Apocalypticism And Mysticism In Ancient Judaism And Early Christianity 3110591839, 9783110591835, 3110597268, 9783110597264

Table of contents :
Introduction 1
Pieter G.R. de Villiers
Apocalypses and Mystical Texts: Investigating Prolegomena and the State
of Affairs 7
John J. Collins
Is There Mysticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls? 61
Adela Yarbro Collins
Paul, Jewish Mysticism, and Spirit Possession 81
Jörg Frey
“Mystical” Traditions in an Apocalyptic Text?: The Throne Vision of
Revelation 4 within the Context of Enochic and Merkavah Texts 103
Jack Levison
Ascent and Inspiration in the Writings of Philo Judaeus 129
Gregory E. Sterling
Dancing with the Stars: The Ascent of the Mind in Philo of Alexandria 155
Paul B. Decock
Journeys towards Fullness of Life: A Comparison between Philo and the
Apocalypse of John 167
Bibliography 187
Index 205

Citation preview

Apocalypticism and Mysticism in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity

Ekstasis

Religious Experience From Antiquity to the Middle Ages Edited by John R. Levison and Angela Kim Harkins Editorial Board David Aune, Jan Bremmer, John Collins, Dyan Elliott, Amy Hollywood, Sarah Iles Johnston, Gabor Klaniczay, Paulo Nogueira, Christopher Rowland and Elliot R. Wolfson

Volume 7

Apocalypticism and Mysticism in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity Edited by John J. Collins, Pieter G. R. de Villiers and Adela Yarbro Collins

ISBN 978-3-11-059183-5 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-059726-4 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-059692-2 ISSN 1865-8792 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018954954 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Contents Introduction

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Pieter G.R. de Villiers Apocalypses and Mystical Texts: Investigating Prolegomena and the State of Affairs 7 John J. Collins Is There Mysticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls? Adela Yarbro Collins Paul, Jewish Mysticism, and Spirit Possession

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Jörg Frey “Mystical” Traditions in an Apocalyptic Text?: The Throne Vision of Revelation 4 within the Context of Enochic and Merkavah Texts 103 Jack Levison Ascent and Inspiration in the Writings of Philo Judaeus

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Gregory E. Sterling Dancing with the Stars: The Ascent of the Mind in Philo of Alexandria Paul B. Decock Journeys towards Fullness of Life: A Comparison between Philo and the Apocalypse of John 167 Bibliography Index

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187

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Introduction Mysticism in Early Judaism and the New Testament Mysticism is a contested subject in the history of religion. It is in fact a modern extrapolation that seeks to give a name to a kind of religious experience or description thereof. Bernard McGinn, the leading historian of mysticism in the western world, describes it as the belief and practices that concern “the preparation for, the consciousness of, and the reaction to what can be described as the immediate or direct presence of God.”1 Even this description is open to question, as the term is often used for experiences, either real or imagined, of the heavenly world that fall short of direct encounters with God. The word “experience” here must be qualified, since we have no access to direct experience, and must of necessity rely on written descriptions. We have, however, several written accounts of alleged experiences of elevation to the heavenly world or approximation to the divine presence. Without pressing a more precise definition of mysticism, it is these accounts that form the subject of our inquiry. Broadly speaking, we may distinguish two strands of Jewish tradition that are relevant to the discussion of mysticism in the Second Temple period. One of these is rooted in ancient mythology about a heavenly world and is found especially in the apocalyptic literature. The other is rooted in Greek philosophy and is developed especially in the works of Philo of Alexandria. The first strand is foundational for mystical aspects of early Christian literature. Some of these texts, such as the letters of Paul and the Gospel of John, also speak of an ongoing experience of unity with Christ (Paul) or with Christ and God (John).

The Apocalyptic Tradition The oldest such accounts of encounters with the divine in the biblical tradition relate to Moses and the prophets. The Book of Exodus claims that Moses went up to God on Mt. Sinai (Exod 19:3). He alone could come near to God; seventy of the elders of the people also ascended but had to worship at a distance (24:1). We are not told that Moses was granted a vision of God. In a later chapter he is allowed to see God from behind, but he is told: “you cannot see my face for no one shall see me and live” (Exod 33:20). Despite this tradition, however, several prophets 1 Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism. Origins to the Fifth Century (New York: Crossroad, 1991), xvii. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110597264-001

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claim to have laid eyes on the Almighty. Micaiah ben Imlah, in 1 Kings 22:19, says “I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, with all the host of heaven standing beside him, to the right and to the left.” Isaiah of Jerusalem has a more elaborate vision of the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, with the train of his garment filling the temple (Isa 6:1). By the time of Ezekiel, the vision is not so sharply focused. What he sees is the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord (Ezek 1:28). In Ezekiel’s vision, the glory of the Lord is enthroned on a chariot, or merkavah. The vision of the chariot throne would remain a staple of Jewish mysticism down through the Middle Ages. Moses and the prophets, however, had their visions so that they could serve as mediators, or go-betweens, between God and his people on earth. The prophetic vision is not the end or telos of the visionary’s life. Neither is the visionary transformed in a lasting way. The prophetic visions, however, are themselves transformed in the apocalyptic writings of the Hellenistic period. The Book of Daniel, chapter 7, continues the tradition of the prophets by describing a throne vision. Daniel sees a whitehaired “Ancient of Days,” evidently the deity, whose throne was fiery flames and its wheels burning fire. He presides over a judgment of the beasts from the sea, which symbolize the Gentile kingdoms. Daniel’s dream is complicated by a second quasi-divine figure, “one like a son of man” who comes on the clouds. Daniel is not given a message to relay to humanity, although his vision implies the resolution of a crisis on earth.2 Even more germane to our discussion is the vision of Enoch in 1 En. 14. In this case we are given an account of Enoch’s ascent to heaven and his entry into the heavenly temple. There he sees a lofty throne, and “the great glory” sitting on it (1 En. 14:20).3 Unlike Daniel, however, Enoch is given a message to relay to the Watchers on earth.4 Both Daniel and Enoch were legendary figures. The accounts of their visions are pseudonymous, in the sense that they are attributed to figures who could not have experienced them. Enoch lived before the Flood, but the writings associated with him only appear in the Hellenistic age. There is a long-standing discussion as to whether the accounts of their visions nonetheless reflect real human experiences and visions. It has been noted that that the accounts correspond rather well with accounts of visionary experience in other cultures. Daniel has a vision after fasting for three weeks (Dan 10:3). Enoch reads a petition aloud

2 See John J. Collins, Daniel. A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 274–324. 3 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 251–75. 4 The tradition of the throne vision, taken up also in the Book of Revelation, is studied in this volume by Jörg Frey.

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beside the waters of Dan (1 En. 13:7). Ezra eats the flower of the field (2 Esd 9:26) and drinks a fiery liquid (2 Esd 14:39). These allusions are intriguing hints of practical ways by which people may have induced visions.5 There is no way, however, to decide whether the authors actually had such visions or only imagined them, if indeed we can even make such a distinction. The apocalypses of Daniel and Enoch are important for the study of mysticism in another respect, however. It is here for the first time that we encounter the idea that righteous people can ascend permanently to heaven after their death. In Dan 12 we read that “those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (Dan 12:3). In 1 En. 104 the righteous are told: “you will shine and appear, and the portals of heaven will be opened for you . . . for you will be companions of the host of heaven” (104: 2,6). These passages open up a new vista on the purpose or telos of human life. This telos was no longer to live long in the land, and see one’s children and children’s children, but rather to live forever with the angels in heaven. This introduces the possibility of human transformation, in a way that was not envisioned in the prophets. The process of transformation is described in greater detail in later apocalypses, especially those associated with Enoch. Second Enoch, which is only preserved in late Slavonic manuscripts but is thought to have originated in Egypt around the end of the first century CE, describes how Enoch ascended through seven heavens. Finally, he comes into the presence of God, who instructs the archangel Michael to extract him from his earthly clothing and anoint him with oil that makes him shine brighter than the greatest light. Enoch comments: “I gazed at all of myself, and I had become like one of the glorious ones, and there was no observable difference.”6 Enoch conveys ethical teaching to his children and grandchildren before he returns to heaven permanently, but the most striking thing about this apocalypse is the emphasis on the transformation of the visionary. The transformation of the visionary is taken even further in Sefer Hekaloth, or 3 Enoch, a work that dates from the fifth or sixth century CE. This text describes an encounter between Rabbi Ishmael and Metatron, a superangel who holds an exalted place in heaven. Metatron identifies himself as “Enoch, son of Jared”

5 M. E. Stone, “A Reconsideration of Apocalyptic Visions,” HTR 96 (2003): 167–80. 6 2 En. 22:10. See Martha Himmelfarb, “Revelation and Rapture: The Transformation of the Visionary in the Ascent Apocalypses,” in Mysteries and Revelations: Apocalyptic Studies since the Uppsala Colloquium, ed. J. J. Collins and J. H. Charlesworth (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 79–90, and also more generally her book Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York: Oxford, 1993).

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(3 En. 4:3). The Most High made for him “a throne like the throne of glory and appointed him prince and ruler over all the heights (3 En. 1:10). Metatron is even called “the little YHWH,” but he is nonetheless identified with the human Enoch. In the words of Philip Alexander, “what is involved is little short of the deification of a man.”7 Enoch/Metatron is eventually ousted from his throne of glory (3 En. 16) when the visionary Aher sees him and exclaims, “indeed there are two powers in heaven.”8 Sefer Hekalot is a late text, and is accepted as part of the classical corpus of Jewish mysticism. Whether the earlier apocalypses qualify as mystical is a matter of definition. A major strand of scholarship, represented by Gershom Scholem and Ithamar Gruenewald, saw the apocalypses as the forerunners of the classic mystical texts.9 More recent scholarship has been skeptical of the continuity.10 But increasingly, scholars dispute the assumption that the early medieval merkavah texts should be regarded as normative for Jewish mysticism. Mysticism is not an invariable universal phenomenon, but takes various forms, not only in different cultures but also in different eras. It seems clear enough that at least the later Enoch tradition shows an understanding of and familiarity with mystical experiences, whereby the visionary ascends to heaven and is transformed. In most cases, this experience is attributed pseudonymously to a legendary or fictitious person. We have only rare cases where such experiences are attributed to historical persons. The apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, who claims to have been snatched up to the third heaven, whether in the body or out of the body, is the clearest example.11 Some such experience may, or may not, be implied in some controversial hymnic texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls.12 The Talmud tells of four sages who entered paradise, ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Aher and Akiba (b. Hag. 14b). Ben Azzai gazed and died, Ben Zoma gazed and was harmed, Aher “cut down the plantings” (became a heretic)

7 Philip Alexander, “From Son of Adam to Second God. Transformations of the Biblical Enoch,” in Biblical Figures Outside the Bible, ed. M. E. Stone and T. E. Bergen (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998), 111. 8 On Metatron see now Andrei A. Orlov, Yahoel and Metatron, TSAJ 169 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 141–203. 9 Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1954) and idem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1965). 10 Ra’anan Boustan and Patrick G. McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature and the Study of Early Jewish Mysticism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, ed. John J. Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 85–103. 11 See the essay of Adela Yarbro Collins in this volume. 12 See the essay of John J. Collins in this volume.

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and only Akiba came and went in peace. This is rather meager evidence that there was a tradition of mystical practice, but the literary accounts of ascent to heaven presuppose some tradition on the matter. Only in the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls have we clear evidence of a community structured so that its way of life is conducive to mystical experience. Such spiritual discipline later becomes a trademark of Christian mysticism. Even the case of Enoch, the apocalyptic tradition does not envision unification with the deity. The transformation that occurs is more aptly called angelification. Angels, to be sure are in the presence of God, and presumably enjoy vision of the deity. At no point in this tradition, however, does the visionary lose his individuality.

The Philosophical Tradition There is another strand of Jewish mysticism in antiquity that was at least as influential as the apocalyptic tradition for later developments. This was philosophical mysticism, in the Platonic tradition, and its main Jewish exponent was Philo of Alexandria. As Jack Levison shows in this volume, the possibility of ascent preoccupies Philo in his exegetical work.13 Philo, however, does not draw his inspiration from prophetic or apocalyptic visions. He derives his mystical theology exegetically from texts in the Torah where one might not have suspected it. The desirability of ascent is inferred from the fact that the human soul is made in the image of God. The command to Abraham to leave Ur of the Chaldees means that one should transcend the world of the flesh, and so forth. Philo reads Genesis through the lens of Platonic philosophy, more specifically through the lens of Middle Platonism. Philo conceived of the vision of God as a real vision, but it was mediated for him by study of the Law of Moses. As in the case of the apocalyptic tradition, there is an open question as to how far other people could appropriate or replicate the experience of Moses. Presumably, that was a matter of degree. Both Philo and the apocalypses are intent on the transformation of the lives of their readers, as Paul Decock shows in his contribution to this volume. It remains true, however, that Philo placed much greater emphasis on personal transformation than did the apocalypses. Philo was not indifferent to the political world or to the transformation of the world at large, as he shows in De Praemiis et Poenis. But this treatise is rather exceptional in Philo’s oeuvre. The apocalyptic tradition, as represented especially in the more historically oriented 13 See also the essay by Gregory Sterling.

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apocalypses such as Daniel or Revelation has a much greater emphasis on cosmic transformation and the redemption of the world at large. Paul’s eschatology, not unrelated to his mysticism, also presupposes such a transformation and redemption (1 Cor 15:23–28; Rom 8:18–25). But personal transformation is also an important goal in the apocalyptic tradition. In fact, this tradition is distinguished from earlier prophecy largely by its new view of human destiny. The telos of becoming like the angels, in the presence of God for all eternity was introduced into the Jewish tradition in the books of Enoch and Daniel, and it provided the context is which mysticism would develop in both Jewish and Christian traditions. For Paul, the transformation of the elect at the end involves acquiring a glorious body like that of the risen Christ (Phil 3:20–21; Rom 8:15–17, 21–23).

Prospect This volume contains seven essays. Three deal with the apocalyptic tradition from Enoch to Revelation, with extended discussions of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Paul. Three deal with the mystical aspects of Philo. The volume is introduced by a wide-ranging review of scholarship by Pieter de Villiers. The papers of Paul Decock and Jack Levison were not presented at the conference. That of Pieter de Villiers was greatly expanded afterwards. It had its origin in a conference on apocalypticism and mysticism hosted jointly by Yale Divinity School and the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, on August 7, 2017. We thank all those who presented papers at the meeting and those who participated in the discussions. We also would like to thank the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Francis Petersen and the Dean of the Faculty, Fanie (S.D.) Snyman for their support of and involvement in the conference. A word of special thanks is due to the Head of the Department of Old and New Testament, Francois Tolmie, for overseeing the administration. As always, he was the gracious host who attended to the minutest detail with special care and dedication. He had the support of the able Ms. Marina Oberholzer, the Senior Assistant Officer in the Faculty, who took care with such efficiency, of all the practicalities involved in organising an international conference like this one. John T. Thames helped with the preparation of the volume.

Pieter G.R. de Villiers

Apocalypses and Mystical Texts: Investigating Prolegomena and the State of Affairs Introduction Early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic and mystical texts have a complicated history of interpretation. Eventually, many were discarded or neglected by faith communities, only to resurface and, ironically, to become a central theme of research on Jewish and Early Christian studies in modern times. The contemporary interest in both these collections of texts is the outcome of scholarly research of many centuries. Initially this research responded to the rediscovery of texts, but gradually it intensified as scholars came to appreciate their importance for the interpretation of biblical times. Of the two, apocalypses received more attention than mystical texts because faith communities had to account for the inclusion of Daniel and Revelation in the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures while other apocalypses were excluded. This was not easy, given the large number of apocalypses that were in circulation. Over time, research on them became complex, not only because of new manuscript finds, but also because of the many debates about their nature, contents and function. Mystical texts received less attention in biblical scholarship. It was only from the second half of the twentieth century that mystical texts were researched in more depth and explored as significant phenomena in the religious discourse of antiquity, especially in apocalypses. Research into mysticism resulted from the discovery of mystical texts and the realisation that they offered vital clues for the interpretation of apocalypses. The history of apocalyptic research, as Koch observed, peaked at certain times, especially after the discovery of new texts.1 These discoveries were in many instances surprising, if not sensational, since many of the texts in question were lost or previously unknown. Secondly, research on these texts advanced strongly when it was accompanied by proper theorising that invigorated the

1 Klaus Koch, “Einleitung,” in Apokalyptik, ed. Klaus Koch and Johann Michael Schmidt (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1982), 1–31. Pieter G.R. de Villiers, University of the Free State https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110597264-002

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discipline and that generated new knowledge.2 This pattern of assembling all relevant and available data and of developing a critical hermeneutical approach to them, empowers scholars to pursue the innovation that advances their discipline. In this essay, the study of apocalypses and its eventual interaction with research on mystical texts will be discussed not only to explain their nature and meaning, but also to illustrate how and why these texts came to be understood in ever new ways. This essay will also illuminate how apocalyptic research offers a significant hermeneutical key to the interpretation of Judaism and Christianity. This selective overview of a complicated history of reception will focus on how apocalyptic research, once it became a discipline within the academic discourse in late modernity, overcame its initial ignorance of mystical texts to embrace them as vital clues for its understanding of apocalypses. It will analyze the hurdles that apocalyptic research had to overcome to determine its relevant sources and, also, the process that ultimately led to its discovery of the intricate interaction with mystical texts.

