delo di Callimaco,” in Mythe et pouvoir à l’epoque hellenistique, ed. Cristophe Cusset et al., Hellenica Groningana 18 (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 469–94. 38 See Theocritus, Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus, ed. Richard Hunter, HCS 39 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 39 See Claudio Meliadò, “Da Cos a Delo: nuovi scenari mitologici in P.Lit.Goodspeed 2,” in Proceedings of the 24th International Congress of Papyrology (Helsinki, 1–7 August, 2004), ed. Jaakko Frösén et al. (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2007), 2:729–33; idem, “E cantando danzerò,” PLitGoodspeed 2 (Messina: Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità, Università di Messina, 2008). 40 See Thomas Kuhn, Die jüdisch-hellenistischen Epiker Theodot und Philon: Literarische Untersuchungen, kritische Edition und Übersetzung der Fragmente, Vertumnus 9 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012).

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Yet the context makes it unlikely that Philo invented the image, as it has clear polemical intention of disputing the veracity of Graeco-Roman polytheism. This argument is best understood in the light of Philo’s polemical technique …: he adopts an image used by ‘pagan’ philosophers and then succeeds in giving it a new meaning through his Jewish 41 perspective.

Philo argues that “Pagan” philosophers seem to assume a hierarchical structure of the divine world according to which it does not matter which divine being is being worshipped on what level. This is the same thing as giving the satraps the worship due to the great king and effacing the hierarchy. According to Philo, the highest god is the real god, and other “gods” remain distant from the higher god (see Philo, Decal. 64). Such a restriction of worship to the highest God subverts the image of the great king as understood by some Greco-Roman speculations. Philo has played a pivotal role in Erik Peterson’s historical reconstruction of “political theology.”42 Peterson has considered the integration of GrecoRoman ideas about the divine kingship into Jewish “monotheistic” philosophy as a key chapter in the development of Kaiser-Theologie. Van Nuffelen’s perspective is different: he considers Philo to be turning the image of the great king against the tradition from which he borrowed it and sees it more in the context of an argument for “monotheism” than an argument for kingship. Although I reject this last point in Van Nuffelen’s reconstruction, I agree with him that Philo’s general strategy of using the arguments of his adversaries against themselves suggests that he borrowed the image of the Great King and his satraps from one of his ‘pagan’ predecessors, even though, in the whole of extant Post-Hellenistic philosophy, it occurs for the first time in his writings. I shall suggest that Eudorus, an Alexandrian philosopher of 43 the end of the first century BC, is a possible candidate.

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A few years before Philo, Eudorus of Alexandria has posited the One44 as a principle above the Monad and the Dyad and has identified it with Zeus (see 41 Peter van Nuffelen, Rethinking the Gods: Philosophical Readings of Religion in the Post-Hellenistic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 210. 42 See Erik Peterson, Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der politischen Theologie im Imperium Romanum (Leipzig: Hegner, 1935). 43 Van Nuffelen, Rethinking the Gods, 210. 44 Eudorus calls the One also “the God above,” using the masculine form (see Simplicianus, Phys. 9.181.19; see also the analysis by Mauro Bonazzi, “Pythagoreanising Aristotle: Eudorus and the Systematisation of Platonism,” in Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoreanism in the First Century BC: New Directions for Philosophy, ed. Malcolm Schofield [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013], esp. 171–72): τοῦτο δὲ εἶναι καὶ τὸν ὑπεράνω θεόν. Instead of ἕν (the neuter form), the most widely used term for the One in earlier philosophy, Ammonius also – according to Plutarch’s dialogue E at Delphoi – employs both ἕν (the neuter form) and εἷς (the masculine form). Frederik E. Brenk, With Unperfumed Voice, Potsdamer Altertumswissenschaftliche Beiträge 21 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2007), 131 observes

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Eudorus, frag. 1 = Simplicianus, Phys. 9.181.7–30 [Diels]):45 “such an utterly transcendent principle demanded principles or entities that ensured that the link with the world and a divine hierarchy would be the logical consequence.”46 The reinterpretation of the figure of Zeus as the One (see also similar assessments in the Hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes), clearly presupposes a hierarchical interpretation of the Greek “classical” pantheon, in adherence to Pythagorean interpretations of Aristotle in a (middle-)Platonic framework.47 However, my main concern here is the role of the “first god” (i.e. “the most high God” in Philo’s view) as image of the kingship as well as of the relationship with the Alexandrian patronage system. I find a “germinative” witness of this connection in the Scholia in Homeri Iliadem, where, for example, Homer, Il. 8.22b, Ζῆν' ὕπατον μήστωρ', is interpreted as follows: δείκνυσιν, οἷς δεῖ κοσμεῖσθαι τὸν ἄρχοντα, ῥώμῃ καὶ συνέσει.48

that “The shift is not unexpected though, since Eudorus used the masculine form, calling the One, ‘the God above’.” Eudorus, or Alexandrian Middle Platonism, emerges as the background for a kind of personification of the unique divine principle: see David T. Runia, “Philo the Theologian,” in The Dictionary of Historical Theology, ed. Trevor A. Hurt (Exeter: Paternoster, 2000), 424–26; and Gregory E. Sterling, “The First Theologian: The Originality of Philo of Alexandria,” in Renewing the Tradition: Festschrift for James Thompson, ed. Mark Hamilton et al. (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2006), 145–62. 45 See John Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 126–33; Runia, “The Beginning of the End,” 309; van Nuffelen, Rethinking the Gods, 211. 46 van Nuffelen, Rethinking the Gods, 211. 47 See Bonazzi, “Pythagoreanising Aristotle.” 48 Wilhelm Dindorf, Scholia graeca in Homeri Iliadem ex codicibus aucta et emendata (Oxford: Clarendon, 1887), 259. As is well-known, none of the original exegetic works on Homer from Hellenistic Alexandria has survived, but a very considerable number of interpretations coming from that period are extant in Homeric late-antique scholia: “Summary treatises, such as the grammar of Dyonisius of Thrax’s or Ps.-Plutarch’s On Homer, reflect only indirectly the scholarly activity in Alexandria and should therefore be used with caution” (Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis, 9). On Homeric scholia, see Eleanor Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship: A Guide to Finding, Reading, and Understanding Scholia, Commentaries, Lexica, and Grammatical Treatises, from their Beginnings to the Byzantine Period, Society for Classical Studies Classical Resources 7 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Franco Montanari, “L’erudizione, la filologia, la grammatica,” in La produzione e la circolazione del testo, vol. 1 of Lo spazio letterario della Grecia antica, ed. Giuseppe Cambiano et al. (Rome: Salerno, 1993), 235–81; idem, “Zenodotus, Aristarchos and the Ekdosis of Homer,” in Editing Texts, Texte edieren, ed. Glenn W. Most, Aporemata 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 1–21; Filippo M. Pontani, Sguardi su Ulisse: La tradizione esegetica greca all’Odissea, Sussidi eruditi 63 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2005), 23–103.

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7. Conclusion

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De monarchia’s use of “monotheistic” Greek protoi heuretai can be understood as the outcome of a Jewish assimilation of a particular reinvention of Greek tradition coupled with the attempt to place a Jewish idea of divinity in the Alexandrian cultural scenario – which is largely dominated by royal institutions – and is aimed at harmonizing a hierarchical view of the Greek pantheon with the supremacy of the king as the patron of the city. De monarchia is clearly indebted to a scholarly (i.e. elitist) methodology of testing discourse and thought which consider the validity of this operation on a “traditional” basis. The use of real or alleged ancient authorities engage in cultural revision, reinterpreting the culture by rereading the past and adapting it to a context in which centralized power aims at represent itself as a traditionally legitimated entity. For what concerns the recovery of “monotheistic” discourses in early Christianity, via the Jewish reinvention of these materials, Clement’ and Eusebius’s strategies seem to follow the same program of “using and refusing” carried out by previous (and contemporary?) Jews like the anonymous author of De monarchia, Philo, and others. At the same time, Clement and Eusebius recall these “past” authorities in a more coherent scholastic and/or apologetic program. This demonstrates not only the presence of a “Christianity” deeply rooted in Alexandrian Judaism (or in a specific face of that Judaism), but also, and overall, the inadequacies of our typical modern classifications of ancient groups and of their activities, such as “Jewish,” “Christian,” and “Greek-Hellenistic,” as well as “religious” and “philosophical” as closed-off sections, all evaluations actually taken over from ancient Christian apologists and very often not representatives of the realities of cultural life in ancient world.

The Martyrdom of Mark in Late Antique Alexandria TOBIAS NICKLAS 1. Introduction

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Not all of the texts put together in the growing collections of New Testament or Christian Apocrypha1 are witnesses about “heretical” outsiders with strange, unorthodox views of Christianity. Instead, according to François Bovon, many of these writings can be labelled as “useful for the soul”2, while others, as I have shown in several contributions, were even “useful for the church.” That is, they were important for the developing profiles and identities of late antique churches.3 I am thinking, for example, of the impact of the Acts of Titus as the founding legend of the Church of Crete,4 but also of the Acts of Barnabas and the Encomium of the Monk Alexander: their stories about the apostle Barnabas came to be important when the Church of Cyprus claimed independence from the Antiochian patriarchate and that’s why it needed a proof of its apostolic roots.5 Other writings like the Acts and the 1 See, for example, the recent collections by Christoph Markschies and Jens Schröter, eds., Antike christliche Apokryphen I: Evangelien und Verwandtes (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), who offer more than 1400 pages of extra-canonical Gospels and Gospel-like literature; or Tony Burke and Brent Landau, eds., New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), with ca. 600 pages of almost unknown extracanonical writings; two more volumes like this are planned. 2 See François Bovon, “Beyond the Canonical and the Apocryphal Books, the Presence of a Third Category: The Books Useful for the Soul,” in The Emergence of Christianity, ed. Luke Drake, WUNT 139 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 147–60. 3 See, for example, Tobias Nicklas, “New Testament Canon and Ancient Christian ‘Landscapes of Memory’,” Early Christianity 7 (2016): 5–23; and idem, “Neutestamentlicher Kanon, christliche Apokryphen und antik-christliche ‘Erinnerungskulturen’,” NTS 62 (2016): 588–609. 4 For more details see Tobias Nicklas, “Die Akten des Titus: Rezeption ‘apostolischer‘ Schriften und Entwicklung antik-christlicher ‘Erinnerungslandschaften’,” Early Christianity 8,4 (2017): 458–80; and Willy Rordorf, “Actes de Tite,” in Écrits apocryphes chrétiens II, eds. Pierre Geoltrain and Jean-Daniel Kaestli (Paris: Gallimard, 2005), 605–15. 5 See also Tobias Nicklas, “Barnabas Remembered: Apokryphe Barnabastexte und die Kirche Zyperns,” in Religion als Imagination, ed. Lena Seehausen et al. (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstant, 2020), 165–88; and Enrico Norelli, “Actes de Barnabé,” in Écrits apocryphes chrétiens II, ed. Pierre Geoltrain and Jean-Daniel Kaestli (Paris: Gallimard, 2005), 619–42.

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Translatio of Philip played an important role for the Church of Hierapolis in Phrygia.6 In the following contribution I want to show that some traditions about the evangelist Mark do the same for Alexandria. Space and time do not permit giving a full overview of all ancient texts which connect Mark with Alexandria. Therefore, I will concentrate on one writing which, as far as I see, has never been translated into English, that is, the Martyrdom of Mark (which has to be distinguished from the longer and likewise neglected Acts of Mark7).8 This text is transmitted by two Greek manuscripts, a Latin version plus fragments of a Sahidic, a Bohairic, an Arabic, Ethiopian and even a Slavonic version9 – clear signs of its impact in late antiquity and even medieval times. As there is no critical edition at hand and even the two Greek witnesses differ in several points, I will focus on the text of only one manuscript, Codex Paris gr. 881, which is easily accessible in volume 115 of the Patrologia Graeca (PG 115, Sp. 164–69).10 At the same time the 1675 edition of the second Greek witness, Codex Vatic. gr. 866, is currently not available to me. The manuscript is, however, accessible in the form of digitalized photographs.11

6 Cf. (for a short discussion) Tobias Nicklas, “Neutestamentlicher Kanon,” 597–99; and Hans-Josef Klauck, Die apokryphe Bibel: Ein anderer Zugang zum frühen Christentum, Tria Corda 4 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 133–37; much more detailed Frédéric Amsler, “Les Actes de Philippe: aperçu d’une competition religieuse en Phrygie,” in Le mystère apocryphe: introduction a un littérature méconnue, eds. Jean-Daniel Kaestli and Daniel Marguerat, Essais Bibliques 26 (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2007), 155–70; idem, “Le Translatio Philippi survie ou seconde mort du Philippe?,” Apocrypha 22 (2011): 115–33. 7 See François Halkin, “Actes inédits de saint Marc,” Analecta Bollandia 87 (1969): 343– 71. 8 This writing has been almost totally neglected in scholarly discussion. The following pieces of information about the text’s transmission can also be found in Aurelio de Santos Otero, “Jüngere Apostelakten,” in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen II: Apostolisches, Apokalypsen und Verwandtes, ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 381– 438 (417–20); and François Bovon and Allan Callahan, “Martyre de Marc l’évangeliste,” in Geoltrain and Kaestli, Écrits apocryphes chrétiens II, 569–86 (574), who offer the only French translation. In addition an English translation of the Arabic version is given by Allan Callahan, “The Acts of Mark: Tradition, Transmission, and Translation of the Arabic Version,” in The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, eds. François Bovon et al. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 63–85. 9 My colleague Harald Buchinger also made me aware of a Georgian version of the text (in Iviron, Cod. 57) published by Semenovich Kekelidze, Monumenta Hagiographica Georgica 1 (Tbilisi: 1918), 193–97 [non vidi]. 10 All this, of course, means that my considerations about the text’s origins and its historical background must be understood as preliminary thoughts. 11 See “Codex Vatic. gr. 866,” Vatican Library, http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.866.

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2. The Story The Martyrdom of Mark’s contents are quickly summarized. When the apostles are sent out to evangelize the different countries of the earth, Mark comes to Northern Africa and Egypt (Mart. Mk. 1). The Holy Spirit reveals to him (Mart. Mk. 2) that he should leave Cyrene and go to Alexandria, where immediately after he enters the city his sandal breaks (Mart. Mk. 3). He meets a cobbler, who injures his hand with his awl. Mark heals him and is invited to the cobbler’s home where he – not surprisingly – preaches the Gospel. The cobbler (whose name is disclosed as Ananias12) and his whole house come to believe (Mart. Mk. 4). Mark’s proclamation of the Gospel is increasingly successful. When the leaders of the city hear about this they start to persecute him. Hence he announces Ananias as bishop, appoints presbyters and deacons and withdraws to Cyrenaica. When he returns to Alexandria after two years, he finds a flourishing community (Mart. Mk. 5). The growing number of Christians plus the many miracles done by the apostle lead to an increasing opposition by the so-called “Greeks” (Mart. Mk. 6). When Easter Sunday coincides with the birthday of the God Serapis, they manage to arrest Mark during the service; they take a rope and drag him through the city like a bull (Mart. Mk. 7). During the night an angel of the Lord appears to the imprisoned Mark and bolsters him up; after this even Jesus himself shows up in the prison (Mart. Mk. 8). When on the next day the crowds drag Mark again through the city, he dies with the words “Into your hands, Lord, I lay my spirit” (Mart. Mk. 9; Psalm 30:6 [LXX]; cf. Luke 23:46). When the “Greeks” try to burn his body, they are hindered by a tremendous thunderstorm (Mart. Mk. 9). This natural miracle allows the Christians to rescue and preserve Mark’s relics whose impact and place of veneration is described in detail (Mart. Mk. 10).

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3. Theology, Function, and Impact How can we describe this text as “useful for the church” of Alexandria (or parts of it)? And what can we say about its date and origins? After all, its overall plot does not sound very original, it tells only one miracle explicitly. Besides Mark, who perhaps shows a trace of humor,13 it does not develop any full-fledged characters. As far as I see, the text shows at least four major traits which can help to answer our questions: Mark’s description as (1) apostle and (2) evangelist, (3) the text’s ideas about the foundation of the Church The different versions of the Martyrdom offer slightly different versions of the name. The main example is in Mart. Mk. 3 where Mark, after his sandal is broken, says: “Truly, the way is easy.” 12 13

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of Alexandria, its organization and relation to other communities in Northern Africa (mainly the Cyrenaica) and (4) its story about Mark’s (and the Christians’) fight against the worship of Egyptian Gods, mainly Serapis. (1) From its very beginning (Mart. Mk. 1) the text describes Mark (more or less as a matter of course) as an apostle. Like the other apostles (and obviously being seen as equal to them) he is assigned to the evangelization of a special part of the world,14 and even, a particularly important area, namely Egypt (which in this case seems to include other parts of Northern Africa).15 Interestingly, the Martyrdom describes Mark as a completely independent missionary and miracle worker, whose steps and decisions are initiated by the Holy Spirit (Mart. Mk. 2), an Angel of the Lord (Mart. Mk. 8) or Jesus himself (Mart. Mk. 8; see also 2–3). In Mart. Mk. 8 the angel visiting Mark in prison announces: “Servant of God, Mark, the first of the saints in Egypt, behold, your name is inscribed in the book of eternal life and you will be counted among the holy apostles.” Mark’s direct and independent apostolic mission is so important that the text even reports an epiphany of Jesus. Jesus only says “Peace be with you, our Mark, my evangelist” (Mart. Mk. 8), but interestingly he appears in his human form, that is, in the way his disciples saw him before his death. In other words: the text paradoxically depicts Mark as a post-Easter witness of the pre-Easter Jesus; he “gives up his spirit” (John 19:30) with (almost) Jesus’s words on his lips (Mart. Mk. 9; cf. Luke 23:46), and it even looks like Mart. Mk. 1 understands his activity as in a certain sense mediating Jesus’s presence in Egypt. All this can be read as clear statements against other, even New Testament traditions about Mark which describe him as either dependent on Peter or connected with Paul and Barnabas. We might think, for example, of 1 Pet 5:13 where Peter calls Mark “his son.”16 According to Acts 12:12, Peter who has just escaped from prison goes to the “house of Mary, the mother of John who was also called Mark.” Even more important is the well-known passage

14 The motif that the apostles divided the different regions of the world between each other can be found in several antique apostolic narratives. For more information see Jean-Daniel Kaestli, “Les scenes d’attribution ds champs de mission et de départ de l’apôtre dans les Actes apocryphes,” in Les Actes apocryphes des apôtres, ed. François Bovon et al., Publications de la Faculté de théologie de l’université de Genève 4 (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1981), 249–64. 15 The impact of Mark’s task becomes even clearer when one compares our text to the Acts of Andrew and Matthias in the City of the Cannibals where we hear that Matthias, as the apostle who is elected to replace Judas Iskariot (Acts 1:15–26), has to go to Myrmidonia, the City of the Man-Eaters. For more details on this text, see Jean-Marc Prieur, ed., “Actes d’André et Matthias,” in Geoltrain and Kaestli, Écrits apocryphes chrétiens II, 485–519. 16 I regard 1 Peter as a pseudepigraphic letter. If I speak of Peter here, I refer to the literary figure developed by the text.

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going back to Papias of Hierapolis who calls Mark Peter’s hermeneutēs.17 According to Papias, Mark “wrote down accurately everything he remembered, though not in order, of the things either said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, followed Peter, who adapted his teachings as needed but had no intention of giving an ordered account of the Lord’s sayings. Consequently, Mark did nothing wrong in writing down some things, as he remembered them, for he made it his one concern not to omit anything that he heard or to make any false statement in them” (following Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.15).18 Interestingly, even Eusebius’s tradition about the foundation of the Church of Alexandria (Hist. eccl. 2.16) connects Mark and Peter. Hist. eccl. 2.15.1 offers an embellished version of the Papias-tradition about Mark. This is connected with information from Clement of Alexandria’s Hypotyposes; after his victory against Simon Magos Peter’s audience asks for a written record of his sermons: They were not satisfied with merely a single hearing or with the unwritten teaching of the divine Gospel, but with all sorts of entreaties they besought Mark, who was a follower of Peter and whose Gospel is extant, to leave behind with them in writing a record of the teaching passed on to them orally; and they did not cease until they had prevailed upon the man and so became responsible for the Scripture which is called the Gospel according to Mark.19

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Directly after this Mark-Peter-tradition Eusebius reminds us of 1 Pet 5:13 and then turns to the foundation of the church of Alexandria: “They say that this Mark, having set forth, was the first to preach in Egypt the Gospel which he had also composed and was the first to establish churches in Alexandria itself” (Hist. eccl. 2.16.1).20 The Martyrdom of Mark also breaks with traditions which have Mark as an at least temporary companion of Paul (and Barnabas).21 It is well known that this tradition goes back to the New Testament as well. In Acts 12:24–25 we find John Mark together with Paul and Barnabas. According to Acts 13:5 John Mark accompanies Paul and Barnabas as their helper on the first misMark’s dependence on Peter is especially strong if we follow Azzan Yadin-Israel, “For Mark Was Peter’s Tanna: Oral Tradition Versus Eyewitness History in Papias,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 23 (2015): 337–62, who argues that Papias understood Mark as a Tanna (in Rabbinic sense), that is, a professional memorizer (in this case, of Peter’s words) whose only role is just to memorize and to be able to repeat what he has heard. 18 Trans. Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers in English (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 310. 19 Trans. Roy J. Deferrari, Eusebius Pamphili Ecclesiastical History: Books 1-5 (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1953), 110. 20 Deferrari, Eusebius, 110–11. 21 Even if some texts call him Mark and others John Mark, I think that we should not distinguish between different Marks of the New Testament times. 17

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sionary journey, but only a bit later (Acts 13:13) he returns to Jerusalem. After all, Acts 15:36–40 refers to a quarrel between Paul and Barnabas. While Barnabas wants to take John Mark on the second missionary journey, Paul does not accept him, “because he had deserted them in Pamphylia” (Acts 15:38). After this they part ways. Barnabas takes Mark to Cyprus and Paul chose Silas as his companion (Acts 15:39–40). Col 4:10, according to which Mark is Barnabas’s cousin, adds a little other piece of evidence.22 Centuries later the Acts of Barnabas, the legend of the mission of Cyprus, picks up Mark’s problematic relation with Paul and his remaining contact with Barnabas.23 Compared to this the Martyrdom of Mark offers a completely different Mark: no “interpreter” of Peter, who is Peter’s “son” (1 Pet 5:13), no unreliable helper of Paul (Acts 13:13), no cousin and companion of Barnabas (Col 4:10; Acts 15:38), but an independent and successful missionary, an apostle of equal value and standing (perhaps even coming from Galilee [Mart. Mk. 5])24 who is solely defined by his relation to Christ and the Holy Spirit. (2) The text’s (perhaps secondary) superscription titles Mark as “apostle” and “evangelist.“ In Mart. Mk. 1 we read about “the most holy Mark came to the country of Egypt, from where also the blessed Canons of the Holy and Apostolic Church proclaimed him as evangelist.” The term “evangelist” is also used in Mart. Mk. 2, 6, 8 and 10. Mart. Mk. 2 adds the attribute θεσπεσίος which should be rendered as “inspired” here. In other words, for the Martyrdom Mark is not just Peter’s “interpreter” and “scribe” (as we Papias and Eusebius state it), but an independent figure whose text is inspired by the Spirit. This is confirmed by other passages, like, for example, Mart. Mk. 8, where Jesus himself addresses Mark as “my holy evangelist.” This is confirmed by Mart. Mk 2 according to which Mark “spoke the word of Christ’s origin” (τὸν τῆς ἀρχῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ λόγον), probably an allusion to Mark 1:1. An even clearer allusion can be found in Mart. Mk 4, the scene in Ananias’s house. After Ananias’s request to show him Christ, we read: “And the holy Mark began to make the origin of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Abraham, and to show him what is written about him by the prophets.” This text clearly quotes Mark 1:1 in its long form including the words “the son of God.” The additional attribute “Son of Abraham” is certainly a harmonization with Matt 1:1. Furthermore, the words “what is written 22 Paul Foster, Colossians, Black’s New Testament Commentaries (London: T&T Clark, 2016), 422, seems to regard this a historically reliable piece of evidence: “The initial structure of the Jesus movement may have been based on family groupings, with Jesus’ brothers having a prominent role in Jerusalem, and here Barnabas showing loyalty to his cousin Mark, whose mother Mary had a house in Jerusalem which was a meeting place for early believers including Peter….” 23 For more details see Nicklas, “Barnabas Remembered.” 24 Perhaps, however, the term “Galilean” simply denotes a Christian (in the period after Emperor Julian). See below the note referring to the relevant passage in Mart. Mk. 5.

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about him by the prophets” may resemble Mark 1:20. While Eusebius’s Mark writes his Gospel for Peter’s audience in Rome, the Martyrdom of Mark leaves it open whether Mark brought an already written Gospel to Alexandria or developed its written form only there. In any case, the text makes unmistakably clear that it understands the Gospel of Mark as something completely different from the writings of classical Greek tradition. Mart. Mk. 4 explicitly mentions Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. (3) While the text does not offer many explicit details about the precise organization of the first Christian community in Alexandria, one thing is clear: it was founded by the apostle and evangelist Mark. By the end of his first stay Mark appoints a bishop, presbyters and deacons (Mart. Mk. 5).25 Contrary to other late antique apostolic narratives (like, for example, the Edessan Doctrine of Addai26) many aspects of the community’s life like questions of teaching, diaconic service, liturgy, annual ecclesiastical festivals and others seem not to be especially relevant. A few details resemble traditions which we also find in Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History (Hist. eccl. 2.24; 3.14.21; 4.1). Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 2.24) tells us that in the eighth year of Nero’s reign a certain “Annianus” (= Ananias?)27 “was the first after Mark the Evangelist to succeed to the administration of the diocese of Alexandria.”28 According to Hist. eccl. 3.14, Annianus died “in the fourth year of Domitian” “after fulfilling twenty-two years”29; according to Hist. eccl. 3.21, “in the first year of Trajan, Cerdo succeeded Abilius”30. Is this Cerdo the person mentioned in Mart. Mk. 5? Of course, it is historically implausible that Eusebius’s Cerdo was a first generation figure; a connection of both traditions, however, seems well possible. Mart. Mk. 5, however, does not only speak about the Christian community of Alexandria, but also connects Mark’s missionary activities with the foundation of the church of the Pentapolis (and other communities in North Africa). The text does not explicitly claim an Alexandrian predominance over the communities mentioned, but it clearly understands them as connect via Mark’s work.31 Different from all these churches, however, only 25 Of course, this reflects the structure of ecclesiastical offices in and after the 2nd century (and certainly not in the earliest times of the church). 26 For more information, see Alain Desreumaux, “Das Neue Testament in der Doctrina Addai,” in Christian Apocrypha: Receptions of the New Testament in Ancient Christian Apocrypha, ed. Jean–Michel Roessli and Tobias Nicklas, NTP 26 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 233–48. 27 But note that the different manuscripts of the Martyrdom offer slightly different versions of this name. 28 Trans. Deferrari, Eusebius, 131. The date “in the eighth year of Nero’s reign” is not compatible with the date of Mark’s death given by Mart. Mk. 10 of the Martyrdom. 29 Trans. Deferrari, Eusebius, 163. 30 Trans. Deferrari, Eusebius, 168. 31 The Churches of Libya and the Cyrenaica were indeed associated with the Church of Alexandria. See also Bovon and Callahan, Martyre, 578–79n1.

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the church of Alexandria owns the most precious “gem” (Mart. Mk. 10), the grave of an Apostle, that is, the highly venerated and miraculously rescued relics of Mark. These relics were indeed known and venerated in 4th/5th century Alexandria as is attested by a short passage in Palladius of Hellenopolis’s (364–430 CE) Historia Lausiaca (420 CE) which tells us about an ascete called Philoromus who “went to Rome by foot to pray at the martyrdom of the blessed Peter; he also came to Alexandria to pray at the Martyrdom of Mark” (Hist. Laus. 45).32 (4) Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the Martyrdom of Mark, however, is its overall stance against Greco-Egyptian culture and religion, and mainly its depiction of Mark in a deathly conflict with the cult of Serapis. The whole text is shaped by the idea of an irreconcilable antagonism. While many Alexandrian Christian theologians, figures like Pantaenus,33 Clement or Origen – but also the partly anonymous writers of texts usually labelled as “Gnostic”34 – are well-known for their attempts to integrate Christian and Greek thinking, the Martyrdom of Mark creates a radical contrast between “Christians” – here explicitly called Christianoi, (Mart. Mk. 6 and 10) – and “Greeks” (and everything which the text understands as typical for their culture and way of life). At the same time the text does not even mention Jews.35 The Martyrdom’s (allegedly 1st century!) Alexandria seems to be a city without them.36 Mark’s mission is thus understood as the liberation of a pagan country from its demons. Mart. Mk. 1 tells us: This whole country was namely uncircumcised at its heart and venerating idols, full of any impurity and venerating impure spirits, for at every house, at every road junction, and in every region shrines and sacred precincts were erected; fortune-telling (with the help of the stars), magical practices and any power was worshipped. All the more was demonic with them, which our Lord Jesus Christ during his presence dissolved and destroyed.

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Of course, this description of Egypt is first and foremost a Christian stereotype which could be used against every pagan country. If we, however, remember the fact that Serapis was often depicted as a snake and then identified 32 For this text and its background, see also Jacques Laager, Palladius, Historia Lausiaca: Die frühen Heiligen in der Wüste (Zürich: Manesse, 1987). For a later witness, see also Beda Venerabilis, De locis sanctis 18 (information via Harald Buchinger). 33 For Pantaenus, see also Wolfgang Grünstäudl’s essay in the present volume. 34 See, for example, the overview by Alfons Fürst, Christentum als IntellektuellenReligion: Die Anfänge des Christentums in Alexandria, SBS 213 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2007), 19–69. 35 One should, however, not overlook Mart. Mk. 1 calling Egypt as “uncircumcised at its heart” (but perhaps using Rom 2:29 or Acts 7:51) and Mart. Mk. 10 mentioning the 17th of Nisan. I am grateful to Jeremy Corley who gave me this hint. 36 For details about 4th century Jewish life in Alexandria, see Christopher Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1997), 109–21.

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as “Agathos Daimon,”37 the text’s extreme focus on the omnipresence of demonic power perhaps already adds a bit of local color. Mart. Mk. 4, then, contrasts Mark’s Gospel with the works of Homer and Greek philosophy which are understood as an expression of the world’s foolishness (cf. 1 Cor 3:19) It is thus no surprise that the text (like, beginning with the Pauline Ephesus scenes in Acts 19, many other apostolic narratives)38 – connects the missionary’s success with the fear of the followers of the old cults to lose influence. A persecution starts. After Mart. Mk. 7 this deathly conflict concentrates on a fight with the cult of Serapis,39 whose impact for Alexandria cannot be overestimated. Livia Capponi writes: Serapis or Osirapis, a fusion of Osiris and the Apis Bull, was essentially the sacred bull of Memphis after its death, a combination god which had existed in Egypt since Pharaonic times as a god of the underworld and a symbol of the annual resurrection of nature. Under the Ptolemies, Apis was assimilated by or associated with various Hellenistic deities – including Zeus, Helios, Dionysos, Hades and Asklepios – to form Serapis, a Hellenized god of the sun (Helios), fertility (Dionysos), the underworld and healing (Asklepios and Hades), who eventually became being the most popular god in Egypt and the patron deity of the city of Alexandria.40

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This fight is described in different manners and on different levels: (i) Mart. Mk. 7 tells how at Serapis’s ‘Birthday’, which in this case coincides with Easter Sunday, the apostle is caught by his enemies. From this perspective new light falls also on Mart. Mk. 5 according to which the leaders of the city were in sorrow that Mark “destroyed the sacrifices to the Gods and hindered their services.” People seeking help do not go to Serapios-Asklepios any more, but to Mark as he is an extraordinarily successful healer as “he healed sick persons, cleansed lepers, proclaimed the Gospel to deaf people and made many blind [people] see” (Mart. Mk. 6).41 This competitive situa37 For details, see Reinhold Merkelbach, Isis regina – Zeus Serapis: Die griechischägyptische Religion nach den Quellen dargestellt (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1995), 80–81 (including images). 38 For this topic, see Hans-Josef Klauck, Magie und Heidentum in der Apostelgeschichte des Lukas, SBS 167 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1996). 39 This central concern is also visible in Paulinus of Nola, Carmen 19.84–86, who describes Mark as a fighter against the cult of Serapis. 40 Cf. Livia Capponi, “Serapis, Boukoloi and Christians from Hadrian to Marcus Aurelius,” in Hadrian and the Christians, ed. Marco Rizzi, Millenium-Studies 30 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 121–39 (121). The impact of the cult of Serapis for even 4th century Alexandria is shown by Libanius, who in his speech Pro Templis (ca. 387 CE) calls Alexandria as “City of Serapis” (Libanius, Or. 30.35). For more information on this text, see Hans-Ulrich Wiemer, “Für die Tempel? Die Gewalt gegen heidnische Heiligtümer aus der Sicht städtischer Eliten des spätrömischen Ostens,” in Spätantiker Staat und religiöser Konflikt: Imperiale und lokale Verwaltung und die Gewalt gegen Heiligtümer, ed. Johannes Hahn, Millenium Studies 34 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 159–85 (162–72). 41 Of course, in this way he is also depicted as continuing the work of Jesus.

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tion42 first leads to the accusation of Mark as a magus (Mart. Mk. 6)43 and finally to his imprisonment, torture and lynching. (ii) After his detention a rope is bound around Mark’s neck and he is hauled through the city, while the crowds cry “Let us drag the buffalo to Boukolou.” According to Christopher Haas, the quarter of Boukolou (or Baucalis), literally “the pasturage,” an “extramural suburb,” “was inhabited principally by shepherds and their flocks of sheep and cattle. This area … derived its name from the region’s predominant economic activity.”44 The reference to this area45 may recall the fact that there was a church at this place (perhaps even replacing a former Serapis sanctuary) close to which the Mark’s remains were venerated.46 At the same time Mark is certainly not by chance called “the buffalo”47 Does this only say that Mark is treated like the cattle in the area of Boukolou? Or does the passage also want to allude to the Apis Bull? 42 For the impact of therapeutic cults in the worship of Serapis, see Laurent Bricault, “Serapide, dio guaritore,” in Cristo e Asclepio: Culti terapeutici e taumaturgici nel mondo mediterraneo antico fra cristiani e pagani, ed. Enrico dal Covolo and Guilia S. Gasparro (Roma: LAS, 2008), 55–71, including a good overview of relevant source material; and Merkelbach, Isis regina, 73 and 78 (with evidence for the identification of Serapis and Asklepios). 43 The grave implications of such an accusation become clear with the well-known case of Apuleius of Madaura. For more details, see, e.g., Francesca Lamberti, “De magia als rechtsgeschichtliches Dokument,” in Apuleius, Über die Magie, trans. and ed. Jürgen Hammerstaedt et al., SAPERE 5 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2002), 331–50. 44 All quotes from Haas, Alexandria, 269–70. 45 Birger A. Pearson, Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 109–10, thinks this could have been one of the former Jewish quarters. He writes: “I suggest … that the beach(es) referred to by Philo and by the author of the Acts of Mark are the very same location. That is to say, the place referred to in the 4th century as Boukolou, then situated outside the city, was in the 1st century the very heart of the most prominent Jewish neighborhood in Alexandria, which Josephus describes in such glowing terms. The topographical reference in the Acts of Mark reflects, in my judgment, a continuity of tradition between the 1st century and the 4th century of Christian activity in that place. Its first-century location situates the earliest Christians of Alexandria within the Jewish community of that time and, in effect, corrobates the intuitive observation of Eusebius regarding the ‘apostolic men’ of the earliest Christian presence in Alexandria: They ‘were, it appears, of Hebrew origin, and thus still preserved most of the ancient customs in a strictly Jewish manner’ (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 2.17.2 …). The earliest Christians of Alexandria were thus an integral part of the larger Jewish community there.” 46 Capponi, Serapis, 131: “This information suggests that the site of the church of Boukolou could have been the site of an earlier temple to Serapis. This should not surprise us, as evidence exists of other early churches in Alexandria built on Serapis shrines.” Interestingly, this may have been Arius’s Church; for more information, see Haas, Alexandria, 269–71. 47 Besides the ideas mentioned above it is also possible that the text alludes to the symbols of the Four Evangelists as they have been known since Irenaus of Lyon. While after Jerome, Mark has usually been represented as the lion, Irenaeus, Haer. 3.11.8 identifies Mark as the “eagle” from Rev 4:7. “The Synopsis of Ps-Athanasius” (PG 28.431), however has Mark as the ox. I owe this information to Jeremy Corley, a very careful reader of my text.

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Of course, the cult of the Apis Bull, who was identified with Osiris (Callimachus frag. 84, Pfeiffer; Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.31), Osiris’s soul (Diodoros 1.85.4) or the image of Osiris’s soul (Plutarch, Is. Os. 359 B, 362 C–D, 368 C),48 had its center in Memphis. At the same time we have to consider that, even if Serapis was usually not identified with Apis, there is both evidence of a Serapis shrine in the precinct of the Apis bull in Memphis and of an Apis shrine in Alexandria’s Serapeum.49 Perhaps even more interesting is that a Christian writer like Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215 CE) refers to ancient authors who connect Serapis and Apis: “Nymphodoros of Amphipolis, in the third (book) of the Institutions of Asia, says that the Apis bull, after he died and was laid in a coffin, was buried in the sanctuary of the daimon and worshipped; from this moment it was called Soroapis, and afterwards Serapis according to a custom of the natives.” (Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.21.106; but see also Protr. 4.48).50 This passage is perhaps less interesting because of its quote of the 4th century BCE Nymphodoros, but as evidence that the relation of Apis and Serapis was known to at least educated Alexandrian Christians.51 Does the dying Mark replace the Apis Bull? And are his relics mentioned in Mart. Mk. 10 understood as more precious than the remains of Apis Bull preserved at Memphis?52 Or does the text play with the word Boukolou and the Boukoloi, usually a title for the adherents of Dionysos, but here the followers of Serapis,53 who drag Mark to a place called Bokolou where he dies? The text is not explicit here, but leaves room for speculation. (iii) Perhaps the final sentence of Mart. Mk. 7 wants to remind of the strong connection between Serapis, Apis and Osiris: “And pieces of his flesh fell down to the earth and the stones were speckled by his blood.” Does the 48 See also John E. Stambaugh, Sarapis under the early Ptolemies, Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l’empire romain 25 (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 60. 49 See Staumbaugh, Sarapis, 63, 65–66. 50 These sources are also mentioned by Stambaugh, Sarapis, 60. 51 This is even more relevant if we consider the fact that there is evidence of an ongoing Apis cult until the times of Emperor Julian (361–363 CE). 52 Stambaugh, Sarapis, 65, gives a list of costs for the burial of the Apis Bull in the Ptolemaic era (of course, centuries before our text was written): “The Ptolemaic family itself was a consistently strong patron of the cult of the bull, following the lead of the Pharaohs and Alexander. At the beginning of his reign Ptolemy I controbuted fifty silver talents to Apis’ burial expenses. Ptolemy II commanded his finance minister Apollonius to provide one hundred talents of myrrh “for the burial,” apparently of the Apis bull. Among the benefactions of Ptolemy V listed on the Rosetta stone was a new Apieion at Memphis. Finally, a royal ordinance of Ptolemy VIII has been preserved in which the crown undertook to pay for the burial of Apis, Mnevis and the other sacred animals.” 53 Regarding the relation between the term ‘Boukoli’, which usually describes worshippers of Dionysos, and the cult of Serapis, see Capponi, Serapis, 131; for the relation of Osiris, Serapis and Dionysos, see Merkelbach, Isis regina, 71–72.

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motif of “pieces of flesh” remind us of Osiris’s body which once was torn/cut in pieces by Seth? Again, we cannot be certain, but, again, such a connection is at least possible. If this is the case the text establishes a contrast between two forms of belief in resurrection. All this is even more probable as it takes place at Christian Easter. In this case the text wants to state, not that the fragmented Osiris came back to life, but Christ. And this Christ will now also raise the suffering Mark whose body is in danger of being torn in pieces (Mart. Mk. 8). (iv) While this allusion may be rather vague, Mart. Mk. 9, the story about Mark’s death and the miraculous protection of his body creates an almost ideal fit with the overall Christ versus Serapis pattern. While Mark’s persecutors want to burn his dead body, it is rescued by a weather miracle: “But because of the Lord’s, our Savior Jesus Christ’s, providence a whirlwind came up and a great storm happened, the sun withdrew her rays; a heavy thunder and a giant cloudburst with hail until the evening happened – with the result that many houses collapsed and many people died.” In other words: while his followers regard Serapis as responsible for fertility and the regular flood of the Nile, Jesus Christ is the real ruler of the weather. Even Helios, the sun, often identified or closely associated with Serapis, withdraws his rays – and all this happens only through Jesus Christ’s providence.54 The final sentence of this paragraph makes clear that this interpretation is appropriate. At the same time it is surprising: the text tells that the followers of Serapis interpret the miracle differently – they attribute it to Serapis. We may leave it open whether the text’s reference to Mark’s burial in Mart. Mk. 10 alludes to the veneration of the dead Apis/Osiris. In any case, the veneration of Mark’s relics is understood as the really most valuable thing to be found in Alexandria. All this leads to a further thought: the text depicts the relation of “Christians” and the Greco-Egyptian world as an irreconcilable opposition between the true God and the demons of Egypt. Is this a reaction to prejudice that the Christians of Egypt were in fact followers of Serapis – an allegiation witnessed in the 4th/5th century Historia Augusta. Even if this text is historically not very reliable, the following passage of a letter allegedly written by Emperor Hadrian to Servianus, his brother in law (in the Vitae Firmi, Saturnini, Proculi et Bonosi), is highly revealing (H.A. QT 8,2):

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Aegyptum, quam mihi laudabas, Serviane carissime, totum didici levem, pendulam et ad omnia famae momenta volitantem. Illic qui Serapem colunt Christiani sunt, et devoti sunt Serapi qui se Christi episcopos dicunt. Nemo illic archisynagogus Iudaeorum, nemo Samarites, nemo Christianorum presbyter non mathematicus, non haruspex, non aliptes. Ipse

54 Regarding the impact of the cult of Helios for the worship of Serapis, see Stefan Schmidt, “Der Sturz des Serapis – Zur Bedeutung paganer Götterbilder in der spätantiken Gesellschaft Alexandrias,” in Georges et al., Alexandria, 149–72 (160–62).

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ille patriarcha cum Aegyptum venerit, ab aliis Serapidem adorare, ab aliis cogitur Christum. The land of Egypt, the praise of which you have been recounting to me, my dear Servianus, I have found to be wholly light-minded, unstable, and blown about by every breath of rumor. There, those who worship Serapis are, in fact, Christians, and those who call themselves bishops of Christ are, in fact devotees of Serapis. There is not a chief of the Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no Christian presbyter, who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer, or an anointer. Even the Patriarch55 himself, when he comes to Egypt, is forced by some to worship Serapis, by others to worship Christ.56

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While this passage may not tell very much about Hadrian, its alleged author, it is an interesting witness of the image of Egyptian Christianity around and shortly after the era of Theodosius I (379–395 CE) when many people became Christians because it was politically opportune .57 It seems to fit in a time when the ancient cults increasingly lost their former impact and status, but where they still remained important and present (even under the surface of a lukewarm Christianity). If we follow Francesco Massa, the above text can be dated even more precisely into the years 392–394, that is, the time around the destruction of the great Serapeum of Alexandria.58 It seems like the Martyrdom of Mark wants to establish the feast of Saint Mark.59 This offers the opportunity to address and at the same time heavily criticize a quite similar situation. Its message is clear: there is no bridge between the cult of Serapis and Christianity and there is even no bridge between 55 Francesco Massa, “Devotees of Serapis and Christ? A Literary Representation of Religous Cohabitations in the 4th Century,” in Beyond Conflicts: Cultural and Religious Cohabitations in Alexandria and Egypt between the 1st and the 6th Century CE, ed. Luca Arcari, STAC 103 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017) 263–81 (270), interprets the term patriarcha not as referring to the Christian Patriarch of Alexandria (who only from the 6th century was called ‘patriarch’) but as related to a Jewish Patriarch. If he is right the text describes a totally unmanageable mixture of religious devotion. 56 English quote according to Capponi, Serapis, 125, who, like Alessandro Galimberti, “The Pseudo-Hadrianic Epistle in the Historia Augusta and Hadrian’s Religious Policy,” in Hadrian and the Christians, ed. Marco Rizzi, Millennium Studies 30 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 111–20, regards it as genuinely true or at least as correctly mirroring aspects of Hadrian’s politics. But several anachronisms like, for example, the text’s idea of the church and its order permit such a conclusion. For a critical stance, see also Massa, Devotees, 268: “What in my view is more important is to note that the passage tells us more about the era in which the Historia Augusta was composed than about the previous centuries.” 57 The fact that parallels between Serapis and Christ can be even recognized on the iconographical level did not facilitate demarcations between both kinds of worship. For more details, see Massa, Devotees, 266 (with hints to important secondary literature). 58 Massa, Devotees, 268. 59 Unfortunately, this does not offer concrete help regarding the date of the text. As far as I know the earliest liturgical witness, the Georgian lectionary of Jerusalem goes back to the 6/7th century; the earliest Encomium (by Procopius of Constantinople; BHG 1037) goes back to the 7th century (information by Harald Buchinger).

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Christian and Greco-Egyptian ways of life. At the same time, the text seems to be written at a time when the victory of Christianity was not yet fully clear. Although Christ remained victor even in Mark’s death, the final sentence of Mart. Mk. 9 is remarkable: “But others laughed and talked as if their tripleblessed Serapis because of his birthday had made the supervision of the man.” In other words: the miracle around Mark’s martyrdom remains open to different interpretations; even if it frustrated their plans, the devotees of Serapis still regard these events as a miracle of their God. The Martyrdom of Mark thus describes the cult of Serapis as anything but vanquished; instead, it still utters false claims about what is really going on. That’s why the fight between Alexandria’s Church and the worshippers of other Gods – and mainly Serapis – has to be continued with all resoluteness. It is part of the Egyptian Church’s identity from its very beginnings. Whoever wants to be part of this Church, has to accept this. Even if it would probably go too far to use this observation for a concrete dating of the Martyrdom, it seems that the oppositions and rivalries described in this text mirror aggressions and conflicts like the ones between Christians and the supporters of the ancient Greco-Egyptian cults after the middle of the 4th century,60 which (probably in the year 392 CE) led to the destruction of the Alexandrian Serapeum.61 If we take this together with the short note in Paulinus of Nola’s Carmen 19,84–86 (354–431 CE) stating that Mark fought against the cult of Serapis, a date before the final escalation seems plausible.62 Of course, it is not absolutely clear whether Paulinus knew about the written text of the Martyrdom or just a related tradition.63 We cannot say any more which concrete role our text played in the situation described above. In any case, the text’s recognizable aggressive anti-Greek and anti-Egyptian 60 For more information regarding the dramatic changes of the relations of different religious groups middle of the 4th century Alexandria, see Massa, Devotees, 264; and (much more detailed) Edward J. Watts, Riot in Alexandria: Tradition and Group Dynamics in Late Antique Pagan and Christian Communities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). 61 For the date of this event, see Johannes Hahn, “The Conversion of the Cult Statues: The Destruction of the Serapeum 392 A.D. and the Transformation of Alexandria into the ‘ChristLoving City’,” in From Temple to Church: Destruction and Renewal of Local Public Topography in Late Antiquity, ed. Stephen Emmel and Ulrich Gotter (Leiden: Brill, 2008) 335–65, (339–34). For an overview of sources and secondary literature, see, e.g., Schmidt, Sturz, esp. 149n1–2. 62 There is, however, one problem: Mart. Mk. 9 calls the place where Mark died ‘Angelos’. This possibly recalls the ‘Angelion’, a church at the steps of the former Serapeum (see Judith McKenzie, The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt c. 300 BC to AD 700 [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007], 251). If this place was named ‘Angelos’ only after the church was built this would point to a somewhat later date (at least of the text of our ms.), but this could also be vice versa: the reference to the place could also remind readers that Mark died close to the Serapeum. 63 See also Bovon and Callahan, Martyre, 572n2.

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stance, the fact that it is not interested in intellectual dispute, but rather proof through miracles, does not represent the parts of Alexandria’s theological elite which remained open for philosophical discourse (I am thinking, for example, of Synesios of Cyrene).64 Instead, the text seems to address less educated circles. Perhaps we can think about monks as part of the target audience. For them Mark’s ascetic lifestyle as described in Mart. Mk. 3 could have been a point of identification.65 The Martyrdom of Mark thus does not give reliable information regarding the real circumstances of the foundation of Christianity in Alexandria – but this was not to be expected. Instead the text addresses an obviously broader, certainly not highly intellectual Christian audience.66 For these readers (and hearers) it relates the Christian past (and thus Alexandrian Christian identity) with the mission of an apostle and evangelist with a close connection to Jesus Christ. This apostle’s work, however, is not just a matter of the past – his relics, which are certainly considered as full of miraculous powers, are still available (at least at the time when the text was written). This Christianity must distinguish itself from the still attractive cults of late antique Egypt, which, while they are still attractive for many, it sees as signs of a still working demonic and destructive power which must be broken by all means. At the same time, the text is not interested in Jewish Alexandria; conflicts with “Gnostics” or “Manicheans” do not play a role. Traces of the great 4th (and 5th) century Christological disputes are not visible. I think, this fits into the times around the reign of Theodosius I when the old cults are still present on many levels of everyday life and thinking, while at the same time, the influence of Christianity increases quickly. It fits into a context where Christian circles who are not interested in intellectual dispute arrogate Christianity’s final victory against the demons of the past – and where they see the chance to achieve this victory even with violence.67

It is, however, unclear when exactly Synesios converted to Christianity. Compared to many older extra-canonical Apostle narratives Mark’s encratism does not play a major role in this text. That’s why I do not think that we can link our text safely to either more monastic/ascetic or other circles. 66 Another probably Alexandrian Christian writing which does not seem to go back to the highest level of an intellectual elité is the Greek/Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter. For a full argument, see Tobias Nicklas, “Jewish, Christian, Greek? The Apocalypse of Peter as a Witness of Early 2nd-Century Christianity in Alexandria,” in Beyond Conflicts: Cultural and Religious Cohabitations in Alexandria and Egypt between the 1st and the 6th Century CE, ed Luca Arcari, STAC 103 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 27–46. 67 While I do not think that the increasing rise of Christianity in the 4th and 5th century was always and everywhere automatically linked to acts of violence against other cults we have many examples of Christian violence against pagan cults and riots between different Christian groups in late antique Alexandria. See Watts, Riot in Alexandria. 64

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Appendix: Text and Translation of the Martyrdom of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark in Alexandria (Text of Codex Paris gr. 881) Α Κατ᾿ ἐκεῖνον τὸν καιρὸν τῶν ἀποστόλων διαμερισθέντων κατὰ τὴν πᾶσαν οἰκουμένην, ἔλαχε τὸν ἁγιωτάτον Μάρκον ἐν τῇ κατ ᾿ Αἴγυπτον χώρᾳ ἐλθεῖν θεοῦ βουλήσει, ὅθεν καὶ εὐαγγελιστὴν αὐτὸν ἐθέσπισαν οἱ μακάριοι κάνονες τῆς ἁγίας καὶ ἀποστολικῆς ἐκκλησίας, διὰ τὸ πρῶτον αὐτὸν ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ Αἰγύπτῳ χώρᾳ, Λιβύῃ τε καὶ Μαρμαρικῆ, Ἀμμανιακῇ καὶ Πενταπόλει, κηρύξαι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς τοῦ κυρίου καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐπιδημίας. Ἦν γὰρ πᾶσα ἡ γῆ αὕτη ἀπερίτμητοι τῇ καρδίᾳ καὶ εἰδωλολάτραι, μεστοὶ πάσης ἀκαθαρσίας καὶ πνευμάτων ἀκαθάρτων σεβασταί. κατὰ πᾶσαν γὰρ οἰκίαν, καὶ ἄμφοδον, καὶ ἐπαρχίας, σηκοὺς καὶ τεμένη κατεσκευάζοντο· ἀποτελέσματά τε, καὶ γοητεῖαι, καὶ πᾶσα δύναμις ἐγρηγορητική. Μᾶλλον δὲ δαιμονικὴ ἦν ἐν αὐτοῖς, ἣν ἐπιδημήσας ὁ κύριος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς, κατέλυσε καὶ ἀπώλεσεν. Β Τοῦ οὖν θεσπεσίου εὐαγγελιστοῦ Μάρκου ἐν Κυρήνῃ τῆς Πενταπόλεως καταντήσαντος, καὶ λαλήσαντος αὐτοῦ τὸν τῆς ἀρχῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ λόγον, καὶ ποιήσαντος εἰς αὐτοὺς τὰ παράδοξα θαύματα (ἀσθενοῦντας ἐθεράπευσε, λεπροὺς ἐκαθάρισε καὶ πνεύματα χαλεπὰ ἐξέβαλε τῷ λόγῷ τῆς χάριτος), πολλοὶ πιστεύσαντες δι᾿ αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν, ἐποίησαν τὰ εἴδωλα αὐτῶν χαμαιριφῆ, ἐφωτίσθησάν τε βαπτισθέντες εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρός, τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος. Ἐκεῖ οὖν ἀπεκαλύφθη αὐτῷ διὰ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος εἰς τὴν Φαρίτην Ἀλεξάνδρειαν ἀναπελθεῖν καὶ τὸ καλὸν σπέρμα τοῦ θεοῦ κατασπεῖραι. Ὁ μακάριος εὐαγγελιστὴς Μάρκος, ὡς γενναῖος ἀθλητὴς, ἐπὶ τὸ σκάμμα προθύμως ἐβάδιζε καὶ ἀσπασάμενος τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς εἶπεν· Ὁ Κύριος μου ἐλάλησε πρός με, ὅπως πορευθῶ εἰς τὴν Ἀλεξανδρέων πόλιν. Οἱ δὲ ἀδελφοὶ προσέπεμπον αὐτὸν ἕως τοῦ εἰσελθεῖν αὐτὸν εἰς τὸ πλοῖον. καὶ γευσάμενοι ψωμὸν αὐτοῦ68 προσέπεμπον αὐτὸν λέγοντες· Ὁ κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς εὐοδώσει τὴν ὁδόν σου. Γ Ὁ δὲ μακάριος Μάρκος τῇ δευτέρᾳ ἡμέρᾳ εἰς τὴν Ἀλεξάνδρειαν παρεγένετο καὶ τοῦ πλοίου ἀποβὰς ἦλθεν εἰς τινα τόπον καλούμενον Μένδιον. Aὐτοῦ τὴν πύλην εἰσελθόντος τῆς πόλεως, εὐθὺς τὸ ὑπόδημα αὐτοῦ διεῤῥάγη. Ὁ δὲ μακάριος ἀπόστολος γνοὺς ἔφη· Ὄντως ἡ ὁδὸς εὔλυτος. Παλαιοράφον δὲ θεασάμενος ἐπέδωκεν αὐτῷ τὸ ὑπόδημα· τὸ ῥάφος τῷ ὀπητίῳ ἔπληξεν αὐτοῦ τὴν ἀριστερὰν χεῖρα καί φησιν· Εἷς θεός. Ὁ δὲ μακάριος Μάρκος ἀκούσας· Εἷς θεὸς, ἔφη ἐν ἑαυτῷ γελάσας· Εὐώδωσε κύριος τὴν ὁδόν μου. Καὶ πτύσας χαμαὶ ἐποίησεν πηλὸν ἐκ τοῦ πτύσματος καὶ ἐπέχρισε τὴν χεῖρα τοῦ ἀνδρὸς λέγων· Ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἴσθι ὑγιής. Καὶ εὐθὺς ἰάθη ἡ 68

Probably a scribal error for ἀρτοῦ.

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χεὶρ τοῦ ἀνδρός. Ὁ δὲ παλαιοράφος ἱστορήσας τὴν δύναμιν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς καὶ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ λόγου αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὸ ἀσκητικὸν σχῆμα, εἶπεν αὐτῷ· δέομαί σου, ἄνθρωπε τοῦ θεοῦ, δεῦρο κατάλυσον σήμερον εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ παιδός σου, καὶ φαγώμεθα ὁμοῦ ψωμὸν ἄρτου, ὅτε ἐποίησας ἔλεος μετ ἐμοῦ σήμερον. Ὁ δὲ μακάριος Μάρκος περιχαρὴς γενόμενος ἔφη· Ὁ Κύριος δῴη σοι ἄρτον ζωῆς ἐπουρανίου. Ὁ δὲ ἄνθρωπος παρεβιάσατο τὸν ἀπόστολον καὶ εἰσήνεγκεν αὐτὸν εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ χαίρων. Δ Εἰσελθὼν δὲ ὁ μακάριος Μάρκος εἶπεν· Εὐλογία κυρίου ὧδε· εὐξόμεθα, ἀδελφοί. Καὶ ηὔξαντο ἅμα, καὶ μετὰ τὴν εὐχὴν ἀνεκλήθησαν. Ὡς δὲ ἠγαθύνθησαν, εἶπεν ὁ ἄνθρωπος· Πάτερ, τί ἄρα, καλῶ σε, τίς εἶ καὶ πόθεν ὁ λόγος οὗτος ὁ δυνατὸς ἐν σοί; Εἶπε δὲ ὁ ἅγιος Μάρκος· Ἐγὼ δοῦλός εἰμι τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ. Εἶπε δὲ ὁ ἄνθρωπος· Ἐβουλόμην αὐτὸν ἰδεῖν. Εἶπε δὲ ὁ ἅγιος μάρτυς τοῦ Χριστοῦ Μάρκος· Ἐγώ σοι αὐτὸν δεικνύω. Καὶ ἤρξατο ὁ ἅγιος Μάρκος ἀρχὴν ποιεῖσθαι τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ, υἱοῦ Ἀβραάμ, καὶ δεικνύειν αὐτῷ τὰ περὶ τῶν προφητῶν αὐτοῦ. Ὁ δὲ ἄνθρωπος εἶπε· δέομαι, κύριε, ἐγὼ γραφὰς ἅσπερ σὺ λέγεις, οὐδέποτε ἤκουσα, ἀλλ᾿ Ἰλίαδα καὶ Ὀδυσειάδα, καὶ ὅσα σοφίζονται οἱ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων παῖδες. Τότε ὁ ἅγιος Μάρκος εὐαγγελίζεσθαι αὐτῷ τὸν Χριστὸν καὶ δεικνύειν αὐτῷ ὅτι ἡ σοφία τοῦ κόσμου τούτου μωρία παρὰ τῷ θεῷ ἐστιν. Ἐπίστευσε δὲ ὁ ἄνθρωπος τῷ θεῷ διὰ τῶν ὑπὸ τοῦ Μάρκου λεγομένων σημείων καὶ τέρατων, καὶ ἐφωτίσθη αὐτὸς καὶ ὅλος ὁ οἶκος αὐτοῦ, καὶ πολὺ πλῆθος τοῦ τόπου ἐκείνου. Ἦν δὲ τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐκείνου Ἀνανίας. Ε Ὡς δὲ ὄχλος ἐγένετο τῶν πιστεύωντων ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον, ἤκουσαν οἱ ἄνδρες τῆς πόλεως, ὅτι Γαλιλαῖός τις παρεγένετο ἐνταῦθα, καὶ ἀνατρέπει τὰς τῶν θεῶν θυσίας, καὶ κωλύει αὐτῶν τὰς θρῃσκείας, καὶ ἐζήτουν αὐτὸν ἀποκτεῖναι, καὶ ἔθηκαν αὐτῷ ἔνεδρα πολλά. Ἐπιγνοὺς δὲ ὁ ἅγιος Μάρκος τὰς ἐπιβουλὰς αὐτῶν, χειροτονήσας ἐπίσκοπον τὸν Ἀνανίαν καὶ πρεσβυτέρους τρεῖς, Μελαῖον, καὶ Σαβῖνον, καὶ Κέρδωνα, καὶ διακόνους ἑπτὰ, καὶ ἄλλους ἕνδεκα εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησιαστικὴν ὑπηρεσίαν, ἔφυγε καὶ ἀπῆλθε πάλιν εἰς τὴν Πεντάπολιν. Καὶ ποιήσας ἐκεῖ ἔτη δύο, καὶ θεμελιώσας καὶ τοὺς ἐκεῖ ἀδελφοὺς καὶ χειροτονήσας κακεῖ ἐπισκόπους καὶ κληρικοὺς κατὰ χώραν, ἦλθε πάλιν εἰς Ἀλεξάνδρειαν, καὶ εὕρε τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς πληθυνθέντας ἐν χάριτι καὶ ἐπιστήμῃ θεοῦ· καὶ ἐκκλησίαν οἰκοδομήσαντες ἑαυτοῖς ἐν τοῖς καλουμένοις Βουκόλου τοῖς παραθαλασσίοις, ὑποκάτω κρημνῶν· καὶ ἐχάρη πάνυ ὁ δίκαιος, καὶ θεὶς τὰ γόνατα ἐδόξαζε τὸν θεόν. ς Ὡς δὲ ἐπληροῦτο χρόνος ἱκανὸς, καὶ ὁ Χριστιανοὶ ἐπληθύνοντο, καὶ κατεγέλων τῶν εἰδώλων καὶ ἐξεμυκτήριζον τοὺς Ἕλληνας, ἔμαθον οἱ Ἕλληνες αὐτὸν παραγενόμενον τὸν ἅγιον καὶ εὐαγγελιστὴν Μάρκον, καὶ ἐπλήσθησαν ζήλου διὰ τὸ ἀκούειν αὐτοὺς τὰς θαυματουργίας αὐτοῦ, ἃς ἐποίει· ἀνθενοῦντας γὰρ ἐθεράπευεν, λεπρούσας ἀκαθάριζε, κωφοῖς εὐηγγελίζετο, καὶ τυφλοῖς πολλοῖς ἐχαρίσατο τὸ βλέπειν· καὶ ἐζήτουν αὐτὸν πιᾶσαι καὶ οὐχ ηὕρισκον αὐτόν· καὶ ἔβρυχον τοὺς ὁδόντας ἐπ ᾿ αὐτὸν, καὶ ἐν