Canonical Constraints Apocalypses and apocalyptic research suffered under prejudices and negative preconceptions from earliest times. This situation finds its roots in the earliest history of Early Judaism and Christianity during the process of canonizing some texts as sacred scriptures and excluding those that were regarded as unacceptable.3 This process affected apocalypses in a special way. Daniel and Revelation

2 For the dynamics that promote innovation in academic research, see Johan M. Strydom, “Vernuwing in die bestudering van religie en religieë,” LitNet Akademies 13 (2006): 536, who writes, “The thesis is that our best hope for producing innovative insights in the humanities and religious studies lies in experimenting with the application of theorised key concepts to specific case studies by way of comparison. It is argued that cross-cultural key concepts need to be constructed and used with a critical awareness of the genealogy of the concepts, and that the comparison of case studies must be done in a disciplined and systematic way that locates each example within its specific historical and geographic context.” 3 For an overview of the complex process of canonization, see Lee Martin McDonald, The Formation of the Biblical Canon I (London; Oxford; New York: Bloomsbury, 2017) and, for a briefer discussion, John Webster, “Canon,” in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 97–100. See also Annette Yoshiko Reed, “The Modern Invention of ‘Old Testament Pseudepigrapha,’” JTS 60 (2009): 403–36 and especially her discussion (407–408) of the role that literary compilations such as those of the pseudepigrapha play in shaping their meaning and her references to major research that indicate how texts are affected by the status and impact of the collections in which they are

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were the only two of many apocalyptic books that were selected to be included in most canonical collections. The process was complicated because some were not completely excluded,4 whilst others were accepted as canonical only by some faith communities in certain locations. Even the two canonical apocalypses were controversial. Daniel was included in the Writings section of the canon despite the impression it created of being a prophecy, while Revelation remained a disputed book among some groups for many centuries, though it, too, claimed to have been a divinely inspired prophecy. Their controversial history was partly the result of their contents, which were experienced by many readers as strange and as different from other biblical texts, though, in the case of Revelation, because of its eschatology and millennialist teachings. The latter was especially regarded with apprehension because of the serious political consequences of such teachings. In various historical contexts and times, literal readings of Daniel and Revelation stirred anti-establishment and revolutionary feelings that inspired some to rebel against the state. Once the church had developed a positive relationship with the state, these books were regarded by some readers

incorporated. These remarks are directly relevant to understanding the way in which the canonizing process affects apocalypses and mystical texts. 4 The controversy around some books is illustrated by the examples of 2 Esdras and 1 Enoch. 1 Enoch was regarded as canonical by the Ethiopian Church. 2 Esdras was included in the Vulgate, considered part of the Bible by the Greek Orthodox Church and regarded as biblical by the Russian Orthodox Church, though with lesser authority. See John J. Schmitt, “2 Esdras,” in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, ed. James D.G. Dunn, John William Rogerson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 876. See also Arnaldo Momigliano, Essays on Ancient and Modern Judaism (Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press), 88–100. The aversion to apocalypses is further evident in Momigliano’s discussion of rabbinic literature. He notes (90–91) that there is only one quotation from an apocalyptic text in the first six centuries of the Christian era (in Sanhedrin 97b), though Rabbinic traditions display a significant number of apocalyptic motifs. He suggests (93), furthermore, that there were concerns about apocalyptic expectations of a Messianic era because they were seen to promote anomic attitudes and to compromise the prominent role of the Law. See further the discussion below, but also the nuanced presentation in Michael Becker, “Apokalyptisches nach dem Fall Jerusalems. Anmerkungen zum frührabbinischen Verständnis,” in Apokalyptik als Herausforderung neutestamentlicher Theologie,” ed. Michael Becker and Markus Öhler, WUNT 2.214 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 283–359 who analyses the complex relationship of rabbinic texts with apocalyptic thought that involves both the differences and similarities between them. See also Martin Erdmann, The Millennial Controversy in the Early Church (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005), 1–19 on the place of apocalypses in the canonical process. See especially his discussion of scholarly debates about the various attitudes of rabbis to apocalypses, but specifically his reference to the reasons for the animosity of some rabbis who criticized the role that apocalypses played in political upheavals and uprisings. These examples, thoroughly discussed in many other publications, illustrate how complex and controversial apocalypses and apocalyptic research were.

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as anti-establishment. They were ignored because of their pronouncements against the state as being an embodiment of evil, or they were interpreted in a non-literalist manner to refer to spiritual matters.5 The negative reception of apocalyptic texts later intensified when, to name only one example in modern times, authors like Luther criticised apocalypses because their contents lacked a Christological focus. It also did not help that apocalypses were popular among opponents of the Reformers and were once again used to stoke political unrest. Revolutionaries such as Thomas Münzer, for example, interpreted the Book of Daniel to legitimize and promote his violent political resistance and uprising against the authorities.6 This trajectory of political receptions continued up to recent times in the wildly popular Left Behind literature with its dangerous political agendas.7 Such contemporary negative perceptions about apocalypses were further strengthened by the revolutionary use of them.8 Interpretations of apocalypses as predictions of future events helped set in place the conviction of many that their message had an exclusively eschatological character. This preoccupation with their eschatological meaning would become a major stumbling block in apocalyptic research. It obscured the

5 Pieter G.R. de Villiers, “Entering the Corridors of Power: State and Church in the Reception History of Revelation,” Acta Theologica 33 (2013): 37–56. See also Gerbern S. Oegema, Apocalyptic Interpretation of the Bible: Apocalypticism and Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism, the Apostle Paul, the Historical Jesus, and their Reception History (London: Continuum, 2012), 153. He notes that the interpretation of Daniel changes to a friendlier approach to the Roman Empire from the second century onwards. 6 On July 13, 1524, at Allsted, Münzer delivered the sermon Auslegung des anderen Unterschieds Danielis in which he interpreted the book historically as referring to the four empires of Babylon, of the Medes and Persians, of the Greeks and of the Romans. Müntzer regarded himself as the new Daniel who revealed that the fifth empire referred to political authorities in his own time. The message was that these authorities had to be challenged and removed by the sword. For rather bizarre speculations about the apocalypse in these times, see James M. Stayer, The German Peasants’ War and Anabaptist Community of Goods (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991), 89–90. 7 Barbara Rossing, The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation (New York: Basic Books, 2004). 8 The failure of prophetic expectations and predictions to materialize left faith communities disillusioned and helped cultivate the mistrust and apprehension with which apocalypses were regarded. Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 3.28.1–2, see also 5.16–7-25) refers as an example to remarks by Gaius of Rome about Revelation. In opposition to the prophecies of Montanists, who used Revelation to prophesy about the end times, he attributed the book to Cerinthus who was regarded as a heretic. Eusebius also regarded Revelation as part of the disputed books (3.25). See further Pieter G.R. de Villiers, “Reading Revelation Politically,” STJ 3 (2017): 339–60. On the political use of apocalypses like Daniel, T. Mos., the Animal Apocalypse and others, see John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Vision of the Book of Daniel (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977), 191–206.

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existence and role of non-eschatological contents of apocalypses. By interpreting them literally, their rich, polyvalent symbolism that resonated with mystical texts like Isaiah and Ezekiel went unrecognized.

Rediscovering and Collecting Texts The modern reappraisal of apocalypses has its roots in the Renaissance with its ad fontes movement.9 The first phase of innovative scholarship began when scholars who had studied ancient sources like the patristic texts, became aware of many references to apocalyptic texts that were no longer available or in circulation.10 They were further alerted to these texts by archaeological finds in the Middle East, Europe and Africa.11 In their desire to return to the foundations of the religious discourse, they sought to recover texts in libraries of monasteries across Europe.12 They were also empowered by their knowledge of ancient languages that enabled them to study the texts in their original formulations. An illuminating example of the quest for sources and the nature of scholarship on apocalypses is found in early debates about 1 Enoch, a book that enjoyed extraordinary attention in this early stage of apocalyptic research because of references to it in the letter of Jude in Christian Scriptures. Scholars in this early phase of apocalyptic research were aware of the ancient Chronography of Syncellus (784–806) in which he quoted apocalyptic texts like The Testament of Adam, the Book of Jubilees and Enoch with special attention to the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book. Despite quoting them, Syncellus wrote disparagingly about apocryphal texts and their Jewish, heretical nature. He did, however, recognize the similarities with biblical texts that asked for reflection and clarification. 9 For a discussion of the scientific ideal and of influence of the Renaissance on biblical scholarship, see Pieter G.R. de Villiers, “Renaissance and Religion: The Bible in a Time of Radical Change,” Acta Theologica 2 (2002): 2, 19–46. 10 Their interest in ancient sources does not necessarily mean that Renaissance authors were sympathetic towards apocalyptic thought. See Irena Backus, Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse: Geneva, Zurich, and Wittenberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 5–6, who spells out Erasmus’s dismissive pronouncements about Revelation. He referred to the book’s chiliastic teaching, its allegory, its barbarous style and dubious authorship. 11 Reed, “Pseudepigrapha,” 417. She notes how colonialism opened up locations for travel by scholars who searched for texts. 12 See Reed, “Pseudepigrapha,” 416, for examples of the gradual recovery of full texts by scholars in the Netherlands, England, France, etc. Also, Ariel Hessayon, “Gold Tried in the Fire.” The Prophet TheaurauJohn Tany and the English Reformation (Alderson: Ashgate, 2007), 233ff.

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As time went by, Syncellus’s study became the source for others to investigate apocalypses. His work on 1 Enoch drew special attention when the renowned Dutch scholar, Scaliger (1540–1609) published translations of Syncellus’s Greek fragments of 1 Enoch in 1606. Like Syncellus, Scaliger openly, and in a crude manner, expressed his contempt for the book, calling it rubbish produced by lying Jews. He did add, though, that he translated it because it was old and was cited by Tertullian.13 Scaliger’s work was not unique. In the lively Dutch academic culture at that time, there were other scholars who engaged in apocalyptic scholarship. In 1616, Johannes Drusius, a Dutch professor of Hebrew in Friesland, also researched the Greek fragments of Syncellus and published a book on 1 Enoch with the title, De partriacha Henoch. A lively debate in several other places and countries also focussed on 1 Enoch. Keene mentions a whole litany of scholars, including Thomas Bang, Balthasar Bebelius, Joachim Johannes Mader, Johann Heinrich Heidegger, August Pfeiffer, Gottfried Vockerodt and others who engaged at this time on research on the authority and provenance of Enoch. All of them gave a mostly negative evaluation of 1 Enoch, reflecting the prevailing respect for canonical texts and the apprehension about non-canonical books. Particularly informative is the judgement that apocalypses were distinguished from canonical books by their unusual and extraordinary contents. In 1695, Casaubon described 1 Enoch as a superstitious, foolish and fabulous book with a “cabalistical” nature.14 He did not expressly link these extraordinary contents with those of mystical texts, but his reference to its cabalistic nature suggests a scholarly intuition that contents of apocalypses contained material that in some way or other resembled mystical thought. This awareness and discussion of individual apocalypses and the quest for copies of them prepared the scene for the next phase in which scholars brought together a systematic collection of apocalyptic texts.15 The collection of texts culminated at a high point when, in the eighteenth century in Germany, Johann Albert Fabricius edited a collection of pseudepigrapha in which many references

13 Nicholas Keene, “‘A Two-edged Sword’: Biblical Scholarship and the New Testament Canon in Early Modern England,” in Scripture and Scholarship in Early Modern England, ed. Ariel Hessayon and Nicholas Keene (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 94–115. 14 See the discussion in Keene, “Sword,” xix. 15 For the influential publication of fragments of 1 Enoch and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs by the noted researcher, Johann Ernest Grabe (1666–1711), see the in-depth discussion in Reed, “Pseudepigrapha,” 19–21. His publication also helped promote apocalyptic research. See also Richard Bauckham and James R. Davila, “Introduction,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, More Non-canonical Scriptures, ed. Richard Bauckham, James R. Davila and Alex Panayotove (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), xvii–xxxviii; xxiii.

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to, and fragments of, apocalypses were included.16 Since original copies of the vast majority of apocalypses were unavailable, his work listed the many references to these texts in secondary sources. His publication contained 240 entries, amongst them fragments from 4 Ezra, 1 Enoch, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Apocalypse of Moses and the Apocalypse of Abraham. The value of Fabricius’s publication lies in the gathering of data that provided the necessary input for research on apocalypses in later times. For the first time, and in a comprehensive way, the data was made available in a publication for scrutiny and reflection – even if it was mostly fragmentary and rudimentary in nature. A closer look at Fabricius’s work reveals the challenges that researchers like him faced when they undertook apocalyptic research. His apologetic remarks about his publication reveal that scholars were keenly aware of the non-canonical status of apocalypses. These remarks reflect the deep-seated prejudices of previous scholars about apocalypses. He found it necessary to defend his extensive attention to these texts over his long career against those who felt threatened by any attention given to non-canonical and supposedly heretical texts. He regarded the texts as forgeries for which he felt only utter contempt. He nevertheless noted that these texts were useful for an understanding of Christian origins. They were not total fabrications, he wrote, but contained old, reliable traditions. These authentic traditions were a reason why attention to them was needed, even though he added that it would be difficult to extract the reliable material from the texts.17 Fabricius’s work further confirms the historical consciousness that underlay the growing interest in, and scholarship on, apocalypses. His reference to earlier traditions that were reworked by later authors reflects a critical approach to texts, and implicitly opens the way for more historical research on both their reliability and their sources. His collection of texts was part of an awakening of scholarship on apocalypses that began to test existing boundaries set up by powerful institutions and orthodox guardians of doctrine and faith. In an English context, the translation of 1 Enoch by Richard Laurence, the Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, is a particularly interesting illustration of

16 Johann Albert Fabricius, Codex Pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti, vol. 1 (Hamburg: sumptu Christiani Liebezet, 1713) and Codicis pseudepigraphi Veteris Testamenti, vol. 2 (Hambergi: sumptu T.C. Felgineri, 1723). The originals have been digitalized by Google Open Books (https://openlibrary.org/books/OL19953831M/Codex_pseudepigraphus_ Veteris_Testamenti). 17 See Reed, “Pseudepigrapha” on Fabricius’ evaluation of the pseudepigrapha. She posits that his attitude towards these texts was motivated by his opposition to the culture of anonymous authorship of theological texts in his own time. See also Matthias Henze, Jewish Apocalypticism in Late First Century Israel: Reading “Second Baruch” in Context, Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 142 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 2–3.

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this desire for more research and of the tension between the historical study of apocalypses and the church’s canonical discourse. In 1821 he published a manuscript of the text brought to England in 1773 by the Scottish explorer, James Bruce, who found three Ethiopic copies during a six-year visit to Abyssinia.18 His publication contains information that shows what courage it took to engage in research on apocalypses as unknown and unusual religious texts that had been discarded by previous generations. The third edition of his work was introduced by an anonymous author who admired Laurence’s publication greatly, underlining the significance of 1 Enoch, and analysing in great detail its time of origin, the identity of its author and its contents. He also spelled out its importance for Early Christianity and its intimate links with Early Christian thought and texts. He then vigorously defended the academic integrity of Laurence’s publication, stressing the need to do historical work impartially and without interference. Referring to theology as a discipline, he noted, “How can theology be enrolled among the sciences when professors reason in ecclesiastical fetters?” Theologians need to work differently than those who “seek Divine truth, weighted with a heritage of foregone conclusions, adverse to the admission of unorthodox facts.” He stresses the importance of collecting more data like 1 Enoch. What is needed is for “all learned travellers” to follow the example of Bruce who discovered the manuscript of 1 Enoch. Such historical information promotes rational research. The quest is for “the world for ancient manuscripts which may disclose the merely human origin of dogmas and mysteries…”19 The anonymous author then shows his commitment to Enlightenment ideals when he reminds his readers that Protestants, whose “tenure of Christianity… is continent on the appeal to reason”, cannot disregard a book like 1 Enoch. He notes, It is important for readers of the Book of Enoch to recollect that we owe the Reformation to independent study of sacred literature, previously withdrawn from the people through the oblivion of dead and untranslated languages. The long neglected Book of Enoch now stands in analogous relationship with modern seekers after religious truth; and it remains for its readers to exercise that right of private judgment, to which Protestantism owes its existence, by impartially considering the inevitable modifications of faith involved in the discovery, that the language and ideas of alleged revelation are found in a pre-existent work accepted by Evangelists and Apostles as inspired, but classed by modern theologians among apocryphal productions.20

18 Richard Laurence, The Book of Enoch the Prophet. Translated from an Ethiopian Ms. in the Bodleian Library (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, 1883), xliii–xv. There were several editions of this text, indicating the interest in its contents and in apocalypses. 19 Laurence, Book of Enoch, xliv–xlv. 20 Ibid., xlvii–xlviii.

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The publication of research by Friedrich Lücke and Adolf Hilgenfeld marks a new phase in nineteenth century research on apocalypses,21 not only by acknowledging and advancing earlier research, but also by providing an interpretation of the data22 as a collection of writings that represents an influential movement in the period of the Second Temple and that forms a bridge between Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. Lücke, for example, interpreted apocalypses in terms of a typical pattern of thought that included characteristics like pseudonymity, visions, predictions, dualism and eschatology that were typical of apocalyptic texts.23 Especially noteworthy was the systematic comparison of apocalypses with prophetic texts. Apocalypses had a stronger emphasis on eschatology and the denser symbolism.24 The outcome further contributed to the negative view of apocalypses by portraying them as inferior imitations of prophetic texts and as having little value for the theological interpretation of the Scriptures.25 This was also the case 21 Cf. Friedrich Lücke, Versuch einer vollständigen Einleitung in die Offenbarung Johannis und in die gesammte apokalyptischer Literatur (Bonn: Weber, 1832) and the extensive, detailed discussion of his work in Alf Christophersen, Friedrich Lücke (1791–1855). Teil 1. Neutestamentliche Hermeneutik und Exegese im Zusammenhang mit seinem Leben und Werk (Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 1999). There are other indications of how popular this topic was. This is, for example, evident from the work of Carl August Auberlen, Der Prophet Daniel und die Offenbarung Johannis in ihrem gegenseitigen Verhältnis betrachtet und in ihren Hauptstellen erläutert (Basel: Bahnmaier’s Buchhandlung, 1854). The book was reprinted twice in 1857 and 1874, with a modern reprint in 1986. On Auberlen, cf. Alf Christophersen, “Die ‘Freiheit der Kritik.’ Zum theologischen Rang der Johannesoffenbarung im Werk Ferdinand Christian Baurs” in Apokalyptik als Herausforderung neutestamentlicher Theologie,” ed. Michael Becker and Markus Öhler, WUNT 2.214 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 363–82. See also Adolf Hilgenfeld, Die jüdische Apokalyptik in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwickelung: Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte des Christentums nebst einem Anhang über das gnostische System des Basilides (Jena: Mauke, 1857). 22 Hilgenfeld, Apokalyptik, 5. See Koch, “Einleitung,” 3. 23 Johann Michael Schmidt, Die jüdische Apokalyptik. Die Geschichte ihrer Erforshung von den Anfängen bis zu den Textfunden von Qumran (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969) regarded Lücke’s research as the beginning of the systematic study of apocalyptic thought. Helge S. Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic: The Mesopotamian Background of the Enoch figure and of the Son of Man (Neukirchen: Neurkirchen-Vluyn, 1988), 3, more convincingly ascribes this honour to both Lücke and Hilgenfeld. 24 For an extensive discussion of symbolism and its role in understanding apocalypses, see Bennie H. Reynolds III, Between Symbolism and Realism. The Use of Symbolic and Non-Symbolic Language in Ancient Jewish Apocalypses 333–63 B.C.E. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013). 25 Hilgenfeld, Apokalyptik, 14. He described apocalypses as failed imitations of prophetic texts. “Es war nicht mehr der frische Drang des religiösen Geistes, der sich die prophetische Form erschuf und frei gestaltete; es war vielmehr eine bereits gegebene und in ihren Grundzügen feststehende Form, welche sich der Apokalyptiker aneignete.”