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ταῖς κωμασίαις τῶν εἰδώλων αὐτῶν κατέκραζον αὐτοῦ λέγοντες· Πολλαὶ βίαι τοῦ μάγου. Ζ Ἐγένετο δὲ τὴν μακαρίαν ἡμῶν ἑορτὴν τοῦ πάσχα καταλάβειν τὴν ἁγίαν κυριακὴν Φαρμουθὶ κς ̓ πρὸ ὀκτὼ Καλανδῶν Μαΐου, τοῦτ᾿ ἔστι Ἀπριλίου κδ᾿, ἐν οἷς ἦν καὶ αὐτῶν Σεραπιακὴ κωμασία. Εὐκαιρίαν δὲ τοιαύτην εὑρόντες, ἐγκαθέτους πέμψαντες, κατέβαλον αὐτὸν τὰς εὐχὰς τῆς θεϊκῆς ἀναφορᾶς ποιούμενον· καὶ λαβόντες αὐτὸν, ἔβαλον κάλον εἰς τὸν τραχήλον αὐτοῦ καὶ οὕτως ἔσυρον αὐτὸν λέγοντες· Σύρομεν τὸν βούβαλον εἰς τὰ βουκόλου. Ὁ δὲ ἅγιος Μάρκος συρόμενος εὐχαριστίας ἀνεδίδου τῷ σωτῆρι Χριστῷ λέγων· Εὐχαριστῶ σοι, κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστὲ ὅτι κατηξιώθην ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματός σου ταῦτα παθεῖν. Καὶ ἦσαν αἱ σάρκες αὐτοῦ πίπτουσαι εἰς τὴν γῆν, καὶ αἱ πέτραι ἐμολύνοντο τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ. Η Ἐσπέρας δὲ γενομένης, ἔβαλον αὐτὸν εἰς φυλακήν, ἐπισκεψόμενοι, ποίῳ θανάτῳ αὐτὸν ἀπολέσωσιν. Τῆς δὲ νυκτὸς μεσούσης, καὶ τῶν θυρῶν κεκλεισμένων, καὶ τῶν φυλάκων κειμένων πρὸ τῶν θυρῶν, ἰδοὺ σεισμὸς ἐγένετο μέγας· ἄγγελος γὰρ κυρίου, καταβὰς ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, ἥψατο αὐτοῦ λέγων· Ὁ δοῦλος τοῦ θεοῦ Μάρκος, ὁ κορυφαῖος τῶν κατ᾿ Αἴγυπτον ἁγίων, ἰδοὺ τὸ ὄνομά σου ἐγγέγραπται ἐν βίβλῳ ζωῆς αἰωνίου καὶ συγκαταριθμήθης μετὰ τῶν ἁγίων ἀποστόλων· ἰδοὺ τὸ μνημόσυνόν σου οὐ καταλειφθήσεται εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα· συγχόρος ἐγίνου τῶν ἄνω δυνάμεων ἐν οὐρανοῖς· ἀρχάγγελοι τὸ πνεῦμά σου ὑποδέξονται καὶ τὰ λείψανά σου εἰς γῆν οὐκ ἀπολοῦνται. Ταυτὴν τὴν ὀπτασίαν θεασάμενος ὁ μακάριος Μάρκος, τὰς χεῖρας αὐτοῦ τανύσας εἶπεν· Εὐχαριστῶ σοι, κύριέ μου Ἰησοῦ Χριστὲ ὅτι οὐκ ἐκατέλιπές μέ ἀλλα συγκατηρίθμησάς με μετὰ τῶν ἁγίων σου· Δεόμαί σου κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστὲ πρόσδεξαι ἐν εἰρήνῃ τὴν ψυχήν μου καὶ μή με ἀποδοκιμάσῃς ἀπὸ τῆς χάριτός σου. Καὶ ταῦτα αὐτοῦ εἰπόντος, ὁ Κύριος Ἰησοῦς παρεγένετο πρὸς αὐτὸν τῷ σχήματι ᾧ ἦν μετὰ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ, καὶ οἵᾳ μορφῇ ἦν πρὸ τοῦ παθεῖν αὐτὸν καὶ ταφῆναι, καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· Εἰρήνη σου, ἡμέτερε Μάρκε, εὐαγγελιστά μου. Ὁ δὲ μακάριος Μάρκος εἶπεν· Εἰρήνη σοι, Κύριε μου Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ. Θ Πρωΐας δὲ γενομένης, ἦλθεν πάλιν τὸ πλῆθος τῆς πόλεως καὶ ἐξενέγκαντες αὐτὸν ἐκ τῆς φυλακῆς, ἔβαλον πάλιν τὸ σχοινίον εἰς τὸν τράχηλον αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔσυρον λέγοντες· Σύρομεν τὸν βούβαλον εἰς τὰ βουκόλου. Ὁ δὲ μακάριος Μάρκoς εὐχαριστείας μᾶλλον ἀνέπεμπεν τῷ παντοκράτορι κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ λέγων· Εἰς χεῖρας σου, Κύριε, παρατίθημι τὸ πνεῦμά μου. Καὶ τοῦτο εἰπὼν παρέδωκε τὸ πνεῦμα. Τὸ δὲ πλῆθος τῶν δυσσεβῶν Ἑλλήνων πῦρ ἀνάψαντες εἰς τοὺς καλουμένους ἀγγέλους, ἐτέφρωσαν τὸ λείψανον τοῦ δικαίου. Τότε προνοίᾳ τοῦ Κυρίου καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ κατέβη λαίλαψ, καὶ ζάλη ἀνέμου ἐγένετο μεγάλη, καὶ ὁ ἥλιος συνέστειλεν τὰς ἀκτῖνας, καὶ ἐγένετο βροντῶν ἦχος πολὺς καὶ ὑετὸς πλεῖστος μετὰ χαλάζης ἕως ἐσπέρας, ὥστε καὶ οἰκήματα πολλὰ καταπίπτειν καὶ πολλοὺς τεθνηκέναι. Φοβηθέντες δὲ ἐάσαντο λείψανον τοῦ ἁγίου καὶ ἔφυγον. Ἕτεροι δὲ διαχλευάζοντες ἔλεγον, ὡς ὅτι ὁ

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τρισμακάριος Σέραπις αὐτῶν τὴν ἐπισκοπὴν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἐποιήσατο διὰ τὸ αὐτοῦ γενέθλιον. Ι Τότε ἐλθόντες ἄνδρες εὐλαβεῖς, συνέστειλαν λείψανον τοῦ δικαίου ἀπὸ τῆς τέφρας καὶ ἤνεγκαν ὅπου τὰς εὐχὰς αὐτῶν καὶ τὰς ψαλμῳδίας ἐπετέλουν, καὶ ἐκήδευσαν αὐτὸν καθὼς ἔθος τῇ πόλει, καὶ ἀπέθεντο ἐν τόπῳ λελατομημένῳ ἐνδόξως τελοῦντες αὐτοῦ τὴν μνήμην μετὰ σωφροσύνων καὶ προσευχῶν, ὡς πρῶτον κειμήλιον ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ κεκτημένοι, καὶ εἰς τὸ ἀνατολικὸν μέρος ἀπέθεντο. Ἐκοιμήθη ὁ μακάριος Μάρκος ὁ εὐαγγελιστὴς καὶ πρωτόμαρτυς τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ τῇ πρὸς Αἴγυπτον μηνὶ κατ᾿ Αἰγυπτίους Φαρμουθὶ λ́, κατὰ δὲ Ῥωμαίους πρὸς τὰ Καλανδῶν Μαΐων· κατὰ δὲ Ἑβραίους Νισαθρίων ἑπτακαιδεκάτῃ, ἐπὶ βασιλείας Γαΐου Τιβερίου Καίσαρος· κατὰ δὲ ἡμᾶς τοὺς Χριστιανοὺς βασιλεύοντος τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ᾧ ἡ δόξα καὶ τὸ κράτος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Ἀμήν.

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§ 1 At that time, when the apostles were spread over the whole inhabited world, it happened that, according to the will of God, the most Holy Mark was selected for the country of Egypt, from where also the blessed Canons of the Holy and Apostolic Church proclaimed him as evangelist, the first in the whole country of Egypt, Libya, Marmara, Ammaniake and the Pentapolis, to proclaim the Gospel of the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.69 This whole country was namely uncircumcised at its heart70 and worshipping idols, full of any impurity and venerating impure spirits, because at every house, at every road junction and in every region71 shrines and sacred precincts were erected; fortune-telling (with the help of the stars), magical practices and any power was observed. All the more was demonic with them, which our Lord Jesus Christ during his presence dissolved and destroyed. § 2 When the inspired72 evangelist Mark had reached Cyrene of the Pentapolis and spoke the word of Christ’s origin73 and when he performed many incredible miracles in their midst (he healed sick persons, purified lepers, and

69 The title ‘savior’ for Jesus is used three times in our text. It is probably not significant here that Artemidor 2.39 (quoted by Merkelbach, Isis regina, 173) also calls Serapis a ‘savior’. 70 For the metaphor of ‘(un)circumcized hearts’, see Deut 10:16; 26:41; 30:6; Jer 4:4, 14; Rom 2:29; Acts 7:51. 71 Actually, the term ἐπαρχία more concretely denotes a subcategory of a province. I think, however, that in this case the sense is more open. For more details, but with a focus on Asia Minor, see Marco Vitale, Eparchie und Koinon in Kleinasien von der ausgehenden Republik bis ins 3. Jh. n.Chr., AMS 67 (Bonn: Habelt, 2012). 72 Literally: ‘godly singing’, but also ‘divine, holy’. 73 Allusion to Mark 1:1: ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.

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cast out dangerous spirits by the word of grace),74 many came through him to belief in our Lord Jesus Christ; they razed their idols to the ground, were illuminated and baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. There it was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, that he should move away to Alexandria Pharitis and sow the good seed of God.75 The Blessed evangelist Mark marched, like a brave athlete, decidedly to the contest;76 he greeted the brothers and said: “My Lord told me that I should go to the city of the Alexandrians.” The brothers accompanied him until he entered the ship. And after they had consumed a morsel (of bread?), they sent him away and said: “The Lord Jesus Christ may lead you a good way.” § 3 On the second day the blessed Mark reached Alexandria and came, after he had left the ship, to a place called Mendion.77 Immediately when he entered the city gate, his sandal broke.78 Recognizing this, the blessed apostle said: “Truly, the way is easy.” But when he saw a cobbler, he gave him the sandal. The cobbler79 injured his left hand with the awl and said: “God is One.”80 When the Blessed Mark heard (the words) “God is One” he smiled and said: “The Lord has led me a good way.” And he spat on the ground, made a dough of the spittle, anointed the man’s hand81 and said: “In the name of Jesus Christ,82 the Son of the eternally living God83: Recover!” And immediately the man’s hand was healed. And the cobbler, who had recognized the For the impact of apostles as miracle workers in extracanonical Acts, see François Bovon, “Miracles, magie et guérison dans les Actes apocryphes des apôtres,” in Dans l’atelier de l’exégète, ed. idem (Geneva: Labor et fides, 2012), 253–66. 75 This looks like an allusion to the parable of the Sower and its allegorical interpretation (Mark 4:1–9, 13–20 par.). 76 For comparable metaphors, their background and impact in Pauline writings, see Uta Poplutz, Athlet des Evangeliums, HBS 43 (Freiburg: Herder, 2004). 77 For further details Bovon and Callahan, Martyre, 579n3: “[I]l existe un lieu appelé η Μένδης sur le Μενδήσιον στόμα, cinquième bouche du Nil. Il s’agit sans doute du même endroit qui celui mentionné par notre texte. Une temple dédié au dieu égyptien Mendès s’y dressait. Épiphane de Salamine, Panarion, LXIX, 2, signale l’éxistence d’une église à un endroit appelé Mendidion et précise qu’elle reçut plus tard le nom de saint Athanase.” 78 This may recall Mark 1:7 (par.; see also Acts 13:25). 79 Instead of παλαιοράφος the text has only ῥάφος here. I translate ‘cobbler’ in both cases. 80 Interestingly, Merkelbach, Isis Regina, 78, quotes a (Roman) amulet with the words Εἷς θεὸς Σάραπις (IG 14.2413.2). But see Mark 12:32 and the material offered by Erik Peterson and Christoph Markschies, Heis Theos: Epigraphische, formgeschichtliche und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur antiken ‚Ein-Gott‘-Akklamation (Regensburg: Pustet, 2012). 81 This is a clear allusion to Jesus’s healing of the man born blind (John 9:6), but we may also think about Mark 7:31–37. 82 Like Peter in Acts 3:6 Mark heals ‘in the name of Jesus Christ’. For a broader discussion of this motif (related to ancient Christian exorcisms), see Graham H. Twelftree, In the Name of Jesus: Exorcism in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007). 83 Alternative translation: “the Son of God who lives forever.”

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man’s power, the potency of his speech and his ascetic attitude84, said to him: “I beg you, Man of God, make a stop in the house of your servant85 and let us eat a morsel of bread together, as you made mercy with me today.” The blessed Mark, however, said full of joy: “The Lord shall give you the bread of life from Heaven.”86 The man urged87 the apostle and they reached his house full of joy. § 4 The blessed Mark entered it and said: “The mercy of the Lord shall be here. Let us pray, brothers.”88 And they prayed together and after the prayer laid down at the table. And when they enjoyed the meal, the man said: “Father, what now, I ask you: ‘Who are you and from where is this powerful word89 in you? The holy Mark said: “I am a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ,90 the Son of God.” The man said: “I want to see Him.” The holy witness of Christ, Mark, said: “I show him to you.” And the holy Mark began to make the origin of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,91 the Son of Abraham,92 and to show him what is written about him by the prophets.93 And the man said: “I beg you, Lord, I have never heard (about) writings like these, but instead the Iliad and Odyssey and everything the children of Egypt94 are educated.” Now the Holy Mark started to proclaim the Gospel of Christ to him and to show him that the wisdom of this world is foolishness for God.95 And the man came to belief in God96 when he heard about the signs and miracles told by Mark, and his whole house was illuminated and the whole crowd at this place. And the name of that man was Ananias. 84 The words τὸ ἀσκῆτικον σχῆμα is rare in ancient literature. One of the earliest parallels can be found in Alexander’s Barnabas Encomium, thus a 5th century writing. I am grateful to Peter Pilhofer for this hint. 85 Alternative: ‘of your child’. 86 This is a clear allusion to Jesus’s speech about the ‘heavenly bread’ (John 6:22–59). 87 The verb παραβιάζω is also used in Luke 24:29 and Acts 16:15. 88 Mark here already uses the language of Christian communities. The text suddenly presupposes that there are more people present than just the cobbler. 89 This seems to be an allusion to the Gospel of John where both Jesus is understood as the incarnate Logos and he or his deeds are often related to the question πόθεν (‘from where’; John 1:48; 2:9; 3:8; 4:11 and many others). For the whole passage, see also Mark 6:2. 90 Mark uses here the term δοῦλος (instead of παῖς used by the cobbler in Mart. Mk. 3); the term could also be translated as ‘slave’; see also Paul’s and Timothy’s self-attribution in Phil 1:1. 91 A clear allusion to Mark 1:1 in its long form (including the words ‘son of God’). 92 Probably an allusion to Matt 1:1. 93 Because of the allusion to Mark 1:1 above this could allude to Mark 1:2. But see also Matt 1:22; 2:5, 15, 17, 23, as well as Luke 24:27. 94 Perhaps this shows an outwards perspective towards Egypt (which would be typical for a text with Alexandrian origins). 95 1 Cor 3:19. 96 Cf. John 4:39, 48.

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§ 5 And when a multitude became of believers in the Lord, the men of the city heard, that a certain Galilean97 had come, that he destroyed the sacrifices to the Gods and hindered their services; they sought to kill him and set many snares for him. But the Holy Mark recognized their attempts and thus appointed98 Ananias as bishop and three presbyters, namely Melaios, Sabinos and Cerdon, plus seven deacons99 and eleven others for ecclesiastical service; he fled and withdrew back to the Pentapolis. And after he had stayed there for two years, had laid the foundation for the brothers there, appointed bishops and clerics over the whole country, he returned to Alexandria and found the brothers increased in grace and insight of God. And they had built a church for themselves in the parts of the so-called Boukolou close to the Sea underneath the precipices. And he just rejoiced a lot, bent his knees and praised God. § 6 But when enough time was fulfilled and the Christians grew, mocked the idols and taunted the Greeks, the Greeks learned that the Holy evangelist100 Mark himself had arrived. And they were filled with zeal when they heard about his miracles, because he healed sick persons, cleansed lepers, proclaimed the Gospel to deaf people and made many blind people see. And they constantly sought to seize him101, but did not find him. The ones proceeding against him thus gnashed their teeth102 and cried during the processions of their idols saying: “Many are the acts of violence of this magus.” § 7 And it happened that our blessed feast of Passah took place on the Holy Sunday, at the 26th of the month Pharmuthis, that is, the eighth before the calendes of May, that is the 24th of April, which was also the day of their procession for Serapis.103 As they had found a convenient moment, they sent people whom they had instigated, threw him down while he performed the prayers of the divine anaphora, took him, threw a rope around his neck, dragged him and said: “Let us drag the buffalo to Boukolou.” The Holy Mark, however, when he was dragged this way, gave a prayer of thanks to Christ, the Savior, and said: “I thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, that you made

Is this referring to Mark? Perhaps it does not want to say that Mark stems from Galilee, but simply denotes him as a Christian. See, for example, Emperor Julian’s Contra Galilaeos. For this interpretation, see also Bovon and Callahan, Martyre, 581–82. 98 The use of the verb χειροτονέω makes clear that this appointment was made by laying up his hands on Ananias (and the others). 99 An allusion to the seven deacons of Acts 6:1–7? 100 Literally: ‘the Holy and Evangelist Mark’. 101 See John 7:30 and 10:39. 102 This is biblical language reminding of texts like Acts 7:54; Job 16:9; Ps 34:16 LXX et al. Bovon and Callahan, Martyre, 582, see an allusion to the Martyrdom of Stephen. 103 For this event and its impact on Christians see Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 4.48 (also mentioned by Bovon and Callahan, Martyre, 583). 97

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me worthy to suffer this for your name.” And pieces of his flesh fell down to the earth and the stones were speckled by his blood. § 8 And in the evening they threw him into prison and investigated by which death they would let him perish104. But at midnight, when the doors were closed and the guards were lying in front of the doors, behold, a big earthquake happened,105 for an angel of the Lord, who had climbed down from heaven, touched him and said: “Servant of God, Mark, the first106 of the holy men in Egypt, behold, your name is inscribed in the book of eternal life and you will be counted among the holy apostles. Behold, your memory will not be surrendered in eternity.107 You will be part of the choir of the powers in the heavens above. Archangels will take your spirit, and your mortal remains will not perish in the earth.” When the blessed Mark had seen this vision, he reached out his hands and said: “I thank you, my Lord Jesus Christ, that you Lord Jesus Christ, that you did not forsake me108, but count me among your holy ones. I beg you, Lord Jesus Christ, receive my soul in peace and do not exclude me from your grace.” And after he had said this, the Lord Jesus came to him in the appearance, as he was with his disciples, in the shape before his suffering and burial. And he said to him: “Peace be with you, our Mark, my evangelist.”109 And the blessed Mark said: “Peace be with you, my Lord Jesus Christ.” § 9 And when the morning dawned the crowd of the city came back, they led him out of the prison and again threw the rope110 around his neck, dragged him and said: “Let us drag the buffalo to Boukolou.” But the blessed Mark even more sent a prayer of thanks to the ruler of everything111, the Lord Jesus Christ, and said: “Into your hands, Lord, I lay my spirit.”112 And after he said See Mark 3:6 (but also John 12:33 and 18:32). The passage reminds of Acts 12:6–17 and 16:25–34. Contrary to Peter in Jerusalem and Paul in Philippi, Mark will not be freed, but received a revelation by an angel and, later, Jesus himself. 106 The language used here about Mark reminds of comparable attributes given to Peter by John Chrysostom, Hom. Rom. 1.1, to the “pillars” in Jerusalem (again) by John Chrysostom, Hom. Gal. 1.1 and to Peter and Paul (Acts of Peter and Paul 61). See Bovon and Callahan, Martyre, 584. 107 Does this refer to Mark’s Gospel or to liturgical commemoration as Bovon and Callahan, Martyre, 584 suggest? 108 A clear allusion to the Psalm 21:2 (LXX)/22:2 also quoted in Jesus’s last words according to Mark 15:34 and Matt 27:46. 109 Cf. John 20:19, 21. 110 Now the text speaks about a σχοινίον. 111 The New Testament does not use the term παντοκράτωρ for Jesus. While Matt 28:18 describes him as an “all ruler” of the world, it does not use the term. 2 Cor 6:18 and Revelation speak about God as Pantokrator (1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7, 14; 19:6, 15; 21:22). 112 See Luke 23:46 and Acts 7:59. Bovon and Callahan, Martyre, 585, in addition, mention several other writings where a martyr dies with these words on his lips. 104

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that, he gave up his spirit.113 The plenty of godless Greeks, however, started a fire at a place which is called “Angelos”114 and tried to cremate the just man’s (mortal) remains. But because of the Lord’s, our Savior Jesus Christ’s, providence115 a whirlwind came up and a great storm happened116, the sun withdrew her rays117; a heavy thunder and a giant cloudburst with hail until the evening happened – with the result that many houses collapsed and many people died. Full of fear they left the holy man’s body and fled. But others laughed and talked as if their triple-blessed Serapis because of his birthday had cared for the man. § 10 And pious men went, separated the just man’s body from the scene of the fire, brought him to a place where they performed their prayers and sang the psalms, and buried him according to the city’s custom. They preserved him in a place carved out of stone, honored his memory with fasting and prayers, as first gem118 in Alexandria, what they had acquired, and coffered him in the direction of the East. This way the blessed Mark, the evangelist and first martyr of our Lord Jesus Christ in Alexandria at Egypt passed away at the 30th of Pharmouthis according to the Egyptian calendar, according to Roman calendar at the calends of May, according to the Hebrew at the 17th of Nisan,119 under the reign of Emperor Gaius Tiberius, while our Lord Jesus Christ rules as our, the Christians’, king. To him be glory and rule in all eternity. Amen.120

John 19:30. Literally ‘messenger’. Does this name refer to the ‘Angelion Church’ built at the place of the Serapeum? 115 The text wants to show that all this did not happen by accident. Interestingly, the term πρόνοια was used as an attribute of Isis (P.Oxy. 1380.85; see Merkelbach, Isis Regina, 99). 116 See Mark 4:37 and Luke 8:23. 117 Is this reminiscent of the darkness during Jesus’s death? 118 For a comparable description of a martyr’s relics, see already Mart. Pol. 18:2. 119 In the current Catholic liturgical calendar, the Feast of St Mark is celebrated on 25th April. This is also the latest possible date of Easter. Because of the disruption of the calendar, the Coptic Church now celebrates the feast of St Mark on 8th May. This is equivalent to “the 30th of Pharmouthis according to the Egyptian calendar.” In the modern Coptic calendar, the whole month of Paremoude the eighth month of the Coptic calendar. It lies between April 9 and May 8 of the Gregorian calendar. Hence the Martyrdom of Mark could have been read on the liturgical feast day of St Mark, on the presumed anniversary of his martyrdom, perhaps at his shrine. I owe this piece of information to Jeremy Corley; regarding more details, see footnote 59 (above). 120 I had the chance to discuss this paper not only during the Berne conference, but also during a seminar at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, during the annual conference of the Irish Biblical Association (17th february 2018) and a postgraduate seminar at Berlin, Humboldt University (20th July 2018) – and want to say thanks for important feedback mainly by the colleagues Prof.’s Dr. Jeremy Corley and Séamus O’Connell, both Maynooth, Prof.s Dr. Christoph Markschies and Harald Buchinger and, finally, Dr. Peter Pilhofer. 113

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List of Contributors Luca Arcari Associate Professor in History of Christianity at the Department of Humanities, University of Naples Federico II (Italy) Balbina Bäbler Lecturer at the Department of Ancient History, University of Göttingen (Germany) and Research Associate at the DFG Mythos-Research Group 2064 STRATA, University of Göttingen (Germany) René Bloch Professor of Jewish Studies at the Institute of Jewish Studies and Classics, University of Bern (Switzerland) Jan N. Bremmer Professor emeritus for Religious Studies at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) and Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies “Beyond Canon,” University of Regensburg (Germany) John Granger Cook Professor of Religion and Philosophy at LeGrange College (Georgia, USA) Jörg Frey Professor of New Testament Studies with focus on Ancient Judaism and Hermeneutics at the Theological Seminary, University of Zürich (Switzerland) and Research Associate at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein (South Africa)

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Sandra Gambetti Associate Professor of History at the College of Staten Island, the City University of New York (New York, USA) Wolfgang Grünstäudl Assistant Professor of Biblical and Historical Theology, University of Wuppertal (Germany)

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Christina Harker Senior Assistant for New Testament Studies at the Institute of New Testament Studies, University of Bern (Switzerland) Sylvie Honigman Professor of History at Tel Aviv University (Israel)

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Anna van den Kerchove Professor of Ancient History and Patristics at the Protestant Institute of Theology of Paris (France) Thomas J. Kraus Research Fellow at the Department of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein (South Africa) and is working on a habilitation project at the University of Zürich (Switzerland) Tobias Nicklas Professor of Exegesis and Hermeneutics of the New Testament, University of Regensburg (Germany) and Research Associate at the Department of New Testament, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein (South Africa) Stefan Pfeiffer Professor of Ancient History at the Department of Classics, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (Germany) Enno Edzard Popkes Professor of New Testament Studies at the Institute of New Testament Studies and Judaism, University of Kiel (Germany) Christoph Riedweg Professor of Classics at the Classics Department, University of Zürich (Switzerland) Jan Rüggemeier Senior Assistant for New Testament Studies at the Theological Seminary, University of Zürich (Switzerland) and Senior Research Assistant at the SNF-Research-Project ECCLESIAE, University of Bern (Switzerland) Justin P. Jeffcoat Schedtler Assistant Professor of Religion at Wartburg College in Waverly (Iowa, USA)

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Benjamin Schliesser Professor of New Testament Studies at the Institute of New Testament Studies, University of Bern (Switzerland) Barbara Schmitz Professor of Old Testament Studies at the Faculty of Catholic Theology, University of Würzburg (Germany)

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Maria Sokolskaya Independent Researcher, Mainz (Germany) Michael Sommer Junior Professor of Biblical Studies at the Institute of Catholic Theology and its Didactics, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (Germany)

List of Contributors

545

Gregory E. Sterling Professor of New Testament and Reverend Henry L. Slack Dean of the Yale Divinity School (Connecticut, USA) Samuel Vollenweider Professor emeritus of New Testament Studies at the Theological Seminary, University of Zürich (Switzerland) Benjamin G. Wright University Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the Department of Religion Studies, Lehigh University in Bethlehem (Pennsylvania, USA)

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Beatrice Wyss Research Assistant at the Institute of New Testament Studies, University of Bern (Switzerland)

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Index of References 1. Bible 1.1 Hebrew Bible Genesis

1 1:2 1:14 1:26 1:26–27 1:27 14 (LXX) 14:14 16 (LXX) 18:19 24:17 31:19 34:35

xxxix, 154, 391, 421, 494 4 241 472 458 468, 472, 482 458 xxxix 390 xxxix 334 304 458 458

40 40:20

xxxix 300

Leviticus 17:3 19:4 26:1 26:30 27

237 241 458 458 458 xxxix

Numbers 13:26–27 14:7–8 33:52

237 237 458

Deuteronomy

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Exodus 2:11–14 2:11–15 20:3 20:4 20:4–5 24 24:3–8 24:9 25 25:16 25:21 28 32:1–29 34 34:16 35

237, 277 293 288 458 458, 472 458 239 238 237 237 300 300 237 458 xxxix 45 xxxix

4 5:7 5:8 5:8–9 7:3 8:6 10:1–5 10:16 17:6 17:17 26:41 27:4 28 30:6 31:24–26

238 239 458 458, 472 458 45 334 300 537 238 xv 537 204 239 537 300

548

Index of References

Joshua 2:5 5:2–3 15:9 18:15 24:26

334 419 172 172 300

Judges 2:22

334

2 Samuel 10:6–19 22:31

170, 176 334

1 Kings 8:6–9

300

2 Kings 13:3 16:7–9 22:8 23 23:2 23:2–3 24:2

170, 176 170, 176 300 239 300 239 300

1 Chronicles 16:26

458

2 Chronicles 5:7–10 34:15 34:30

300 300 300

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Nehemiah 8:1–8 13:23–31 13:28

186–188 239 187 187

Ezra 9–10

186–87, 189 187

8:5–9 17–19 (LXX) 17:15 (LXX) 17:26 (LXX) 17:51 (LXX) 18 (LXX) 18:5–6 (LXX) 18:6 (LXX) 18:6a (LXX) 21:2 (LXX) 22:2 24:10 (LXX) 30:6 (LXX) 32:6 (LXX) 32:9 (LXX) 34:16 (LXX) 81 82 95:5 95:5 (LXX) 96:7 113:12 113:12 (LXX) 134:15 134:15 (LXX)

463 424–25, 427 431 431 431 417, 423 417, 435 418 433 541 541 334 521 472 473 540 xxxix xxxix 458 472 458 458–59 452 458–59 452

Proverbs 2 3 26:5

xxxix xxxix 507

Isaiah 2:18 10:11 11:1–3 16:12 17:7–8 19:3 21:9 26:8 66:1

82 458 458 362 458 463 458 458 334 508

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Jeremiah Job 16:9

540

Psalms 8:4

463, 473

4:4 4:14 6:16 (LXX) 15:10

293 537 537 334 362

549

Index of References Ezekiel 1–3 6:4 18:25

213 458 334

Daniel 3 (LXX)

212

7 9:2 10 12:1–3

213 298 213 406

1.2 Deuterocanonical Works and Septuagint 4 Kingdoms 23

239

Daniel 13–14

212

1 Maccabees 9:54 10 13:37 13:51 2 Maccabees

Susanna 382 Sapientia 5:7 13–15 15:15

101, 348 334 455 458

2:2 2:13–14 2:14 4:7–15 4:12 12:40

300 458 300 301 40 40 458

3 Maccabees

Sirach 39:1–8 50:1–4 51:23

194 194 353 353

263 298 191 298

Grandson’s Prologue to Greek Ben Sirach l. 22 264

2:28 2:29 4:11

125, 140, 142 140 141 140–41

2 Esdras 18:1–8

239

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1.3 Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Apocalypse of Elijah xxxix, 208 2.15 4 Apocalypse of Zephaniah 207–8 Akhmimic Folio 1 recto 210 Folio 1 verso 210 1–2 210 3 211 4 211

4–5 5–6 6 7 7–8 8 9–10 9–12 10 11–12 13 13–14

212 212 212 211–12 212 212 213 211 210–12 212 212 212

550

Index of References

13–16 14 15 17–18

211 212 212 211

Sahidic l. 7

208

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Assumption of Moses 1.16 299 1 Enoch 1:8–9

357

Jubilees 20:2

334

Letter of (Ps.-)Aristeas xvii–xix, xxii, xxxiv, xliii, xlix, 3, 36, 40, 49–62, 77, 82–86, 89–90, 92– 95, 100, 134, 165, 167, 197–99, 201, 203–4, 229–40, 242–44, 265–66, 273–74, 281, 285, 301, 388, 512 1 50, 230 1–30 201 4 51– 53 5 56–57 8 52, 230 9 54, 82, 88 9–10 36, 54 9–11 xxii 10–11 54 11 234 12 xvii, 54 12–27 237 13 59 15 199 16 95 19 54 20 54 20–26 55 21–27 54 22 52–53, 55 26 55

28 28–33 29 30 30–31 31 32 33 33–40 34–40 35 38 40 41 41–50 43 45 46 51–82 52 83 83–120 83–172 84–91 91 92–95 96–99 100 100–4 105 105–6 107 107–20 108 108–11 109 109–11 110 111 112 113 114 121–22 123 125 147 152 154

55 54 54 201–2 201, 234 201, 234 61, 235 55 55 54 59, 61 54, 199 54–55 59 54 54–55 54, 199 199 54 61 60–61 60 55, 59–60 36, 60 61 60 60 61 60 53, 60–61 60 61 60 61 53 xviii, xxxiv, 3, 49, 52–53, 55, 61 61 55 52 53 61 61 235 54 54 236 61 236

551

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Index of References 157 159–60 172–73 173 173–75 174 176 177 179 181 182 183 184–294 186 187–300 209 235 241 268 271 275 280 283 284 301 301–7 301–11 302 302–7 304 305 307 307–8 308 308–10 308–11 310 310–11 312–16 313 314–16 317 318 318–21 321 322

236 238 265 52, 54–55 55 55 199, 235 235 235 20, 55 55, 61 55 55 55 236 54 236 54 54 55 56, 61 55 55 xliii, 41 56–57 273 56, 59 54, 57 200 55, 58 57 57, 200–1, 231 201 58, 201 xxxiv, 57, 201 238 58 238 58, 239 239 93, 94 58 54 58 55 230

Sibylline Oracles

1–2 1.125 1.129 1.281 1.302 2 2.56–148 2.338 3.29 4.4–7 4.6–7 4.7 4.24 4.27–30 5.89 5.206–13 5.294–96 5.295–96 5.483–84 5.484–504 5.486–87 5.487–88 11.219–20 11.233–35 12.42 13.43–49

358, 379, 388, 392– 93, 459, 465, 466, 473, 482, 513 380 380 380 380 379 380 379 379 463, 473 465–66, 473 466 466 463, 465, 473 463, 473 4 379 465 473 465, 473 xxxix 465 473 4 xxxiv, 4 4 4

Theodotus 296 frag. 2 198 frag. 4 198 frag. 1-8 (ap. Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.22.1–11) 292 Testament of Naphtali 5:4 353

552

Index of References

1.4 New Testament Matthew

1:1 1:22 2:5 2:15 2:17 2:23 4 6:10–13 13 14 17:1–8 18:10 19:17–19 21 22:20 23 25:1–46 26 26:30–34 27:46 28:18

347, 353, 364, 382, 384, 387, 393 524, 539 539 539 539 539 539 xxxix xxxix xxxix xxxix 378 423 381 xxxix 458 xxxix 406 xxxix xxxix 541 541

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1:1 1:2 1:7 1:20 3:6 4:1–9 4:13–20 4:37 6:2 7:31–37 12:16 12:32 14:26–30 15:34

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Mark

Luke 1:1

347, 369, 382, 387, 520, 525 524, 537, 539 539 538 525 541 538 538 542 539 538 458 538 xxxix 541

382, 387 332

1:76 3:3–6 3:4 3:16 7:19 7:27 7:28 8:23 12:49 15:15 16:16 17 19:14 20:24 22 23:46 24:27 24:29

330, 335 335 330, 335 335 335 335 335 542 434 xlviii 335 xxxix xlviii 458 xxxix 521–22, 541 539 539

John

1 1–21 1:3 1:4a 1:48 2:9 3:8 3:31 4 4:11 4:24 4:39 4:48 5 6:22–59 7:30 8 8:23 9:6 10:39 12:13 12:33

349, 351–54, 364, 382, 384–85, 387, 434, 469, 489, 490, 492–96, 498, 539 xxxix xxxix 362, 490 498 539 539 539 469, 472 353 539 313 539 539 xxxix 539 540 xxxix 469, 472 538 540 325, 353 541

553

Index of References 15 16 18 19 18:32 19:30 20:19 20:21 20:25 21 21:25

xxxix xxxix xxxix xxxix 541 522, 542 541 541 382 xxxix 353

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Acts 1:5 1:15–26 1:25 2 2:1–4 2:3–4 2:10 3 3:6 5 6:1–7 6:3 6:5 6:9 7:41 7:51 7:54 7:55 7:59 8:9–25 9 10 10:44–46 11:16 11:24 12:6–17 12:12 12:24–25 13:5 13:13 13:24–25 13:25 13:52 15:20 15:36–40

328, 341, 374 335 522 xxxvi xxxix 331 341 345 xxxix 538 xxxix 540 335 335 xxxvi, 325, 345 459 526, 537 540 335 541 333 xxxix xxxix 331, 341 335 335 541 522 523 523 524 335 538 335 459 524

15:38 15:39–40 16:15 16:25–34 17:16 18 18–19 18:1–3 18:18–23 18:19–22 18:24 18:24–25 18:24–28 18:24–19:1 18:24a–b 18:24b–d 18:24c–d 18:24d 18:25 18:25–26 18:25a 18:25a–d 18:25b–c 18:25c 18:25d 18:26 18:26a 18:26c 18:28 19 19:1 19:1–7 19:1b–7 19:4 21:20 21:39 22:3 23 26:4 27:6 28:11

524 524 539 541 459 xxxix, 328, 336, 340 329, 332 330 330 329 332, 334 368 xxxvi, 330–32, 343, 385 329 336 340 336 336, 340 330–32, 335, 340, 346, 386 336 334 336 335 335, 340 335 330 335, 340–41 332 330, 333, 336, 340– 41 xxxix, 527 330 329–33, 336, 340– 41, 343, 386 329 335 333 xlviii 336 xxxix 336 xxxvi, 325 xxviii, xxxvi, 325

Romans 401

554 1:16 1:23 2 2:29 5 6 6:4 6:4–5 7:22 8 8–16 8:15 8:17 8:19–32 8:38 9 12:11 15:17–29 16:10 16:14

Index of References 449 458 xxxix 526, 537 xxxix xxxix, 401 469, 472 401 401 xxxix, 401 xxxix 311 407 401 357 xxxix 331, 335 346 329 387

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1 Corinthians 1–4 1:11–12 1:12 2 2:1–5 2:4–15 2:12 3:5–15 3:5–4:5 3:19 3:21–23 4:1–5 4:6 4:6a 4:6b 6:2–3 7 8 9:6 10:3 10:3–4 10:4 10:19–20a 12:2 12:13 14:37

xxxix, 327–30, 337 337, 386 338 xxxvi, 343 327 337 498 310–11, 314–15 339 339 527, 539 339 339 338 339 339 357 xxxix xxxix 374 303–4, 310 310 305 467 459 310 305

15 15:23–28 15:28 15:44 16:12 16:22

303, 310, 319, 321, 327, 401, 406 406 314 305, 310, 314 xxxvi, 333, 340 273

2 Corinthians 4:16 4:16–17 5:1–10 6:18 8:18 11:22–23

xxxix, 338, 401 401 401, 406 401, 406 541 329 339

Galatians 2:9 2:13 2:15

xxxix 355 333 333

Ephesians

1:21 2:4–7 2:6 3:10 4 4:13 5

xxxix, 401, 407, 411 357 407 401, 407 357 xxxix 418 xxxix

Philippians 1:1 1:21–24 2:6–11 3 4

xxxix, 408 539 408 328 xxxix xxxix

Colossians

1:16 2:12–13 2:15 4:10

xxxix, 401, 407, 411 357 401, 407 357 524

555

Index of References 2 John

1 Thessalonians 1 1:9 2 5

xxxix 458–59 xxxix xxxix

2 Timothy 2:18

401

Titus 1 2 3:13

xxxix xxxix xxxvi, 328

Philemon 13–15 24–25

xxxix xxxix

1 Peter

2:9 2:9–10 5:13

xxiv, 356, 358, 382, 394, 436, 522 469 472 522–24

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2 Peter

1:5–7 1:12–15 1:14–15 1:15 1:16–18 2 2:1 2:5 2:22 3 3:1 3:3–4 3:6 3:10

xxxviii, 348–49, 355–61, 368, 376, 378–80, 382, 392– 94 379 359 358 375 378 378 379 380 473 378 358, 379 358, 359 360 360

1 John 5:21

459

xxxix Hebrews

1:1 8:11 12:29 13:24

xxxix, 326, 348, 351, 354–55, 368, 384 xxxix xlviii 313 355

James

1 1:1 2 3

348, 356–57, 369, 393 xxxix 357 xxxix, 356 xxxix

Jude

6 12–13 14 14–15

348, 356–58, 378– 79, 382, 393–94 379 379 357 379

Revelation 1 1:8 4:7 4:8 7:2–5 9–17 9:20 11:17 14:1–5 15:3 16:7 16:14 19:6 19:15 20:11–15 21:22

211 xxxix, 213 541 528 541 493 xxxix 459 541 493 541 541 541 541 541 406 541

556

Index of References

2. Ancient Jewish Writers and Texts 2.1 Philo of Alexandria De Abrahamo 57

19

4

De plantatione 90

xxiii

271

De aeternitate mundi 307 81 308 117 316 125 316

De praemiis et poenis 44 271 85–168 374 De providentia

De animalibus 307

2.41 De confusione linguarum 2 xxiii

g

De congressu eruditionis gratia 44 xxxiv, 277 61 272 74–76 278 De decalogo 53 54 60–61 64 76–80

4 308 515 516 xxxv

De ebrietate 128 177

270 xliii, 41

De Iosepho 29 135–36

4 250

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De migratione Abrahami 8 xxiii 48 xxiii De opificio mundi 17 xxxiv 17–18 4

307 308

De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini xxxix De somniis 1.93 2.1 2.123–24

xxiii 275 250

De specialibus legibus 1.34 4 1.63 498 2.41 277 2.145 277 2.194 277 3.29 45 3.169 xlv De vita contemplativa 159 2 160 11–12 160 13–18 160 20 161 21–22 160 21–23 158 21–24 160 23 14 25 160 25–28 160

Index of References 26 27 28 29 30 32–33 34–35 37 38 39 40–56 57–64 66 68 69 78 81

159 160 160–61 160 160 160 160 160 158 160 159 159 160 160 160 161 160

De vita Mosis

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1.23 1.111 2.25–40 2.25–44 2.26–31 2.26–32 2.26–43 2.34–37 2.35 2.37 2.38 2.39–40 2.40 2.41 2.51 2.215–16

139 277 276 273 50, 204 275 274 83 57 10 83, 274 264 275 276–77 xxii, 44 4 301

In Flaccum 1–8 2 4 8 9 9–16 17 20 21 21–24

33, 139, 145 250 38 250 250 38 250 149, 250 145, 149, 252 250 250

23 26 26–31 27 27–28 29 30 33 34 35 36–37 36–40 37–38 38 39 40 41 42 43 45 46 48 53 53–54 54 55 55–56 56 56–57 57 62 65 65–72 72 74 74–75 75 76 78–79 78–80 80 81 83 85 86–91 89 90 92

557 38 250 38 10 251 38, 45, 149 250 251 251 xliii, 19, 41, 251 251 19 252 39 251 273 252 xlvi, 43, 139, 141, 251–52 253 xxxii, 253, 258 253 4 33, 254 253 254 254 xlii, 20, 47, 253–54 xlii, xlv, 20, 47, 141 xlvi 254 xlv, xlvi, 48 254 251 254 255 xlvi 43 xlvi255 254 xxvii 255 xlviii 255 255 44, 255 255 xlv 254 xxvii–xxviii

558 95 96 110 122 126 135–37 139 141–42 155 163

Index of References 256 44 10 253 145 145 252 145 22 4

151 166 170 173 183 194 206 338 355 355–67 359

139, 145 xlv 271, 275 17 149 251 17 17 17 250–51 254 254 254 254 254 14 254 22, 251, 254 xxxiii 253–54 253 19 253 254 149 xxxiv

Legum allegoriae

17–18 149 250 17 xlviii xlviii 305 3 138, 145 149 149

g

Legatio ad Gaium 3.40 4 41 66–77 67 74 84–85 95–96 120 121–22 123 124 127 128 129 130 132 132–34 134 134–35 135 136–37 138 139 150

3.83–84 22

509 270 113

Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesin 303–4 1.92 304 2.64c 307 4.8 304 4.102 303–5, 310 Quis rerum divinarum heres sit xxxix Quod deterius potiori insidari soleat 15 xxiii 167 xxiii Quod omnis probus liber sit 307 75 261 75–91 158 76 158 86 158 125 xiii, 3

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2.2 Flavius Josephus Antiquitates judaicae 284 1.51.1 283 1.239–41 (Cleodemus Malchus) 281 3.38 300 4.302–4 300 5.61 300 11.292–324 187

11.302–12 11.321–25 12 12.2 12.7 12.10 12.11–118 12.100 12.103

187 187 165 50 183 192 204 230 12, 57

559

Index of References 12.137–44 12.154 12.154–59 12.156 12.168 13 13.65–71 13.74 13.74–79 13.75 14.117 15.9.2 16.43 17.4.2 18.18–22 18.238 18.257 18.257–60 19.278–85 20.2.5 20.199–203

191 191 195 192 195 165, 193 195 193 192 193 xlii, 20, 254 xv 301 xv 158 250 138 149 149 xv 363

Bellum judaicum 1.30.4 1.30.7 2.199–66 2.122 2.385 2.385–87 2.386 2.487 2.487–98 2.488 2.494 2.495 2.496

xv xv 158 158 xiii, 23 5 13 xvii, xxxiii 22 xlii, xlv, 20 xlvi xlii, xlv, 20, 47 xlvi

2.497 4.612 4.612–13 4.612–15 4.613 4.615 4.656 4.659 5.169 7.150 7.369 7.427–30

xxxiii 11 11 5 12 13–14 23 19 12 300 xxxiii 195

Contra Apionem 1.8 1.33 1.215–18 1.228–99 1.251–52 1.288–92 1.305–11 2.1–144 2.6–144 2.8 2.10–27 2.29 2.33 2.34–35 2.36–37 2.42 2.175 2.42

149 300 300 296 xlvii xlvii 139, 156 139 149 154 150 139 148 xlv, 20 xlii, xlv, 20 xvii, xxxiii xvii 301 xxxiii

Vita 415–16

5

2.3 Further Jewish Writings of the Greco-Roman Period Demetrius

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Aristobulus

frag. 3a

xxii, 101, 106, 229, 265, 272, 281, 284– 85, 287, 296–97 282, 288

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Artapanus of Alexandria 282, 287, 295–96, 388 Cleodemus Malchus (ap. Josephus, Ant. 1.239–41) 281

xxii, 287, 293, 295– 97, 308–9, 388, 419 308

frag. 1–6 frag. 2 (ap. Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.21.14) 308 frag. 6 287, 295 (Ps.-)Eupolemus 287, 296 frag. 1 282

560

Index of References

Ezekiel

Exagoge

xliii, 41–42, 281– 82, 287–88, 292, 296, 388 xliii, 41, 281–82, 288, 292, 296

frag 2a (ap. Clement, Strom. 1.23.155.5–7; 1.23.156.1–2) 288 frag. 2b

(ap. Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.28.3) 288 The Dialogue of Comarius 316 317–18 The Dialogue of the Philosophers and Cleopatra 317

2.4 Rabbinic Writings Mishnah m. Kelim 15.6 m. Makš. 3.1 m. Makš. 6.3 m. Yoma 3.7 m. Yoma 7.1

300 xv xv xvi 300

Tosefta t. ‘Arak. 2.3–4 t. Makš. 3.4 t. Sukkah 4.6 t. Yoma 2.5–6

xlv xv xlv, 22, 254 xlv

Talmud b. Giṭ. 57b b. Meg. 8b b. Sanh. 21b–22aα b. Sukkah 51b y. Meg. 73b y. Sanh. 10 y. Sukkah 5.55a

xlvii 277 198 xlv, 22, 254 298 xv 22

Other Rabbinic Works Seder Eliyahu Rabbah 151, ll. 9–24 xlvii

3. Greco-Roman Authors and Works

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Achilles Tatius 3.15 5.1 5.1.4–5 5.1.1–6 5.2

9.32 xxx 5, 15, 21 49 xxi xxviii

478

Aeschylus 41, 45, 135, 464, 471, 503 Agamemnon 839

465

Aelian 150, 152, 154–55, 478 De natura animalium 6.15 153 7.44 152 10.29 152 11.40 152 Varia historia 3.17

88, 511

Aetius 103 Placita 4.3.10

319

Alexander of Aphrodisias De mixtione 11 314

561

Index of References Alexander Numenius De figuris sententiarium et verborum 20 338 Alexander Polyhistor 36, 151–52, 154–55, 280–83, 285, 287, 291–95, 301, 515 Περὶ Ἰουδαίων (On the Jews) xliii, 41, 279, 281, 284, 290–91, 293, 295

On Libya

Bella civila 2.90

xxviii, 278

Historia romana 9 frag. 4.1

309

Aristophanes xxiii Aves 1115 1549

454 17

Lysistrata 808–20

17

281 Aristotle Ammianus

17.4.5 22.11.10 22.12 22.16.7 22.16.7–22 22.16.8 22.16.9 22.16.10–11 22.16.12 22.16.13 22.16.14 22.16.15 Antiphanes frag. 145 K.-A.

5, 11, 14, 23, 72– 73, 122 122 74 xxi, 77 14–15, 23 5 14 12 12 18, 73 17, 76 10 16, 72–73

45

16, 77, 81, 87, 102, 104–5, 132, 309, 313, 319, 426, 449– 50, 512, 517 Ἀπορήματα Ὁμηρικά frag. 142–79 309 Athenaion politeia 17.3–19.1 461 De caelo 1.2, 1069B

313

[De mundo] 393A

509–10 313

Meteorologica 339B

313

[Oeconomica] 2.2.33c

248

Apion g

xxxi, xlv, xlvii, xlix, 20, 125, 138– 39, 141–42, 145– 56, 162, 257

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Aigyptiaka 150–56, 162 5 (ap. Aulus Gellius, Noct. att. 5.14.1–29) 152 Appian xxviii

Poetica 1460b–61b Politica 7

309 60, 237

Arrian xl, 13 Anabasis 3.1.5 3.1.5–2.2

xxvii 14

562

Index of References Callimachus

Artemidorus 2.39

7–8, 93, 151 537

36, 77, 135, 515 Hymnus in Delum 4 514

Onirocritica 2.44

93

Aetia frag. 84

529

Athenaeus xliii, 55, 150, 311, 478 Deipnosophistae 1.3b 1.22d 5.196a–197c 5.196d–203b 8.336d 13.590d–592

55 xxi, 77 66 56 xliii 289 468, 478

Aulus Gellius 150, 152–54 Noctes atticae Praef. 2–3 5.1–2 5.14.1–2 5.14.1–29 5.14.2 5.14.3 6.8 7.8 7.17.3 9.41–5 10.1 18.5.2–5

152 289 153 154 152 156 154 153 153 xxi, 76–77 299 153 299

[Callisthenes] 1.30.6 1.31.8 1.32 1.33.2

20 xxix 248 14, 20 xxix

Cassius Dio 42.38.2 50.33.2 51.15.5 51.17.2 51.17.4 51.18.1 51.20.6–8 51.20.7 58.8.4 59.4.4 60.5.4 68.32.1–2 69.8.1a 72.4

76 xxx 113 xxvii, 112 122 112 109 109 109 109 109 xlvii xlvi xxx

Celsus 103, 285, 373, 382– 85, 394–95, 490 Logos Alethes

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103, 382–83 Ausonius Ordo urbium nobilium 11 23 Caesar 12–13, 18, 24, 26, 34, 40, 69, 73, 75– 78, 86, 107, 113, 115–16 Bellum civile 3.11 76 3.111 13, 76 3.112 11, 40

Chaeremon xxiii, xxxi, xlix, 124, 139, 142, 145– 49, 156–63 frag. 5 (ap. Porphyry, Aneb. 2.12–13) frag. 6 (ap. Eusebius, Praep. ev. 3.9.15) frag. 8 (ap.

157

157

563

Index of References Porphyry, Aneb. 2.15) frag. 9 (ap. Iamblichus, De myst. 8.4) frag. 10 (ap. Porphyry, Aneb. 4.6–8) frag. 11 (ap. Jerome, Jov. 3.13) frag. 12 (ap. Tzetzes, Ex. in Il. 1.97) frag. 13

157

157

157–58

Tusculanae disputationes 1.65 313 4.25 17 Cleanthes Hymn to Zeus 517

157

Commentary on Theaetetus 157 157

Chrysippus SVF 2.1054 (ap. Stobaeus, Ecl. 1.5.15)

Pro Rabirio Postumo 40 xvi

312, 316, 318, 511 313 316

Cicero

Curtius Rufus 4.8.5 4.8.6

248 14

Damascius 319–20 In Platonis Phaedonem commentaria versio 1 114B6–C6 320

6, 85–86, 294–95 De finibus

py g

g

4.10.1 4.14.1 5.53 (Demetrius, frag. 62)

85 299 299 86

De inventione rhetorica 2.4 289 De legibus 3.14 (Demetrius, frag. 72) 86 Epistulae ad Atticum 2.3.4 299 2.6.1 6 2.23 298 4.14.1 299 4.16 298 7.3 298 8.13 298 12.5 289 13.8 289, 299 13.25 298 Epistulae ad familiares 16.22.1 299

Demetrius of Phalerum xix, xxii, xlix, 34– 35, 54, 56–57, 59, 81–89, 92–95, 151, 198, 200–1, 231, 234–35, 238–39, 244, 511 frag. 62 (ap. Cicero, Fin. 5.53) 86 frag. 63 88 frag. 65 88 frag. 72 (ap. Cicero, Leg. 3.14) 86 Democritus 68 T 140

319

[Physica et mystica] 318 Dio Chrysostom

12 12.25

14, 18, 21, 23, 42, 445, 460–61, 467, 470, 474, 479, 485 445 460

564 12.44 12.47 12.48 12.49 12.49–54 12.49–83 12.52 12.54 12.55–63 12.55–83 12.59 12.84 31 32 32.1–2 32.15 32.27–28 32.29 32.30 32.35 32.36 32.37 32.40 32.41 32.47 32.62 32.70–72 32.73 32.87 32.94 44–48 55–83 72.5

Index of References 460–61, 464 474 460 460 474 479 455, 470 460 455, 470 474 460 460 461 42 42 18 43 21 42 21, 23 xvi, 14 21 xvii 21 21 43 250 42 21 21 445 445 460

19.93 19.97 40.3 (Hecataeus of Abdera) 40.3.1–8 40.3.8

183 183 139 21 xlvii

Bibliotheca historica 9.1.4 461 10.17.1–3 461 12.1.4 479 12.39.1–2 479 12.40.6 479 Diogenes Laertius 84–85, 93, 312, 511 Vitae 2.111–2 2.115 5.26 5.75–85 5.76 5.78 7.134 7.156 7.177 7.185

511 511 309 77, 84 93 86, 511 215 312 512 512

Dionysius of Halicarnassus Antiquitates romanae 3.67.4 xlvi Euclid xxiii Elements

py g

g

Diodorus Siculus

1.25.2 1.31.6–8 1.50.7 1.85.4 17.52.1–6 17.52.2 17.52.2–3 17.52.3 17.52.4 17.52.5 17.52.6 19.85.4–86.1

4–5, 14–15, 21, 23, 49, 183–85, 479 xxix xiii 23 529 5 14 13 15 16 xvi, 23, 49, 62 5 166, 183

xx Eudorus xxiii, 16, 103, 516– 17 frag. 1 (ap. Simplicianus, Phys. 9.181.7–30) 517 Eunapius 72, 74–75 Vitae sophistarum 472 75

565

Index of References Euripides xxx, 41–42, 135, 464, 471, 503 Hecuba 607

43

FGH 1 1 T 34 87 91 91 frag. 1 91 frag. 7 241 273 438 609 616 frag. 2 616 3c 1057, frag. 22–27

9 9 8 7 7 31 8 291 8 36 151 149 149

Florus Epitoma de Tito Livio 2.13.59–60 76 Fronto Epistulae 1.7.4 4.2.6

(ap. Diodorus Siculus 40.3)

139

Hecataeus of Miletus 9 Περιήγησις γῆς 9 Heraclitus 307, 455, 466, 473 Allegoriae 54 55 56 57

307 307 307 307

Herodas 510–11 Mimiambus 1.26–33

510

Herodianus 1.17.6 4.8.7 7.12.5

xxx xxx xlvi

Herodotus 299 299

Galen xx–xxi, 16, 77, 294, 299, 449 In Hippocratis epidemiarum 3 77 3.2.4 xxi, 265

2.29 2.35.1 2.35.2–3 2.143 4.87 7.61–100

xxi, 34, 37, 45, 135, 151, 154–55, 162, 180 182 155 35 9 277 181

Hesiod

g

xxi De indolentia 6 13 19

299 299 299

Hippias of Elis Synagoge DK 86 B 6

289–90

Hippo

py g

[Medicus] 9

472 311 Homer

Hecataeus of Abdera xlvii, 21, 139, 287, 295, 388

xxx, 16, 31, 36, 106, 130, 133, 135, 242, 289, 306–7,

566

Index of References 466–68, 472, 503– 4, 517, 525, 527

Ilias 1.70 2.284–86 2.546–58 8.22b 10.502–3 13.658–59 20–21 21.498–9 23.72

419 338 xxii 517 467 xxii 307 305 465

Odyssea 8.267–70 11.476 17.266

503, 525, 539 468 465 25

Hypsikles

Libanius 72 Orationes 1.232 30.35

299 527

Livy 8.24.1 38.17.11 139

16, 69 3 3 109

Lucan Pharsalia 10.488–505

76

Lucian 11, 23, 199, 480 Eikones 6

480

Icaromenippus 12

11

Navigium 5–6

13

Pseudologista 21

23

xiii Isocrates 161, 163, 449 Busiris 21 23

161 161

Iamblichus 103, 158 De mysteriis 8.4 (Chaeremon, frag. 9) 157 De vita Phytagorica 149 158

Macrobius

Julian

Saturnalia

Quomodo historia conscribenda sit 62 11

115, 446, 485 g

72–74, 524, 529, 540

1.17.63

446 115

Contra Galilaeos

py g

540 Epistulae 17 21

73 74

Juvenal Satirae 15

xxx

Manetho of Sebennytos xx, xlvii, 36, 90–92, 125, 138–39, 142, 249 Αἰγυπτιακά xx, 36 Martial 156

567

Index of References Epigrammata 1.117 11.56

Philostratus 299 156

Nepos Atticus 13.3

299

Nicander Theriaca 815

471

g py g

158 158 158 158 158

Pindar xxi Plato

Pausanias

1.1.4 1.8.5 1.8.6 1.18.4 1.20.1 1.28.6 1.30.4 1.33.1 1.33.3 2.3.1 2.10.7 2.15.1 2.19.7 2.22.5 2.25.6 3.16.7 3.25.3 5.10.2 5.11.1–11 5.21.9 7.4.4 8.2.4–5 8.33.3 8.48.4 9.11.3 9.27.3

158 Vita Apollonii 3.10–50 3.13 3.15 6.6 6.6–22

445, 457, 460–65, 467, 470–71, 474, 477, 479–80 462–63 454, 461 461 18 468, 478 475 17 462 460 460 462 462 462 462 462 462 462 480 479 13 464, 475 110 3 460 460 468, 478

xxiv–xxv, 16, 87, 89, 104, 159, 161, 207, 283, 319–20, 405, 410, 426, 443, 449–51, 470, 479, 489, 504, 507 Euthydemus 449 Hipparchus 228B–229D

461

Leges 811a

289

Phaedo 114B–C 114C Phaedrus 81CD 230C 258e–259a 259b–d

319–20, 379, 449 320 320 467 442 442 442

Protagoras 311E

479

Pherecydes of Samos frag. 4 (ap. Origen, Cels. 6.42) 306

Respublica 6 7.532 588A–589B 931a

458 465 409 469

Philostephanus frag. 13

Theaetetus 150C

465

478

568

Index of References Pliny the Younger

Timaeus 92c 92c 6–12

xxiii, 405, 503 314 405

py g

g

Pliny the Elder

Praef. 25 3.9.62 5.11.26 5.62 5.62–63 5.63 5.73 5.128 7.39 7.125 8.56 8.74 9.25–28 12.32 16.5 19.1.14 25 30.4 30.18 30.99 32.21 32.150 33.19 33.55 34.19 35.34 36.4 36.8.3 36.9 36.14 36.20–21 36.30 36.55 36.64 36.69 36.79 36.83 37.74 37.75

4, 11, 16, 58, 115, 150–52, 154–55, 157, 289, 462, 476, 478–80 154 16 58 10, 13, 15–16 5 18 158 11 479 13 152 xvi 153 xvi 479 xvi 154 291 151 151 154 3 154 479 468, 478–79 479 463, 479 xx 462 462 475 476 479 115 115 151 11 152 151

xxxi, 289 Epistulae 3.5.11 10.6 10.7

289, 298 xxxi xxvii, xxxi

Plotinus 16, 103, 405, 496 Enneades 2.9

405

Plutarch 34, 76, 102, 283, 294, 311–12, 319, 479–80, 516–17 Adversus Colotem 1 [1107E] 511 Alexander 26.3 26.5 26.5–6

12 15 14

Antonius 69.4–70.4 71.2 74.3–86.5

17 17 19

[Apophtegmata laconica] 189d 88–89 Brutus 4

289

Caesar 49 49.6

16, 76 34

De exilio 7 [601F]

511

[De Homero] 517 De Iside et Osiride 359 B 529 362 C-D 529

569

Index of References 368 C

529

[De placita philosophorum] 1.6, 879A 312 1.7, 881F–882A 311 5.4, 905B (Straton, frag. 94) 319 De Pythiae oraculis 14 478 397A 473 404DE 473 De Stoicorum repugnatiis 41, 1053A 313 De tranquilitate animi 464F–465A 289 Demetrius 26

478

Lucullus 41.1–2

294

g

135

Porphyry xxiv, 103, 157–59, 286, 309 Contra Christianos 6F 157 De abstinentia 157 4.6 (Chaeremon, frag. 10) 4.6–8 (Chaeremon, frag. 10) 4.7 4.8

158, 160–61 157 159–60 159–61

Epistula ad Anebonem 2.12–13 (Chaeremon, frag. 5) 157 2.15 (Chaeremon, frag. 8) 157 Quaestiones homericae 9.682–3 309

Moralia frag. 158

313 464

Pericles 31.2–5 31.4

479 480

Sulla 26.1

34.14.1–5 (ap. Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.12)

299

Quaestiones homericae 20.67–75 (Theagenes, 8) 306–7 Posidippus epig. 115 frag. 1 frag. 2

134, 475, 478 11 478 475

Polemon frag. 73

477 477

Posidonius frag. 310 frag. 350

Polybius

6–8, 21 316 311

py g

xxviii, 7–8, 21, 135 Historiae 12.13 15.27 15.29.8 15.33.11 33.8–9

Proclus xxi xxviii xxviii xxx xxviii

102–3, 320 Hymni 1.33–34

458

570 Quintilian Institutio oratoria 1.1.28–29

Index of References Strabo xvi, xxiii, xxv, xliv, 5–24, 30–33, 39, 47, 58, 71, 73, 76, 103, 109, 112, 122, 125, 132–33, 135, 309, 446, 476

298

Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.4.6 298 Scriptores Historiae Augustae 5 3 72 8.2 530 8.5–8 5, 23 12.1–2 xlvi 20.2 309 30.3 72 32 72 SOD frag. 1 frag. 38 frag. 40 frag. 86

93 88 88 94

Seneca 16, 66–67, 76, 155, 286, 449–50 De beneficiis 2.19

152

De tranquillitate animi 9.5 xxi, 16, 66, 76–77 Epistulae morales 27.6–7 299 88.40 154, 156

g

Naturales quaestiones 155 Sextus Empiricus

py g

xxiii Adversus mathematicos 1.260 xxiii 11.47 xxiii Pyrrhoniae hypotyposes 2.238 xxiii Silius Italicus 3.23.375

xvi

Geographica 1 1.1.1 1.1.7 1.1.9 1.1.11 1.1.12 1.2.1 1.2.1–3 1.2.7 1.2.9 1.2.12 1.2.14 1.2.15 1.2.19 1.2.21 1.2.31 1.2.34 1.3.1–4 1.3.9 1.3.11 1.3.12 1.3.13–14 1.3.16 1.3.17 1.3.22–23 1.4.1–6 1.4.9 2 2.1.1–5 2.1.5 2.1.7 2.1.11 2.1.16 2.1.19 2.1.22 2.1.23–41 2.2.1 2.2.3 2.3.1 2.3.1–2

446 8 5, 7–8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 6, 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 5 8 8 8 8 8 16 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

571

py g

g

Index of References 2.3.2 2.3.3–8 2.3.5 2.4.1–2 2.4.2–5 2.4.4 2.4.7 2.4.14 2.4.18 2.5.7 2.5.11 2.5.12 2.5.14 2.5.24 2.5.25 2.5.34 2.5.40 2.5.42 2.5.43 3.1.4–5 3.1.5 3.1.6 3.2.5 3.2.7 3.2.9 3.2.10–11 3.2.11 3.2.15 3.3.3–4 3.3.8 3.4.3 3.4.7 3.4.13 3.4.15 3.4.17 3.5.1 3.5.3–10 3.5.5 3.5.7 3.5.7–8 3.5.10 4 4.1.3–5 4.1.7 4.1.8 4.1.9 4.1.11 4.1.13–14 4.2.1

8 8 5, 7 8 8 8 8 15 15 8 7–8 xvi, 7 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 7 8 8 8 8 8 8 9 8 8 8 8 8 9 8 8 9 8 8 8

4.4.5–6 4.4.6 4.5.2 4.6.2 4.6.9 4.6.10 4.6.12 4.192 5.1.3 5.1.7 5.1.8 5.2.1 5.2.5 5.2.6 5.3.7–8 5.4.3 5.4.6 6 6.1.11 6.2.1 6.2.3 6.2.6 6.2.7 6.2.10 6.2.11 6.3.1–4 6.3.10 6.4.1 6.4.2 7.1.5 7.2.2 7.3.2–4 7.3.6 7.3.7 7.4.3 7.5.1 7.5.8 7.5.9 7.7.4 7.56 (57) 7.60 (58b) 8.1.1 8.1.3 8.2.1 8.5.3–8 8.6.1 8.6.7–10 8.6.20–23 8.6.23

8 8 6 8 7 8 8 109 8 xiii, 3, 14 8 8 8 8 9 8 8 8 8 8 8 6 8 8 8 9 8 7 7–8 7 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 10 8 9 8 9 9 6, 8

py g

g

572 8.7.2 8.8.4 8.8.5 9 9.1.16–20 9.3.2–12 9.3.11 9.5.8 9.5.15 10.2.21 10.3.5 10.4.3 10.4.5 10.4.7–10 10.4.10 10.5.3 11.1.1 11.1.5–6 11.2.14 11.2.15 11.6.1 11.7.3 11.7.4 11.8.8–9 11.9.1 11.9.3 11.12.5 11.14.8 12 12.1.4 12.3.16 12.3.33 12.3.39 12.7.2 12.8.1 12.8.14 12.8.15 12.8.16 12.8.18 13 13.1.24–27 13.1.35–42 13.1.52–55 13.1.54 13.1.57–58 13.1.67 13.2.2–3 13.2.3 13.3.5

Index of References 8 8 8 8 9–10 10 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 10 6 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 7–8 8 8 8 7 6 6 6 8 8 9 9 9 7 8 10 10 10 6, 16, 132, 299 10 8 10 7 8

13.4.1–3 13.4.8 14.1.6–7 14.1.21 14.1.21–26 14.1.22 14.1.23 14.1.26 14.1.27–28 14.1.39–41 14.1.43–48 14.1.48 14.2.3 14.2.5 14.2.5–10 14.2.13 14.2.16–17 14.2.23–24 14.2.29 14.5.3 14.5.4 14.5.12–15 14.5.14 14.5.16 14.5.22 14.6.4 15 15.1.7 15.1.10–11 15.1.13 15.1.20 15.1.72 15.2.8 15.3.1 15.3.2–3 16 16.1.5–6 16.1.11 16.1.15 16.2.1 16.2.4 16.2.4–5 16.2.5 16.2.10 16.2.13–14 16.2.17 16.2.24 16.2.33 16.2.34–39

10 7 10 462 10 8 13 8 10 10 10 6 14 23 10 8, 10 10 10 8 8 xxv, 6 10 6 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 10 8 10 8 8 309 8 10 21 8 10 8 6–8 8 10

573

g

Index of References 16.2.35–39 16.2.37 16.2.43 16.2.44 16.3.2–6 16.4.2 16.4.5 16.4.15–19 16.4.19 16.4.20 16.4.27 17.1.1–2 17.1.3 17.1.5 17.1.6 17.1.6–10 17.1.6–13 17.1.7 17.1.8 17.1.9 17.1.9–10 17.1.10 17.1.11 17.1.12 17.1.18 17.1.24 17.1.27–28 17.1.31 17.1.31–34 17.1.49–50 17.1.53 17.1.54 17.3.2 17.3.4 17.3.8 17.3.10 17.3.14–15 17.3.22 17.3.24 17.7–9 17.8 17.15 17.21 17.52.4

21 31 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 xvi xxiii xx, 10–13, 23 23, 133 5, 10 14 13, 15, 17, 34, 58 17, 40, 113 xxviii xliv, 18–19, 39, 252 309 xxvii, 8, 21, 135 8, 16 8 10 529 10 5 122, 250 7 8 8 8 8 10 8 7 71 73, 76 8 8 58

philos. 5.4, 905B) 319 Suetonius xxviii, 76 De grammaticis 20

291

Divus Augustus 18.2 52 89.2 98

xxviii 109 289 108

Divus Claudius 2 2.1 34.2

109 109 255

Domitianus 20

xxi, 34, 76, 299, 302

Sulla 295

SVF 1.106 1.171 2.310 2.389 2.416 2.579 2.913 2.1009 2.1026 (Ioannes Damascenus, Haer. 7) 2.1027 2.1054 (Chrysippus)

316 312 314 315 311 313 316 312

314 311 311–13

Tacitus

py g

109, 250 Straton 319 frag. 94 (ap. [Plutarch], Plac.