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where apocalypses were regarded as the context and source for the messianic expectations in Christianity. Though Hilgenfeld did comment positively about Jewish apocalyptic texts as being of the highest importance for the whole history of religion, he approached apocalypses mostly in so far as they illuminate messianic expectations in Christianity and Judaism and represent the pre-history of Christianity.26 This emphasis on messianism as a future expectation feeds into his reading of the eschatological character of apocalypses as their most important characteristic. It reinforces a temporal reading of the texts, and, by implication, does not account in any way for the non-eschatological contents of apocalypses. The sensational rediscovery of some important texts in the second half of the nineteenth century was of special significance for this phase in apocalyptic research. Koch listed the publication of the Assumption of Moses (1861), 2 Baruch (1866), the Ascension of Isaiah (1877), 3 Baruch (1886 and 1896), 2 Enoch (1896), the Apocalypse of Abraham (1897), the Apocalypse of Elijah (1899) and the Apocalypse of Peter (1910).27 This is of special significance for the reception history of apocalypses because these texts, according to Koch, changed the total picture by introducing heavenly journeys as a fixed part and a second type of apocalypse. “Sie repräsentiert einen zweiten Typus, der aber anscheinend einem ähnlichen geistigen Hintergrund entspringt.” At the same time, examples of Testaments as a further type of apocalypse were published. This included the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs (1908), of Abraham and of Job. Also significant were biblical apocalypses that were identified through literary criticism, including Mark 13, Isaiah 24–27 and Zechariah 9–14 and that were added to sources that had to be researched.28 This is significant because it is these texts that show affinities with mystical texts. This phase also saw a surge in text editions in various countries. In 1891 in England, Deane published an overview of apocalypses, defending them against those who rejected them as forgeries and describing them as texts seeking to address important issues.29 Deane built his work on previous research, noting,

26 Hilgenfeld, Apokalyptik, 1. He notes, “… doch ist die jüdische Apokalyptik von der höchsten Bedeutung für die ganze Religionsgeschichte, insbesondere für die Enstehungsgeschichte des Christentums.” 27 Koch, “Einleitung”, 3–4. 28 Ibid., 5. 29 William John Deane, Pseudepigrapha: An Account of Certain Apocryphal Sacred Writings of the Jews and Early Christians (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1891), 1–2. He notes in the preface: “Some of the works treated in this volume are comparatively unknown to English readers,

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for example, that his edition was indebted to Fabricius’s collection.30 It included, amongst others, the Psalms of Solomon, 1 Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, the Apocalypse of Baruch, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Book of Jubilees, the Ascension of Isaiah, and the Sibylline Oracles. Three translations that appeared in this time became standard sources for apocalyptic research. They were German editions by Kautsch in Germany31 and English editions by Charles and James in the United Kingdom.32 Other types of publications contributed significantly to the popularizing of apocalyptic texts. Barrett included a whole chapter on apocalypses in his publication of selected documents for the study of the New Testament which was widely used as a textbook in biblical studies.33 In

but those (like the Book of Enoch) which have obtained more currency among us could not be omitted from our survey, especially as they form an integral part of the literature of the period, and are often referred to and cited. The whole of the writings here examined have not hitherto been collected into one volume. The original text or versions of some of them have been printed in Fabricius’ Codex Pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti; and in Fritzsche’s Libri Apocryphi Vet. Test.; the others have been published by various editors at various times, as noted in the following accounts.” 30 This indicates a general trend: information between institutions and scholars in Europe was often shared and translations of texts from one language to the other were commonplace. 31 Emil Kautzsch, ed., Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1900). His edition included the Psalms of Solomon, the Book of Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, the Apocalypse of Baruch, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Jubilees, the Sibylline Oracles, the Letter of Aristeas, 4 Maccabees, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, the Life of Adam and Eve. 32 Robert Henry Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913). He translated the same books as those in Kautsch and added 2 Enoch, Ahiqar and Pirqe Avot. Montague Rhodes James, The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament: Their Titles and Fragments (London: S.P.C.K., 1920), xxiv, emphasizes the necessity of distinguishing canonical books from the many “gospels, revelations, histories or ‘acts’ of apostles and books of prophets” that were written in antiquity. For a discussion of early text editions, cf. Bauckham and Davila, “Introduction,” xxiv. Much later, German translations of the New Testament apocrypha were done by Edgar Hennecke and, in a revised edition, by Wilhelm Schneemelcher, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung. 1 and 2 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1959). Hennecke’s first German edition of the apocrypha was published in 1901. The second edition contained the Ascension of Isaiah, the Apocalypse of Peter, 5 and 6 Ezra, the Christian Sibyllines, The Book of Elchasai, the Apocalypse of Paul and the Apocalypse of Thomas. 33 See the discussion in Barr, “Jewish Apocalyptic,” 24. See also Charles Kingsley Barrett, The New Testament Background: Selected Documents (London: S.P.C.K., 1956). Elsewhere Barrett compared Paul’s account of his rapture to the third heaven in 2 Cor 12:3 to similar narratives in 1 En. 39:3ff., Slavonic Enoch 7.1ff., and 3 Bar. 2:2f. See C.K. Barrett, A Commentary on The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (London: Black, 1973), 304. Other prominent authors were R. Travers Herford, H.H. Rowley, D.S. Russell and T.W. Manson.

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Germany a similar introductory text by Vielhauer on apocalypses had a formative influence on the scholarly study of apocalypses.34 All these examples reveal how apocalyptic research was stimulated through textual and historical studies.35 This scholarship had, however, serious limitations: though keeping together both empirical data and theological evaluation, it evaluated apocalyptic literature mostly from the perspective of the canon. So negative were the outcomes that some scholars raised concerns about the excessive contempt that was expressed. Charles, for example, cautioned as early as 1914 against skewed and excessive reactions. He referred as an example to Harnack who described apocalyptic as an evil inheritance which the Christians took over from the Jews,”36 thus perpetuating the often repeated comments on apocalypses as Jewish falsifications of prophetic books by less gifted, heretical epigones. Jewish scholars like Ginzberg37 and Buber,38 also assessed apocalypses negatively as a deviation from Pharisaic thought and

See Barr, “Jewish Apocalyptic,” 10–14. He notes that Rowley, whose works on apocalypses were widely read, was less interested in relating apocalyptic to his own time than in its ongoing relevance within the theological discourse. 34 Philipp Vielhauer. “Einleitung,” in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung, II. Band: Apostolisches, Apokalypsen und Verwandtes, ed. W. Schneemelcher (Tübingen: Mohr, Siebeck, 1964), 408–42. The popularity of this publication is evident from its translation into English in 1964. Vielhauer discussed apocalypses in terms of characteristics like visions, symbols, dualism, determinism, pseudonymity, pessimism and so forth. 35 See Robert Morgan, “F.C. Baur’s New Testament Theology,” in Ferdinand Christian Baur and the History of Early Christianity, ed. Martin Bauspiess, Christof Landmesser and David Lincicum (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 236–60. He refers to the historical approach that accompanied theological reflection in Baur’s time. This historical approach contributed decisively to questioning the authority of scripture because it made readers aware of the diversity of views in New Testament texts. 36 Adolf Harnack, History of Dogma (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1997), 1:101. See also the reference to him in Robert Henry Charles, Religious Development Between the Old and the New Testament (London: Oxford University Press, 1914), 15. Charles also criticised Frank Porter of Yale University because he described apocalyptic as totally different from prophecy. See the discussion of Harnack’s anti-Jewish remarks in Brent A. Strawn, The Old Testament is Dying. A Diagnosis and Recommended Treatment (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017). Also Reed, “Pseudepigrapha,” 419, for the debates about these texts that reflect “how charged the issue was.” 37 Louis Ginzberg, “Some Observations on the Attitude of the Synagogue towards the Apocalyptic-Eschatological Writings,” JBL 41 (1922): 115- 36. 38 Martin Buber, Kampf um Israel: Reden und Schriften (1921–1932) (Berlin: Schocken Verlag, 1933), 61–63.

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orthodoxy and as products of heretical39 movements on the fringes of society.40 Such examples indicate how research in both Jewish and Christian contexts was curtailed or impeded by, in the words of Kraft, the tyranny of canonical assumptions and convictions.41 There were, however, other reasons why Jewish and Christian readers and scholars had negative perceptions of apocalypses. At an early stage these texts fell into disrepute because they were used by some to predict future events that did not materialize42 or because they were seen as sectarian distortions of the universal teaching of the gospels. They were also denigrated for their so-called fanciful dreams and crazy visions.43 This early phase of apocalyptic research does, however, show how scholars began to overcome such attitudes. Despite the negativity, more and more data were being collected and analysed. One sees here also the beginnings of a breakthrough that would eventually open up a better understanding and promote major innovations in the field.

39 Barr, “Jewish apocalyptic,” 22, refers to Ebeling’s remark that apocalyptic is a suspicious symptom of tendencies towards heresy. 40 See Ibid., 10–11, referring to the English scholars, Moore and Herford. 41 Robert Kraft, “Para-mania: Beside, Before and Beyond Bible Studies,” JBL 126 (2007): 10–18. In recent times. researchers have come to realise how deeply prejudices evoked by a canonical mindset are embedded in research on canonical and non-canonical texts. This is the case with the use of certain terms like apocrypha and pseudepigrapha. See Molly M. Zahn, “Talking about Written Texts: Some Reflections on Terminology,” in Changes in Scripture: Rewriting and Interpreting Authoritative Traditions in the Second Temple Period, ed. Hanne von Weissenberg, Juha Pakkala, Marko Marttila (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 93–120. She draws attention, for example, to the historical misconception that is operative in terms like the bible, apocrypha, pseudepigrapha and apocalypses that imply “an older model in which it was generally assumed that most of the canon of Hebrew Scripture, especially the Torah, was fixed prior to the late Second Temple period,” which is contradicted by historical realia. 42 See Henze, Jewish Apocalypticism, 8. This was the case with 2 Baruch. Because of its failed expectations it was no longer copied soon after it was written. As a result, no Jewish version survived. It was only rediscovered in the nineteenth century in a single Oriental version. 43 See for the criticism of Revelation’s political contents, Pieter G.R. de Villiers, “Reading Revelation Politically.” See Juan Hernández Jr., “The Apocalypse in Codex Alexandrinus: Its Singular Readings and Scribal Habits,” in Scripture and Traditions: Essays on Early Judaism and Christianity in Honor of Carl R. Holladay, ed. Patrick Gray and Gail R. O’Day (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 341–58. Hernández refers to a “cornucopia of interpretive concerns” that were raised about its authorship, millennialism, angelic violence and historical inaccuracies. Even in later times when apocalypses were taken more seriously in scholarly work, the mythological nature of apocalyptic thought was interpreted as crude expressions of a discourse from a bygone era (Bultmann). It still functioned as a “lästigen Ballast” that had little relevance for contemporary thought. See Michael Becker and Markus Öhler, eds., Apokalyptik als Herausforderung neutestamentlicher Theologie, WUNT 2.214 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 3.

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Moving to the Center Research on apocalypses entered a new phase in the last three decades of the twentieth century as the study of apocalypses shifted from being a marginal scholarly activity to occupy a central place in research. This phase began as new finds were published, including the Nag Hammadi texts, discovered in 1945, but made accessible in English translation in 1977, and the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 where several copies of major parts of 1 Enoch in Aramaic were found.44 Apocalypses were also found in the Nag Hammadi texts (the Apocalypse of Adam, of Paul and of Peter). As these sources became available in translations, the theological reflection on apocalyptic texts began to take place. It is often mentioned that this phase was heralded by the claim of Ernst Käsemann that apocalypticism was the mother of all Christian theology.45 Käsemann’s work should be understood in a wider theological discourse. It appeared as systematic theologians like Pannenberg, Moltmann, Sauter and Bloch debated the important role of apocalyptic writings for Christianity and for biblical texts. Bloch, for example, regarded Christianity as a revolutionary movement in line with Jesus as an apocalyptic revolutionary.46 A key moment in the new phase was the publication of Klaus Koch in which he asked fundamental questions about prolegomena and the nature of apocalyptic research. Koch gave his publication the title,47 “Ratlos vor der Apokalyptik” with the telling subtitle: “Eine Streitschrift über ein vernachlässigtes Gebiet der Bibelwissenschaft und die schändliche Auswirkungen auf Theologie und Philosophie.”48 He named it in the sub-heading as a polemical text (Streitschrift), thereby challenging the discipline about the neglect of apocalypses that had such a shameful effect on theology and philosophy. Koch’s publication represents a

44 James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977). 45 Ernst Käsemann, “Die Anfänge christlicher Theologie,” ZThK 57 (1960): 162–85. 46 See the discussion in Barr, “Jewish Apocalyptic,” 25–26 and Koch, “Einleitung,” 8–11. 47 Klaus Koch, Ratlos vor der Apokalyptik. Eine Streitschrift über ein vernachlässigtes Gebiet der Bibelwissenschaft und die schädlichen Auswirkungen auf Theologie und Philosophie (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1970). English translation: The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic: A Polemical Work on a Neglected Area of Biblical Studies and its Damaging Effects on Theology and Philosophy (Naperville: Allenson, 1972). 48 Barr, “Jewish Apocalyptic”, 9, noted that the title of the translated version in English (“A Rediscovery of Apocalyptic”), could be understood by an uninformed reader as meaning that apocalyptic was being rediscovered and understood afresh. The irony was that the German title meant something different, namely, “(A)t a loss what to do with apocalyptic,” or, expressed by Barr “more vulgarly” as being “without a clue what to do with apocalyptic.”

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thorough reflection on prolegomena. He underlined the need to clarify theoretical and conceptual matters, arguing that the renewed interest in apocalyptic texts could not be accommodated within existing approaches to Biblical scholarship. Research was determined by a dogmatic point of view that privileged canonical texts as revealed, authoritative texts over against non-canonical texts as products of religion. What is needed for further progress, as Barr indicated, is a complete reconceptualization of scholarship and its objects of research.49 With these observations, fertile soil was prepared for a more extensive, inclusive and comprehensive approach to apocalypses than was previously the case.50 Of special interest is that during all this time little attention was paid to any interaction between mystical and apocalyptic texts. Because apocalypses were almost exclusively interpreted in terms of their eschatological contents, it went unnoticed that important parts of their contents had little to do with eschatology and that their non-eschatological contents displayed commonalities with mystical insights about otherworldly matters. Once again, this omission was the result of the myopic approach to apocalyptic research.

Broadening the Horizon: An Inclusive Approach As was noted briefly in the previous section, apocalyptic research began to move away from the predominantly canonical and theological approach of earlier times in which scholars restricted their study of apocalyptic texts to their Jewish and/or Christian contexts and privileged canonical texts. There are several indications that the situation was changing. More attention was being given to similar and comparable texts in other religious contexts. Consequently, apocalypses were increasingly recognized as literary texts with typical characteristics 49 Barr., 28, concurred with Koch about the conceptual confusion. He also noted how a small number of biblical texts determined apocalyptic scholarship up to the twentieth century. 50 A consistent historical approach to these texts underlines, as Barr, “Jewish Apocalyptic,” 30–31 notes, the “abstruse, obscure, difficult to interpret and extremely” strange message of apocalypses that seems to defy a proper understanding and interpretation. Such an investigation can be stymied by scholarly approaches that study apocalypses or mysticism to “illuminate” Judeo-Christian traditions, thereby favouring those who seem to be most amenable to such an investigation and sidelining others. What is needed is to be liberated from selective approaches that favour congenial documents or apologetically valuable texts and to avoid deprecating others. This would mean a serious study of all currents of Judaism and the whole spectrum of Christian movements and texts. At the same time, it requires respect for the integrity of these documents, their particularity and unique character by avoiding the imposition of anachronistic or arbitrary concepts on them.” Barr, “Jewish Apocalyptic,” 29–31.

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and as products of a complex multi-faceted phenomenon that existed in many religious contexts, including, for example, Mesopotamia, Iran, Egypt, Greece and Rome. This development represented a major shift in apocalyptic research. Apocalypses were now investigated within the context of the general religious discourse in antiquity and no longer only within the context of a limited collection of texts. This widening of the horizon is of critical importance for understanding the later interaction between apocalyptic and mystical texts. The recognition of this interaction was the result of claims by scholars that significant parts of apocalypses can only be explained in terms of Hellenistic religions of that time. According to Betz, for example, contents of apocalypses that reflected wisdom material like cosmology, astrology, demonology, botany and zoology, could not be understood in terms of Jewish and Christian texts.51 In another context, Hengel also drew attention to apocalypses as revealed Wisdom and argued that this belonged to the common features of Hellenistic religiosity. He regarded the theme of heavenly journeys through heavenly spheres as an important part of apocalypses that can be traced to the mythical worldview of Palestinian Jews and Hellenistic mystics.52 These were some of the first indications of the interface between mystical and apocalyptic texts. It is significant that these remarks were made in a context in which there was renewed interest in the history of religions. The widening of the research horizon was not merely about researching new texts, but also about theoretical and methodological developments in theology and religion that were based on the analysis, comparison and evaluation of similar phenomena across a broad religious spectrum and that reflected the dynamics operative in the History of Religions approach.53 A key event in this regard was the Uppsala Colloquium in 1979 that was aptly named as a meeting on apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East.54 This title reflects the conviction that apocalypses cannot be explained as 51 Hans-Dieter Betz, “Zum Problem des religionsgeschichtlichen Verständnisses der Apokalyptik,” ZThK 63 (1966): 391–409. Earlier on, in 1961, Gerhard Ebeling, in a debate with Käsemann, suggested that apocalypses had to be studied from a history of religion perspective. 52 See Martin Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1969), 273, 388–89. 53 See the discussion in Koch, “Einleitung,” 21–24 about the early attempts to relate apocalyptic traditions and themes with non-Jewish religions. 54 See the publication that resulted from this colloquium by David Hellholm, ed., Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East. Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Apocalypticism, Uppsala August 12. 17. 1979 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983). See also John Collins and James H. Charlesworth, eds., Mysteries and Revelations: Apocalyptic Studies since the Uppsala Colloquium, JSPSup 9 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991).