Annales 1.78.1 4.37.1

109 109

574 Historiae 1.11 4.81 4.84.5

Index of References Thucydides xxx xxx xxix

4.50 6.53.3–59.2

[Timaeus of Locri] Περὶ φύσιος κόσμω καὶ ψυχᾶς xxiii

Theagenes 306–7 8 (ap. Porphyry, Quaest. hom. 20.67–75)

xxi 277 461

306–7

Timokles frag. 1 K.-A.

45

Theocritus xliii, 37, 134, 515 Idylls 15 15.44–45 15.59 15.65 15.72 15.78–87 15.80–87 15.87–88 15.89–95 15.100–43 17 22

Varro 294, 454

xliii, 37, 134 37 37 37 37 37 134 37 134 134 515 134

Vitruvius 114 De architectura libri decem 2.praef. 4 13 5.11.12 26 6.5.2 114 Xenophon 159 Memorabilia 1.2.56 1.6.14

Theophrastus 16, 84, 152, 154– 55, 319, 511 Physicorum opiniones 12 316

289 289

Zosimus γνησία γραφή

318–19 314, 318

g

4. Early Christian Authors and Works 4.1 Apostolic Fathers

py g

Barnabas

5:7 9:1–6 9:7–8 13:1

xxxix, 325, 368, 374–76, 384–85, 390, 392, 395, 431 375 xxxix 390 375

Clement of Rome 1 Clement 47:3

431 xxxvi, 328

2 Clement 369, 393

575

Index of References [Homilia] 1:8.3–15.9 1:9.1–2 5:2

xxxvi 374, 393 151

Didache 368 310

10:3

Similitudes 2:7–10 2:8–9:5 4:2–5 8:4 9:20 9:22

xxxix xxxix-xl xxxix xxxix xxxix xxxix

Martyrdom of Polycarp 18:2 542

Shepard of Hermas 387 Mandates 11:19–21

xl

4.2 Further Early Christian Authors and Works Acts of Titus

Acts of Barnabas

519

519, 524 Acts of John 37–45 42–43 44

484 485 485

Anatolius of Laodicea 281, 285 (ap. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.32.14–19) 285 Apelles

Acts of Mark

308, 368, 370

520, 528 Acts of Peter and Paul 61 541

Apocalypse of Peter

Acts of Paul xxxix

Acts of Philip g

519–20

py g

Acts of Pilate 2.3–4

384

Acta Alexandrinorum/Acts of the Pagan Martyrs xlvii, 8, 22, 125, 138, 140–42, 145, 247 Rec. A, col. iii 9–10 145

2.10 2.13 7–12 8 12 14 33

xxiv, xxxviii, 211, 358–61, 364, 376– 80, 392–93, 429– 32, 436, 533 377 377 377 360, 361 360, 361 360, 361 359

Apostolic Constitutions 368 Athanasius 73, 104–5, 290 Apologia ad Constantium 4 290

576 [Synopsis] PG 28.431

Index of References

528

1:12 3:22 4:13

428 428 428

In Jude 6 9

428 429

In 1 John 2:10

428

Vita Antonii 105 Athenagoras [De resurrectio mortuorum] 399 Legatio pro Christianis 6.4 311 11.1 xli 55 xli Basilides xxxvii, 101, 347, 353, 368, 370, 390, 421, 491 Basilius of Caesarea De legendis libris gentilium 450 Beda Venerabilis De locis sanctis 18

526

py g

g

Chronicon Paschale PG 52 521C 326 Clement of Alexandria xxiv–xxv, xxxvii, xxxviii–xxxix, xliii, xlix, 102, 150, 154, 207–9, 279–85, 289–93, 297, 309, 325, 347, 357–58, 360–62, 370, 374– 76, 379–82, 384, 387–90, 394, 410– 11, 413–37, 439, 441–57, 459–82, 485, 491, 494, 499, 504, 506–9, 518, 523, 526, 529 Adumbrationes in epistulas canonicas 420, 428 In 1 Peter 1:3 428

Eclogae propheticae

3–8 12–20 24 26.5 27–37 27.1 38.2 41.1 41.1–2 41.2 41.2–65 42 42–56 42–65 48–49 48.1 49.1 51 51.2 55.2 56 56–57 56.1 56.2 56.2b–5 56.3 56.3–5 56.3–6 56.6 56.6–7 56.7

416–17, 420, 424– 38 424 424 424 434 424 414 424 430–31 429, 436 430–32, 437 437 431 424 424–25, 427, 429– 30, 434, 436 429 430–32, 436 430–32, 431 423–25, 427, 435– 36 432 419, 429 416–19, 425 423–25, 427, 433, 435–36 418 417–20, 423, 425, 432–33, 435–38 433 433 433 418 433–34 433 418, 433

Index of References 65

437

Excerpta ex Theodoton 417, 422–29, 433– 34, 436–37 4 424 4–5 429 4–28 424 6–7 434 6–20 424 6–28 424 6.1 434 8.1 434 10–16 422–424, 427 10–17 435–36, 438 10.1 422 10.4 423 10.6 423 11.1 423 11.2 422 12.1 423 14.1 422 15.2 422 17.1 434 17.3 434 23.5 424 24 424 27 423–24, 427 69–86 424 Hypotyposes 420, 428–30, 432, 494, 523 Paedagogus 428, 483 473

g

2.99.5

py g

Protrepticus

1.1.1–3 1.1.3 1.2.1 1.2.3 2

xxv, 428, 441–42, 446–52, 457, 459, 461, 463, 465, 467, 470, 473–74, 477, 479–81, 483, 485 442 442 441, 472 506 451

2.13.1–5 2.22.1–2 2.34.5 2.39.2 2.42.2 3 4 483 4.46–49 4.46–63 4.46.1 4.46.1–48.6 4.46.2–4 4.46.2–47.1 4.46.3 4.47.2 4.47.2–4 4.47.3 4.47.4 4.47.5 4.47.7 4.47.8 4.48 4.48.1–6 4.48.2 4.48.3 4.48.4–6 4.48.5 4.49.2 4.49.3 4.50.1 4.50.2–3 4.50.4 4.50.4–5 4.50.5 4.51.1 4.51.2 4.51.3–5 4.51.4 4.51.5–6 4.51.6 4.52.4 4.53.1 4.53.1–2 4.53.4 4.53.5 4.53.6 4.55.1 4.55.4

577 442 473 473 471 472 451 xxv, 441, 451, 470, 465 448 452–53, 457 480 463 453–54 455, 464, 471 474–75, 479 463 475 474–75, 479 476 477 462–63, 477 529, 540 480 462–63 462, 464 xxix 471, 476 467–68 466 465–67, 473 465, 473 466 466 472 479 471 471 463 471 471 454 467 454 463, 474, 478–79 475, 478 467–68, 4778 472 467

g

578 4.55.4–56.1 4.55.5 4.56 4.56.1 4.56.2 4.56.3 4.56.3–4 4.56.6 4.57 4.57.1 4.57.3 4.57.4 4.57.4–5 4.58.1 4.58.2 4.58.3 4.59.1 4.59.1–3 4.59.2 4.59.3 4.61.1 4.61.1–2 4.61.2 4.61.3 4.62.1 4.62.2 4.62.4 4.63.1 4.63.2 4.63.2–3 4.63.3 4.63.4 4.63.5 4.83.3 5 6 7 8 8–9 9 10.92.4 11.113.3 64.3

Index of References 466 467, 472 472, 481 467, 472–73 472 471 472 471 472, 481 472 475, 478 469 479 471 469, 471 472 468 47 467–69, 472 469 467, 469 468 467, 469 463 463, 465, 473 472 472 472 463, 469 473 469 469 452, 470 455 451 451 451 452 452 452 473 473 504

py g

Stromateis 207, 284, 287–88, 382, 414, 417, 420– 21, 423–24, 428, 448, 485, 507–8

(ap Jerome, Jo. Hier. 26) 1.1.2 1.1.11–12 1.1.11.2 1.11 1.11.2 1.15.66–73 1.16.74–80 1.21.101.3–4 1.21.106 1.21.130 1.21.130.3 1.21.141.1–2 1.22.150.1–3 (Aristobulus) 1.23.155.1 1.23.155.6–7 (Ezekiel, Exagoge, frag. 2a) 1.23.156.1–2 (Ezekiel, Exagoge, frag. 2a) 1.74.1 1.77.7 2.8.1 2.9.45 2.17.4 3.21.1 4.7.22.3 4.10.1 4.19 4.141.2–3 5.4.19.1 5.11.77 5.13.85.1 5.35.1 5.96.2–3 5.104.2 5.140.6 5.151.1 5.151.3 6 6.5.41.4–6 6.17.2 6.143.1 6.163.1 6.278–80 7

316 473 414 457 420 420 456 456 150 529 290 291 309 288 xliii 288 288

288 456 456 473 362 473 473 449 473 491 473 506 207 494 424 362 473 473 473 473 424 376 473 424 422–23 390 424

579

Index of References 7.4.22.3

449

Dialogue between Papiscus and Jason 384–85, 394 Doctrine of Addai 525 Enconium of the Monk Alexander 519 Epiphanius 57, 72–73, 104, 490 Panarion 64.3

490

Weights and Measures 11 72 12 17 Epistula apostolorum 353–54, 392 11(22) 392 Etymologicum Magnum 26.8 150 Eusebius

py g

g

xxv, xxxvii, xxxix, xliii, 61, 81– 83, 102, 154, 230, 296, 306, 309, 346, 388, 414, 419–421, 429– 30, 432, 448, 490, 494, 496–97, 501, 505–6, 515, 518, 523–25, 528 Chronicon 7.7 124.1

347 xx

De martyribus Palaestinae 4.5–6 285 5.2 285 7.4–5 285 11.1 285 Historia ecclesiastica 420, 505

2.15.1 2.16 2.16.1 2.16.1–3 2.17.2 2.18.1 2.23.21 (Hegesippus) 2.24 3.14 3.14.21 3.21 3.39.15 4.1 4.2.1–4 (Orosius) 4.2.8 (Hegesippus) 4.18.4 4.36.3 5.8.9–10 5.8.10–14 5.8.11 5.8.12 5.8.14 5.10 5.10.1 5.10.4 5.11.1 5.11.2 6.3.3 6.6.1 6.11.3 6.13.2 6.13.3 6.14.1 6.14.7 6.14.9 6.15 6.16.1–3 6.18.1 6.18.2 6.19.4–8 6.19.12 6.19.12–14 6.19.13 6.19.16–18 6.20.1 6.23 6.25.14 (Origen)

522 369, 523 346, 523 xxxvi 528 306 251 525 525 525 525 523 525 xlvii 363 505 490 82 82 81 83 83 420 xxxvii xxxvii xxxvii 420 xxxvii xxxvii xxxix 420 388 377, 429 494 420 496 299 490 496 xxiv 490 496, 501 419 492 286 298 355

580

Index of References

py g

g

6.32.3 490 6.36 298 6.41.1–9 xli 7.11.3 xlii 7.32.25 285 8.32.14–19 (Anatolius of Laodicea) 285 Praeparatio evangelica 280–81, 283–84, 287–88, 515 2.2.64 xxv 3.9.15 (Chaeremon, frag. 6) 157 5.10 290 6.3.3 290 6.14.9 290 8.2.1–4 36 9.6.6–8 282, 287 9.17.1 281, 291, 293 9.20.2–4 283 9.21.14 (Demetrius, frag. 2) 308 9.22.1–11 (Theodotus) 292 9.28–29 xliii 9.28.3 (Ezekiel, Exagoge, frag. 2b) 288 9.29.4 41 9.29.12 41 9.29.14 41 9.29.14–15 282 9.29.15 41 9.38 230 9.39 293 9.39.1 293 9.42 296 10.11.14 150 13.11.3b–12.2 282 13.12–13 287 13.12.1–2 265 14.16.9 311 19.4 281 20.2 281 21.1 281 21.19 281 22.11 281 37.3 281 39.1 281

Gospel according to the Egyptians xxxix, 347, 368–69, 382 Gospel according to the Hebrews xxxviii, 347, 361– 63, 368–69, 372, 380–81, 393, 395 frag. 10 381 frag. 11 381 frag. 13 381 frag. 17 381 Gospel of Eve xxxix Gospel of Mary xxxix Gospel of the Saviour xxxix Gospel of Thomas xxxix Gregory Bar Hebraeus (Abulpharagius) 68, 70 Chronicon ecclesiasticum 1.15.11 xxiv Historia compendiosa dynastiarum 70 Hegesippus (ap. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.23.21) 251 (ap. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.2.8) 363 Hippolytus of Rome Refutatio omnium haeresium 6.30 491 Irenaeus xlix, 81–83, 88, 399, 499 Adversus Haereses 399

581

Index of References xxxix 528 81

Liber interpretationis Hebraicorum nominum 271

Jannes and Jambres xxxix

Quaestionum hebraicarum liber in Genesim 25–29 57

3.9 3.11.8 3.21.2

Jerome 57, 271, 284, 347, 362–63, 396, 414, 421, 448–49, 489– 90, 501, 528 Adversus Joannem Hierosolymitanum liber 26 316 Adversus Jovinianum libri II 3.13 (Chaeremon, frag. 11) 157 Adversus Rufinum libir III 2.19 497 Commentariorum in Ezechielem 16.13 363 Commentariorum in Isaiam 4 362 40.9–11 363 Commentariorum in Jeremiam 15.4 362 Commentariorum in Michaeum 7.5–7 363

John Cassian De institutis coenobiorum et de octo principalibus vitiis 4.31 xv John Chrysostom Homiliae in epistula ad Galatas commentarius 1.1 541 Homiliae in epistula ad Romanos 1.1 541 John Damascene De haeresibus 7

314

John Lydus De mensibus 2.8

304

John Malalas 217.12

113

John of Antioch Fragmenta e libris de Caesaribus frag. 248 317

py g

g

Julius Africanus De viris illustribus 2 (Gospel according to the Hebrews) 381 2.12–13 363 8 396 56 490 76 285 Epistulae 33.4.1–20 84.10 108.14

xxxix, 150, 154 Chronographica T 47.9 Justin 82, 364, 385, 502, 504–507 Apologia i 31.2

284 489, 501 xv

150

83

[Cohortatio ad Graecos] 503–4

582 9 15.1–4

Index of References 150 504

1 2

[De monarchia]

1 1.1 1.23–25 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.32 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 4 4.1 4.2 5.1–2 5.4 5.5–11 5.11–13 6 6.1 12 15

xxiv–xxv, 503, 505–9, 514–15, 518 503 506 504 503 503 503 503, 508 503 504 xxv, 503 503 503 203 xxv, 503 503 503 503 503 504 503 503 504, 506 503 503

g

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Methodius of Olympus 315 De resurrection 2.30.8 (ap. Photius, Bibl. 232, 299a) 315 Michael bar Elias Urbis Notitia Alexandriae xxviii

Dialogus cum Tryphone 385 113.6–114.4 419

Nilus Epistulae 2.49

[Oratio ad Graecos]

Origen 503

Kerygma Petrou xxiv, xxxix, 360– 61, 368, 375–76, 384, 392–93, 395 Letter to the Alexandrians 368

py g

2–3 3

Martyrdom of Mark xxxvi, 519–21, 523–26, 531–34

521–22, 524, 526, 534, 537 521–22, 524, 534, 537–38 522 521, 533–34, 538– 39 521, 525, 527, 535, 539 521, 524–25, 527, 535, 540 521, 524–26, 528, 535, 540 521, 527, 529, 536, 540–41 521–22, 524, 530, 536, 541 521–22, 530, 532, 536, 541–42 521, 524–26, 529– 30, 537, 542

326

xxiv, xxxvii– xxxviii, 100, 102–3, 205, 284–86, 290, 299, 312–16, 325, 355, 360, 362, 370, 375, 380–81, 383– 85, 387, 390, 394, 399, 410–11, 419, 421, 432, 485, 487– 501 Commentarii in evangelium Joannis xxxvii, 487–88, 493, 497

583

Index of References

g

1.1.1 1.1.1–8 1.1.1–18.89 1.1.2–3 1.2.9 1.2.9–11 1.2.9–4.26 1.2.10 1.2.11 1.2.12 1.2.12–13 1.2.13 1.2.14 1.3.15–19 1.3.19 1.4.21 1.4.22 1.4.23 1.6.32–36 1.7.43 1.7.43–8.46 1.8.44–45 1.8.46 1.11–15.89 1.13.82 1.15.88 2.12 2.14.100 2.19.100 2.20.134 2.21.137–38 5.1 6.2.6–12 13.21.126 13.21.127 13.21.128 13.32.200 13.50.336 13.53.363

493 493 499 493 489, 492–93, 495, 498 495, 497, 498 493 495 495 494 491 492, 494 494 494 494 489, 494 494 495 494 498 498 494, 498 498 488 500 488 362 490 492 498 492, 497–98 492 489 313 313 313 491 491 491

Commentarium in evangelium Matthaei 15.4.4 381

py g

Contra Celsum 1.29 1.32 1.34

490 383 383–84 384

1.39 1.40 1.58 1.59 1.64 1.66 2.1 2.12 2.36 2.55 3.15 3.44 3.75 4.1 4.25–26 4.48 4.51 4.52 4.52–53 4.57 4.60 4.63 5.19 5.22 5.57 6.42 (Pherecydes of Samos) 7.5 8.49 8.51

383 312 384 257 312 384 384 312 384 384 xli xli 313 490 490 312 285 384 384 316 313 312 316 316 312 306 467 312 312

De principiis 1.6.1 2.6.2 3.6.6

488, 496, 500 501 499 313

Dialogum cum Heraclide 5 316 Fragmenta ex comentariis in epistulam i ad Corinthios 8:4 316 Homiliae in Lucam 14 316 Homiliae in Psalmos 23.2 316

584

Index of References

Orosius 71 Historiae adversum Paganos 6.15 71 6.15.31 17, 76 7.12.6–7 (ap. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.2.1–4) xlvi

Socrates Scholasticus 72–73 Historia ecclesiastica 3.2 74

Passio Perpetuae 18.1

Sozomen 255

532 Carmen 19.84–86

68, 102, 104, 320 In Aristotelis de anima libros commentaria 320 Photius 421, 448 Bibliotheca 232 (Methodius, Res. 2.30.8) 299a (Methodius, Res. 2.30.8)

xxviii, 72–73 Historia ecclesiastica 5.7 73 6.2 71 7.15 xxviii

527, 532

Philoponus

g

Simplicianus Aristotle’s Physics 9.181.7–30 (Eudorus, frag. 1) 517 9.181.19 (Eudorus) 516

Palladius of Hellenopolis Historia Lausiaca 526 45 526

Paulinus of Nola

215 215

Procopius of Constantinople Encomium (BHG 1037) 531 Protevangelium of James 381–82, 393, 394 19:3 382 20:1 382

py g

Secret Gospel of Mark xxxix

Rufinus De adulteratione librorum Origenis 7 497

Stobaeus Eclogae 1.5.15 (Chrysippus) 316 1.49.1B 319 Suda 293, 489 Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μιλήσιος 291, 293 ἡμίεργον 113 θ 205 xx χ 170 157 χ 280 317 Sulpicius Severus Dialogi 1.8.1

xv

Tatian 150, 154, 445–46, 456–57, 478 Oratio ad Graecos 1 1.1 22–28 30.3 31.1

445–46, 456 456 456 456 456 456

585

Index of References 33 33–35 35.2 38

478 446 456 150

Euangelium nomine Matthiae (Gospel and Traditions of Matthias) xxxix Translatio of Philip 520

Tertullian 44, 72–73, 205, 483 Apologeticus 15.4 18.8

John Tzetzes 44 73, 205

De resurrectione carnis 399

71, 77, 86, 88 Exegesis in Homeri Iliadem 1.97 157 1.193 157

Theophilus of Antioch Apologia ad Autolycum 3.2 504

5. Nag Hammadi and other Gnostic Texts

g

BG 2 (Secret Book of John) xxxviii, 411 Apocryphon of James (NHC I 2) 354 Treatise on the Resurrection/Letter to Rheginos (NHC I 4) 399, 402–4, 408 46.10 410 45.4 405 45.15–24 405 45.24–26 407 45.26–46.2 407 47.32–35 408 48.28–29 404 48.28–49.8 405

py g

Apocryphon of John/ Secret Book of John (NHC II 1) xxxviii, 410–11 Gospel of Thomas (NHC II 2) 411 34.14–19 362

Book of Thomas (NHC II 7) xxxviii, 411 Secret Book of John (NHC III 1) xxxviii, 411 Eugnostos the Blessed/Epistle of Eugnostos (NHC III 3) 388 Wisdom of Jesus Christ (NHC III 4) xxxviii Secret Book of John (NHC IV 1) xxxviii Eugnostos the Blessed (NHC V 1) 411 Authoritative Discourse (NHC VI 3) xxxviii, 389 Teachings of Silvanus (NHC VII 4) xxxviii, 389 Sentences of Sextus (NHC XII 1) xxxviii, 389

586

Index of References

6. Codices, Manuscripts, and Papyri 6.1 Codices and Manuscripts Codex Bezae Cantabrigensis xxxvi, 337, 346, 386 Codex Gigas xxxvi

Codex Parisinus B.N. 2327 317 Codex Parisinus suppl. Graecus 250 416 Codex Sinaiticus

Codex Iviron 57

374

520 Codex Laurentianus 5.3

416–17 416

Codex Vaticanus Graecus 866 520 Cologne Mani Codex 342

Codex Lugdunensis 204 Codex Parisinus Graecus 450 fol. 461 508

Q, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris 950 230

Codex Parisinus Graecus 881 520, 534

6.2 Papyri

g

AMC 1, 185–86 BGU II 423 III 715 IV 1059, l. 7 IV 1079, l. 39 IV 1115, l. 40 IV 1116 IV 1117 IV 1127

II 153 xxxix

xxix xxxv xiii 117 xlv xlvi xlvi xlvi

Codex Marcianus

py g

317 CPJ I 134 I 141 II 151, ll. 6–8

20 138 4

II 153, ll. 36–55 II 153, ll. 39 II 153, ll. 89–90 II 156, ll. 2–3 II 158a, ll. 11–18 II 194 II 209 II 212 II 213 II 216 II 221 II 328 II 329 II 331 II 334 II 346 II 347 II 348

xxxvi, xlviii, 19, 120, 141 148 148–49 xlviii 138 xlv, 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 30 20

587

Index of References II 349 II 350 II 351 II 356 II 358 II 363 II 371 II 372 II 418, ll. 188–97 II 419 II 420, ll. 200–203 II 423 II 428 II 450 III 520

20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 xxxv, 148 xxxv, 148 148 20 xxxv 278 139

British Museum EA 9900 9901 9901.3 10246 10470 10470.11–12

215 215 216–17 167 215 217

M.Chr. 91 96 188.2, ll. 12–14

xiii xiii xiii

Verso, l. 5 Verso, l. 5 Verso, l. 6.4

171, 174 167 172

P.Ant. 1.7 1.9 1.12 2.54

xxxix xxxix xxxix xxxix

P.Bas. 2.43

xl

P.Beatty 1 2 3

387 xxxix xxxix

P.Berl. 11765 13606 a–b 13615 14039 15808 15824 a–b 1862 1869 9782 20915

xxxix 179 165, 178–80, 183 xxxix 180 179 208, 211 212 xxiii 434–35, 437

P52 xxxix, 352 P66

P.Bibl. Nat. 215, Demotic Chronicle, Verso 180

xxxix P.BM. 10246

P72

167

360 g

Papyrus BnF Suppl. Graecus 1120 xxxix

Pap.bil.. 1

py g

xxxix P.Amh. 1.3b

xxxix

P.Bodmer 2

xxxix

P.Anastasi 1 21–28

172

P.Cairo 3.50153

180

P.Cair. Zen. 59028

xxviii

P.Anastasi 3 165, 167–72, 175, 179

588

Index of References

B 49

165 181

P.Mich. 3.137 3.138 3.166 3.213 7.433 8.477 8.478 18.764 129 222 6652

P.Flor. 1.21

xxxvii

P.Mil. Vogl. 6.287

xlii

P.Giessen 19

204

P.Neph. 48

xxxvii

P.Giss. Lit. 6.3

xxx, xlviii

P.Osl. 2.14

xxxix

P.Got. 12

xxxvii

P.Hal. 1

128

P.Iand. 1.4

xl

P.IFAO 2.31

xxxix

P.Köln 4.170

xxxix

P.Laur. inv. 2/31

xxxix

P.Oxy. 2.208 3.405 3.412 3.486 4.654 4.655 4.727 4.744 7.1007 7.1008 7.1009 8.1057 8.1075 9.1166 9.1171 9.1173 9.1216 10.1228 10.1229 11.1351 11.1355 14.1681 15.1780 18.2190 18.2192 24.2383

xxxix xxxix, xli xxxix xviii xxxix xxxix xiii xviii xxxix xxxix xxxix xviii xxxix xxxix xxxix xxxix xviii xxxix xxxix xxxix xxxix xlviii xxxix xxx–xxxi 299 xxxix

P.Col. Zen. 19

xxviii

P.Dem. Rylands 9

178

P.Dem. Saq. 1.27

180

g

P.Eleph.

py g

P.Lond. 6 1912 6.1912, ll. 53–56 6.1912, ll. 73–88 6.1912, ll. 88–98

xxxvi, xlviii 120, 141, 252 252 257 258

P.Maq. inv. 360 xxxix

xxxix xxxix 117 xxix 117 xlvii xlvii xl xxxix xxxix xxxix

589

Index of References 29 31.2597 34.2683 34.2719 36.2745 36.2756 38.2860 41.2949 41.2981 42.3035 42.3065 43.3119 49.3472 50.3523 50.3525 50.3527 50.3528 52.3657 59.3992 60.4009 64.4402 64.4403 64.4404 65.4448 66.4495 66.4497 654.5–9 657 1380.85 2465 frag. 11

xx xxxvii xxxix xviii 271 xviii xviii xxxix xviii xlii xxx xlii xxx xxxix xxxix xxxix xxxix xxxix xxix xxxix xxxix xxxix xxxix xxxix xxxix xxxix 362 xxxix 542 xxviii

2476

xxxvii

P.Ryl. 1.5

xxxix

P.Turner 18, ll. 15–17

xxix

P.Vind. G 2325 39756 40822

xxxix 459 xvi

P.Warr. 18 P.Yale 1.1 1.2

xxxix xxxix

PSI VII 757 VIII 982 X 1165 XI 1200 bis XIII 1331 XIII 1332

xxxix 139 xxxix xl xxix xxix

SB 16.12497

xl

xxix

7. Inscriptions, Coffin Texts, Amulets, Steles, and Statues VI 31191

Abu Simbel graffiti

116

g

178 CT Spell 418, B1bo

AE 1964, 255

116

APM 7069

223

184 DB 180 DPe

Cairo JE 36949

180

py g

178 CIL III Suppl. I 6588 VI 882

DSaa 116 116

180

590 DSab 2 DSe

Index of References

180 180

DSf 9

ID 1699.1 IG 14.2413.2

180

xvii

KAI 222–224

176

Louvres A 90

178

OGIS II 458 II 657

107 119

Sarcophagus of Teuris foot end (APM 7069) left side (APM 7069)

224 224

538 Satrap Stela

ILS 9059.2.8–9

114

Inscription of Shoshenq 175 Inscription on the Bubastide Portal at Karnak 174

ll. 3–4 ll. 4–5 ll. 4–6 l. 5 l. 6

xvii, 165 185 166, 183 183–84 167 167, 183–84

Sefire inscription 1, A, 6 1, B, 9–10

176 176

Sefire stele 1, l. 5 and 6

170

SEG 15.426 32.809–810

xxix 191

Israel stela

py g

g

173 JIGRE 3–5 4 4–5 9 13 16 17 19–21 23–26 30–32

262 263 263 xlv xlv xlv xlv xlv xlv xlv

Tomb of Petubastis North wall (F-18024) South wall West wall

220 222 222

py g

g

Index of Authors Aarne, A. 193 Abate, E. 329 Acerbi, F. xxiii Adamson, P. 105 Adler, A. 87 Adriani, A. 15, 47, 113 Affleck, M. 294 Ahituv, S. 168, 169, 171, 172 Ahn, J. 338 Aitken, J. K. 131, 241, 243, 264, 267 Ajootian, A. 474 Aland, B. 459 Aland, K. 459 Albertz, R. 177 Albrecht, F. 16, 101, 209 Albrecht, J. 259 Albright, W. F. 263 Alexanderson, B. 448 Alfageme, M. I. R. 464 Alföldy, G. 113, 115, 116, 117 Allen, J. P. 169 Allison, D. C. 347, 348, 356, 357 Alston, R. 136, 137, 253, 258 Altman, A. 261 Alto Bauer, F. 444 Ameling, W. xxxiii, xliv, 248, 249, 250, 253, 254, 257, 361 Amitay, O. 190 Amsler, F. 520 Andersen, R. T. 203 Anderson, G. 153 Anderson, P. N. 343 Andrews, E. 62 Ando, C. 108, 109 Angelini, A. 467 Arafat, K. W. 460 Arcari, L. xiv, xxiv, xxv, 325, 361, 372, 377, 508, 513, 531, 533 Argall, R. A. 388

Arnaldez, R. 276 Arnim, H. von 42, 312 Arnold, J. 383, 384 Ascheri, P. 306 Ashton, S.-A. xlii Ashwin-Siejkowski, P. 388 Assmann, J. 214, 259 Assmann, J. 173, 214, 259 Athanassiadi, P. 319 Attridge, H. W. 284, 402 Aucher, J.-B. 304, 307, 308 Auffahrt, C. 451 Augier, Y. 459, 463, 465, 467 Avemarie, F. 333, 341, 356 Avetik’ean, G. 304, 307, 308 Awgerean, M. 304 Azoula, V. 454, 461 Baasland, E. 393 Bäbler, B. xx, xxiv, xliii, xlv, 4, 20, 30, 34, 35, 41, 45, 47, 58, 102, 479 Backes, B. 214, 221 Backhaus, K. 326, 327, 332, 341, 348, 355 Badt, B. 276 Bagnall, R. S. xxx, xxxii, xl, 21, 22, 71, 72, 73, 77, 78, 130, 205, 287, 291, 391, 392 Bakhos, C. xxxv, xlvii, 148, 149, 258 Bakola, E. 509 Ballenstedt, H. C. 349 Bar, S. 178 Bar Kochva, B. 21 Barbash, Y. 175 Barbu, D. 61, 253 Barc, B. 409 Barclay, J. M. G. xlvii, xlviii, 139, 149, 150, 248, 311 Bardy, G. 482

py g

g

592

Index of Authors

Barfod, G. H. xvi Barrett, C. K. 331 Barthelot, K. 204 Barthold, C. 399 Bartlett, J. R. xxxiii Barton, S. C. 451 Bassir, H. 178 Batovici, D. 387 Bauckham, R. 359, 377, 378 Bauer, T. J. 375 Bauer, W. xxxv, 251, 369–70, 371, 372, 390, 396, 433, 459 Baumann, M. 474 Baumbach, M. 6 Baumgarten, A. I. 91 Bausi, A. 369 Bayer, E. 87, 93, 94 Beasley-Murray, G. R. 352 Beatrice, P. F. 326, 328, 386 Beck, E. J. 377 Becker, J. 351 Becker, M. 157, 334 Becking, B. 177, 189 Bell, H. I. 3, 367 Benaissa, A. 149, 150, 156, 248 Bendemann, R. von. 342 Bennet, F. M. 463 Bentley, R. 71 Ben Zeev, M. P. xlvi, xlviii, 373 Beresford, J. xv, xx, 12 Bergmann, W. 246, 247, 251, 252, 254, 255, 256 Berger, K. 347, 348 Berlejung, A. 171, 179, 186 Berlingerio, M. xiii Bernadino, P. 435 Bernand, A. xv, 49, 149 Bernand, E. 149 Berns, C. 121 Berthelot, M. 314, 316, 317, 318 Bethge, H.-G. 402, 409 Bett, R. xxiii Betz, H.-D. 401 Beyer, K. 186 Bhabha, H. K. 513 Bianchi, R. S. xxxii, 35 Bickerman, E. J. 90, 91, 92, 247, 265 Bierbrier, M. L. 130 Bieringer, R. 401

Biesterfeld, H. 105 Biffi, N. 5, 17 Bilde, P. xxxii, 32, 33, 258, 337 Birnbaum, E. 271 Blanc, C. 492, 497 Blasius, A. 129, 180 Blass, F. 329 Bloch, R. xxxiv, xliv, 242, 259, 272, 278 Blum, R. 291 Boccaccini, G. 508, 510 Bohak, G. xxxiii, xliv Böhler, D. 91 Bolton, H. C. 318, 319 Bommas, M. xxix Bonacasa, N. 15 Bonazzi, M. 516, 517 Bonnet, C. 189 Bons, E. 264 Bonwetsch, G. N. 315 Borchardt, F. 242 Borchardt, L. 119 Borge, J. L. 63, 64, 77, 79 Bos, A. P. 313 Bothmer, B. V. xxxii Botta, A. F. 169, 179, 182 Borgeaud, P. 288 Bornemann, E. 275 Bouchard, E. 104, 306 Bousset, W. 305, 307, 351, 413, 414, 415, 416, 418, 419, 422, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 431, 432, 433, 434, 436, 438, 444 Bovon, F. 384, 519, 520, 522, 525, 532, 538, 540, 541 Bow, B. A. 388 Bowden, J. xxxviii Bowersock, G. W. 115, 153 Bowman, A. K. xvi, xxxv, 111, 112, 136, 137 Boyd-Taylor, C. 233 Boys-Stones, G. 162, 513 Brakke, D. xxxviii, 368 Brancacci, A. 100 Brand, P. J. 167 Brandon, S. G. F. 347, 348, 352, 353 Brashler, J. 409 Brass, P. R. 246 Braunert, H. xvii

py g

g

Index of Authors Bremmer, J. N. xxxiii, xlv, 107, 145, 150, 151, 254, 255, 257, 259, 358, 361, 368, 376, 377, 381, 382, 385, 393, 395, 445, 451, 457 Brenk, F. E. 516 Bresciani, E. 179, 181 Bretschneider, K. G. 350 Breucker, G. D. de 291, 292, 293 Briant, P. 177, 182, 186, 256 Bricault, L. xxxii, 528 Brigham, F. H. 451 Bringmann, K. 245, 248 Brodersen, K. 8, 60, 61, 155 Broek, R. van den. xxxvii, 286, 388, 389, 390, 482, 496 Brookins, T. A. 338 Brooks Hedstrom, D. L. xxxvi Brown, B. R. 13 Browne, T. 67 Broux, Y. 146, 147, 148, 156 Brox, N. 387 Brugsch, H. K. 166 Bruneau, P. 191 Bruns, I. 314 Brunt, P. A. 251 Buchinger, H. 520, 526, 531, 542 Bucur, B. xxiv, 417 420, 424, 427, 428, 429, 436 Budge, E. A. W. 215 Buffiere, F. 306 Bultmann, R. 352, 426 Burchard, C. 356 Burckhardt, J. 67 Burke, T. 519 Burkhalter, F. 252 Burkhardt, N. 455 Burney, C. F. 352 Bury, R. de 66 Busse, U. 335 Butler, A. J. 70 Butler, B. 65 Butterworth, G. W. xxv, 441, 442, 444, 447, 465, 472, 473, 475, 477, 507 Buzov, M. 118 Cabrol, A. 118 Calabi, F. 198, 199 Calice, F. von 172

593

Callahan, A. 520, 525, 532, 538, 540, 541 Calmayer, P. 180 Caluori, D. 101, 102 Cambe, M. 374, 376, 417, 425, 434 Cambiano, G. 517 Cameron, A. 291 Caminos, R. A. 168, 172 Camplani, A. 369 Canfora, L. 16, 481, 513 Capponi, L. 140, 194, 195, 247, 527, 528, 529, 531 Caraher, W. R. xxxvi, 444 Carlotta, V. 316, 317 Carriker, A. J. 284, 300 Cartwright, W. 50 Casey, R. P. 423, 433, 434 Casonova, P. 70 Cassian, J. xv Casson, L. xv, 13, 72 Castagno, A. M. 488 Castelli, E. 469 Cavallo, G. 286 Cesalli, L. 99 Chadwick, H. xxv, xli, 312, 383, 500 Chaniotis, A. 252 Chapman, D. W. 255 Cesalli, L. 99 Charlesworth, J. C. 198, 208, 209, 279 Charron, R. 317 Chauveau, M. 177 Chauvin, V. 70 Cherniss, H. 313 Chevrier, H. 118 Chiai, G. F. 446, 454 Choat, M. xlii, 368, 387 Chroust, A.-H. 313 Clackson, J. xvii Clancy, F. 309 Clarke, J. 307 Clark, K. 7 Clarysse, W. xxx, 127, 128, 129, 134, 391 Classen, C. J. 339 Clauss, J. J. 149 Clauss, M. xiv, 29, 34, 35, 39, 40, 49, 109 Clayton, P. A. 484 Claytor, W. G. xl

py g

g

594

Index of Authors

Clements, R. 285 Clines, D. J. A. 241 Clivaz, C. 348, 355, 386 Cody, M. E. xxxii Cogan, M. 185 Cohen, S. J. 39, 40, 44, 45, 47 Cohn, L. 145, 150, 268, 272, 276 Cohoon, J. W. xvi, 42 Coleman, J. E. 513 Coleman, K. M. 43, 255 Collins, J. H. 449, 450 Collins, J. J. xxxv, xlvii, 148, 149, 150, 186, 198, 258 Collins, N. L. xxii, 92, 229 Collomp, P. 413, 415, 416, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, 433, 436 Colson, F. H. xlvi, 38, 160, 270, 271, 272, 274, 276, 308 Coman, C. J. 287, 288 Connors, C. 9 Conticello, C. G. 487 Cook, J. 233, (Johann) Cook, J. G. xxxvii, 255, 293, 303, 306, 310 Cooper, L. 167 Coote, R. B. 174 Cornman, R. xvii, 372 Corso, A. 474 Courcelle, P. 104, 498 Coussement, S. xxxii, 146 Covolo, E. dal 528 Coxe, A. C. 449 Crawford, D. J. 131 Crehan, J. H. xli Cribiore, R. 130, 299 Crom, D. de 235 Crosby, H. L. xvi, 42 Cross, F. L. 281 Cross, F. M. 187, 191 Crouzel, H. 487, 488 Crown, A. D. 205, 297 Culpepper, R. A. 343 Cunningham, I. C. 510 Cusset, C. 515 Cuypers, M. 149 Czachesz, I. 377 Dainese, D. 420, 443

D’Ancona, C. 289 Daise, M. 198 Damaskos, D. 253 Damon, C. 151 Dan, A. 132 Dana, M. xxix Daniel-Nataf, S. 267, 269, 276 Daniélou, J. 307, 488, 498 Danker, F. W. 459, 469 Da Riva, R. 186 Davey, L. 205 Daviau, P. M. M. 176 Davies, B. G. 173 Davies, W. D. 347 Davis, N. Z. 246 Davis, S. J. xxxvi Davis, T. 444 Davison, C. C. 474 De Brasi, D. 449, 450 de Wolf, P. 318 Debus, A. G. 316 Dechow, J. F. 488 Deferrari, R. J. 523, 525 Deines, R. 327 Deininger, J. 108, 109 Dekel-Chen, J. 246 DeLange, N. 285 Delaney, F. 51 de Lange, N. 262, 285 Delia, D. xiii, xxvii, 15, 21, 22, 30, 71, 72, 75, 248 Dell, K. J. 241 Demougin, S. xxx Den Dulk, M. 334, 375, 376, 379 Denis, A.-M. 92, 93, 94, 279, 291 Denis, U. xiv, 49 Dennerlein, K. 50 Depauw, M. 391 Dercksen, J. G. 179 Derda, T. 30 de’ Rossi, A. 267 Desanges, J. 5, 17 Desreumaux, A. 525 Dever, W. G. 189 Dibelius, O. 422 Dickey, E. 517 Diebner, B. J. 208, 209, 210, 211, 226 Dieleman, J. xxxi, 149 Diels, H. 306, 311, 316, 319, 472, 517

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Index of Authors Dieterich, A. 209 Dietrich, M. 177 Dietze-Mager, G. 249 Dijkstra, M. 171, 174 Dillery, J. D. 150, 249 Dillon, J. M. xxiii, 308, 314, 315, 517 Dindorf, W. 517 Dion, P.-E. 176 Dix, T. K. 294, 295 Dixsauer, M. 315 Doak, B. R. 188 Doering, L. xliii, 230 Domaradzki, M. 306 Donner, H. 176 Donohue, A. A. 463 Döpp, S. 104, 443, 449 Dorandi, T. 289 Döring, K. 467 Dorival, G. 312, 367, 488, 489, 490, 492, 493, 496, 497, 500, 501 Dörner, N. 112, 113, 115, 120, 122, 259 Dörrie, H. 305 Dörries, H. 305 Dorsey, D. A. 174 Drake, L. 519 Dreyer, O. 305 Drijvers, J. W. 286, 482, 496 Droysen, G. 513 Druille, P. 248 Dubois, J.-D. 487, 497, 500 Dueck, D. 6, 7, 8, 9, 31 Duffy, J. M. 384 Dufour, R. 313 Dulk, M. 358 Dunand, F. xxviii, 119 Dunderberg, I. 372 Duneau, J.-F. xv Dunn, J. D. G. 373 Dupertius, R. R. 386 Dušek, J. 182, 186, 187, 191 Dyce, A. 71 Eberhardt, C. xxxvii, 389 Echle, H. A. 451 Eckey, W. 329 Eckhardt, B. 247 Eckstein, H.-J. 401 Edel, E. 167, 168

595

Edelman, D. V. 165 Edelmann-Singer, B. xliii, 108, 110, 111 Edelstein, L. 8, 311 Efthymiou, M. 475 Ego, B. 188, 414 Ehling, K. 194 Ehrman, B. D. 374, 490, 491 Eich, P. 111 Eichholz, D. E. 151, 152 Eidinow, E. xxix, 445, 475 El-Abbadi, M. xxi, 16, 35, 36, 37, 70 El-Faharani, F. 18 Elkaisy-Friemuth, M. 314 Ellens, J. H. xli Elliger, W. 454, 470 Elliott, J. K. 329, 484 Ellis, A. 259 Elsner, J. 8 Elvers, K.-L. 6 Emmel, S. 532 Empereur, J.-Y. 113 Enberg-Pedersen, T. 311, 313 Engel, D. 246 Engelmann, H. 94 Engels, J. 7, 8 Engster, D. xxi, 103 Erb, R. 247 Erbse, H. 305 Erichsen, W. 179 Erler, M. 155 Erman, A. 184 Ernest, J. D. 334 Erskine, A. 67, 105, 135, 230 Esler, P. F. 247 Ess, K. P. 355 Exum, J. C. 241 Eynikel, E. 458 Fabry, H.-J. 91, 231 Falco, V. de xiii Falcon, A. xxv Fallon, F. 198, 292 Farmer, W. R. 353 Fascher, E. 348 Fathallah, O. M. 70 Fauerbach, U. 119 Faulkner, R. O. 184 Feiertag, J.-L. 316

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596

Index of Authors

Felber, H. 180 Feldman, L. H. xxxiii, 60, 296 Feldmeier, R. 16 Festugière, A.-J. 157, 158, 161, 317, 449 Fidora, A. 316 Fiedrowicz, M. 399 Fieger, M. 328 Finkelstein, I. 172, 174, 176 Finley, M. I. Finneran, N. xiv, 49 Fischer, K. M. 360 Fischer, R. H. 389, 421 Fischer-Bovet, C. 126, 127, 130, 137 Fishwick, D. 110, 113, 510 Fitzmyer, J. A. 170, 176, 186, 310 Flashar, H. 467 Fludernik, M. 50 Fluck, C. 218 Fontaine, J. 498 Fortenbaugh, W. W. 85, 86, 88 Foster, P. 375, 378, 524 Fowler, D. H. xx Fowler, H. N. 320 Franco, E. 335 Frank, C. 50 Frank, S. K. 62 Frankfurter, D. 138, 139, 140, 372, 391 Franzmeyer, W. 56 Fraser, P. M. xv, xxvii, xxviii, xlii, 5, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 39, 40, 47, 49, 77, 85, 113, 117, 132, 295, 296, 476 Frazer, J. M. 460 Frede, D. 509 Frede, M. 156 Frend, W. H. C. 395 Frenschkowski, M. 353, 416, 421 Freudenthal, J. 282, 288, 291, 292 Frey, J. xxxviii, xxxix, 29, 188, 342, 343, 348, 351, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 361, 362, 364, 369, 375, 376, 378, 379, 380, 392, 393 Friedland, E. A. 484 Frier, B. W. xxxii, 21, 22 Fromenson, A. H. 246 Frösén, J. 515 Früchtel, L. 417, 449 Frug, S. 245 Fuchs, E. 360

Fuchs, L. H. xiv Fuks, A. 146 Furguson, J. 443 Furley, D. J. 319 Fürst, A. xxxvii, xxxviii, 337, 345, 367–68, 370, 371, 372, 396, 416, 420, 421, 526 Furstenberg, Y. 147, 395 Füssel, S. xxxiii Gadot, Y. 172 Galimberti, A. 531 Gallais, P. xv Gambash, G. 108, 109 Gambetti, S. xvii, xliii, xlviii, 38, 46, 47, 137, 138, 145, 148, 165, 166, 167, 185, 197, 202, 253, 254 Gamble, H. Y. 284, 290, 291, 299, 300 Garbini, G. 203 Gardiner, A. H. 167, 169, 172 Gardner, I. 342 Gardner-Smith, P. 352 Gärtner, H. A. 305 Garvin, E. 12 Gaselee, S. xx Gasparro, G. S. 508, 528 Gathercole, S. 402 Gauger, J.-D. 465 Gauly, B. 41 Gazda, E. K. 484 Geerlings, W. 443, 449 Gemeinhardt, P. xxxviii, 41, 102, 334, 371, 457 Genette, G. 52 Geoltrain, P. 519, 520, 522 Georges, T. xiv, xix, xxv, xxvi, xlvi, 4, 16, 29, 30, 36, 49, 58, 101, 102, 103, 105, 325, 327, 342, 346, 386, 444, 530 Gerth, B. 276 Gestrich, A. 249 Giannini, A. 155 Gibbon, E. 63, 66, 68, 69, 70, 79 Gibson, R. K. 151 Giesen, H. 341 Gigante, M. 286, 294 Giles, R. 203 Gill, C. 294 Gilmour, G. 171, 173, 174

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Index of Authors Giuseppetti, M. 515 Giveon, R. 173 Glassner, J.-J. 177 Goddio, F. 29, 34, 35 Goedicke, H. 167, 184, 185 Goehring, J. E. 325, 345, 367, 372 Goh, M. 461, 469 Golb, N. 301 Goldberg, H. E. 246 Goldfaden, A. 245 Görg, M. 167, 168, 169, 171, 174 Görkay, K. 121 Gorre, G. 127, 128 Gorringe, H. H. 115 Gotter, U. 532 Gottschalk, A. 251 Gottschalk, H. 6 Gooding, D. W. 200 Goodman, M. 195 Goudineau, C. 109 Goudriaan, K. xxxii, 129, 258, 259 Goulet, R. xxiii, 289, 303, 305, 312, 315, 320 Gounelle, R. 417, 434 Goyon, J.-C. 35 Gozzoli, R. B. 166 Graetz, H. 350. Grabbe, L. L. 171, 174, 270, 271, 272 Graften, A. 284, 287 Gramsci, A. 513 Granerød, G. 166, 188 Grapow, H. 184 Gregory, A. 380, 381, 382 Grenfell, B. P. xli Greschat, K. 417, 418, 419, 433 Griffini, E. 70 Griffith, T. M. 465 Griffiths, J. G. 301 Griggs, C. W. xxv, 345, 367, 370, 443, 444 Grimm, G. xiv, 49, 56, 58, 119 Gros, P. 109 Groß-Albenhausen, K. 40 Gruen, E. S. xxxiii, xxxiv, 39, 40, 41, 45, 47, 60, 149, 150, 190, 194, 195, 197, 232, 233, 238, 243, 253, 258, 510, 513

597

Grünstäudl, W. xxiv, xxxviii, 348, 358, 359, 360, 375, 378, 379, 390, 417, 430, 431, 439, 526 Gudeman, A. 305, 306, 309 Guillaume, P. xxviii, 237, 510 Gunkel, H. 192 Gunther, J. J. 348, 353, 357 Günther, M. 328 Gutbrod, W. 333 Gzella, H. 186 Haarlem, W. van 223 Haas, C. xiv, xv, xxviii, 30, 45, 526, 528 Habermann, W. 252 Habicht, C. 460 Hacham. N. 237 Hadas, M. 53, 61, 198, 199, 230 Hadas-Lebel, M. xxxv Haensch, R. 250, 256 Häfner, G. 332 Hagan, J. 246 Hagner, D. A. 348 Hahn, J. 527, 532 Hainz, J. 327 Halkin, F. 520 Hall, J. M. 513 Halleux, R. 316 Halpern, B. 176 Hamilton, M. 517 Hamma, K. xiv, xxxii Hammerstaedt, J. 528 Hänlein-Schäfer, H. 113, 119, 121 Hansberger, R. 105 Hanson, A. E. 112 Haran, M. 300 Hardwick, M. E. 285 Harker, A. xiii, xvii, xviii, xxvii, xlvii, xlviii, 137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 247 Harker, C. xxi, 368 Harl, M. 265 Harnack, A. von xxxii, 346, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 375, 378, 385, 395, 396, 416, 432 Harris, W. V. xiv, 130 Harrison, E. B. 474 Harrison, R. K. xv Hart, C. 51

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598

Index of Authors

Hartmann, A. 247, 257 Hartung, G. 99 Harvey, S. A. 368 Hasel, M. G. 173, 174 Hasselhoff, G. K. 247 Hata, G. 284 Hatzimichali, M. 6, 511, 512 Hauspie, K. 458 Havrda, M. 417 Hay, D. M. 305 Hayduck, M. 320 Hayward, C. T. R. 158 Heckel, A. 367 Heckel, T. K. 401 Heckel, W. 12 Hedley, D. N. 315 Heesen, P. 476 Heine, R. E. 313, 386, 421, 487 Heinemann, I. 267, 268, 269 Heinen, H. 113, 119 Heitmeyer, W. 246 Heldermann, J. 408 Helk, W. 171 Helmig, C. 101 Hengel, M. xxxvi, 91, 92, 296, 301, 351, 356, 371 Hengstl, J. 50 Henkelman, W. F. M. 177 Henry, R. 315 Henry, W. B. 149 Hense, O. 316 Henten, J. W. van xxxiv, xlv, 238, 254, 273 Herklotz, F. 119 Hershbell, J. P. 316 Herzer, J. 356 Heszer, C. 298, 299, 300, 301 Herman, D. 50 Hess, R. 46 Hesse, A. 12, 13 Hickey, T. M. xxx Hicks, R. D. 312 Hiebert, R. J. V. 240, 276 Higginbotham, C. R. 171, 172, 173 Hill, C. E. 364 Hinge, G. xiv, xix, 33, 455, 484 Hinske, N. xv, xxxiv, 49 Hirdansky, S. 246 Hirsch-Luipold, R. 445, 457

Hirst, A. xiii, xiv, xxi, xlii, 34, 35, 137 Hjelm, I. 187, 189 Hoare, Q. 513 Hoch, J. E. 168, 169, 170, 175 Hoefer, F. 319 Hoek. A. van den 285, 286, 288, 289, 290, 388, 394, 414, 421, 429, 430, 431, 435, 437, 439, 482 Hody, H. 84 Hoerth, A. J. 171 Hoffmann, C. 247 Hoffmann, F. 122 Hofter, M. 119 Hölbl, G. 166, 190, 191, 193, 195 Holford-Strevens, L. 152, 153 Holladay, C. R. 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 287, 288, 292, 295, 296, 308, 309 Holleran, C. 126 Holmes, M. W. 523 Hölscher, T. 463 Holt, P. M. 69, 70 Holtzmann, H. J. 350, 351 Holum, K. G. 284 Holzhey, H. 99 Hömke, N. 446, 454 Honigman, S. xvii, xxxiv, xlvii, 53, 54, 60, 61, 131, 132, 133, 134, 140, 147, 148, 190, 191, 197, 199, 200, 201, 230, 232, 233, 235, 237, 238, 249, 262, 265, 266 Hopf, M. 60 Hoppe, R. 341 Horbury, W. xliv, xlv, 20, 262, 263, 273, 373, 396 Horn, C. xxiii, 99 Hornbostel, W. 476 Hornschuh, M. 367, 371, 392, 419 Hornung, E. 213, 214 Horovitz, D. 245, 246 Horst, G. K. 349 Horst, P. W. van der xxxiii, xxxiv, xlv, 33, 38, 39, 43, 44, 45, 47, 145, 148, 150, 153, 156, 157, 160, 161, 238, 245, 250, 254, 255, 256, 273, 305, 308 Houston, G. W. 294, 295, 299 Howe, T. 12 Huber, M. 50 Hübner, G. xxxiii

Index of Authors Huebner, S. R. xxxix, xl, 368, 386 Hugo, L. 403, 404 Hühn, P. 50 Hulin, L. 167 Hunt, A. S. xli Hunter, D. G. 368 Hunter, R. 230, 510, 515 Hurt, T. A. 517 Hurtado, L. W. 298, 299, 391 Huss, W. xxxiii, 166, 190, 191, 193, 195 Huzar, E. G. 145 Hvalvik, R. 375 Hyldahl, N. 337

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Ilan, T. 395 Immendörfer, M. 485 Inowlocki, S. 281, 282, 283, 286, 287, 288, 289, 296 Istasse, N. 481 Isaac, B. 248, 262 Jacob, C. 487 Jacobi, F. 149, 151, 291 Jacobson, H. 281 Jakab, A. xli, 345, 367, 371, 375 James, M. R. 432 James, P. xvii Jansen-Winkeln, K. 3, 178 Jastrow, M. 277 Jáuregui, M. H. de. 442, 506, 507 Jenik, A. 446, 454 Jenkins, C. 316 Jenott, L. 403, 404 Jensen, M. S. xix, xxi, xxii Joly, R. 451 Johnson, A. P. 286 Johnson, D. W. 367 Johnson, J. H. 130, 179, 180, 181, 182 Johnson, S. R. 85, 141 Johnson, W. A. 153, 299 Johnstone, S. 294 Joho, T. 275 Jones, C. P. 42 Jones, D. M. 84 Jones, H. L. 446 Jones, H. S. 461 Jones, K. R. 149, 150, 154, 156 Jones, S. xxxv

599

Jones, W. H. S. 151, 445 Joosten, J. 262, 264, 276 Jordan, M. D. 449 Jördens, A. 111, 112, 120, 121 Jülicher, A. 348 Junkkaala, E. 174 Junod, E. 252, 484 Kadushin, C. xiii Kaestli, J.–D. 252, 484, 519, 520, 522 Kah, D. 40 Kahn, D. 166, 178 Kahn, Didier 317 Kaiser, U. U. 402, 409 Kalimi, I. 230 Kalligas, P. 284 Kalms, J. xlvii Kamesar, A. xxxii, xxxiii, xxxv, 305 Kamil, M. 181 Kamrin, J. 178 Kannengiesser, C. 498 Karmann, T. R. 382 Karrer, M. xxxvii, 197, 233, 266, 348, 389 Kartveit, M. 187, 191, 204 Käsemann, E. 331, 333, 340, 343, 426 Kasher, A. xxxiii, 40, 252, 265, 266 Kaster, R. A. 446 Kayser, F. 117 Keddie, G. A. 197, 204 Keith, C. L. xxxix, 298, 299, 362 Kekelidze, S. 520 Kennan, G. 246 Ker, D. P. 338 Kerchove, A. van den xxxvii Kerényi, K. 469 Kerferd, G. B. 290 Kerkeslager, A. R. 250 Kidd, I. G. 8 Kilpatrick, G. D. 329 Kim, H. 197 Kindt, J. 445, 475 King, K. L. 391 Kinzig, W. 101, 443, 448, 450, 456, 485 Kippenberg, H. G. 187, 188 Kitchen, K. A. 167, 171, 173, 174, 175 Kittel, G. 334

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600

Index of Authors

Klauck, H.-J. 445, 460, 461, 464, 470, 479, 484, 520, 527 Klier, J. D. 245 Klijn, A. F. J. 300, 371, 372, 380, 386 Klintott, H. 183 Knape, J. xxxiii Knauf, E. A. xxxvi, 174, 372 Knauber, A. 483 Knell, H. 13 Knight, J. 359 Knuth, L. 51 Knoppers, G. N. 186, 188, 189 Koch, D.-A. 341, 342, 343 Kockelmann, H. 182 Koenen, L. 128, 342 Koester, H. xxxvi, 328, 371, 372 Kohut, G. A. 191 Kolb, A. 110 König, J. 132, 294 Konopnicka, M. 246 Konradt, M. 340, 356 Konstan, D. 307 Koonce, K. 253, 459 Kooten, G. H. van 311, 312, 313, 314 Koperski, V. 401 Koschorke, A. 62 Kousser, R. 484 Kovacs, J. L. 420, 422, 423 Kovelman, A. 237 Kraft, R. A. xxxv, 368, 369, 387, 396 Kranz, W. 306, 319, 472 Krasilnikoff, J. A. xiv, xix, 33, 455, 484 Kraus, T. J. 29, 210, 358, 359, 361, 380, 387, 389, 446, 451, 458, 459 Kraus, W. 131, 197, 233, 243, 264, 266 Krause, M. xiii Krause, M. 499 Kreikenbom, D. 109 Kreuzer, S. xxxvii, 91, 92, 203, 265, 266, 389 Kristensen, T. M. 444, 454, 455, 483, 484 Krodel, G. xxxv, 369 Kroll, W. 94 Kruse, T. 111 Kubisch, S. 183 Kucharczyk, R. xlv Kühn, C. G. 311

Kuhn, T. 198, 515 Kühner, R. 276 Kuhrt, A. 177, 180 Kümmel, W. G. 310 Kunderewicz, C. 120 Kupreeva, I. 100 Kurth, D. 184, 185, 223, 224 Kutter, H. 430 Laager, J. 526 Lachenaud, G. 311, 312, 319 Lake, K. 82, 352, 505 Lake, S. 352 Laks, A. 509 Lamberti, F. 528 Lamberton, R. 306, 307, 308 Lambin, G. 135 Landau, B. 519 Lang, M. xxxviii, 345, 346, 347, 368, 371, 373, 375, 393, 394 Lang, P. xx Lapp, G. 215 Lassier, S. 491 Lataire, B. 401 Laud, W. 70 Laudenbach, B. 5, 17 Lauer, J. P. 95 Lauter, H. 121 Lawson, Jr., Y. K. 167, 168, 170, 171, 174, 175, 176, 177, 186 Layton, B. 409 Le Boulluec, A. 414, 442, 443, 444, 450, 487, 496, 499, 500 Lechner, T. 442, 443 Leclant, J. xiv, 367 Lee, H. D. P. 313 Lee, J. A. L. 197 Lee, S.-I. 267, 276 Legras, B. xxvi Lemaire, A. 176 Lembke, K. 218, 220, 222, 223, 224, 225 LeRoy, L. 67 Lesky, A. 306 Letrouit, J. 317 Leuchter, M. 199 Levin, C. 204 Levine, L. I. 147 Lewis, B. 70, 71