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an inner-Jewish phenomenon and shows the desire to include texts from a broad geographical terrain in research on apocalypticism. Several of the organizers and participants were specialists or trained in the history of religions, like Widengren,55 Bergman, Betz, Källstad, Lövestam, Ringgren, Säve-Söderbergh and Hellholm. A significant number of scholars came from a Scandinavian context where a strong tradition of research on the History of Religions had established itself.56 The Uppsala meeting took place after one on Gnosticism that was held in Stockholm in 1973. The proceedings of that meeting, edited by Widengren, were published in 1977. This meeting and publication also reflected a History of Religions approach. The presence of a wide range of scholars from Europe and North America at the Uppsala conference on apocalypses reflected the international collaboration on apocalyptic research. The broadening of the research horizon thus related to both the objects and subjects of research and reflected the growing globalization also of academic discourse. The approach of the colloquium reflected the awareness that there was relevant material from

55 Geo Widengren, Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Gnosticism, Stockholm, August 20–25 1973 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell; Leiden: Brill, 1977). The publications of Widengren, a towering figure in the History of Religions movement, include research on motifs related to astronomical symbolism, apocalypticism, the destiny of the soul after death and other motifs in Mediterranean religions of antiquity. He collaborated with Italian and Dutch colleagues Raffaele Pettazzoni, Gerardus van der Leeuw, and C. J. Bleeker, to found the International Association of the History of Religions (IAHR). See also Widengren’s contribution to the Uppsala Colloquium: “Leitende Ideen und Quellen der iranischen Apokalyptik,” in Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East. Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Apocalypticism, Uppsala (August 12–17, 1979), ed. David Hellholm (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), 77–162. See also for his biography the discussion by Eugen Ciurtin, “Geo Widengren,” in Encyclopedia of Religion Second Edition, ed. Lindsay Jones (New York: MacMillan, 2005), 9732–34. 56 See for the development of the History of Religions approach in the twentieth century in the theological discourse, the insightful and comprehensive discussion in Armin W. Geertz and Russell T. McCutcheon, eds., Perspectives on Method and Theory in the Study of Religion. Adjunct Proceedings of the XVIIth Congress of the International Assocociation for the History of Religions, Mexico City 1995 (Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill, 2000). In a Scandinavian context, the History of Religions represented a movement away from theology/biblical studies and was stimulated by the development of a multi-religious and multicultural society in the 1960s and 1970s. See Ingvild Saelid Gilhus and Knut A. Jacobsen, “From the History of Religions to the Science of Religion in Norway,” Temenos 50 (2014): 63–78. They note that Ludin Jansen, a specialist in gnosticism and an associate of Widengren, who was professor in the history of religions from 1953–1975 had a lifelong interest in mysticism. This developed as a further phase beyond the study of texts and philological research (70) and reflected a strong interest in theory and method. They also mention that this history is the result of the international links of Norwegian scholars with colleagues in other countries.

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other regions and cultures like Iran, India and the Far East that illuminated apocalypticism and was vital for an adequate understanding of it. The conceptualization of the meeting reflects this awareness when the organisers refer to their desire for an “extensional” inclusion of various religions. This confirms a new, innovative approach to apocalyptic research that would ultimately produce a more secure basis for an adequate interpretation of apocalyptic texts and movements.57 Such an approach ran contrary to existing forms of biblical scholarship that pursued research objectives in terms of an opposition between religion and revelation58 and that privileged canonical texts as revealed, authoritative texts over supposedly inferior non-canonical texts. This new approach subsequently became an established position in mainstream apocalyptic research, reflecting the trend to include all relevant texts and areas in scholarly work in order to reach reliable, adequate and authentic results and generate new knowledge. As a result of this development, more attention would be given in research to esoteric, otherworldly interests in apocalyptic literature, which would, in turn, ultimately prepare the way for research on the interface of apocalyptic and mystical literature.

Conceptualization and Theorising The previous remarks referred to conceptual and theoretical consciousness that is reflected in newer research on apocalyptic literature. This requires more attention, especially because it is a key stimulus for the innovation of research that brought decisive progress and generated new knowledge in apocalyptic research.

Theory and Method: The Uppsala Colloquium Research on apocalyptic texts in the last decades of the twentieth century was marked by the application of theorised key concepts to specific case studies from various contexts. Cross-cultural key concepts were constructed and used with a

57 Kurt Rudolph, “Apokalyptik in der Diskussion,” in Hellholm, Apocalypticism, 771–89; here 772. Despite this development, Stone (1976:439) spoke of a “semantic confusion of the first order” that characterized the then current research on apocalypticism and apocalypses. Though the general characteristics of an apocalypse were clear, the relationship between apocalypticism and apocalypses remained unclear. 58 Barr, “Jewish apocalyptic,” 28.

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critical awareness of the genealogy of the concepts. The comparison of case studies was done in a disciplined and systematic way after having located each example within its specific historical and geographic context. In the case of the Uppsala Colloquium, the “extensional” inclusion (described in the precious section) was linked with an intentional approach that conceptualized research in terms of theoretical insights and approaches. Hellholm spelled out that the purpose of the colloquium was planned “to give a survey of the present situation in apocalyptic research, to point out new thoughts and methods, and to stimulate further research in this field.”59 The survey of the “present situation in apocalyptic research” included close readings of apocalyptic texts and themes, but also theoretical and hermeneutical reflection on literary, historical, sociological and functional dimensions of apocalyptic texts and on concepts like apocalypse, apocalypticism, apocalyptic eschatology and revelatory literature. This development was to fulfil the need for a theoretically founded and comprehensive approach that could overcome naïve or inadequate approaches to apocalypses in earlier research. The Uppsala Colloquium in this way wanted to address the problem that previous definitions of apocalypses in terms of certain characteristics and semantic categories like visions, symbols, dualism, determinism, pseudonymity and pessimism lacked explanatory power because they did not fit all apocalypses or could be applied to texts that were not apocalypses. It wanted to provide an adequate definition based on reliable data. Such a definition would be reliable only if it accounted for common characteristics through form critical, literary and linguistic analyses. The importance of such a definition is evident from remarks of Meeks at the Uppsala conference that Pauline Christianity could be regarded as apocalyptic only when it would fit “a functional definition of an apocalyptic movement as an ideal type.”60 This intentional and extensional approach is reflected in the introductory contribution of Morton Smith who wanted to “define” apocalyptic by turning to Jewish, Christian and non-Christian sources. These sources reveal a pre-Christian use for revelation of secrets by the gods that enabled those who knew the secrets to escape impending disaster.61 He noted that these terms had been used for divine revelations like the Book of Revelation in patristic literature since the second century. He concluded that the social setting of these terms can be described in a remark by the Greek author, Iamblichus (Epistulae VI,7) who

59 Hellholm, Apocalypticism, 2. 60 Wayne A. Meeks, “Social Functions of Apocalyptic Language in Pauline Christianity,” in Hellholm, Apocalypticism, 687–705; here 703. 61 Morton Smith, “On the History of APOKALYPTO and APOKALYPSIS,” in Hellholm, Apocalypticism, 13–19; here 12.

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wrote about a populist movement consisting of “a swarm, of both private individuals and priests, forging dreams which they call ‘apocalypses’; they would make my life a nightmare were I not soon to get away to holy Athens.”62 With some disdain Smith concluded that the fashionableness of apocalypses was “part of the well-known growth of superstition and of claims to special revelations and to occult knowledge, complementary characteristics of the later Roman Empire which forms their fairly familiar social background.” It is noteworthy that Smith does not read apocalypses eschatologically, but as revelations about occult knowledge, thus acknowledging their esoteric nature and revelatory character. There was ultimately no consensus about a definition of apocalypses at the Uppsala meeting, as Hellholm noted in his introduction to the published papers.63 Here the importance of data for research purposes becomes clear. Though there were several proposals of definitions by individual contributors, it was concluded that more data from significant regions were needed. Further innovation would be possible if more data were to be analyzed. At the same time, there was a desire for more theoretical reflection. For Hellholm (1983:2) there was a need “for a hermeneutic mediation between inductive and deductive methods also in the area of apocalyptic research.”

Literary Studies: The SBL Genre Group Another major development in apocalyptic research took place when a group in the Society of Biblical Literature investigated the genre of apocalypses. The group’s findings appeared in Semeia, the experimental journal for biblical criticism,64 and was named Apocalypse. The Morphology of a Genre. This project is to

62 Smith, “History,” 18. 63 Hellholm, “Introduction,” 2. 64 The preface to the journal reveals its interest in theory, method, interdisciplinarity and, especially, its focus on approaches that match the data under investigation. It is, at the same time, an indication of the nature of the scholarly discourse in which apocalyptic research belonged. It also reflects trends in the eighties of the twentieth century, but especially the desire of scholarship to account for its scientific nature. The preface reads, “Semeia is an experimental journal devoted to the exploration of new and emergent areas and methods of biblical criticism. Studies employing the methods, models, and findings of linguistics, folklore studies, contemporary literary criticism, structuralism, social anthropology, and other such disciplines and approaches, are invited. Although experimental in both form and content, Semeia proposes to publish work that reflects a well-defined methodology that is appropriate to the material being interpreted.”

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be understood within the state of affairs in biblical studies as a discipline at that stage. The work of the SBL reflects theoretical developments in the scholarly discourse of the seventies when Robert Funk initiated an SBL Genres Project that studied texts in terms of genres like parables, miracles and letters in biblical documents generally. The general interest in genres of biblical texts, in turn, reflects trends in literary studies: genre was regarded as a decisive hermeneutical key for the interpretation of texts that “forces one to recognize the proper language game. As such the primary purpose of genre is literary/aesthetic, i.e., it is an epistemological tool for discovering the intended meaning of a text.”65 The SBL apocalypse group also reflects the interdisciplinary nature of biblical studies that aimed at interpreting its object of study at the hand of theories, methods and insights of related disciplines like Linguistics, Science of Literature and Literary studies. This theoretical aim opened a space for new insights and approaches to apocalypses. A key aspect of the group’s approach was to undertake a close reading and provide a morphological investigation of relevant data. The contributors focused on comparing and classifying texts that were known as, or claimed to be, apocalypses in order to determine which texts had a coherent and recurring configuration of literary features involving form, content and function. Their intensive approach was paired with an analysis of a wide range of Jewish, Christian, Graeco-Roman, Gnostic and Persian texts.66 In this way, their approach is a fitting response to Koch’s observation that an investigation of apocalypses will only be adequate if proper account is given to their literary nature and function. The group ultimately defined an apocalypse as “a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.” This was later extended to describe a literary function: “intended to interpret the present, earthly circumstances in light of the supernatural world and of the future, and to influence both the understanding and the behavior of the audience by means of divine authority.”67

65 M.G. Michael, “The Genre of the Apocalypse: What are they saying now?” Bulletin of Biblical Studies 18 (1999): 115–26; here 118. 66 John J. Collins, “Apocalypse. Morphology of a Genre,” Semeia 14 (1974). Reference is made also to apocalypses that are found in Byzantine contexts, in Islam and medieval Europe. 67 Collins, “Apocalypse,” 91. Adela Yarbro Collins, “Introduction: Early Christian Apocalypticism,” Semeia 36 (1986): 7.

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This understanding of the genre has been refined more recently, especially in the work of Carol Newsom. It is now recognised that essentialist understandings should be avoided because the notion of genre was fluid. It indicates similarities between texts, but allows variation, modification and even contradiction in a genre.68 Apocalypses have a “multigeneric nature” and every apocalypse would, despite commonalities, have an “irreducible particularity.” Texts, it is now realized, do not “belong” to a genre, but “participate, invoke, gesture to, play in and out and so continually change” genres.69 This new insight explained why apocalypses like Jubilees and The Shepherd of Hermas can be regarded as part of the apocalyptic genre.70 The particularity and fluidity of apocalypses would help explain the relationship of apocalypses to mystical texts and thought, such as, for example, the special nature of gnostic apocalypses with their mystical nature. This research has also been innovative in terms of stimulating reflection on the type of thinking that is at work in apocalypses. Genre theory can be illuminated by cognitive theory. Authors express their reality through the genre as part of a process that establishes a mental landscape through a conceptual blending of mental schemata. In the case of apocalypses, different matters like visions, narrative and historical surveys are creatively blended to convey a particular worldview.71 The blending has a dialogical nature, reflecting a dialogical relationship between texts. This insight would become especially important in terms of the relationship between apocalyptic and mystical texts.72 Of special significance, though, and on a meta-level, is the self-critical approach that has been promoted by genre studies and that is relevant for any innovation in apocalyptic research. Genre critics understood that their classification of a genre in terms of particular data was merely an explanatory, pragmatic tool to discover and spell out similarities or dissimilarities between texts.73 One classifies data not so much to describe, but in order to enable 68 Carol A. Newsom, “Spying Out the Land: A Report from Genealogy,” in Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies, ed. R. Boer (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2007) 19–30; here 21. See also John J. Collins, “The Genre Apocalypse Reconsidered,” in Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015) 1–20. 69 See Newsom, “Spying,” 26. “Some of the most interesting issues in genealogy are precisely those of genealogy”, that is, how texts change and develop over a period of time – both in an evolutionary and revolutionary way, with continuity and discontinuity. 70 Ibid., 21. 71 Ibid., 26. 72 Ibid., 28. 73 Ibid., 22.

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criticism to begin.74 “The validity of a genre category has to do with its potential for creating new critical insight.”75 A particularly valuable outcome of the genre approach of the SBL group was their reference to non-eschatological material as a firm component of the apocalyptic genre. They thus formalized insights about esoteric material that were hardly noticed or researched in previous scholarship. They thus provided clarity about the literary function and role of those insights. This relativized the eschatological approach in previous research and opened the way for interaction with mystical literature. The scene was set for further analysis of the nature and function of the esoteric contents.76

Interaction between Apocalypses and Mystical Texts Significant aspects in the definition of apocalypses by the SBL group created more space for investigating their relationship with mystical texts. This is suggested by the perhaps too often overlooked reference in the definition to apocalypses as “mediated, divine revelations” to human recipients77 and the description of apocalypses as disclosures of a transcendent reality and as part of revelatory texts. This profiles apocalypses as received knowledge/wisdom with a transformative impact. This knowledge, expressed through metaphorical language, included information about heavenly journeys of visionaries that took place in otherworldly spheres. The reductionist eschatological readings of apocalypses were corrected by this reference to esoteric traditions. These remarks account for the non-eschatological and esoteric contents of apocalypses on a formal, literary level.

74 Ibid., 28. “Thus Adena Rosmarin, in The Power of Genre, argues that genre can be seen as a kind of intentional category error in which two things that are not the same are brought together ‘as if’ they were the same.” 75 Ibid., 22ß. 76 For recent overviews on apocalyptic research, see John J. Collins, “Genre, Ideology, and Social Movements in Jewish Apocalypticism,” in Collins and Charlesworth, Mysteries and Revelations, 11–32. Lorenzo DiTommaso, “Apocalypses and Apocalypticism in Antiquity (Part I),” Currents in Biblical Research 5 (2007): 235–86. Lorenzo DiTommaso, “Apocalypses and Apocalypticism in Antiquity (Part II),” Currents in Biblical Research 5 (2007): 367–432; John J. Collins, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014); and Sidnie White Crawford and Cecilia Wassen, Apocalyptic Thinking in Early Judaism. Engaging with John Collins’ The Apocalyptic Imagination (Leiden: Brill, 2018). 77 This space was to some extent already opened up when, earlier on, authors like Betz and Hengel proposed a history of religions approach to apocalyptic research that would illuminate the interaction of apocalyptic authors with esoteric, mystical texts.

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These insights were corroborated and further explained by Jewish scholars who were at that stage already studying mystical literature and debating its place in the religious discourse. It was only a matter of time before their research would feed into research on apocalyptic texts in biblical times and would provide significant new data for apocalyptic research. One of the early indications of such interaction between apocalypses and mystical texts is to be found in research done by Michael Stone in a seminal article in 1976.78 The article is, once again, characterized by theoretical reflection and clarity that is so important for innovative research. He refers, for example, to a “semantic confusion of the first order” that characterized research on apocalypticism and apocalypses79 and emphasizes the need to be precise in terms of data analyses and research approaches. He notes, for example, that effective research on apocalypses requires scholars to begin with the data itself and not with scholarly reconstructions or definitions of apocalypticism.80 At the same time he also displays an inclusive, extensional approach when he insists that the data should not be restricted to the two canonical apocalypses of Daniel and Revelation.81 His analysis of the data leads him to single out wisdom as a key characteristic of apocalypses. The contents of this wisdom are summarized in lists which appear regularly in key passages82 and that have an extraordinary speculative nature. These lists are “catalogues of the subject matter of apocalyptic speculation” relating to matters like astronomy, meteorology, cosmology, secrets of nature and wisdom. They “stand at the center of the revelatory experience”83 and summarize what is revealed to authors. He notes that scholars failed to account for apocalypses by overlooking or minimalizing such constitutive material, probably because this speculative material is lacking in texts like Daniel and Revelation. He insists, though, that if this material is not taken seriously, one fails to understand large parts of texts like 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, 2 Baruch, 3 Baruch and the Apocalypse of Abraham.

78 Michael Stone, “List of revealed things in apocalyptic literature” in Magnalia Dei. The Mighty Acts of God. Essays on the Bible and Archaeology, ed. G.R. Wright et al. (New York: Doubleday, 1976). 79 Stone, “Lists,” 439. 80 This was a major concern for scholars who studied mystical texts, as will be explained in more detail below. 81 Ibid., 407. 82 Ibid., 32–33. See also Michael E. Stone, Scriptures, Sects, and Visions: A Profile of Judaism from Ezra to the Jewish Revolts (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2007), 31–35. 83 Stone, “Lists,” 443.

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Stone then asks about the lists of revealed things, “What ideological, theological or conceptual patterns can be discerned which provide a basis of coherence for them? What central concerns motivate their authors?” He finds direction for an answer in Jewish scholarship of the twentieth century on Merkabah literature by Gerhard Scholem and, later, Ithamar Gruenwald.84 Scholem and Gruenwald found connections between Qumran texts, apocalypses, some Rabbinic literature, the Hechalot and Merkabah mystical texts.85 Here, then, as early as 1976, one finds an important discussion of the relevance of mystical texts for apocalypses and an insistence that it is an essential requirement for an adequate explanation of apocalypses. Stone has also argued that apocalyptic visions reflect actual visionary experiences.86 The validity of Stone’s analysis is confirmed by similar research in a very different context. In the United Kingdom, Christopher Rowland also investigated the relationship between mystical and apocalyptic texts. Recently Rowland provided an intriguing reflection on the genesis of his own work. He was introduced to mystical texts even during his theological training at Cambridge. At that time, the prevailing interpretation was that apocalypses had an eschatological message, based on a reading of Revelation’s narrative about cataclysmic events in the end time. Recalling how biblical studies were taught to students in Cambridge within canonical confines, he notes that they were ignorant of Jewish texts like the Mishnah, the halakah/haggadah and the Aramaic targumim until they were exposed to “a couple of remarkable lectures about Merkabah mysticism” by John Bowker, one of his professors.87 The exposure to new texts enabled him to abandon prejudices against mysticism, including those of rabbinic orthodoxy which remained suspicious of mysticism because of its uncontrolled and subjective visions that did not have an exegetical basis in Scripture or tradition.88

84 See ibid., 451 n.76 and his reference to Gruenwald’s dissertation on Apocalyptic and Merkabah Mysticism, subsequently published as Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism (Leiden: Brill, 1980), and his unpublished paper with the title “The Esoteric Essence of Jewish Apocalyptic.” See further below. 85 Stone, “Lists,” 443. 86 M. E. Stone, “Apocalyptic – Vision or Hallucination?” Milla wa-Milla 14 (1974): 47–56; idem, “A Reconsideration of Apocalyptic Visions,” HTR 96 (2003): 167–80. 87 Christopher Rowland, “John Bowker, and ‘the Jewish Background to the New Testament’: An Essay in Wirkungsgeschichte” in A Man of Many Parts. Essays in Honor of John Westerdale Bowker on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, ed. E.A. Lemcio (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015), 33–34. He observes that the material was so unusual for him that he, as a young student, found it difficult “to spell, not to mention understand” what was taught to him then. 88 Ibid., 35.

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Rowland’s research on mystical texts convinced him that apocalyptic texts should rather be considered as a peculiar form of theological epistemology.89 He claimed that Jewish mysticism was not so much about communion of the saint with God as about the participation in, and knowledge of, events which are unseen to the human eye. Jewish mysticism is more a case of knowledge or enlightenment about things which remained hidden in heaven, whether cosmological, astronomical or theological.90 He relates how Scholem’s research introduced him to “the origins of the Kabbalah, but much more, to the world of claims to heavenly ascents, of the formulae to achieve celestial bliss, to the visions of the anthropomorphic deity seated on the throne of glory, inspired by Ezek 1:26–27, and the deity’s angelic attendants, the seven heavens through which the mystic ascend to view the enthroned divinity and the qualities needed to engage in such dangerous religious activity.”91

Rowland’s research is an independent confirmation of the innovative phase that began to emerge in these times and that revealed an interface between apocalypses and mystical texts. This phase was brought about by attention to mystical texts as new data for reflection on the meaning of apocalypses. Methodologically, he, like those who participated in the Uppsala colloquium, investigated apocalypses from a consistently historical and inclusive perspective that reflected a history-of-religions approach.92 Rowland’s historical approach is evident in the distinction he makes between apocalypses and later mystical interests in Jewish texts.93 He stresses that apocalypses reveal an affinity with earliest forms of Merkabah mysticism.

89 Ibid., 39. See also idem, The Open Heaven. A study of apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1982); idem, Christian Origins. From Messianic Movement to Christian Religion (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985); and idem, “Apocalyptic, Mysticism and the New Testament” in Geschichte – Tradition – Reflexion, ed. Peter Schäfer (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996). He developed his insights further in a publication with C.R.A. Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God. Early Jewish mysticism and the New Testament, CRINT 12 (Leiden: Brill, 2009). 90 Rowland, “Apocalyptic mysticism,” 409. 91 Rowland, “John Bowker,” 37. Scholem’s thesis about the relationship of Merkabah mysticism with the Kabbalah became controversial in later research. See the extensive discussion in Schäfer, Origins, 20–22, in which he critiques Scholem’s view of this relationship. 92 Rowland, “John Bowker,” 38. 93 Rowland, Open Heaven, 444. In Rowland, “John Bowker,” 30, 34, he links Merkabah mysticism with Qumran literature, and, specifically, the Songs of the Sabbath and writes about the “strange world of merkabah mysticism, of the patriarch Enoch’s rapture (Gen 5:24), and the ‘aqedah, ‘The Binding of Isaac’” that were opened to him as a student in Cambridge.

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Mysticism and Early Christianity The innovative character of this research is evident from the new knowledge that was generated and that illuminated the biblical text in new ways. Researchers like Rowland claimed that the pervasive presence of dreams, visions and auditions in Christian Scriptures reflects the influence of Merkabah mysticism.94 Early Christian texts were now regarded as part of the Wirkungsgeschichte of Merkabah mysticism.95 This link of Jewish mysticism, particularly of Merkabah mysticism with Early Christianity does not come unexpectedly. There were early indications of this interface between biblical texts, apocalypses and mystical texts when renowned scholars like Odeberg,96 Dahl97 and Meeks,98 to name only a few, read biblical texts in terms of this material.99 In an often quoted publication from 1967, Meeks for example argued that John’s Gospel reflects a polemical encounter with the Moses-centred mystical piety of Merkabah mysticism by proclaiming Jesus as divine agent, as prophet-king who reveals God’s name, testifies and judges the world. Later, Dunn also read the Gospel in terms of a dialogue with mystical traditions that aimed at experiencing for oneself a mystical ascent to, or revelation of, the throne of God by meditating on the chariot vision of Ezek 1, Isa 6, Dan 7:9–10 and Gen 1.100 This work prepared the way for the thesis of Dunn’s student,

94 Ibid., 38. 95 Ibid., 40. 96 Hugo Odeberg, The Fourth Gospel. Interpreted in its Relation to Contemporaneous Religious Currents in Palestine and the Hellenistic-Oriental World (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1929). Odeberg’s interest in the mystical nature of the Fourth Gospel reflects his expertise in Jewish mysticism. He published the first edition and English translation of a Hekhalot text. See his 3 Enoch, or The Hebrew Book of Enoch (New York: Ktav, 1973). On Odeberg’s Nazi sympathies and involvement, see Rebecca Lesses, “Hugo Odenberg and Nazi Germany,” https://mysticalpolitics.blogspot.co.za/2014/11/hugo-odeberg-and-nazi-germany.html. 97 Nils A. Dahl, “The Johannine Church and History,” in Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation, ed. W. Klassen and G. Snyder (New York: Harper, 1962), 124–42. 98 Wayne A. Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology (Leiden: Brill, 1967). 99 Rowland and Morray-Jones, Mystery of God, 99. Note the statement of Rowland and MorrayJones that, though there is “little in the Gospels which suggests preoccupation with heaven and the disclosure of its mystery (like Revelation), there are hints that important dimensions of their messages are thoroughly imbued with an apocalyptic outlook which deserves the epithet ‘mystical’.” 100 James D.G. Dunn, Christology in the making. A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (London: SCM, 1989).

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Kanagaraj in which he argued that John’s Gospel reflects a mystical experience of God’s glory in Christ during worship as a community experience.101 The innovative, and even daring, nature of this research, nevertheless becomes clear when one considers the fate of mystical texts in the history of research generally. Mysticism generally has had a notorious reputation, despite the fact that some of the most profound authors in the religious discourse were mystics.102 Scholars of religion tended to associate it with escapist, subjective, ecstatic and non-rational forms of religion that defied objective research,103 but also regarded it with apprehension as “organized practices used to elicit direct contact with the divine.” It was thus regarded as an aberration, a “human construct,” a product of “religion” that makes ontological claims and arrogantly seeks the deification of human beings.104

101 J.J. Kanagaraj, “Mysticism” in the Gospel of John: An Inquiry into its Background, JSNTSup 158 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 25. 102 The list of influential authors is endless. For a good overview of movements and names, see Philip Sheldrake, A Brief History of Spirituality (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006). See especially the multivolume work on mysticism by Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism (New York: Crossroad, 1991); idem, The Growth of Mysticism (New York: Crossroad, 1994); idem, The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1200–1350) (New York: Crossroad, 1998); idem, The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (1300–1500) (New York: Crossroad, 2005); idem, The Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism (1350–1550) (New York: Crossroad, 2013); idem, Mysticism in the Reformation (1500–1650) (New York: Crossroad, 2017); idem, Mysticism in the Golden Age of Spain (1500–1650) (New York: Crossroad, 2017). 103 See Ra’anan Boustan and Patrick G. McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature and the Study of Early Jewish Mysticism” in Collins, Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, 87–88. One of the concerns was that mysticism was linked with experience, particularly as a private, unmediated matter that could not be an object of academic research. Another concern was that a term like unio mystica reflects an understanding that naturalizes forms of piety in later Christianity. 104 See Kees Waaijman, Spirituality. Forms, Foundations, Methods (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 203. Further: April DeConick, “What is Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism,” in Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism, ed. April DeConick, SBLSymS 11 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2006), 1–2. See also, ibid, Voices of the Mystics. Early Christian Discourse in the Gospels of John and Thomas and Other Ancient Christian Literature, JSNTSS 157 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001). Influential authors like Karl Barth demonized mysticism in this way, influencing the theological discourse for a long time. McGinn, Foundations of Mysticism, 65. See also Ashley Cocksworth, Karl Barth on Prayer (London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark), 34–37 for a critical discussion of Barth’s view of mysticism. See also the second chapter in Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1992). He names a number of scholars who, ironically, “looked on Barth as a mystic malgre lui.” Note also the publication of Albrecht Oepke, Karl Barth und die Mystik (Leipzig: Dörfling und Franke, 1928) which suggests that Barth’s own views are in fact mystical in nature.

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This innovative research on the interface of mystical texts with apocalypses is the almost inevitable result of the significant growth of academic research on mysticism.105 Comprehensive research on mystical texts was a major feature of the religious discourse especially from the previous century onwards. This is illustrated best by the vast number of mystical sources that were made available in contemporary research. More than 120 volumes, to name but one example, have been published in the collection of Classics of Western Spirituality that contains the writings of many mystical authors. Increasingly, this attention to mystical texts has revealed how they too (like apocalypses) were part of a rich and widespread phenomenon that is found in many contexts, times and histories. In one of the most recent publications on mysticism, Julia Lamm noted how the most recent research on mysticism was stimulated by a number of factors: The study of Christian mysticism underwent another significant shift beginning in the 1980’s, when in the fields of history, literature, and theology there was more interest in social history, a push to expand the canon (or challenge the very notion of canon) and increasing emphasis on the local – on particular geographical, historical, cultural, and linguistic contexts. This shift both inspired and was inspired by careful textual work, the result being new critical editions and translations of primary texts deemed mystical. New scholarship inspired by feminist critique, literary criticism, deconstruction, and postmodern sensibilities challenged the confessional stances of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Many mystics came to be appreciated as inhabiting the periphery of Christian thought and spirituality, or even the territories beyond, and have come to be celebrated as being heterodox or heretical. In short, the student of Christian mysticism needs to be aware, at the very least, of his or her own assumptions of what makes a text a mystical text, and what attitude or valuation is attached to that.106

These remarks require more attention now.

Ongoing Research Some observations are now needed about ongoing research on the interface of apocalyptic and mystical texts. Given the restrictions in space, this can be done only selectively in terms of some significant trends in the field. In general, then, it 105 To some extent this was the result of the weakening of Enlightenment thinking that frowned on the study of themes and objects that escaped objective, controllable research. It is true, though, that despite rationalist trends, mystical texts remained popular, as the multivolume publication of McGinn on mystical texts (mentioned above) confirm. 106 For an overview of the various forms of mysticism, see Julia A. Lamm, “A Guide to Christian Mysticism,” in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism, ed. Julia A. Lamm (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2017), 1–24; here 3.

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is interesting to note that the dynamics that characterized apocalyptic research and that were spelled out in the previous sections, are also to be detected in research on mystical texts, as will become clear now. Research on mysticism grew exponentially as previously unpublished texts became available, as was also discussed above (for example, in the case of 1 Enoch), since the nineteenth and especially the twentieth century.107 The desire to clarify sources is also present in ongoing research, for example, in the debates about the mystical nature of and relationship of Qumran texts. Similarly, there are constant references to the need to clarify terminology, presuppositions and assumptions, with repeated attempts to set in place adequate definitions, methodology and hermeneutics for investigating and interpreting mystical texts. In this ongoing research, there is a strong focus on the interface between apocalyptic and mystical texts, especially in terms of the beginnings of Jewish mysticism. Vast research is, however, done on Jewish mysticism as a major trajectory in the religious and theological discourse that developed in later times. Though the discussions often engage in detail with later phases in Jewish mysticism, they have major implications for understanding the interface of apocalyptic texts with mystical literature. There is constant reflection on the place, role and meaning of early mystical texts or traditions in the light of later mystical thought. The detailed discussions that spell out similarities and dissimilarities between all the different mystical texts and phases, illuminate the dynamic growth of mysticism as well as the specific characteristics of texts in their contexts.

A Developing Historical Phenomenon Mystical research became an important discipline in the contemporary religious discourse, as is illustrated by the publications of authors like Evelyn Underhill and Bernard McGinn, to name two prominent examples from two eras.108 Though they attended to mysticism generally, their work has been characterized by a

107 See, for example, William O.E. Oesterley and George Herbert Box, A Short Survey of the Literature of Rabbinic and Mediaeval Judaism (London: SPCK, 1920). Odeberg, 3 Enoch, published the first English translation of this Hekhalot text in 1928. Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1954), 2, already noted the hostility and animosity towards mysticism. He refers, however, to writers who were researching the field, even though their works were not always published. 108 Schäfer, Origins, 22, 355 noted the Christian theological assumptions that are often operative in research by Christian scholars on Jewish mysticism and its religious context. For other names, see the discussion of Idel’s contribution to mystical research below.

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Christian point of view with a strong focus on Christian mysticism. Jewish scholarship, however, also contributed in a major way to the ongoing study of mysticism, especially since the twentieth century. It is true that this development is not entirely new. Recently Myers, for example, debunked the myth that mystical authors were not really studied by Jewish researchers before the twentieth century. He documented the early interest in mystical texts, particularly the Kabbalah.109 But it was Gershom Scholem, the Jewish scholar, mentioned briefly above, who radically renewed the study of Jewish mysticism. In a recent publication in honor of his research, the editors describe him as “the greatest scholar in Jewish Studies of the century, and the only one who made a considerable impact outside the discipline of Jewish Studies,” adding that he has increasingly become regarded even “as one of the most important contributors to 20th century culture.”110 Known for his extensive work on ancient Jewish mystical sources such as apocalyptic, rabbinic and Hekhalot texts,111 he posited that these texts reflected a shared mystical experience, expressed in various ways throughout a long history that began with esoteric, apocalyptic texts in the Second temple period, continued in the Merkabah speculation of the Mishnaic teachers in rabbinic texts and was also found in later Hekhalot literature. He traced the beginnings of Jewish mysticism to sources like early Enochic materials112 (esp. 1 [Ethiopic] Enoch and 2 [Slavonic] Enoch), 4 Ezra and the Apocalypse of Abraham. These texts, also known and studied by Christian scholars, contained early mystical concepts and images that were characteristic of Merkabah mysticism. Scholem clarified prologemena and insisted on a proper hermeneutical and methodological 109 David N. Myers, “Philosophy and Kabbalah in Wissenschaft des Judentums: Rethinking the Narrative of Neglect,” SJ 16 (2008): 56–71. For the early history of research on Jewish mysticism, see the remarks in Elliot R. Wolfson, Through a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). 110 Peter Schäfer and Joseph Dan, “Introduction,” in Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. 50 Years After, ed. Peter Schäfer and Joseph Dan (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), 2. 111 See Scholem, Major Trends; idem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1965). For an appraisal of Scholem’s position in research on Jewish mysticism, cf. Andrei A. Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 1–2; Scholem, Major Trends, 46 writes, “The Hekhalot are not Midrashim, i.e., expositions of Biblical passages, but a literature sui generis with a purpose of its own. They are essentially descriptions of a genuine religious experience for which no sanction is sought in the Bible. In short, they belonged in one class with the apocrypha and the apocalyptic writings rather than with traditional Midrash.” 112 Scholem, Major Trends, 43. He notes, “one fact remains certain: the main subjects of the later Merkabah mysticism already occupy a central position in this oldest esoteric literature, best represented by the Book of Enoch.”

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approach to mystical research, by, for example, emphasizing that the earlier mystical experiences should be read within their own context. They should not be understood in terms of unio mystica, which he regarded as a theme that was prominent only in much later mystical texts. In the case of early Jewish mysticism he noted how the mystical experience was expressed primarily and uniquely through the notions of a heavenly ascent motif, supported by other motifs like the throne, angels in attendance and the seven heavens.113 Scholem’s work is of obvious relevance for studying the interface between apocalyptic and mystical texts. While scholarship with a Christian inclination or context, understandably researched the many mystical texts in a Christian trajectory, Scholem initiated research that focussed on Merkabah mysticism that was of special significance for the interpretation of apocalypses and a long trajectory of Jewish mysticism. Scholem was strongly supported, but also nuanced by his student Ithamar Gruenwald, another influential Jewish scholar on mysticism. He accepted Scholem’s thesis of a shared mystical experience and tradition that stretched from apocalyptic texts to Hekhalot traditions. Unlike Scholem he traces the earliest post-biblical traces of Merkabah mysticism to apocalyptic literature and not to a Jewish, rabbinic Gnosticism.114 It was, however, especially on the issue of the beginnings of Jewish mysticism that Gruenwald revised Scholem’s research by tracing roots of mysticism to biblical texts. He contributed significantly to research on the interface of apocalyptic and mystical texts, especially by filling some gaps in Scholem’s research. Noting Scholem’s failure to investigate these biblical roots,115 he insisted that Scripture itself is a legitimate place to look for mystical notions and experiences. Scripture as a body of writings refers to experiences “that in a different literary context are easily recognized as mystical in nature.”116

113 See Boustan and McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 86. They note (92) about Enoch’s ascent in 2 Enoch that it includes “a vision of God enthroned, certain terminology associated with that throne, Enoch’s participation in the angelic liturgy, his angelification, and, finally, his enthronement (And I placed for myself a throne, and I sat down on it”; 25.4). Schäfer, Origins, 30 opposed a “prevailing trend” in mystical research by ascribing a “marginal role” to the vision of God in the Qumran texts. 114 See Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism, 3. Gruenwald accepted there were Gnostic motifs in Merkabah mysticism, but he does not find the origins of Jewish mysticism in Gnosticism. See further the discussion in Wolfson, Through a Speculum, 76–77. 115 Scholars often point out Scholem’s failure to provide a substantial discussion of the first phase. See, for example, Schäfer, Origins, 11. 116 Ithamar Gruenwald, “Reflections on the Nature and Origins of Jewish Mysticism,” in Schäfer and Dan, Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends, 25–48; here 30.