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Index of Authors Lichtenberger, H. 343, 401 Licona, M. R. 318 Liddell, H. G. 461 Lieberman, S. 261 Lierman, J. 364 Lietzmann, H. 310 Lies, L. 488 Lieu, J. M. 500 Lieu, S. N. C. 342 Lightfoot, J. L. 379, 380 Lilla, S. R. C 443 Lindemann, A. 310, 394, 407 Linden, S. J. 318 Lipinski, E. 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 176, 177 Lipschits, O. 186 Litfin, D. 338 Littman, R. J. xx Llewellyn-Jones, L. 230 Lloyd, A. B. xxx Lloyd, J. 454 Löhr, W. 101 Lona, H. E. 383, 384, 407, 409, 442 Lorber, C. 195 Lowe, N. 509 Lüderitz, G. xxxiv, xlv, 238 Luijendijk, A. xlii, 368, 387, 391, 396 Lukaszewicz, A. 120 Luther, M. 326, 354, 355 Loiseau, A.–F. 264 Long, A. A. 315 Long, A. G. 314 Lomiento, G. 487 Lotman, J. M. 62 Luck, G. 318 Lukoschus, J. 313 Luomanen, P. 382 Lust, J. 458 Luttikhuizen, G. P. 342 Luukko, M. 177 Ma, J. 253, 462 MacDonald, A. A. 286, 482, 496 MacLean, G. 484, 485 MacLeod, R. xx MacMullen, R. 300 MacPhail, J. A. 306, 307, 309 Madsen, J. M. 110 Maehler, H. xxi, 34, 35, 36, 131

601

Magen I. 186, 191 Magie, D. 309 Maier, A. M. 186 Majcherek, G. xix, xlv Malamat, A. 171 Malitz, J. 7, 247 Malkin, I. 127 Mandilaras, B. 161 Männlein-Robert, I. xxiii, 100 Mansfeld, J. 319 Manson, A. 192 Mansuelli, G. A. 13 Marache, R. 153 Marchini, D. 435 Marcos, N. F. 242 Marcovich, M. 448, 503, 504, 508 Marcus, R. 304, 307, 308 Marincola, J. 7 Markschies, C. xxxviii, xxxix, 362, 369, 371, 372, 381, 389, 401, 404, 422, 489, 519, 538, 542 Marsh, H. G. 451 Martelli, M. 318 Marthot-Santaniello, I. xl Martin, A. 345, 367 Martyn, J. L. 353 Marx, G. T. 254 Mason, S. 165, 247 Massa, F. 531, 532 Massie, R. K. 3 Masson-Berghoff, A. 445 Mastin, B. A. 241 Matera, F. J. 401 Matino, G. 464 Matthaios, S. xxii, 81, 88 Mattingly, D. J. 108 Matton, S. 317 Matusova, E. D. 296 Mayer, A. 451 Mayer, W. 259 McClure, L. 478 McCracken, P. V. xxxiii McGuire, A. 422 McKechnie, P. xxviii, 237, 510 McKenzie, J. 4, 5, 10, 18, 532 Meer, M. N. van der 131, 243 Méhat, A. 290, 415, 421 Mehl, E. 462 Meiser, M. xxxvii, 131, 243, 389

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602

Index of Authors

Mélèze-Modrzejewski, J. xvii, 137, 247, 371, 372, 396 Meliado, C. 515 Ménard, J. E. 402 Mendels, D. 198, 249 Mercier, C. 304 Merk, O. 350 Merkelbach, R. 527, 528, 529, 537, 538, 542 Merkt, A. 356 Merriam, A. C. 115 Mettinger, T. N. D. 188 Metzger, B. M. xli, 386 Meulenaere, H. de 178 Meus, A. 12 Meyboom, P. G. P. xxxii Meyer, J. 289 Mihaila, C. 338 Millar, F. 251 Milligan, G. 459 Mimouni, S. 367–368, 371, 374, 389, 396 Minas-Nerpel, M. 122 Minnis, D. 508 Mitchell, M. M. xli, 367 Mitchell-Havelock, C. 474, 475 Mittag, P. F. 250 Moatti, C. xxx Moehring, H. R. 247 Mojsov, B. xiv Molland, E. 415, 427, 436 Möllendorff, P. von. 375 Möller, G. 167 Mommsen, T. 111, 505 Mondésert, C. 415, 441, 447, 448, 449, 465, 472, 473, 481 Moffatt, J. xxxii Monson, A. 147, 148 Montanari, F. xxii, 150, 306, 461, 469, 517 Moo, D. J. xv Moore, S. 231, 329 Mor, M. 204 Morello, R. 151 Moreno Garcia, J.-C. 127 Morgan, J. R. 134 Morlet, S. 269 Morley, N. 108 Most, G. W. xxii, 517

Moulton, J. H. 459 Moyer, I. S. 139, 149 Mras, K. 284 Mroczek, E. 289 Mülke, M. 265 Mullach, F. W. A. 467 Müller, C. W. 277 Müller, K. 317, 475, 476, 477, 478 Müller, M. xl, 214 Müller, R. 204 Müller, U. B. 343 Muller-Dufeu, M. 475 Munck, J. 337, 413, 415, 416, 422, 425, 426, 427, 428, 431, 432, 433, 436, 437, 438 Munnich, O. 269 Munro, I. 215 Münzer, F. 287 Muraoka, T. 301, 458 Murer, C. 455 Murray, O. 197, 510, 511, 512 Murtonen, A. E. 175 Musurillo, H. A. 22, 145 Mysliwiec, K. 174 Na’aman, N. 173, 174 Naerebout, F. xxxi, xxxii, 121 Najman, H. 237, 276 Nanninga, P. 259 Nardi, C. 416, 417, 425, 434, 435 Naro, C. 15 Nasrallah, L. S. 33, 42, 47, 48 Naumov, V. P. 246 Nautin, P. 414, 415, 417, 419, 421, 489, 490, 491, 492, 497, 501 Navarrete, N. V. 247 Naveh, J. 198 Nedergaard, E. 119 Nenci, G. 9 Nesselrath, H.-G. xix, xxiii, xxiv, 16, 29, 31, 34, 102, 105, 446, 456, 457, 461 Netzer, E. 12 Neubert, L. 379 Neudecker, R. 462 Neunheuser, B. 451 Neymeyr, U. 414, 419, 420 Nicastro, N. xx Nicholls, M. C. 294

Index of Authors

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Nicklas, T. xxxvi, 230, 342, 348, 358, 359, 361, 375, 376, 377, 382, 387, 395, 459, 519, 520, 524, 525, 533 Niebuhr, K.-W. 327, 356, 357 Niehoff, M. xxii, xxiv, xlvii, 32, 33, 36, 45, 46, 95, 105, 106, 199, 200, 201, 235, 248, 249, 250, 296, 297, 305, 307, 309, 383, 385, 510, 512, 517 Niehr, H. 169, 189 Nieto, F. J. F. 137 Nikiprowetzky, V. 261, 270 Nissinen, M. 171 Noah, K. 190 Norelli, E. 519 Novo, E. G. 464 Noy, D. xliv, xlv, 20, 262, 263 Nuffelen, P. van 249, 515, 516, 517 Nutton, V. 294 O’Brien, D. 315 O’Donnell, J. 287 O’Leary, J. S. 495, 496 Obbink, D. 286, 294 Oepke, A. 335 Offerhaus, U. 91, 232 Ogden, D. xxviii Öhler, M. xxxviii, 345, 394 Oikonomopoulou, K. 132, 294 Oliver, W. H. 482 Ollrog, W.-H. 335 Oppenheimer, A. 262 Orlinsky, H. M. 238 Ormerod, H. A. 445 Orth, W. 91, 231 Osiek, C. 387 Osing, J. 221 Østergard, U. xxxii Oswald, W. 60 Otto, J. 372 Outler, A. C. 443 Overbeck, J. A. 445, 462, 474, 475, 476, 477 Paarman, B. xxix Pack, R. 490 Page, D. L. 107 Paget, J. C. 267, 298, 374, 375, 383 Palagia, O. 447, 474 Päll, J. 31

603

Papadopoulos, J. 464 Parker, H. N. 299 Parpola, S. 177, 179 Parrot, D. M. 409 Parsons, E. A. 16, 70, 84, 85, 86, 92 Parsons, P. J. 149 Parvis, P. 508 Paul, G. M. 110 Paulsen, H. 348, 357, 360 Pearce, S. xxxv, 155, 254 Pearson, B. A. xli, 68, 325, 327, 337, 345, 367, 371, 372, 374, 385, 386, 387, 388, 389, 390, 395, 396, 528 Peckam, B. 176 Peel, M. L. 402, 405, 407, 408, 409 Pellegrini, S. 381 Pelletier, A. 198, 199, 275, 282 Penland, E. C. 286 Pépin, J. 306 Perkams, M. 101 Perrone, L. 305, 316, 345, 367, 435, 487, 488 Perry, A. M. 347, 352 Pesch, R. 347, Peterson, E. 516, 538 Pétigny, A. 181 Pettegrew, D. 444, 445 Petit, F. 303, 307 Petrey, T. G. 391 Petrovic, I. 510 Pfrommer, M. xiv, 49, 55, 56 Pfeiffer, R. 81, 86, 87, 88, 104, 132, 133, 306, 529 Pfeiffer, S. xxvii, xxviii, 116, 118, 119, 122, 249, 251, 253, 257, 264 Philipp, H. 464 Piatti, B. 50 Picard, C. 95 Pietersma, A. 233, 240, 241, 242, 243 Piotrkowski, M. M. xliv Pirenne-Delforges, V. 461 Pitard, W. T. 171 Plantzos, D. 447 Plassart, A. 441, 447, 449, 465, 472, 473, 481 Plátová, J. 414, 418, 420 Plisch U.-K. 434 Pohl, D. 121 Pohlenz, M. 509

604

Index of Authors

Pokorný, P. 328, 408 Pollitt, J. J. 474, 475 Polloni, N. 316 Pontani, F. M. 517 Popkes, E. E. xxxviii, 399, 407, 411 Popkes, W. 357 Poplutz, U. 375, 538 Popović, M. 251, 276 Portale, E. C. 15 Porten, B. 166, 178, 181, 188, 262, 263 Portier-Young, A. E. 513 Potter, D. 255 Pouderon, B. 325, 372, 442, 450, 488, 504, 505 Pownall, F. 305 Pratscher, W. xxxviii, 345, 375, 394 Price, M. J. 484 Price, S. R. F. 110, 253, 255 Prieur, J.-M. 522 Pritchard, J. B. 168, 172 Pritchett, W. K. 457, 459, 460, 461, 462, 463, 464, 467, 471, 477 Prostmeier, F. R. 442, 443, 457 Pudsey, A. 126 Puech, H.-C. 488, 491 Pummer, R. 165, 187, 191, 192, 205

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Qassem, Q. A. 70, 71 Quaegebeur, J. 35 Quarles, C. L. 318 Quasten, J. 451 Quispel, G. 367, 488, 491 Raaflaub, K. A. 115 Raban, A. 284 Rabens, V. 310 Radice, R. 100, 509 Radt, S. 5, 12, 17, 31, 34 Rainey, A. F. 173, 174 Rajak, T. 92, 197, 203, 205, 231, 232, 265, 266, 267, 272, 273 Ramage, E. S. 109 Rantzow, S. 400 Raphael, L. 249 Rathbone, D. xxxv, 111, 112, 136, 137 Rau, E. 369 Raubitschek, A. E. 478 Rauer, M. 316 Ray, J. D. 182

Rebillard, E. 373 Rebourg, A. 109 Recklingshausen, D. von 167 Redford, D. B. 172 Regev, E. 204 Rehak, P. 116 Reichardt, M. 341 Reid, D. M. 68 Reiterer, F. V. 204 Reitzenstein, R. 317, 318 Renan, E. 386 Rendsburg, G. 172 Rengakos, A. xxii, 81, 135 Rengstorf, K. H. 301 Rescio, M. 414 Rey, J.–S. 264 Reydams-Schiles, G. 100, 314 Reymond, P. 360 Rhea, J. xxxi Richter, D. S. 153 Richter, G. M. A. 445, 474, 475, 476, 477, 480 Rickert, A. 182 Rickman, G. E. xv Rico, C. 132 Riedweg, C. xxiii, xxiv, xxxviii, 99, 101, 102, 106, 371, 414, 443, 451, 508, 509 Riggs, C. xxix, xxx, xxxii, xlii, 256, 368 Rijksbaron, A. 275 Riou, Y.-J. xv Risch, E. 275 Ritter, A. M. 101, 102, 367, 371, 456, 457 Ritter, B. xxxiv, 19, 238, 249, 253 Rius-Camps, J. 487 Rivlin Katz, D. xliv, 134 Rizzi, M. 527, 531 Robert, L. 253, 255 Robert, C. 476 Roberto, U. 317 Roberts, A. 215 Roberts, C. H. xxxvi, xli, 346, 352, 367, 371, 390, 391, 395 Rodgers, P. R. xli Rodziewicz, M. xviii, 16, 73 Roessli, J.–M. 382, 525 Rohrmoser, A. 166, 188

Index of Authors

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g

Rokeah, D. xlvi, 271 Rolfe, J. C. 153 Roller, D. W. 5, 8 Rölling, W. 176 Römer, T. 288, 342 Roncaglia, M. P. 389, 421 Ronen, R. 50 Rordorf, W. 519 Rose, V. 309 Rostovtzeff, M. 21 Rothschild, C. K. 342, 355 Rotroff, S. I. 513 Rousseau, J.-J. 65, 69 Roussel, B. 487 Rowlandson, J. xiii, xvii, xviii, xxvii, 137, 140, 141, 142 Royse, J. R. 305 Ruben, P. 422 Rubenstein, J. 246 Rudolph, U. 105 Ruffini, G. xiv, 130 Ruhe, C. 62 Rumpf, A. 460 Runesson, A. xxxiii–xxxiv Runia, D. T. xxiv, xxxv, xxxix, 4, 32, 101, 148, 268, 284, 285, 287, 304, 305, 319, 387, 388, 390, 421, 509, 517 Russell, D. A. 307 Ryan, M.-L. 50 Ryholt, K. 132, 179 Ryland, J. E. 456 Ryle, M. 17 Ryu, J. 509 Sader, H. 176 Sagnard, F. 415, 422, 423, 429 Sählhof, M. 119 Said, E. 69 Salmieri, G. 42 Samuelson, G. 255 Sanders, E. P. 389 Sanders, J. N. 348, 352 Sandmel, S. 267, 269, 270 Santos Otero, A. de 520 Sartre, M. 166, 191, 194, 195 Sauneron, S. 178 Savalli-Lestrade, I. xxix Scaliger, J. J. 84, 261, 266, 267

605

Schäfer, D. 166, 167, 184, 185 Schäferdieck, K. 484 Schams, C. 296 Schaper, J. 298 Schedtler, J. P. J. xxxix, 298 Scheer, T. S. 445, 452, 454, 455, 456, 457, 459, 460, 463, 464, 465, 471, 479, 480 Scheidel, W. 111 Schenk, R. 119 Schenke, H.-M. 360, 402, 403, 407, 409, 410, 435 Schenker, A. 204 Scheppens, G. 149 Scheuble-Reiter, S. 127, 137 Schiffman, L. 158 Schimanowski, G. 250, 373 Schipper, B. U. 129, 178, 180 Schironi, F. xx Schlatter, A. 337 Schlegelmilch, S. 35, 36, 37 Schliesser, B. xxxv, xxxvii, xlvi, 342, 356 Schlosser, J. 356 Schmid, W. 50 Schmidt, B. B. 188 Schmidt, C. 392 Schmidt, M. 247 Schmidt, S. 530, 532 Schmitt, R. 277 Schmitz, A. 62 Schmitz, B. xxxiv, 62, 229, 230 Schmitz, P. C. 178 Schnabel, E. J. 326, 328, 337 Schnackenburg, R. 348 Schneemelcher, W. 520 Schneider, A. M. 255 Schnelle, U. 348, 356, 357, 396 Schnider, F. 356 Schniedewind, W. M. 297 Schoene, A. 347 Schofield, M. 516 Scholfield, A. F. 152 Scholten, C. 286, 429, 482 Scholz, P. 40 Schönle, A. 62 Schowalter, D. 342 Schrader, H. 306, 309 Schrage, W. 310, 312

py g

g

606

Index of Authors

Schreckenberg, H. 284 Schriefl, A. xxiii Schroeder, C. 461, 469 Schröter, J. xxxix, 339, 342, 362, 369, 381, 402, 403, 519 Schubart, J. H. C. 460, 464 Schubert, C. 442 Schubert, P. 294 Schumacher, R. 342 Schur, C. 273 Schürmann, A. xix Schütrumpf, E. 85, 86, 88 Schwartz, D. R. xxxii, xxxiii, 147, 195, 251, 305 Schwartz, E. 291, 505 Schwartz, S. 194, 266, 267 Schwarz, K. 402, 403 Schweizer, E. 343 Schwemer, A. M. xxxvi, xlvi, 49, 371, 372, 386 Scornaienchi, L. 338 Scott, J. M. 346 Scott, M. 475 Scott, R. 461 Sedlak, R. xxv, 444, 483, 485 Seeber, C. 217 Seehausen, L. 519 Segal, J. B. 181 Seiler, S. 60 Sellin, G. 327, 338 Senft, C. 310 Sergi, O. 176, 186 Servajean, F. 172 Sethe, K. 166 Sevenster, J. N. 45, 47 Shanks, H. 368 Shauf, S. 331 Shaw, G. B. 67, 75 Shaw, I. 174 Sherk, R. K. 107 Short, J. F. 254 Sider, D. 294 Siegert, F. 92, 149, 150, 154, 264 Siegfried, C. 261, 270, 271, 272 Sier, K. 277 Silk, M. xiii, xiv, xxi, xlii, 34, 35, 137 Silverman, J. M. 187 Simonetti, M. 487, 505, 506 Sistakou, E. 509

Siwrmelan, K. 303 Skeat, T. C. 289, 298 Skydsgaard, E. 289 Slater, W. 306, 307 Slaveva-Griffin, S. 449 Sly, D. xxxiii, 4, 145 Smallwood, E. M. xxxiv, 145 Smit, J. F. M. 338 Smith, G. N. 513 Smith, H. S. 180, 181, 182, 183 Smith, R. R. R. 444, 445, 461 Snape, H. C. 348, 352 Sobocinski, M. G. 484 Söding, T. 369 Sokolskaya, M. xix, 274 Sommer, M. xxxii Sontheimer, W. 291 Sorabji, R. 315 Spengel, L. 338 Sperber, D. xv Spicq, C. 326, 334, 355, 360 Spiegelberg, W. 180 Spinelli, E. xxiii Staats, R. 400 Staden, H. von xx Stadler, M. A. 155–56 Stählin, O. 416, 417, 441, 447, 448, 449, 506 Stambaugh, J. E. 529 Stark, R. 392 Stavrianopoulou, E. 127, 135 Stegemann, H. 297 Stein, E. 271 Steindorff, G. 207, 208, 209, 210 Steiner, R. C. 180 Steneker, H. 443, 451, 466, 467, 468, 473 Stephens, S. A. xxxi, 130, 134 Sterett, J. R. S. 446 Sterling, G. E. xv, xxiv, xliv, xlv, 5, 9, 14, 145, 157, 158, 282, 291, 292, 293, 296, 327, 510, 517 Stern, M. 291 Stettler, C. 339 Stevens, L. J. 384 Stewart, A. 445, 446, 447, 455, 473, 474, 475, 476, 477, 478, 484 Steyn, G. J. xxxvii, 389 Stirling, L. 454, 455

Index of Authors

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g

Stockhausen, A. von. 442, 448, 450, 481, 482 Stolper, M. W. 177 Stoneman, R. 134 Strecker, G. 433 Streeter, B. H. 394 Strelan, R. 328 Strocka, V. M. 131, 474 Strothmann, M. 247 Studniczkas, F. 56 Suchla, B. R. 449 Sullivan, K. 359 Swain, S. 42, 153 Swartz, M. D. xlvii, 278 Syme, R. 5 Tacoma, L. E. xiii Tadmor, H. 177 Tait, J. W. 134, 181 Takaczow, B. 114 Talshir, D. 176 Tanaseanu-Döbler, I. 41, 103 Tappy, R. E. 177 Tassier, E. 130 Taylor, F. S. 316, 317 Taylor, J. H. 213, 214, 215, 216 Tcherikover, V. 396 Teeter, E. 182 Tellbe, M. 328 Terian, A. 305 Termini, C. xxxv Theiler, L. 311, 316 Theobald, M. 351 Theodoridis, C. 149 Thiem, J. 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 75, 78 Thiessen, W. 328 Thom, J. C. 510 Thomassen, E. 491, 498 Thompson, D. J. 127, 128, 130, 193 Thompson, J. 517 Thompson, R. G. 325 Thompson, S. 193 Thümmel, H. G. 492 Thür, G. 247 Tigchelaar, E. J. C. 377 Tilly, M. 60, 379 Timbie, J. A. 367 Tiwald, M. 343 Todd, R. B. 314

607

Toher, M. 115 Tolley, H. 384 Tomlinson, R. A. xix, 15 Tomson, P. J. 248 Toorn, K. van der 182, 188, 189, 297, 299 Torjesen, K. J. 487, Toury, G. 240, 241, 242, 244 Tov, E. 197, 203, 204, 297, 299 Tran Tam Tinh, V. xxix Trebilco, P. 341, 342, 343 Trell, B. L. 484 Tresson, P. 178 Treu, K. 300 Treu, U. 416, 417, 441, 447 Tropper, A. 90 Trumbower, J. J. A. 498 Tuchelt, K. 113, 114 Tuckett, C. 382, 394 Tullio, A. 15 Turner, E. G. xxxv Turner, J. D. 403, 422 Twelftree, G. H. 538 Ueberweg, F. 99 Uehlinger, C. 189 Uerling, H. 249 Ulrich, E. 284 Ulrich, J. 284 Urbano, A. P. 487, 488, 489, 490, 496, 497 Urman, D. xxxiii Usener, K. 379 Vallance, J. T. xx, 319 Vandeput, L. 121 Vanderhooft, D. S. 177, 186 VanderKam, J. C. 158, 191 Vandorpe, K. xvii, 127, 129, 368 Vanhoye, A. 326 Vann, R. L. xx Veen, P. van der 173 Veïsse, A.-E. 127, 129, 181 Venit, M. S. xxx, xxxii, xxxv, xliv, 218, 219, 221, 222, 223 Verdin, H. 249 Verheyden, J. xxxix, 342, 352, 362, 380 Verhoogt, A. M. F. W. 129–130

608

Index of Authors

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g

Verreth, H. 180 Versluys, M. J. xxxii Vianès, L. 83 Vigourt, A. xxx Ville, G. 255 Vincent, J.-C. 463 Vinzent, M. 376, 488 Vitale, M. 110, 537 Vittmann, G. 178, 179, 218 Vleeming, S. P. 130 Vogel, C. J. de 443 Vogel, M. 338 Vogt, E. xliii, 41, 42, 279 Vogt, H.-J. 488 Volgers, A. 306 Völkening, H. 455 Völker, W. 415 Vollenweider, S. xxxvi, xxxviii, 334, 339, 346, 371, 386 Vollkommer, R. 474 Volokhine, Y. 288 Volt, I. 31 Vondráček, J. 414 Vööbus, A. 389, 421 Vos, J. S. 339 Vuong, L. C. 381 Wacholder, B. Z. 291 Wachsmuth, C. 316 Wachsmuth, K. 112 Wackenier, S. 181 Waerzeggers, C. 187 Waetjen, H. C. 354 Wäfler, M. 177 Walker, W. O. 328, 329 Wallraff, M. 150, 361 Walter, N. 229, 279, 281, 285, 297, 328 Walz, C. A. 513 Wan, S.-K. 309 Ward-Perkins, B. 444 Wasserstein, A. 229 Wasserstein, D. J. 92, 229 Waßmuth, O. 379 Water, R. van de 281 Waterfield, R. 155 Watt, J. G. van der 357, 358, 359, 375, 376, 379 Watts, E. J. 532, 533 Watts, J. W. 189

Weber, G. 247 Wedderburn, A. J. M. 310 Wehnert, J. 325, 327, 328, 335, 340, 346, 386 Wehrli, F. 85, 86, 88, 89, 319 Weinreich, O. 94 Weinrich, W. C. 331 Weiss, J. 310 Weiß, F. 407 Weiss, Z. 12 Weissenrieder, A. 62 Weitzmann, S. 300 Wellmann, M. 152 Welwei, K.-W. 6 Wendel, C. 300 Wendland, P. 157, 158 Wengst, K. 351 Werline, R. A. 388 Werner, J. 277 Wesselius, J.-W. 181 Westerink, L. G. 320 Wet, C. L. de 259 Wette, W. M. L de 350 White, D. L. 338, 339 White, L. M. 197, 204 White, P. 299 Whitehorne, J. E. G. 252 Whitmarsh, T. 153, 294 Wiemer, H.-U. 527 Wiese, S. 245 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von 65, 87, 88, 89 Wildberger, J. 314 Wilkins, J. 294 Williams, M. 284, 287 Wilson, A. 218 Wilson, I. D. 186 Wilson, N. 104 Wilson, P. 184 (Penelope) Wilson, P. 252 (Peter) Winniki, J. K. 185 Winston, D. 100 Wintermute, O. S. 209 Wise, M. O. 301 Wischmeyer, O. 338 Wiseman, D. J. 171 Wissowa, G. 150 Witetschek, S. 328, 340 Witschel, C. 109, 444

Index of Authors Wittkowsky, V. 508 Woolf, G. 108, 294 Wolfgang, M. E. 25 Wolfson, H. A. 267, 268, 269, 270, 273 Wolter, M. 330, 333 World, G. 132 Worthington, I. xx, 166 Woyke, J. 451, 458, 459, 465, 467 Wrede, W. 462 Wright, B. G. xxxiv, 52, 53, 61, 84, 85, 197, 198, 199, 200, 202, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 242, 244, 249, 264, 265, 510, 512 Wrightson, G. 12 Wucherpfennig, A. 487, 490, 492 Würsch, R. 105 Wycherley, R. E. 445 Wyrwa, D. xxiii, xxxviii, 99, 100, 101, 371, 389, 414, 416, 419, 420, 443, 444, 448 Wyss, B. xxxi, 139, 414 Xeravits, G. 230

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Yadin-Israel, A. 523 Yarbro Collins, A. 297, 347 Yardeni, A. 198 Yassif, E. 192 Yonge, C. D. 276

609

Young, F. M. xli, 367 Young Lee, P. 65, 67 Younger, J. G. 116 Yoyotte, J. 178, 180 Yuen-Collingridge, R. 387 Yurco, F. J. 172, 173 Zahn, T. 329, 378, 417, 422, 428, 429, 432 Zamagni, C. 283, 286, 288, 293, 306 Zambon, M. 100 Zangenberg, J. K. xxvi Zarmakoupi, M. 294 Zauzich, K.-T. 179, 180, 182 Zeegers-Vander Vorst, N. 508 Zeev, W. 12 Zeller, D. 327 Zenzen, N. xxix Zervos, G. T. 381 Zibelius-Chen, K. 183 Zimmermann, B. 81 Zimmermann, R. 357 Zohrapean, Y. 305 Zuckerman, C. xxxiv, 238 Zugmann, M. 325 Zuntz, G. 200, 234 Zurawski, J. M. 508 Zvi, E. B. 204 Zwierlein, O. 41

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Subject Index 1 Peter 356, 358, 361, 382, 394, 436 2 Peter 348, 349, 355–61, 376, 378–79, 380, 382, 393, 394 Acts of Barnabas 519, 524 Acta Alexandrinorum xlvii, 22, 12, 125, 138, 140, 141–42, 145, 146, 247 Actium, battle of xxxiii, 26, 156 Adonis xliii, 37 Aelian 88, 150, 152, 154, 155, 478, 511 – on Apion 152 Aeschylus 41, 45, 465, 471, 503 Agrippa I 38, 250–51, 258 – arrival in Alexandria 256, 258 – mocking of 252, 253, 256 Agrippa II 351 Akhmimic fragment 207–10, 211–213 – angelology 210–11, 212, 225 – eschatology 211, 212 – reminiscences of Jewish tradition 212–13 – spatial concept of Netherworld 211– 12, 225, 226 Alexander the Great xxix, xliii, 13–14, 17, 26, 30, 49, 67, 94, 177, 187, 131 – Alexander’s tomb 17, 34 Alexander Polyhistor 151, 152, 154, 155, 280, 281, 282, 290, 291–92, 293, 295, 301 – library of 293–95 Alexandria ad Aegyptum/Ἀλεξανδρεία ἡ πρὸς Αἰγύπτῳ xiii, 3, 52–53, 403 Ammonius 68, 102, 103, 104 Antioch xiv, xv, 9, 21, 23, 100, 354, 396, 491, 492, 519 Antiochus III 190, 191–92, 195 Antiochus IV 40, 190, 193, 195 Apamea, Syria 9, 99, 190, 326, 328 Aphrodite 306, 468, 475, 478, 480

Apion xxxi, xliv, xlvii, xlix, 20, 125, 138, 139, 141, 142, 145, 147, 148, 149–56, 162, 247 – Aigyptiaka 150–54, 155 – his image of Egpyt 154–55 Apis the Bull xxix, 476, 527, 528, 529, 530 Apocalypse of Peter 211, 358, 359, 360, 361, 364, 376–78, 379, 380, 393, 429–32, 436 Apocalypse of Zephaniah 207–26 apocalypticism/apocalyptic xxiv, 4, 139, 357, 436 – Christian 357, 362, 393, 395, 406, 437 – Egyptian texts 128 – Jewish 364, 374, 393 Apollos xxxvi, 325–44, 346, 355, 368, 385–86, 395 – New Testament image of 325–44 – Search of the Historical 340–44 Aquila 82, 329–35, 343 Aram 168–70, 171, 176–77, 180, 181, 182, 183, 186 – district of Aram 171, 174 – political use for the norther Levant 176–77 – referred to in Hieroglyphic and Demotic texts 178–80 – referred to in P.Anastasi 3 168–70 – use of “Aram” in Egypt 177–78 Aramaic 127, 167, 169, 175, 185, 261, 262, 264, 266, 274, 278, 352 – Aramaic Urtext of the Dialogue of the Philosophers and Cleopatra 317 – Egyptian texts in Aramaic 180, 181– 82 – evidence in Alexandria 262

Subject Index

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– evidence in Persian times in Egypt 262 – evidence in Ptolemaic times 262 – inscriptions, Mount Gerizim 191 – Philo’s knowledge see Philo, education in Hebrew/Aramaic – script 198 Aristeas see Letter of Aristeas Aristotle/Aristotelianism xxiv, xxv, 6, 88, 89, 100, 103, 319, 509, 510, 512 Artapanus 282, 287, 295, 388 Athanasius 73, 104, 105 Athens xxi, xxv, 6, 30, 83–89, 99, 101, 102–3, 105, 130, 133, 135, 444, 475, 476–77, 478, 511, 512, 514 – Athena 306–7, 466, 467, 479, 480 – Athenian drama xxi, 42, 62, 298 – Bryaxis of Athens 475–76 – Lyceum 16, 104 – Plato’s Academy 16, 105, 161 – Praxiteles of Athens 474–75 – Telesius of Athens 476, 477 Augustus/Octavian xxv, xxvii, xxviii, xxxiii, xxxv, xlvii, xlix, 15, 19, 27, 45, 103, 107, 108, 109, 117, 121, 122, 147 – Temple of Augustus in Alexandria 112–17, 120–21 – Temples of Upper Egpyt 117–19, 120, 141 – Temple of Karnak 118 – Temple on Philae Island 118–19 Aulus Gellius 150, 152, 153, 154 – on Apion 152–54 baptism 310, 330–33, 335–36, 340, 381, 386, 401, 407 Bar Kokhba revolt 375, 377, 378, 393 Barnabas 374, 393, 519, 522, 523, 524 Basilides xxxvii, 101, 347, 353, 368, 421, Bibliotheca Alexandrina 64, 68, 81 Borges, Jorge Luis 63, 64, 79 Boukolou 528, 529, 540, 541 boule xxvii, xl, 112, 137, 141 – interdiction of Alexandria’s xxvii, 112