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How innovative research is determined by theoretical and conceptual clarity, is shown by Gruenwald’s clarification of prolegomena. He explains, for example, how Scholem’s exclusion of biblical texts from his mystical research is the inevitable and logical result of the conceptualization of Scholem’s research as well as his preconceptions about the history of religion and the place of mysticism in it. Scholem confined mysticism to a specific, advanced stage of development in a certain religion that reflects an interpretive approach to Scripture. That is why he approaches Jewish mysticism as part of a phase in which Scripture was interpreted esoterically in order to determine the meaning of the text. It is because of this conceptualization of mysticiscm that he excluded Scripture from research on its beginnings.117 Gruenwald, significantly, proposed as an alternative to Scholem’s approach that one should understand esotericism as a means to discover the very essence of the divine in Scripture. Scripture does not merely reflect the mind of God, but realizes or incorporates the mind of God.118 The use of prophetic traditions in apocalyptic texts is an indication of such new forms of realizing the divine. He notes as an example how Scriptural notions concerning theophany were taken over, modified and appropriated by apocalyptic visionaries and by Merkabah mystics. The mystical core in these cases is about visions of the divine that are rooted in texts like Isaiah, Micah and Ezekiel.119 He develops this in more detail when he argues that Merkabah material is relevant for theophanic material in apocalypticism and Scripture. One recognizes the mystical elements in apocalypses and Scripture from the perspective of Merkabah traditions. Gruenwald also lists as another example of mystical elements in biblical texts the descriptions of spiritual translocations from one place to another. In the Book of Ezekiel there are several references to being lifted up and taken away (3:12; 3:14; 8:3). These biblical descriptions prefigure the heavenly journeys in apocalyptic texts. In this way Gruenwald traces other key notions and visual concepts in Merkabah tradition to the Book of Ezekiel. In this regard, he also stresses the importance of mystical practices that were linked with biblical figures or traditions. For a long time the prophet was “the model for visionaries to follow and imitate. Various practices were adapted and

117 See also Moshe Idel, “Abraham J. Heschel on Mysticism and Hasidism,” Modern Judaism 29 (2009): 80–105 for a discussion of other presuppositions in Scholem’s interpretation of Jewish mysticism. He argues, for example, that Scholem’s insistence on the consistent symbolism of Jewish mysticism is the reason for his denial of the unio mystica and of direct contact with the divine. 118 See Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism, 37–38. 119 Ibid., 37–38.

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introduced in order to bring about the realization of mystical experiences like Ezekiel had.”120 This example shows, furthermore, that the mystical tradition was dynamic as new modes of experiences were discovered and new ideas and concepts developed. An illuminating example of how mystical research in this phase especially emphasized the historical and contextual nature of their sources, is found in Gruenwald’s distinction of various mystical phases when he discusses hymns in Hekhalot literature. These hymns make God, the Throne of Glory, and heavenly beings experientially present and thus narrow or eliminate the gap between God, the celestial world and human beings. They “induce an intense sense of the unique presence of the divine entities.” He points out how this differs substantially from apocalyptic writings that assume that God and the heavenly world are different, distant and essentially other from the world that human beings inhabit. A case in mind, according to Gruenwald, is that the biblical Psalms that do not make God and the celestial world experientially present.121 In the long history of Jewish mysticism, there are, therefore, striking new developments, but also different historical phases with unique perspective on the mystical experience. This discussion also reveals how the nature and meaning of early mystical texts can be discerned by comparing them with later texts. It confirms the usefulness of researching early mystical texts within the trajectory of Jewish mysticism, over a long period of time.

Fragmentation The previous discussion, especially the remark of Gruenwald about the differences between mystical texts, prepares the way for an important insight in the nature of mystical texts. Scholem’s and Gruenwald’s findings on the historical phases and their unique properties were further developed or resisted by various other scholars.122 Some scholars pointed out the many differences between mystical texts in the various historical periods and challenged claims that they reflect a unified development. A case in point is the research of Schäfer, who, critical of several aspects of Scholem’s mystical research, refrained from proposing a coherent overview of Jewish mysticism. His extensive contribution to the origins of Jewish mysticism, comprised careful, exegetical work on individual 120 Ibid., 4. 121 Ibid., 15–16. See also 13. 122 See, for example, Rachel Elior, The Three Temples, On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2005).

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texts that ranged from the Book of Ezekiel to the Hekhalot literature.123 This methodological approach serves his theoretical conviction that one should allow “each set of texts and each community represented by certain texts to speak for themselves, to tell us what it is they find important and wish to emphasize.”124 This approach challenges a unified perspective on mystical from the perspective of their fragmented nature – at least within the context of mystical research. A hermeneutical issue is at stake here: the interpretation of mystical texts should be motivated in the first place by exegetical considerations. Care is needed not to impose any analytical framework on the interpretation of a particular text too soon. This is also confirmed by the criticism of Boustan and McCullough about a facile reading of mystical texts in terms of a unified theme.125 They, too, drew attention to the fragmentation that characterized mystical texts, even those that were closely connected and were part of particular mystical traditions. They pointed out such differences in ascent narratives, emphasizing that mystical themes or motifs can only be understood properly within their particular literary contexts. While early apocalyptic works describe the ascent of the visionary as passive rapture, Hekhalot texts depict the hero as actively embarking on the treacherous journey to the heavenly chariot.126 In apocalyptic literature, for example, angels are guides, while they are guards in Hekhalot literature. Some apocalypses describe only a single heaven, whilst others have visions of multi-layered heavens.127 Reflection on any similarities between texts does not allow a conclusion that they developed logically from earlier to later stages. Boustan and McCullough, having analyzed the social location in which mystical texts were produced, also question attempts to read apocalypses indiscriminately in terms of religious experiences or ritual practice and, therefore, as Jewish mystical texts.128 They agree that apocalypses share with later Hekhalot texts an interest in esoteric knowledge and textual practice,129 but

123 Schäfer, Origins. 124 Ibid., 24. 125 Boustan and McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 85ff. 126 Ibid.,” 93, referring to Himmelfarb’s research. 127 Boustan and McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 93. 128 See also Orlov, Enoch-Metatron Tradition, 4–5. See also Boustan and McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 100. They conclude their essay with the remark, “The integration of formal textual analysis with attention to the entire range of nontextual forms of expression, such as public reading and recitation, regimes of ascetic discipline, and architectural contexts and iconographic programs, can help to account for the capacity of these textual traditions to endure over time.” 129 They refer as example to the similar ascent motifs in 2 Enoch, 1 En. 14, 1 En. 60, 71, T. Levi 5, Apoc. Ab. 18. See Boustan and McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 91.

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then argue that apocalypses understood this knowledge differently. These commonalities are there, and yet they do not imply continuity between the two bodies of literature. To illustrate this, they focus on the textualization of revelation that is pertinent to apocalypses. Apocalyptic authors allocate a central place to heavenly books that are revealed as secret knowledge to the visionary. These texts carefully note the visionary’s skills of writing, reading and interpretation.130 An apocalypse represents an authoritative account of revealed knowledge that could be shared publicly with an audience, but not as a text that can be ritually enacted in order to achieve ascent, angelification, enthronement and divinization. Readers of apocalypses are not expected to imitate the visionary’s journey or to reflect on his private experience. Though both apocalyptic and Hekhalot texts refer to the public reading of their texts, and both speak of the consoling presence and care of God for people, apocalypses do not display an interest in ritual practice to encounter the divine.131 They are not ritual scripts that had to be enacted in order to induce mystical states of consciousness.132 Differences such as these could even require that one should redefine the relationship between apocalypses and mystical texts. One should not decontextualize literary parallels and then conclude that they reflect a continuity of thought. Strikingly, they conclude, “Thus, even if we think it productive to study Hekhalot literature through the analytical lens of mysticism – a matter very much open for debate – it seems wholly unwarranted to apply that category (even at its most expansive) to apocalyptic literature.”133 The remarks of Boustan and McCullough thus take research on the differences between mystical texts a step further by offering a new perspective on the role of practices in them and also by their remarks on the textualizing of revelation.134 In addition, they challenge the facile way in which apocalypses have been regarded as mystical texts. Their work is another example of how extensively researchers revised Scholem’s hypothesis that Jewish mysticism reflects a continuous movement from early apocalyptic traditions through rabbinic to Hekhalot literature. It shows that there is now little agreement on Scholem’s reconstruction of “the essential continuity of thought concerning the Merkabah

130 Boustan and McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 94–95. 131 Ibid.,” 99–100. 132 Ibid.,” 94–100. 133 Ibid.,” 100. 134 Note, however, that Scholem, Major Trends, 46, also pointed to important differences between various forms of Jewish mysticism.

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in all its three stages.”135 In the words of Boustan and McCullough, the “powerful paradigm has gradually come unravelled.” For them, the opposite is true: “Rather than approaching these various textual corpora as evidence for a single, unbroken tradition of Jewish mysticism, many scholars now emphasize the significant linguistic, formal, and conceptual differences among them.”136 Their observations find some support from other researchers, as was clear when Gruenwald also pointed out such differences (see above). Orlov made similar comments when he noted, “It is apparent that, despite its importance, the body of Hekhalot literature cannot serve as the ultimate yardstick for measuring all early Jewish mystical traditions. After all, the Hekhalot literature in itself, as was demonstrated by several scholars who studied this tradition, does not represent a homogeneous theological continuum, but should rather be viewed as having several theological centers.”137 Jewish mysticism, therefore, seems to be more fragmented than Scholem thought.

Historical or Spiritual Despite the claims about the fragmented nature of mystical texts and even of bodies of mystical literature like the Hekhalot texts, some scholars still argue that mystical texts have a certain unity. One of the prominent examples of this position is the scholarship of Moshe Idel, another key figure in the history of research on Jewish mystical texts and an expert especially in Kabbalistic mysticism.138 In a recent article Margolin compared Scholem’s work with Idel’s phenomenological approach. He noted that Idel innovated mystical research by

135 Scholem, Major Trends, 43. 136 See Boustan and McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 85. 137 Orlov, Enoch-Mertatron Tradition, 6. The remark about “several theological centers” is of special relevance. It points towards the configuration of thought that is characteristic of mystical texts. Their meaning cannot be reduced to reflect only one theological theme. 138 Ron Margolin, “Moshe Idel’s Phenomenology and its Sources,” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 6 (2007): 44–51. Margolin claims (41) that Idel’s research strongly influenced and rejuvenated contemporary research on Jewish mysticism after the Scholem era. (Margolin’s analysis of Scholem and Idel is itself phenomenological.) For examples of Idel’s publications on Jewish mysticism, see Moshe Idel, “Universalization and Integration: Two Conceptions of Mystical Union in Jewish Mysticism” in Mystical Union in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. Moshe Idel and Bernard McGinn (New York: Macmillan, 1996), 27–57 and idem, Ascensions on High in Jewish Mysticism: Pillars, Lines, Ladders (Budapest; New York: Central European University Press, 2005). Especially enlightening is his essay on Heschel, in which he refers extensively to Scholem; see Idel, “Mysticism and Hasidism,” 80–105.

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challenging the established approach, mainly determined by Scholem’s findings.139 The underlying dynamics that drove Idel’s innovating research confirms that progress in scholarship is the result of self-critical scientific investigation that seek to conceptualize its findings in terms of its sources. Margolin notes, Freedom from authoritative approaches in regard to previous studies and previous views, even if those are based on solid opinions and scientific theories about the object of study; genuine openness to new fields of study, and general religious and mystical studies; and placing phenomenological thought at the center of the study of the religious phenomenon, are the key principles in Moshe Idel’s scientific work, which are willingly adopted by his students and readers.”140

The deeper motivation of Idel’s research reflects its nuanced and complex nature, but also indicates the theoretical, hermeneutical and conceptual concerns that determined his work. In an essay on modern Jewish theologies and Jewish mysticism, he revealed some of his convictions in this regard. In it he reviews the theological approach to Judaism by Abraham J. Heschel, the influential Jewish scholar. He notes how Heschel distanced himself from an interpretive tradition since Spinoza that separated theology from mysticism, with the lamentable result that the mystical experience no longer played a role in understanding theology.141 This changed with the “apotheosis” of mysticism since the beginning of the twentieth century with the publication of seminal books like that of Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism, William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience, or Martin Buber’s Ecstatic Confessions. Though these authors approached the theme more from a historical than an experiential perspective, they nevertheless contributed to bypassing, “slowly and hesitantly, the enlightenment traditions that reduced the Middle Ages to an age of darkness. By dissipating the mists created by the age of Enlightenment, the age of mysticism began.”142 Within this framework that celebrated the renaissance of mytisicsm and its vital role for the theological discourse, Idel specifically questioned Scholem’s historical, diachronic investigation of mystical texts. This striking development is the consequence of his theoretical and methodological perspectives on mystical

139 It reminds one of how apocalyptic researchers overcame the canonical constraints that inhibited their work, as described above. 140 See for example, Margolin, “Moshe Idel’s Phenomenology,” 50. 141 See Idel, “Mysticism and Hasidism,” 80f. He claims that scholars who had a more sympathetic approach to mysticism included amongst others Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Hillel Zeitlin, Gershom Scholem. Others, like Walter Benjamin, Emanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida and Harold Bloom “draw sometimes sporadically, and in a rather truncated manner, from the resources found in Jewish mysticism.” 142 Ibid., 80f.

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texts. He not only wants to account for the spiritual link between the many historical forms of mystical traditions, but on a deeper level also insists that a historical, distanced reading of mystical texts does not do justice to their mystical nature and mystical praxis. His methodological approach is to read mystical texts both synchronically and phenomenologically, paying particular attention to their spiritual nature and contents. Mysticism is about such spiritual matters and notions as devotion, unio mystica, various mystical techniques, Kabbalistic theosophy, theurgy and Kabbalistic hermeneutics. It is notable is that he, unlike Scholem and many other scholars, specifically embraced the notion of unio mystica as unitive factor and regarded it as central in mystical texts. Mysticism, he states, “seeks contact, and even unification, with God, in an experiential and subjective manner.”143 This is true across a wide spectrum of mystical texts. It is, therefore, no coincidence that Idel consequently pursued his investigation of mysticism within a broader discourse, comparing the spiritual dimensions of Jewish mysticism with similar manifestations in other traditions.144 Idel’s spiritual reading of mystical texts and his criticism of Scholem’s distanced, objectivizing reading of mystical texts, did not always receive positive responses. Recently Schäfer attacked Idel’s position because of its theologizing nature which, he argues, seeks to promote the practice of mysticism, rather than a historical analysis.145 He described the approach of Idel and his students as an

143 Margolin, “Moshe Idel’s Phenomenology,” 44–45. Idel’s research focussed mainly on the Kabbalah, but he argued it was relevant for an understanding of Jewish mysticism in general. On this, see further below. 144 Margolin (ibid., 43) described the difference between Scholem and Idel as follows: “Scholem emphasized the uniqueness of Jewish mysticism, in comparison with other forms of mysticism…. Idel’s approach suggests that despite the uniqueness of Kabbalah, one interested in phenomena related to religious devotion, theurgy, magic or hermeneutics could find phenomenological parallels, and sometimes even direct or indirect contact, between these phenomena in Kabbalah, and their manifestations in other traditions.” He also noted (47) Idel’s openness to explore the similarity between Hasidic mysticism and the mysticism existing in the Christian world (48). This inclusive approach reminds one of a similar approach in research on apocalyptic literature which was introduced in a programmatic manner in the Uppsala Colloquium (discussed above). 145 On a deeper level, the discussion about the unity between mystical texts raises the controversial question to what extent a historical or secular study of religious texts can do full justice to their nature and contents as religious texts that communicate matters of faith. Lindbeck remarked in this regard, “To become religious is to interiorize a set of skills by practice and training. One learns how to feel, act, and think in conformity with a religious tradition that is, in its inner structure, far richer and more subtle than can be explicitly articulated. The primary knowledge is not about the religion, nor that the religion teaches such and such, but rather how to be religious in such and such ways.” It is also a question that belongs to the wider

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attempt to reconstruct universalist aspects of the mystical experience which serve their theological interest. They sought to produce a new theology rather than to “stick to secular academic research.”146 In addition, such an approach practically functions to exclude those who do not share their spiritual approach. The interpretations of Idel and Schäfer need not necessarily be seen as contradictory, as if the one excludes the other. They could be interpreted in the light of contemporary hermeneutics, represented by such key figures as Gadamer and Ricoeur whose hermeneutics emphasized, for example, that researchers play a key part in establishing meaning, but also that the world behind the text (the world of the author and audience) and the world in front of the text (the world of the interpreters of the text in later times) should be distinguished when one considers the interpretive task. A close historical reading of a text accounts for contextual issues in an original communication situation, which is a firm part of and prequisite for the interpretive task. Such a focus would explain the meaning of texts in terms of their original cultural context.147 To reflect on the significance of texts, however, researchers consider the text’s relevance for later times and places.148 This implies a different reading in which later interpreters consider the continuity and discontinuity of the text for their own times. This would be true of Idel’s approach. Both the reflection on the world behind and the world in front of the text is necessary. One could, therefore, argue that Idel’s work is to be understood in terms of reflection on significance and Schäfer’s approach relates to finding meaning. The interpretive task requires both of these approaches to be followed. Given that so much historical and textual analyses have been done in recent mystical research, it is to be expected that the issue of their relevance within broader contexts will receive increasing attention.

debate about the adequate understanding of culture specific phenomena by outsiders. See the extensive discussion in George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Louisvale, London: Westminster John Knox, 1984), 32ff; here 35. 146 Schäfer, Origins, 26. See also the discussion on 26 where he refers to Idel’s distinction between two strands in Jewish mysticism, namely a symbolic, theocentric strand that is nomian and canonical that is not interested in union with God, and an esoteric, anomian, individualistic strand that aims at union with God. On 26 (n. 93) he quotes Boustan’s criticism of the spiritualizing psychological interpretation of mystical texts by students of Idel that is grounded in a fundamentally private, interior, contemplative-meditative experience. 147 This aspect should not be understood in a positivistic sense, as if researchers merely detect an inherent meaning of a text. The meaning of the text is decisively determined by the interests, prejudices, preconceptions, assumptions, training, ideological identity, and many other factors. 148 Adela Yarbro Collins, Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 15–19 makes similar remarks, but links her comments with observations by E. D. Hirsch.

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The research of Idel offers other examples of issues that complicate the quest for unifying themes or motifs in mystical texts. His work also reflects the difficulty of defining mysticism, which was already mentioned a few times in the discussion above. The notion of unio mystica as a defining aspect of mysticism is for Idel not an illegitimate imposition on early mystical texts.149 The question about the use of normative categories and traditions to describe an experiential substrate that underlies mystical texts is not addressed.150 The matter has become more acute in the light of later research that categorized notions like “mysticism” and “mystical union” as etic terms that resulted from modern interpretations of mysticism. Even the analytical notion of “speculative” material, prominent, for example, in Scholem’s, work has been challenged as inadequate, because it focusses on theosophical aspects of mystical and apocalyptic texts at the cost of embodied praxis. Ongoing research thus still faces the challenge to be critical about the use of analytical frames to interpret very diverse texts from many different contexts and times.

Praxis Idel’s research draws attention to the notion of praxis. He regards the practice of rituals as a vital aspect of mysticism.151 He emphasizes this in reaction against earlier research that singled out speculative wisdom as the key motif in apocalyptic and mystical texts. He ascribes such a cognitive approach to the influence of western philosophical discourse that wrongly interpreted mystical texts in terms of coherent, logical thought. He argued that mysticism is not about philosophy or theology, but, as Scholem also stated, it rather reflects the experiential and subjective. Mystical texts should be interpreted in terms of the non-discursive aspect of religious life, which would, amongst others, require that one accounts for mysticism’s extensive attention to praxis as an integral aspect of the experiential.152 This insight is vitally important because an emphasis on the speculative tends to overlook or neglect embodied praxis as the more important focus in mystical texts.153

149 For other points of criticism, see Schäfer, Origins, 17–19. 150 Boustan and McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 88. 151 Margolin, “Moshe Idel’s Phenomenology,” 45. Observance plays a seminal role in his thought, reflecting his interest in Hasidic mysticism. 152 Ibid., 43–44. Compare with this the research that distinguished cognitive mysticism as a higher, science with its discursive nature (of which Jewish mysticism was a part) from a mysticism that refers to spiritual illumination or occult knowledge. 153 Also, Boustan and McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 89.

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The notion of praxis has been subjected to criticism by some researchers who associate it with ascetic escapism, legalism and formalism. Idel, for example, rejected such criticism as a misunderstanding. The individual quest for unification is not self-serving and not about pursuing a personal goal. It has an anthropocentric, altruistic nature, as well as a practical function. Rather than escaping or retiring from the world through ascetic practices, mystical praxis is about affirming and acting in the world. This positive appraisal of praxis resonates with the work of other researchers who also spell out its significance, especially within a communal context.154 DeConick observes how mystical transformation in Jewish and Christian mystical texts was effectuated through mystical praxis like “asceticism, imitation, washing, spirit possession, eating ‘divine’ food or drink, anointing the body with a sacramental oil or dew, chanting permutations of God’s Name and so forth… The literature does not simply contain indirect references to ritual washing, anointing, study of sacred texts, vigils, sacrifice, fasting, withdrawal, and sexual asceticism in the narratives of the heroes. The period-literature also contains pieces of actual liturgy, prayers, hymns, repetitive chants, and ‘magical’ formulas, as well as references to periods of silence. Many of these are suggestive of communal behavior, initiation rites, and contemplative practices, although individual activity like incubation and dream visions are also known.”155

Also relevant in this regard is the contribution of Philip Alexander to mystical research.156 Alexander allocates an essential place to religious practice in mystical texts. He regards mysticism as a technical term for a cluster of religious phenomena that relates to religious practice within a specific religious system. For him mysticism is about an experience that results in a relationship of union or communion with a transcendent reality that is ultimately beyond intellectual comprehension. It functions, however, concretely within the life of a particular community and is linked with a via mystica.157 Praxis play a decisive role in the via mystica. He subsequently insisted that one should account for the social settings in which mystical texts functioned. This is a challenge, given the lack of clarity among scholars about what mysticism means, but also and especially because of the limited information about the social setting and performance of texts, and

154 DeConick, “Mysticism,” 1–26. 155 Ibid., 31–32. 156 Philip S. Alexander, The Mystical Texts: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and Related Manuscripts, Library of Second Temple Studies 61 (London: T&T Clark, 2006). 157 See Samuel Thomas, “Philip S. Alexander, The Mystical Texts: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and Related Manuscripts,” RBL 4 (2008). See also Schäfer, Origins, 8.

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thus about praxis. The existing information nevertheless convinced Alexander that there was mysticism at Qumran, taken over from priestly circles in Jerusalem and adapted to the community’s particular needs.158 The links between the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and the Hekhalot texts indicate their liturgical nature and thus relate to religious practice.

Experience Closely related to the previous remarks is the important role of experience in mystical research.159 There are, as the previous discussions showed, repeated references in mystical research to mysticism’s experiential nature. Some researchers saw mystical texts as the result of ecstatic, personal experiences, others as exegetical interpretations of earlier mystical traditions, or as literary derivations of apocalyptic and rabbinic traditions.160 Of special relevance here is the research of Elliott Wolfson that illustrates the seminal place of experience in mystical research and provides some insights in how the notion is used.161 At the same time he offers some nuanced remarks about the role of experience in mystical texts. Wolfson allocated a hermeneutical function to mystical experience. Such an experience cannot be reduced to a mere personal, ecstatic experience because it is shaped by previous mystical traditions. This means that the mystical experience is made part of a wider, collective context. Mystics offered their own unique contribution to a long history of mystical traditions by appropriating them in their description of their experience. Their own experience enriches the mystical tradition. And yet, he underlines that a mystical experience is not merely exegesis of mystical traditions.162 Wolfson notes,

158 Alexander, Mystical Texts, VII. 159 The notion of experience is controversial, especially because it is often misunderstood as referring to emotions and, thus, to subjective feelings. 160 Boustan and McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 89. See, for example, also David J. Halperin, The Merkabah in Rabbinic Literature (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1980), 182, who claims that Tannaic mysticism did not reflect ecstatic experiences but offered an exegesis of Ezekiel’s vision. 161 For an appraisal of the important role of Wolfson in research on Jewish mysticism, see Arthur Green, “Kabbalistic Re-Vision: A Review Article of Elliot Wolfson’s Through a Speculum That Shines,” HR 36 (1997): 265–74. See also Aaron W. Hughes, “Elliot R. Wolfson: An Intellectual Portrait,” in Elliott R. Wolfson: Poetic Thinking, ed. Hava Tiros-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 1–34. Also, Boustan and McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 89. 162 Boustan and McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 89. See the extensive discussion in Christopher R.A. Morray-Jones, “Merkavah Mysticism in Rabbinic and Hekhalot Literature,” in

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“The dichotomy posited by many scholars between exegesis and experience, interpretation and revelation, seems to me to be problematic. On the contrary, the connection between the process of textual interpretation (midrash) and prophetic states of consciousness or visionary experience – what one might call ‘inspired exegesis’ or ‘pneumatic interpretation’ – is to be found already in Ps. 119:18 and becomes pronounced in apocalyptic texts, the Qumran scrolls, and early Jewish mysticism. Specifically, in the case of the Merkavah vision, the seeing of the throne-world and the glory is to be understood as an interpretive process conditioned by religious traditions and the study of Scripture.”163

Wolfson further qualifies the notion of experience when he rejects the understanding that mystical union is constitutive of Jewish mysticism or that it refers to deification. He noted that this notion of mystical union suggests forms of Christian mystical traditions with a neo-Platonic nature that does not fit Jewish mystical texts from antiquity. To describe early Jewish forms of mysticism in terms of such a union or as the merging of the soul with God and with the shredding of the body, would impose modern categories on early texts.164 More adequate descriptions of mystical texts should rather include motifs like heavenly ascents, angelification and enthronement. Wolfson’s analysis is one of many examples of the widespread use of experience as a key notion in mystical research. Much attention has been given in mystical research to the analysis of key terms in detail, including the notion of mysticism which has been described as representative of an analytical framework that could prejudice research on mystical texts. This is not the case with the notion of experience, though it is used repeatedly.165 One of the more prominent cases is the discussion in which the controversial nature of experience was highlighted by Bernard McGinn. He explained why he avoided the term in his research on mysticism. He was concerned that the term could be associated mostly with ecstatic phenomena like visions, locutions, rapture, and the like. He noted that, though these phenomena are indeed part of the mystical experience, they do not

Rowland and Morray-Jones Mystery of God, 219–64, who discusses pre-talmudic literature that derives from an exegetical tradition. This literature takes Ezek 1 to be an account of the prophet’s ascent into heaven and holds out the possibility that such ascents are also possible for other exceptionally qualified human beings. 163 Wolfson, Through the Speculum, 121. His position on seeing God in biblical material is summarized by his remark on 324 where he refers to the complicated question about whether visions are actual descriptions of God as He manifests Himself, creations of human imagination, or some subtle combination of the two. He shows how for Jewish tradition “the imagination is the faculty that allows the formless essence of the hidden God to be manifest as a visible presence in the heart of the pious soul.” 164 See Schäfer, Origins, 19. 165 One example of a reflection on experience is Schäfer, Origins, 6–9.

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represent the essence of the encounter with God. He noted that this interpretation is confirmed by the criticism of and even hostility towards such ecstatic phenomena by Christian mystics. McGinn preferred the term consciousness. “The metaconscious co-presence of God in the entire process of experiencing, understanding, affirming, loving, and deciding, may provide a more adequate way to deepen our understanding of claims to have attained the direct presence of God.”166 The widespread use of the controversial notion of experience requires more discussion. Such an investigation is a daunting task, as is illustrated by a recent discussion in which Astley defines spiritual, religious, sacred or mystical experiences as “human experiences that appear to the person undergoing them, or to others, to convey or imply contact with or knowledge about a transcendent power, presence, truth or reality beyond the realm of the human and physical world. Research has shown that these forms of awareness of ‘something beyond’ are of considerable significance in the ordinary lives of very many people, as well as being elements of signal importance in the origin and development of religion. Among other effects, they often evoke or deepen characteristically spiritual, religious or moral attitudes, emotions, beliefs, values and practices, along with some form of fundamental orientation of life and quest for meaning.”

He adds that spiritual and religious experiences are even more complex because they are reported in many different historical and social contexts and are, furthermore, studied through different approaches and methodologies, each of which has its own distinctive concepts, testing procedures and types of argument. Nevertheless he argues that despite its complicated nature, the multidisciplinary research on experience is essential to the study of this notion.167 If it is true that careful analysis is required of mysticism as term in mystical research, it is equally necessary for the notion of experience. This is also necessary, given, for example, that mysticism was often disqualified from serious research because it was assumed that it had to do with experience as subjective, personal feelings.

Common Ground The fragmented nature of Jewish mysticism did not deter some scholars from comparing various bodies of mystical literature to find unifying trends in them, 166 Bernard McGinn. “Mystical Consciousness: A Modest Proposal,” Spiritus 8 (2008): 44–63. 167 Jeff Astley, “Introduction: Spiritual and Religious Experience: An Overview of Definitions, Data and Debates,” https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ces/research/ wreru/research/current/religiousandspiritualexperience/studying_spiritual_and_religious_experiences_a_reader_of_empirical_and_theoretical_perspectives_3.11.17.docx.

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as was already clear from Idel’s research. Such attempts are often made within a context of debates about how such a trend could be determined. There is a caveat that the “comparison of early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic writings with rabbinic and Hekhalot materials ought to be carried out under the sign of difference, rather than as an operation aimed at demonstrating the essential unity of the religious phenomena supposedly behind the texts.”168 And, also, it is asserted that the comparison of texts should be based on a close reading of individual texts. Schäfer, for example, who left the door open for a unifying approach, confirmed that there are many different texts from various religious discourses that developed over a protracted period of time in many places in a non-linear, non-progressive way as a “polymorphic web or network of ideas.”169 Though he reiterates that there is still no consensus about a common denominator for these diverse ideas, he does not exclude the possibility that there ultimately may be such a unifying trend. That will have to be established only after a close reading of the diverse mystical texts. For him a sound methodology requires that an ideal construct should not be posited at the beginning of mystical research, because the researcher will then be proving what has been established from the beginning. It goes without saying, therefore, that it will be illegitimate to impose any unifying theme on mystical texts that is not supported by the texts. Researchers who note similarities between apocalypses and mystical texts that open up possibilities for such a coherent, unifying theme or motifs, may do it in either a minimalist or maximalist way. In some cases scholars posit extensive commonalities among mystical texts. A case of a maximalist position are the extensive findings of a research project by an SBL group on Jewish and Christian mysticism. Though their research focusses mostly on early Jewish and Christian mysticism, so that their task is more manageable than other scholars who try to survey and reflect on a wider range of mystical texts, their findings are comprehensive. When the group was initiated and their approach conceptualized in 1995, they attempted to formulate a definition, but they concluded that the topic was so new and the debate so complex that it was not possible.170 They also required that any definition should be based on a close reading of sources. They

168 Boustan and McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 86. They list this insight as the outcome of research by specialists in the field like Halperin, Schäfer, Himmelfarb and Mizrahi. 169 Schäfer, Origins, 23. He refers, for example, to Scholem’s taxonomy of various phases of Jewish mysticism (early, Mishnaic and late post-Talmudic). 170 DeConick, “Mysticism,” 2. She noted that her book on Jewish and Christian mysticism contains contributions of 18 scholars that represent the work of the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism group of the Society of Biblical Literature over a period of ten years.

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then selected sources that have become known as mystical texts over a long period of time. They analysed various traditions and themes from sources in literature of the Second Temple Period, in apocalypses, Philo, Qumran and Hekhalot texts for emic words, that is, words that are used in (and not for) the texts, with which they could formulate a definition. The outcome of their investigation was a list with words like apocalypse, revelation, visions, dreams, glory and ascent journeys.171 These words show that heavenly secrets of a cosmological nature, hidden knowledge about the heavenly throne of God, the being of God, the being and abode of angels, the operations of the natural elements and historical surveys represent the contents of mystical texts.172 Their sources also indicated the central role of practices that work transformation and through which the mystic becomes divine or angelic.173 They claim that a unitive core of shared meanings in early Jewish and Christian mystical traditions shows that someone can “directly, immediately, and before death … experience the divine, either as a rapture experience or as one solicited by a particular praxis.”174 Jewish and Christian mystics thought that they would be transformed, that is, be “invested with heavenly knowledge, join the choir of angels in worship before the throne or be glorified in the body.”175 More tentative and minimalist is the approach of Orlov, who also confirms the differences between apocalyptic and Hekhalot texts and listed similarities between apocalypses and later Merkabah texts. Having surveyed the available options, he nevertheless concluded that the fact that “the Hekhalot tradition possesses its own set(s) of concepts and imagery, different from the conceptualities of the early apocalyptic mystical testimonies, should not however lead one to ignore the association of these texts with early Jewish mysticism.”176 There is sufficient evidence for the scholarly conviction that there is a unifying factor

171 Ibid., 2–3. 172 Ibid., 2–3. See also the discussion in Pieter G.R. de Villiers, “The Resurrection as Christ’s Entry into his Glory (Lk.24:26),” Acta Theologica 15 (2011): 101–131; here 103–4. 173 See in this regard also Rowland, “John Bowker,” 37 and Wolfson, Through a Speculum. 174 DeConick, “Mysticism,” 2–3. 175 See Ibid., 2, for a recent discussion. In subsequent research the notion of transformation was debated in more depth. It was claimed that pronouncements in apocalypses, Qumranic and Hekhalot texts describe an ontic transformation that results in angelification or deification. See the extensive discussion of research by scholars like Halperin, Orlov, Elior and Wolfson in Schäfer, Origins, 19 and 17–20 for the notions of union and communion. Others maintained that the mystic is not dissolved into the Godhead in Jewish mysticism, but some sort of assimilation is assumed. See Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts: Angels, Christology, and Soteriology, WUNT 94 (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1997), 13. 176 Orlov, Enoch-Metatron Tradition, 4.

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among many diverse mystical texts. Despite fluidity of imagery, features in 2 Enoch, the Apocalypse of Abraham, and the Ladder of Jacob are similar to those in later Jewish mysticism and Hekhalot traditions.177 Orlov shows that the celestial roles and titles of angelic angels are pivotal in the three relatively unknown Slavonic texts and also present in later mystical texts. The three texts form a bridge between early Jewish apocalypticism and rabbinic Merkabah and Hekhalot materials.178 He claims that his research is supported by findings of Gruenwald, Alexander and Mach on similarities between 2 Enoch and Merkabah mysticism.179 Before other proposals for common ground between very different mystical texts will be described in more detail, it is necessary to reflect on some theoretical, methodological and hermeneutical issues. In the first part of this essay, it was pointed out how apocalyptic research grew stronger as more apocalyptic texts were rediscovered, published and studied. An inclusive approach to apocalyptic texts was another major factor in innovating and reinvigorating this research. It was shown how the history of religions approach that included apocalyptic texts from other religious contexts, brought about major new insights into Jewish and Christian apocalypses. A similar development can be discerned in mystical research. Scholem extended previous research on Jewish mystical texts to compare and interpret a wide range from early Jewish to later Kabbalistic texts. In general, though, even his more inclusive approach pursued mystical research mostly within an inner-Jewish trajectory.180 It now remains to be seen to what extent mystical research on Jewish and Christian texts could benefit from an even more inclusive approach. A more inclusive study of mysticism is supported by insights from the religion of science that mysticism is not unique to Judaism and Christianity. The main faith traditions all have their mystical groups and texts, to the extent that some scholars

177 Ibid., 6, 17. See also idem, “Celestial Choirmaster: The Liturgical Role of Enoch-Metatron in 2 Enoch and the Merkabah Tradition,” JSP 14 (2004): 3–29. He concludes, “The liturgical tradition found in 2 Enoch can be viewed as a bridge that connects the early traditions about the sacerdotal duties of the patriarch found in 1 Enoch and Jubilees with the later Hekhalot and Shiʿur Qomah lore where references to the translated hero’s priestly role are juxtaposed with his liturgical performances.” 178 Orlov, Enoch-Metatron Tradition, 8–9. 179 Ibid., 12–14. Orlov adds (14), “Although some of these scholars acknowledged the possibility that the Merkabah tradition has very early biblical and pseudepigraphic roots, they were reluctant to recognize that the Metatron tradition might have its origins in the Second Temple period.” 180 Scholem, Major Trends, 37 is an example of an occasionally reference to non-Jewish mysticism.