611

Caesarea (Maritima) 99, 102, 279–302, 329, 341, 450, 488–92, 500–1 – Christian Community in 500–1 Caliph ʿUmar I 66, 68–71, 77 Callimachus 36, 37, 77, 135, 515 Canopic road see Cityscape of Alexandria, Canopic road catechetical school 105, 290, 370, 389, 395, 420–21, 426, 482–83, 496 Celsus xli, 103, 285, 373, 382, 385, 394, 395, 490 – Logos Alethes 383–84 Chaeremon xxiii, xxxi, xlix, 125, 139, 142, 145, 147, 148, 149, 156–62, 163 – description of Egyptian priests 157– 61 chora xviii, 117, 121, 125, 126, 130– 31, 134, 140, 209, 217–19, 223, 225 – Tombs of the Egyptian chora xxxii, 209, 217–23, 225 Christianity/Christians – among social/educated elite xxxvii, xl, xli, 102, 103, 106, 370–71, 389– 90 – apologetics 81 – and Alexandria’s Jewish community xxxvi–xxxvii, xlix, 348, 518 – ascetic groups in 162 – attacks against xli–xlii, 383–85 – burial practices xliv – continuities with Jewish-Hellenistic philosophy 101, 385–86, 388–89 – early writings/literature xxxix, xl, xlix, 334, 347, 348, 374–82 – emergence of xxvi, xxxviii, xl, 325, 347, 367–97 – missionaries/travelers 333, 340, 374, 396 – non-intellectual circles 533 – orthodoxy 343 – plurality/early Christianities xlix, l, 341–42, 395 – private writings xl – rioting/religious violence in Alexandria by 29, 73, 74, 77, 78, 102, 259, 540 – lack of knowledge about origins in Alexandria 345, 368

py g

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612

Subject Index

Cilicia xvii, 346 City of Alexandria – bouleuterion xxvii, 19 – Broucheion xlii, 30 – Canopic road xx, xliii, 19, 30, 58 – city walls xliii, 14, 18, 20, 60 – Delta quarter see Jews in Alexandria, Jewish district/Delta quarter – emporium 17, 18, 26, 113, – five districts xlii, 22, 30, 254 – Great Harbor xv, xx, xxi, 10–13, 17, 23–24, 26, 29, 34, 40, 113 – Great Library see Great Library – Great Lighthouse xx, 11–12, 24, 26, 29, 48, 57 – gymnasium/gymnasia xxvii, xxxv, 19, 27, 38, 39–40, 43, 44, 46, 48, 142, 251, 252, 256 – heptastadium 17–18, 24, 26, 56, 58 – hippodrome xxviii, 19, 27, 141 – island of Pharos xx, xxviii, 10–13, 20, 23, 26, 34, 56–58, 59 – necropoleis and cemeteries xliii– xliv, xlvi, 19, 20, 27, 30, 218, 254, 263 – royal quarters xx, xlii, xliii, 16, 17, 20–21, 25–26, 29, 30, 34, 37, 58 – streets 15 – theater xxvii, xxviii, xlii–xliii, xlvi, 17, 19, 26, 40–48, 141, 252–53, 255–56 citizenship 21, 112, 125, 133, 136, 137, 141, 142, 147 – Alexandria, Ptolemaïs, and Naucratis xxvii, 136 – Alexandrian xl, 74, 112, 126, 133, 137, 141, 142, 147, 148, 249, 258 – Christians xli – Egyptians xxxi, 147 – Greeks xxvi, xxvii, xxix, xxxiv, 147, 223, 252 – Jews xxxv, xlviii, 19, 248 – Philo and his family xxxv, 248 – Roman xxvii, 31, 32, 136, 147, 249 Claudius, emperor xxxvi, xlvii, xlviii, 19, 32, 118, 138, 141, 149, 156, 346, 369 Clement of Alexandria 207–26, 287– 89, 290–91, 357, 358, 360, 374, 375,

388, 394, 413–39, 441–85, 506–8, 523, 529 Cleopatra I 190–91, 194–95 Cleopatra VII 12, 19, 27, 113, 117 – needles of Cleopatra 114, 116, 118, 121 Cleopatra the Alchemist 316–18 coffin/sarcophagus xliv, 17, 26, 219, 223, 224, 225, 529 – images on xxxii, 224, 225 – text spell 184 – of the Didyme 223 Corinth 325, 326, 327, 329, 330, 336, 343, 386, 401 – Corinthian Christian Community 337–40 Cyprus 374, 456, 519, 524 Cyril of Alexandria 104 Damascus 171, 172, 174, 176, 179, 182, 183 Delta quarter see Jews in Alexandria, Jewish district/Delta quarter Demetrius (bishop) xxxvii, 346, 368– 70, 392, 419 Demetrius of Phalerum xxii, xlix, 34, 35, 54, 56, 57, 59, 81–87, 92–95, 198, 200, 201, 231, 234, 235, 238, 239, 244, 295, 296, 308, 388, 511 – as imagined by Aristeas 82–83, 92, 94–95 – banished by Ptolemy II 84–85 – “pagan” testimonies 85–89 – in Cicero’s De finibus 85–86 – in Jewish Studies 89–92 Demotic document/literature 126, 129, 131, 134, 178, 180, 223, 243 Dialogue between Papiscus and Jason 384–85, 394 Didymus 104, 362, 380 Dio Chrysostomos/Dion of Prusa 445, 455, 460, 461, 467, 470, 474, 479, 485 Diodorus Siculus xiii, 4–5, 23, 49, 58, 62, 183, 184, 185, 479 Diogenes Laertius 84, 85, 86, 93, 312, 511 drama xliii, 41, 261, 298, 509

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Subject Index edict – of Caracalla xlviii – of Claudius 138 – of Vibius Maximus xviii Egyptians in Alexandria – among social elite 37 – Gods xxx, xlii, 37, 128, 522 – Sarapis 462, 522 – temples xlii, 35 , 37 – prejudices against xxix, xxx, 31, 248, 522 – scribes 127 Egyptian priests xx, xxx, 37, 40, 112, 128, 138, 140, 152, 156, 157, 166, 283–86, 286–87, 490, 504 – and Jewish Therapeutae 158–62, 163 – Chaeremons’s image of 158–62 – high priest of Heliopolis 36 – high priest of the Nile xxxi – priest of Buto 166 – priests of Hermopolis 152 Eleazar, High Priest see Letter of Aristeas, Eleazar Elephantine 138, 165, 166, 178, 181, 182,187, 188, 197, 262, 300 emperor cult l, 108–10, 111–12, 117, 118, 119, 120, 123, 139 – as creative dialogue between ethnic groups 122–23 ephebate 19, 136, 252 Ephesus xiv, 8, 100, 326, 329, 330, 331, 333, 336, 340, 341, 342, 348, 349, 351, 353, 354, 386, 395, 485, 527 epic 16, 198, 261, 298 – epic poetry of Theodotus 198, 280, 292, 296 – epic meter 296 Epistle of Barnabas 368, 374–75, 376, 384, 385, 390, 393 Euclid xx, 16 Eudorus xxiii, 16, 103, 516–17 Eunapius 72, 74, 75 Euripides 41, 43, 471, 503 Exodus story 249 – Egyptian rewritings 125, 139, 142, 156 – Ps.-Aristeas’s rewriting 233–34, 236, 237

613

Ezekiel xliii, 41, 42, 287, 292, 296, 388 – Exagoge 41, 282, 288, 292 Fayum xxxix, xl, 126, 128 festival 30 – of Adonis 37 – completion of the Septuagint xxii, xliii, 44 Flaccus xlv–xlvi, 32, 33, 38, 39, 43, 45, 46, 250, 251, 252, 253, 255, 256 Fragments of Hellenistic Jewish Authors xxxix, 279–83 – Alexandrian provenance 296 – Alexander Polyhistor see Alexander Polyhistor – authorship 295–96 – composition and dissemination 298– 302 – connections between Eusebius and Clement 287–89 – date 295 – Egyptian flair of some fragments 296–97 – excerpts in Eusebius 280–82, 283, 293 – (public) Jewish libraries 300–1 – Jewish provenance 295 – Jewish scribes 297–98, 299 – Jewish self-understanding 279 – libraries of Clement in Alexandria 290–91 – library of Caesarea 283–86, 286–87, 490 – private libraries 294–95, 298, 299 – process of excerpting 289–90 – public libraries 293–94 Galen xx, 16, 294, 299, 449 Gnosticism 101, 350, 351, 352, 364, 371, 388, 389, 390, 395, 405, 408, 409, 421, 496, 526, 533 Gospel according to the Egyptians 347, 368, 369, 382 Gospel according to the Hebrews 347, 361–63, 368, 369, 372, 380–81, 393 Greece xli, 35, 69, 155, 346, 491, 492, 497 Greek Gods – Aphrodite 468, 475

614

Subject Index

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– Apollo xxviii, 107, 306, 462, 476, 479 – Demeter xxviii, 308 – Dioscuri xxvii, 134, 462 – Poseidon xxviii, 26, 476 – Sarapis/Serapis see Sarapis/Serapis; Serapeum – statues (representation of gods) 454–56 Greek language – as main language of Jews in Egypt xxxiv, 147, 261–62, 263, 280, 295 – as second language of Egyptian scribes 127 gymnasiarch xl, 142, 252, 258 gymnasium see City of Alexandria, gymnasium Hadrian, emperor xlvi, 530, 531 Harbor see City of Alexandria, Great Harbor Hebrew 69, 90, 91, 127, 191, 198, 199, 234, 235, 242, 243 – as spoken language 267, 275 – early Semitic evidence in Egypt 262 – etymologies 270–73 – evidence in the Hellenistic era 262 – evidence in the 2nd/3rd century CE 278 – lack of knowledge among Alexandrian Jews 242, 243, 262 – problem of exact dating of inscriptions 263 – script 199, 200, 203 – translation of Hebrew Scripture see Septuagint, translation by Jews in Egypt – used in Samaria 198 Hebrews 326, 348, 351, 354–55 Heracleon 370, 487, 490, 491, 492, 494, 497, 498, 500, 501 Heraclit 455, 466, 473 Herodotus xxi, 35, 37, 45, 151, 154, 155, 162, Hesiod xxi, 289, 307 hieroglyphs/hieroglyphic writing 168, 169, 170, 175, 178–80, 184 hinterland see chora

Holy Spirit 207, 330, 332, 333, 521, 522, 524, 538 Homer/Homeric scholarship xxi, xxii, 16, 31, 95, 105, 133, 134–35, 292, 306, 307, 308–9, 466, 472, 503, 504, 512, 514, 515, 517, 525, 527 hub xiii, xxv, l, 29, 106, 259, 400 – Alexandria as a cultural hub 29, 141, 296 – Alexandria as an economic hub xv– xvi – Alexandria as an educational hub 29, 104, 370, 389, 511 – Alexandria as a hub of literature xxi–xxii, 29, 104, 141, 489 – Alexandria as an intellectual hub 16, 100, 104, 489 – Alexandria as a philosophical hub xxiii–xv, 105, 489 – Alexandria as a scientific hub xix, 370 – Alexandria as a migration hub xvii– xviii Hypatia xx, 102, 103, 259 identity emergence xiv, xxix, xxxiii, xlvii, xlix, 45, 125–26, 182, 372–73, 533 – Christian xiv, xlix, 372–73, 393, 531–32, 533 – Egyptian xiv, xlix, 296–97, 462, 531–32 – Greek xiv, xlix, 32, 129–31, 133–35 (under Ptolemaic rule), 136–38 (under Roman rule), 138–41 – Jewish xiv, xxxiii, xlix, 32, 45, 209, 238, 244, 296, 372–73 immigrants see migration; hub, Alexandria as a migration hub India xv–xvi, xliii, 155, 158, 161, 162, 259, 420 Irenaeus xli, xlix, 81, 82, 83 – anti-Jewish tendency 83 Isis xxviii–xxix, xxx, 14, 35, 119, 465 Isidorus xlix, 38, 103, 146, 148–149, 252 – as anti-Jewish adviser 38, 148–149 Israel stela 173–74

Subject Index

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Italy/Italians xvii, 4, 8, 135, 154, 155, 159, 262, 355 James, epistle 356–7 Jerusalem xxxvi, 53, 83, 185, 187, 188, 345, 524 – as imagined in the Letter of Aristeas 53–54, 56, 60, 61, 62 – gymnasium 40 – High Priest 61, 62, 187, 188, 194, 196, 199, 204, 231, 233, 235, 237, 363, 423 – temple 54, 60, 61 – trade relations with Alexandria xvi Jews/Judeans 130, 234, 246, 248, 352, 372 Jews in Alexandria – anti-Jewish literature xlvii, 83, 148, 393 – anti-Jewish polemic xlvii, 47, 149, 150, 154, 249, 250, 252, 253, 257, 375, 393, 395 – Apollos as Alexandrian Jew see Apollos – education at the gymnasium 39–40 – elite 256 – ethnic cleansing 254 – ethnic identity 244, 247 – gerousia 148, 254, 255 – Great Synagogue xlv, 90, 254 – Jewish district/Delta quarter xlii, xliv–xlv, 20–21, 23, 47–48, 59, 254 – politeuma/πολίτευμα xxxiv, 58, 201, 202, 203, 232, 238, 249 – political privileges xxxiii, xxxv, xlviii, 259 – refugees xlvi, 254 – religious identity 247–48 – social ambitions xxiii, xlviii, 258 – synagogues xxxiii, xlv, 43, 47, 247, 248, 253–54, 259, 266, 300–301, 341, 345, 389–90 Johannine circle 312, 342–3, 350–4 – Apocalypse of John/Book of Revelation 211, 493 – Gospel of John 348, 351–5, 356, 364, 494 – Johannine Epistles 356

615

John the Baptist 329, 330, 332, 335, 336, 340, 341, 343 – and baptist groups 331, 339, 342 – followers 331, 332, 343 Josephus xlvii, 5, 22, 57, 61, 154, 157, 165, 183, 184, 185, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 230, 250, 281, 283, 284 – on Apion 149, 257 – on Mount Gerizim 185, 187 – on the city of Alexandria xxxii– xxxiii, 5, 11, 21, 23 – on the Essenes 158 – on Alexandria’s Jewish quarter xlv, 20 – use of anti-Hellenistic stereotypes xlvii Jude, epistle 356–8, 379, 382, 393 Judea xlvi, 62, 129, 251, 386 – as imagined in the Letter of Aristeas 53, 60–61, Julian (the Apostate) 72, 74, 524, 529, 540 Julius Caesar 13, 34, 40, 75, 76, 113, 116 Karnak 118, 211, 212–13 Kerygma Petrou xxxix, 361, 375–76, 392, 393 Kitos War/diaspora revolt 115–117 CE xxxiii, xxxvii, xxvi, xlvi, 125, 139, 247, 375, 378, 392 Kom el-Dikka xviii, xlv, 105 Letter of Aristeas – adaption of Exodus story in the 237–38 – Aristeas as character 52, 230–31 – Aristeas as narrator 52, 230–31 – and theater xliii, 41 – as historical source 229, 243 – author of xviii, 40, 230–31 – Eleazar 60, 202, 231, 234, 235, 236, 237 – inclusion of Jewish law into Alexandrian library 35–36, 234, 235 – on side-effects of migration xviii – on origin of Alexandrian Jews xvii – on the city of Alexandria 49–62

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616

Subject Index

– original title 230 – Philocrates 52, 62, 230, 231 – translation of the Hebrew Scripture xxii, 35, 50, 54, 232–33, 234–38, 239–43, 244, 265–66 libraries – Egyptian see Ptolemaic Egypt, Egyptian (temple) libraries – Jewish see Fragments of Hellenistic Jewish authors, Jewish libraries library in the Serapeum 17, 71–75 (Great) Library of Alexandria xvi, 16– 17, 29, 31, 34–37, 48, 52, 54, 59, 62, 63–79, 81–88, 105, 126, 131, 132, 133, 134, 198, 201, 231, 232, 233, 234, 236, 238, 239, 265, 280, 284, 291, 300, 302, 481, 511 – as expression of hellenocentric politics 34–35 – as multicultural landmark 35–37 – royal patronage xix, 34, 133, 231, 232, 242, 511, 514, 517 – demolition by neglect 78–79 – destruction debate 77–79 – destruction by Caliph ‘Umar I 66, 68–71, 77 – destruction by Christians 71–75 – destruction by Julius Caesar 16, 34, 75–77 (Great) Lighthouse see City of Alexandria, Great Lighthouse Luke (Evangelist) xxxvi, 330–336, 340–344, 345–6, 382, 384, 386 Luther, Martin – on Hebrews 326, 354–55

– founding of Christianity in Alexandria xxxvi, 346, 369, 520, 525, 533 – Gospel of 347, 369, 382, 525 – feast of 531–32 – as apostle 522, 524 – as founder of the church in Alexandria 525 – as Peter’s hermeneutēs 523, 524 – death 526, 530 Martyrdom of Mark 519–533 – anti-Egyptian stance 526, 527, 530, 532–33 – anti-Greek stance 526, 530, 532– 533 – no mention of Jews 526 – Text and Translation 534–42 medicine xix, 69 merchants xvi, xvii, 25, 48, 108, 207 migration xvii–xviii, xlv, 37, 53, 126– 27, 129–30, 154, 262, 392, 395 – Jewish migration xvii, 262, 392, 396 Mount Gerizim 165, 183, 184, 185, 187, 188, 189, 191, 195, 196, 202, 204 – destruction of 204 – excavations 186, 191 – independent status 195 – religious authorities 187, 188 – rivalry between Jerusalem and 192, 203 – Yahwistic cult 188, 189 – Yahwistic scriptures 189, 197 Museum/Mouseion xix, xxi–xxii, 16, 34–37, 54, 67, 71, 76, 81, 87, 105, 309, 511

Macedonia/Macedonian 4, 26, 82, 83, 127, 129, 130, 250 – Athens under the rule of 85 – Cassander 84 – conquest xvii – identity 131 – soldiers xxvi – officials xxvi Manetho xx, xlvii, 36, 90–91, 92, 125, 138, 139, 142, 249 Mark Antony 17, 19, 26, 27, 113 Mark (Evangelist) xxxvi, 520, 522, 523, 524, 525

Nag Hammadi xxxvii, xxxviii, 354, 389, 402, 403, 409, 410 Nash Papyrus 263 Nero, emperor 251, 362, 525 Nomina sacra 390–91 Onomastics xxxii, 391 Origen xxiv, xxxvii, xli, 100, 102, 103, 205, 284, 285, 286, 290, 299, 312, 314, 315, 316, 355, 360, 362, 370, 375, 380, 381, 383, 384, 385, 387, 390, 394, 410, 411, 421, 467, 487– 501, 526

Subject Index

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– Alexandrian period 489, 491, 492, 493, 501 – and Ambrose 489–90, 493–96, 498– 99 – Ambrose as patron of 490, 493 – Ambrose’s mandate for the Commentary on John 491, 492, 495 – as a heretic 487, 496, 501 – Caesarean books/period 488, 489, 492, 500, 501 – definition of Gospel 494 – heretics among his readers 496–98 – on John 493 – sensory gospel 495 – spiritual gospel 495, 499, 500 – spiritual person 498, 499 Osiris xxix, 214, 216, 220, 221, 222, 226, 476, 527, 529, 530 Oxyrhynchus xviii, xxxix, xl, 20, 271, 278, 299 paideia 30, 32, 33, 39, 42, 44, 46, 48, 156, 334, 510, 511, 512, 513 – Jewish-Hellenistic 44, 278, 508 Palestine xv, xli, 90, 173–75, 187, 189, 261–62, 266–67, 269, 297, 339, 345–47, 351, 355–6, 363–64, 376, 390, 393, 402, 491–92 Pamphilus 101, 102, 284, 285, 286, Pantaenus xxiv, xxxvii, 102, 290, 368, 370, 388–89, 413–39, 526 Paul of Tarsus 374, 522, 523, 541 – and Apollos 326–44 – missionary journey 329, 524 Pauline Theology xxxviii, 351, 356, 357, 363, 365, 388 – apocalyptic 326 – deutero/ps.-Pauline notions and writings 348, 357, 368, 401 – pneumatology and Aristotelianism 319 – pneumatology and Stoic physics 310–16 – pneumatology and pagan alchemical tradition 316–18 – pneumatology and Platonism 319– 20 – eschatology 400–11 – spiritual body 304–21

617

Pauline Writings 346, 348, 350, 355, 379, 382, 387, 459, 494 – 1 Corinthians 310, 327, 328, 330, 337–40, 406 – 2 Corinthians 338, 339, 401 – Philippians 408 – Romans 401 Pausanias’s Description of Greece 445, 461, 470 Pentecost 331, 341, 345 Persia/Persians 69, 166, 454 – army 181, 182 – documents from Egypt 180, 182 – period/empire 166, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 185, 186, 262, 266 Pheidias of Athens 445, 447, 463, 474, 479–80 Philo – allegorical interpretation xxiii, 161, 270, 285, 308, 509 – and Alexandria’s Museum/Great Library xxii, 36 – and (Alexandria’s) contemporary philosophy xxiv, 106, 163, 270, 410, 515–16 – and his audience/readers xxiii, 32, 33 – and Clement 388, 389, 450–51 – and Origen 370, 374 – as contemporary of Apion 147, 148– 49 – as contemporary of Chaeremon 147, 148–49, 161, 162 – as teacher of Apollos 326, 327, 38586 – as visitor of Alexandria’s theater xliii, 41 – biased against Egyptians xxxiv– xxxv, 32, 45–46, 249 – death 305 – description of Jewish house arrangement xlv – description of the Delta quarter xlv, 20, 22 – description of the Essenes 157–58 – description of Therapeutae 157–62 – descriptions of the city of Alexandria xxxii, xxxiii, 3–4, 14, 22, 33, 57, 113

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618

Subject Index

– Greek education xxxvii, 32, 40, 147, 161, 163, 267–68, 276–77, 278, 296, 515 – education in Hebrew/Aramaic 261, 267–78 – writings cited and preserved by Christian authors xxxix, 83, 280, 282–84, 289, 295, 387–88, 390, 421 – Jewish education and exegetical tradition 267–68, 269, 309 – knowledge of Hebrew 261, 267–72, 276–77 – Logos 348, 349, 351 – Monotheism/Yahwism 204, 515–17, 518 – on the etymology of Aaron 270 – on the etymology of Abram 270 – on the the etymology of Esau 272 – on the etymology of Israel 271 – on Emperor Tiberius 250 – on enmity between Judeans and Alexandrians 250 – on Jewish customs xxii, xliii, 33, 44 – on Moses 277, 278 – on the πνευματικὸν βρῶμα 304–9, 310, 321 – on the pogrom/riots of 38 CE xlv– xlvi, xlix, 32, 38, 44, 47, 48, 125, 139, 141, 145, 245, 247, 250, 251, 254–56, 257 – on the Septuagint xxii, xliii, 44, 273–75, 276 – on the status of Alexandrian Jews xlviii, 250 – open attitude to his hometown xxxiv – parallels in 2 Peter 379 – parallels in the Gospel of John 351– 54 – parallels in Hebrews 354–55 – presence of Halakha in his oeuvre 269 – Roman citizenship see citizenship, Philo and his family Philocrates see Letter of Aristeas Philosophy – Jewish-Hellenistic xxiv, 101 Phoenicia 176, 183, 190 Plato/Platonism xxiii, xxiv, xxv, 16, 87, 102, 104, 207, 218, 296, 319, 320,

376, 379, 383, 388, 401, 404, 405, 409, 410, 443, 449, 451, 470, 489, 504 – Christian Platonism 102, 207, 388, 395, 401, 404, 405, 409, 410, 443, 449, 470, 489–90, 504 – Middle Platonism xxiii–xxiv, 16, 100, 103, 401, 404, 405, 409, 410, 517 – Neoplatonism xxiii, 16, 101, 102, 103, 105 Pliny the Elder – on Apion 151–52, 154 Plotinus 16, 103, 405, 496 Plutarch of Athens 34, 76, 102, 283, 464, 478, 479, 480, 511, 529 – Ps. Plutarch 311, 312, 319, 517 pogrom 245–47, 251, 254, 256, 257, 258 pogrom/riots of 38 CE xxxiii, xlviii, xlix, 32 38, 43, 47, 125, 245, 248– 56, 258 – initiated by Egyptians 45–46 – initiated by Greeks 46, 257 population of Alexandria xiii, xxxiii, 21, 22, 23, 248 Poseidon see Greek Gods, Poseidon Poseidonius 6, 7, 8 Potter’s Oracle 125, 128, 139, 142 Priscilla 329–35, 343 Proclus 102, 102, 320 Protevangelium of James 381–82, 393, 394 Ps.-Justinian’s De monarchia – Alexandrian provenance 507–9 – Aristotelian elements 501 – Eusebius on 505–6 – excerpta xxiv, 504, 507, 508 – florilegium 505, 507, 508, 509, 514, 515 – Jewish provenance 508–9, 518 – final redaction 508 – parallels with Clement 506–7 – use of/high regard for Greek poetry xxiv, 503, 504, 514–15 – use of Jewish Alexandrian writers 509 Ptolemaic Egypt xlix, 4, 52, 141, 514, 515

Subject Index

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– book market 299 – creation of a Greek identity 129–31 – creation of the mouseion xix, 131– 33 – cultural funding xix, 33, 35, 238, 296, 511 – Egyptian architecture in Alexandria xviii, 133 – Egyptian (temple) libraries 132 – Egyptian scribes 127, 130, 132, 297 – Egyptianized statues 35, 133, 135 – Egyptian themes in Greek poetry 134–35 – evidence for Hebrew 262–63 – fiscal implications of ethnicity 127– 28, 129 – fluidity of ethnic labeling 129, 143 – Greek literate culture 130 – mixed social elite 127 – necropoleis and cemeteries see City of Alexandria, necropoleis and cemeteries – palace 52 – priestly class xxx, 128, 195 – riots 252 Ptolemy I xvli, xxvlii, 16, 17, 26, 34, 35, 36, 55, 59, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 93,105, 126, 166, 175, 185, 186, 189, 197, 221, 511 Ptolemy II 12, 55, 56, 59, 81, 84, 85, 88, 90, 93, 127, 128, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 237, 238, 239, 273, 509, 510, 511, 512, 514, 515 Ptolemy V 190, 191, 192 Ptolemy VI, child king 190, 194–96, 202 Pyrrhonian Skepticism xxiii, xxiv rabbinic Judaism 100, 268, 269 – exchange with Alexandrian Jews 268 – Halakha 268, 269 – literature 277 – Midrash 270 resurrection xxxviii, 303, 314, 321, 327, 332, 383, 399–411, 530 – belief xxxviii, 530 – bodies/bodily 314, 383 Rhakotis xxviii, xxix, xlii, 13, 21, 30

619

riots – Messianic, Egypt 362 – of 38 see pogrom/riots of 38 CE – of 66 CE xxxiii – of 115–117 CE see Kitos War/diaspora revolt 115–117 CE Rome xiv, xv, xxiv, xxv, 4, 6, 13, 21, 31, 34, 38, 99, 115–16, 119, 121, 140, 141, 155, 156, 291, 293, 294, 347, 356, 357, 359, 360, 361, 490, 491, 525 royal quarters see City of Alexandria, royal quarters Samaria 165, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 190, 194, 199, 203 – northern 174 – Persian province 187 – tax collection 195 – use of Hebre script in 198 Samaritans 191, 193, 195, 353 – division between Judeans and 197 – scripts of the 198 Sarapis/Serapis xxviii–xxix, 74, 93–95, 130, 134, 152, 456, 462, 473, 480, 521, 522, 526–32, 540, 542 – Serapeum xxviii, 17, 18, 21, 29, 71– 74, 105, 141, 529 Sarcophagus of Teuris 223–24 Satrap Stela xvii, 165, 166, 167, 168, 175, 177, 182–84, 185, 190 Sefir stele/inscription 170, 176 Seleucid empire 40, 165, 190, 194, 195, 196, 296 Septuagint xxii, xxxix, xliii, 44, 50, 61, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 101, 131, 165, 203, 204, 205, 209, 212, 229–44, 264, 265, 266, 268, 271, 273, 274, 293, 295, 297, 334, 377, 382, 387, 417, 418, 423, 424, 425, 427, 431, 433, 435, 452, 457, 459, 465, 472, 473, 512, 521 – acceptance in the Jewish community 238–39 – and contemporary translation theory 239–40 – as “sister” of Hebrew Scripture 274

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Subject Index

– initiative for translation of Hebrew Scripture 3, 35–36, 92, 232, 238, 266, 273–74 – socio-historical context of Alexandria 240, 242, 243–44 – status as sacred text 242 – translation by Jews in Egypt 131, 264–65 – translation motivated by linguistic needs 265–66 – translation strategies 240–41 Sextus Empiricus xxiii Shepherd of Hermas 387 Sibylline Oracles 358, 379–80, 388, 393, 459, 465, 466, 473, 482 social elite 125, 136, 370 – Greek 40, 126–29, 136, 137, 143, 249, 256, 257 – Christian xl, xli, 370 – Egyptian xxx, xxxi, 110, 112, 120, 121, 122, 141–42 – Jewish xxiv, xxv, 32, 44 – Roman 32, 109, 111, 249, 294 Sophonias Apocalypse 208, 209 Sozomen xxviii, 72, 73 spiritual food 303 – Armenian translations 304–5 – Jewish exegetical tradition 309 – not made of “spirit” 303 – reference by Paul 303, 310–20 Stoicism xxiii, xxiv, 6, 8, 103, 106, 156, 296, 303, 310–16, 321, 339, 358, 379, 420, 454 Strabo xxiii, 6–8, 30, 32, 58, 76, 109, 122, 446 – biography 6 – description of Alexandria xv, xvi, xxviii, xliii, 14–22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 39, 48, 73, 76, 125, 133, 135 – description of cities 9–10 – heuristics 7–8, 10, 31 – philosophical education xxv, 6–7, 103 – statement on Aristotle’s Lykeion 16, 132 – topography of Alexandria 10–14 – view on Jews 32 Sibylline Oracles 358, 350, 379–80, 388, 393, 459, 465, 466, 473, 482,

(Great) Synagogue see Jews in Alexandria, Great Synagogue synagogues see Jews in Alexandria, synagogues Syria xvii, xli, 26, 69, 70, 90, 104, 165, 170, 171, 175, 179, 190–1, 193–96, 258, 262, 273, 326, 339, 346–48, 351, 354, 357, 382, 491, 510 Tatian 150, 154, 445, 446, 456, 478 Theodosius I 74, 531, 533 Theophilus of Alexandria xxviii, 74 Theophilus of Antioch 504 Theophrastus 84, 152, 154, 155, 319, 511 Thrace/Thracians 129, 130, 442 Tiberius, emperor 7, 38, 109, 250, 542 Tiberius Julius Alexander xxxv, 22, 32, 147–48, 346 tomb of Petubastis 219–21 tomb of Petosiris 221–23 Toth, the scribe of the gods 216, 220, 222, 223, 226 Trajan, emperor 254, 278, 362, 364, 368, 373, 385, 392, 525 travel xxiv, xl, 8, 9, 119, 237, 251, 330, 343, 374, 386 – Christian travelers 340 – network of travelers 364 – to the underworld 210, 211, 213, 214, 215, 224 Tyre 176, 181 – and Sidon 178, 183, 184, 185 ʿUmar I see Caliph ʿUmar I Underworld Books, Egyptian 209, 213– 17, 223 – Amduat 213, 215 – Book of Caverns 213 – Book of Gates 213, 214 – Book of the Dead 209, 210, 213–19, 221, 223, 226 – influence on the idea of eternal life 217–18 – court hall as leitmotif in 215–16 – Papyrus of Hunefer 215–16 – Papyrus of Nebseny 215 – spatial concept of Netherworld 213– 14

Subject Index – spells 214 – sun-barque as leitmotif in 213, 215 – sun-god as leitmotif in 213 Valentinians 353, 487, 490, 492, 499, 500, 501 Valentinus xxxvii–xxxviii, 101, 347, 368, 370, 389, 403–4, 409, 491 violence – inter-ethnic xlvi, xlvii, 137, 149 – religious 63, 64, 65, 68, 73, 74, 75, 78, 245, 259, 533 wisdom theology 325–28, 337, 340, 386 Xanarchus of Seleucia xxv, 6, 103 Yahwism – in Elephantine 165–66 – scriptures 197–203

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Zadokites 188, 189, 194, 196, 202, 203

621