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even claim that mysticism is fundamental to all religious traditions.181 Extensive comparative research has been done on the phenomenon of mysticism in world religions. An overview by Stoeber, a specialist in comparative studies, reveals insights in the study of mystical research that illuminate the past dynamics of Jewish and Christian mystical research. It also discusses major research topics in comparative studies that may be of future interest in the field of Jewish and Christian research. He describes how comparative studies initially focussed on the direct, unmediated encounter of an individual with the divine in a personal experience of ultimate Reality. The experience was subsequently interpreted by psychological approaches as an altered, disembodied state of consciousness with specific characteristics, processes, stages, effects, and stimulants. In reaction against the emphasis on common features for mysticism among major world religions, contextualist or constructivist views of mysticism in comparative studies later on highlighted the sociocultural character of mysticism and insisted that mystical experiences among traditions are different. In more recent times, Stoeber spells out, comparative research investigated mystical experience in the light of neuroscience, feminist studies, embodied perspectives and transpersonal psychology.182 Stoeber’s overview gives some indication of how mystical research from other religious contexts could potentially enrich Early Jewish and Christian mystical studies.183 At the same time research on Jewish and Christian mysticism could contribute meaningfully to the understanding of mysticism in other faith traditions. The potential benefits of this more inclusive approach can be illustrated by recent phenomenological research done by Waaijman, a Dutch scholar of mysticism. Having compared mystical texts from all major faith traditions, he reconstructed a common pattern that listed various dimensions of the mystical experience.184 Included in the pattern are elements like a prayerful longing in full

181 Waaijman, Spirituality, 403. See also idem, “Mystical Perspectives in Interreligious Dialogue,” Acta Theologica Supplementum 11 (2008). See, however, Schäfer, Origins, 7 for criticism of this position. 182 See the discussion in Michael Stoeber, “The Comparative Study of Mysticism,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, 2015; http://religion.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/ acrefore/ 9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-93?rskey=B1rabE &result=3. 183 See, for example, Waaijman, “Mystical Perspectives,” 221–33. Especially important is Kees Waaijman, “Mystieke ervaring en mystieke weg” in Encyclopedie van de Mystiek. Fundamenten, tradities en perspectieven, ed. Jos Baers et al. (Kampen: Kok, 2003), 57–79. He spelled out certain key motifs that are characteristic of mystical texts in all world religions. 184 Ibid., 59, offers a typology of the attempts by researchers to describe the mystical experience as the basis for his phenomenological investigation. The typology includes expressions and words used in mystical research for the mystical experience like, for example, being

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awareness of one’s own alienation and then the transformation of the mystic to become aware of a deeper reality beyond the present existence. The pattern indicates further that the mystical experience can be characterized by notions like ecstasy, self-detachment, passivity and immediacy.185 The experience also comprises contemplative knowledge, union, indwelling of the divine and mutuality between the human and the divine. Finally, the mystical experience affects and changes the existence of the mystic in an ongoing manner.186 Waaijman notes that mystical texts will present these shared characteristics differently according to the particular contexts in which they were written. The reason is that they witness concretely in terms of their context to a particular mystical way in which an individual becomes aware of a new reality that transforms human existence in all its fullness, relationships, behavioural patterns and affective structures. The awareness reflects and relates to the particular cultural, social and religious context and discourse in which the mystical experience happened and is recounted. In the case of Merkabah mysticism, for example, the mystical experience is depicted through motifs like the throne, the glory (Kavod),187 ascent and fear of God, consciousness of the divine presence, angelic and divine figures, as has been pointed out in the above discussion. In an extensive description of Merkabah mysticism, Waaijman, referring to Heikalot Rabbati, spells out an example of the mystic’s heavenly journey for which the mystic prepares with many practices. The dangerous journey is expressed in traditional terms as passing through heavily guarded gates. The mystic can continue only by reciting the holy names, repeating the required passwords and singing continuously. The ultimate encounter takes place when the mystic arrives in the seventh heaven to participate in the heavenly liturgy to contemplate the divine glory before the merkabah. Finally, the self-detachment of the mystic is symbolized when the mystic’s earthly attire is removed, he is anointed with heavenly oil and clothed with heavenly glory. The heavenly scene inexplicable, transitory, passive, directed to the immutable One and unitive – to name but a few from his list. 185 Idel, “Mysticism and Hasidism,” 80–105, provides a discussion of Jewish mysticism that incorporates some of these perspectives. He refers to direct contact with and experience of the deity, oneness of the seen and the unseen, the effect of the mystical action on another external reality, elevation of the profane to the sacred, some form of detachment from the body, in a moment of ecstasy, with the elevation of the created reality to its source in God, understood as a mystical Nihil. 186 Waaijman, “Mystieke Weg,” 60–68. 187 See, for example, De Villiers, “Entrance into his Glory” for literature about the mystical nature of glory.

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focusses on the Name as the core of all singing and liturgy. The Name represents the divine sharing itself.188 Waaijman is aware that this pattern simplifies the complexity of the mystical experience. He also emphasizes that the pattern does not offer a criteriology for mystical texts and not all mystical texts will reflect all of these dimensions. It is a basic pattern that assists researchers to describe and interpret mystical texts or, alternatively, to recognize mystical leanings in texts that are not necessarily regarded as mystical.189 A brief overview of some attempts in mystical research to describe the unity of mystical texts will show how they resonate with Waaijman’s pattern. Scholem, for example, remarked that mysticism arose in religious contexts where there was a strong awareness of a radical gap between God and humanity. “Mysticism does not deny or overlook the abyss; on the contrary, it begins by realizing its existence, but from there it proceeds to a quest for the secret that will close it.”190 This insight of Scholem resonates with the dimension of longing, but also of contemplative knowledge in Waaijman’s pattern. The mystic’s longing is about overcoming the gap between the divine and human, and to be restored to an intimate relationship with God. The divine intervention that brings about the transformation evokes ecstasy and points towards intimacy,191 while a motif like angelification would resonate with dimensions in Waaijman’s pattern that refer to unification, indwelling and mutuality. The revelation of hidden knowledge relates to contemplative knowledge, that is, the consciousness of the divine presence and an awareness of seeing God. Schäfer, though critical of unifying approaches and essentialist understandings of mysticism,192 has also suggested at the end of his investigation of the origins of Jewish mysticism, that mystical texts in Early Judaism and Christianity have in common a desire193 to bridge the gap between heaven and earth, between

188 Waaijman, “Mystieke Weg,” 74. He refers, amongst others, to Scholem’s discussion of Merkabah mysticism for his analysis. 189 Ibid., 59. 190 Scholem, Major Trends, 8. 191 Ibid., 5, describes the ecstatic experience of a mystic as “the tremendous uprush and soaring of the soul to its highest plane.” Carol Newsom, The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. A Critical Edition (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), 14–15, regarded the text as a description of the heavenly liturgy in which the seventh song is located in a central position. It forms a unit with the sixth and eighth songs. Their repetitive nature could have had a strongly emotional effect on those who sang them and induced visionary or ecstatic experiences. 192 Schäfer, Origins, 353, notes the greatly diverse phenomena that are described in his book. They “resist the modern scholar’s desire to subsume them under a single all-embracing category.” 193 Ibid., 353, refers to the “craving” of authors to bridge the gap.

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human beings and heavenly powers, humanity and God. “The attempt is to get back to God as close as possible, to experience the living and loving God, despite the desolate situation on earth with all its shortcomings and catastrophes.”194 Mysticism is also about an attempt to restore the broken relationship of the past. The common denominator in sources is an experience of the living God who is physically present and approachable in the heavenly sanctuary and of the loving God who loves the people of Israel.195 One could link this description with various dimensions in Waaijman’s pattern: there is the longing or craving for the divine intervention, the immediacy of being in the divine presence, the intimacy of being as close as possible with God, the mutuality of the divine and human interaction. Similar motifs are present in the proposal of the SBL group on Early Jewish and Christian mysticism that authors of apocalypses assume a direct and experiential encounter with the Sacred that transformed them to witness to their faith in a new way in their present context. “This belief has to do with religious experience, the act of revelation itself, the encounter with God that results in the devotee’s immediate personal transformation and the uncovering of God’s mysteries.”196 Once again mysticism is here associated with an encounter with the divine that has a lasting effect on the mystic, and that involves, among other things, immediacy, contemplation, and knowledge. These examples reveal features that are typical of mystical literature in major faith traditions. They should, however, not be understood in an essentialist manner as if they indicate the only fixed properties of a mystical text, or, in a prescriptive manner, as if only texts that contain all these characteristics can be regarded as mystical. These dimensions are listed as a pattern to assist researchers with a tool to recognize or analyze mystical texts or to speak in a more nuanced manner about their key themes and motifs. This pattern also has some heuristic value in so far as it could alert the researcher to nuances or complexities in a text that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Conclusion Research on apocalyptic and mystical texts has come a long way. It had to overcome major challenges because of prejudices, lack of sources and

194 Ibid., 353. 195 Ibid., 354. 196 DeConick, “Mysticism,” 19.

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manipulative power games. Careful comparative research on new data paired with clear conceptualization, adequate hermeneutics and fitting methodology, brought constant progress in the quest for understanding. It is ironical that through this quest religious texts that were previously neglected or scorned are now regarded as being of seminal importance for the religious discourse. This indicates how important it is to pursue scholarship that is creative, fearless and solid.

John J. Collins

Is There Mysticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls? “There is no such thing as a universally recognized definition of mysticism,” writes Peter Schäfer, “just as there is no such thing as a universally recognized phenomenon of mysticism or notion of mystical experience.”1 Mysticism is indeed an elusive term in the study of religion. It is an etic term, which is to say that it is a modern analytic term, not a category used in ancient texts.2 (The etymology of the word relates to initiation in the mystery religions, but the term is used much more broadly than that).3 On the broadest definition, it relates to the desire to bridge the existential distance between God and humanity.4 But such a definition is not very helpful. Not every attempt to bridge the divide between God and humanity qualifies as mystical; not everyone who prays or attends a church or synagogue is a mystic. A few more specific criteria may be considered. Usually mysticism implies some kind of experience of the divine. April de Conick proposes “the belief that a person directly, immediately, and before death can experience the divine, either as a rapture experience or as one solicited by a particular praxis.”5 The category of experience brings its own set of problems, since we only have written texts and have no direct access to ancient experience. But at least we describe as mystical texts that purport to describe experience of the divine, whatever their relation to experiential reality.6

1 Peter Schäfer, The Origins of Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 1. 2 April DeConick, “What is Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism?” in Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism, ed. April DeConick, SBLSymS 11 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2006), 1–24; here 2. 3 Schäfer, Origins, 2. 4 So Bilhah Nitzan, “Harmonic and Mystical Characteristics in Poetic and Liturgical Writings from Qumran,” JQR 85 (1994): 163–83; here 163. 5 DeConick, “Mysticism,” 2. 6 For a more robust defense of the possibility of inferring experience from texts see Alan F. Segal, “Transcribing Experience,” in With Letters of Light. Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish Apocalypticism, Magic, and Mysticism in Honor of Rachel Elior, ed. Daphna V. Arbel and Andrei A. Orlov, Ekstasis 2 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 365–82, and several essays in DeConick, Paradise Now, especially those of Segal, “Religious Experience and the Construction of the Transcendent Self,” pp. 27–40, and Christopher Rowland, with Patricia Gibbons and Vicente Dobroruka, “Visionary Experience in Ancient Judaism and Christianity,” pp. 41–56. John J. Collins, Yale University https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110597264-003

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Often this experience of the divine had been conceived as a kind of union: “some form of union with God, particularly a union of absorption or identity in which the individual personality is lost.”7 Many scholars of mysticism, however, find this formulation too narrow. “Numerous mystics,” wrote Gershom Scholem, “Jews as well as non-Jews, have by no means represented the essence of their ecstatic experience, the tremendous uprush and soaring of the soul to its highest plane, as a union with God.”8 Bernard McGinn, perhaps the preeminent contemporary scholar of the history of Christian mysticism, commented that “if we define mysticism in this sense, there are actually so few mystics in the history of Christianity that one wonders why Christians used the qualifier ‘mystical’ so often.”9 He concludes that “it may also be argued that union with God is not the most central category for understanding mysticism,” and prefers to speak of “the preparation for, the consciousness of, and the reaction to what can be described as the immediate or direct presence of God.”10 Older scholarship often regarded mysticism as a universal phenomenon. Against this, Gershom Scholem already objected that “there is no such thing as mysticism in the abstract . . . there is no mysticism as such, there is only the mysticism of a particular religious system, Christian, Islamic, Jewish, mysticism and so on.”11 In this, he anticipated the tendency that would prevail in religious studies in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries.12 Elliot Wolfson has argued that “the emphasis on mystical union so frequently invoked by scholars as the sine qua non of mysticism represents a tendency rooted in Neoplatonic ontology and epistemology: contemplation of God results in a form of union whereby the soul separates from the body and returns to its ontological source in the One.” The Jewish sources, he suggests, beginning with the apocalyptic and Qumran texts, may provide a different model “based not on henosis, but rather on the ‘angelification’ of the human being who crosses the boundary of space and time and becomes part of the heavenly

7 Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism. Origins to the Fifth Century (New York: Crossroad, 1991), xvi. See e.g. N. Pike, Mystical Union: An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1992). 8 Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1971), 5 9 McGinn, The Foundations, xvi. 10 Ibid., xvii. 11 Scholem, Major Trends, 6. 12 See Ra’anan Boustan and Patrick G. McCullough, “Apocalyptic Literature and the Study of Early Jewish Mysticism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, ed. John J. Collins (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 85–103; here 87.

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realm.”13 In short, mysticism in this context is not union with God, but rather communion with the angels. This communion may entail either of two distinct experiences: participation in the angelic liturgy and enthronement in the celestial realm. In Wolfson’s view, heavenly enthronement is “the fullest expression of the mystical experience, an eschatological ideal of deification that may be realized in this world through the exercise of proper techniques.” He argues that the word “mystical” should be used only when there is evidence for specific techniques that lead to an experience of ontic transformation, i.e. becoming divine or angelic.14 Wolfson’s understanding of mysticism is shaped primarily by the Hekhalot texts, the classic texts of Jewish mysticism, which are several centuries later than the Dead Sea Scrolls. The model of heavenly enthronement is Enoch, who is enthroned as Metatron in 3 Enoch, or Sefer Hekalot. Andrei Orlov, objects that “despite its importance, the body of Hekhalot literature cannot serve as the ultimate yardstick for measuring all early Jewish mystical traditions.”15 That literature has its own problems, that lie far beyond the scope of our present inquiry. Nonetheless, Wolfson’s proposals are useful in providing not one model, but two, for understanding what we mean by mysticism. If mysticism can refer either to participation in the angelic liturgy or to heavenly enthronement, then it is evident that it is not a univocal term, and that we may recognize different kinds, or degrees, of mysticism. There have been several significant studies on the question of mysticism in the Scrolls in recent years. Philip Alexander has argued strongly that “there was mysticism at Qumran . . . This mysticism was the historical forerunner of later Jewish Hekhalot mysticism, and should now be integrated into “the genealogy of Western mysticism.”16 James Davila has noted that “the mystical texts from the Qumran library share many parallels with the Hekhalot literature, including terminology and cosmology, exegesis of scripture, interest in ascents to heaven

13 Elliott Wolfson, “Mysticism and the Poetic-Liturgical Compositions from Qumran. A Response to Bilhah Nitzan,” JQR 85 (1994): 185–202; here 186. 14 Ibid., 187. Schäfer’s objection to Wolfson’s use of “deification” (“does this mean that they become deified, that they become God?” (Origins, 20) is theological and anachronistic. Both the Hebrew and Greek sources regularly refer to “angels” as “gods” (elohim, or theoi). 15 Andrei A. Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 6. 16 Philip Alexander, Mystical Texts. Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and Related Manuscripts (London: T & T Clark, 2006), vii; idem, “Qumran and the Genealogy of Western Mysticism,”in New Perspectives on Old Texts. Proceedings of the Tenth International symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature, 9–11 January, 2005, ed. Esther G. Chazon and Betsy Halpern-Amaru, in collaboration with Ruth A. Clements (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 215–35.

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and the celestial paradise, interest in control of spirits, and elements of mystical ritual.”17 He also recognizes numerous differences between the two corpora. He is hesitant about positing any genetic link between them and has written that to refer to any of the Scrolls as mystical “would be to stretch the definition of the word.”18 Peter Schäfer occupies the skeptical end of the spectrum. He regards it as “plainly misguided to attempt to discover in the Songs of the Sabbath sacrifice the earliest version of the heavenly journey as described in the Hekhalot literature, and therefore the hidden source of what is later called Merkavah mysticism.”19 He finds “no emphasis whatsoever on the vision of God and a description of his appearance,”20 and nothing “that would allow the reader to read into them the notion of unio mystica, or mystical union with God.”21 He does however grant that some of the texts suggest the idea of “angelification,” and others express a liturgical communion with the angels. He insists, however, that, in contrast to the Hekhalot literature, the liturgical communion is accomplished by the earthly community as a whole, and not by an individual, but even on this point there is an exception in the so-called Self-Glorification Hymn.22 So despite his debunking treatment of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, Schäfer actually allows for significant mystical elements in the sectarian scrolls. Three texts or clusters of texts are especially important in this discussion. First, the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice initiated the discussion of mysticism in the Scrolls when they were first published. Their significance is reflected in the original name given to the composition, The Angelic Liturgy.23 Second, the Hodayot are the place where the (liturgical) communion with the angels finds its primary expression. Finally, there is the controversial and very fragmentary Self-Exaltation Hymn, which many scholars regard as the strongest evidence for mysticism in the Scrolls. We shall comment on each in turn.

17 James R. Davila, “Exploring the Mystical Background of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 433–54; here 447. 18 James R. Davila, “Heavenly Ascents in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years. A Comprehensive Assessment, ed. Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 461–85; here 482. 19 Schäfer, Origins, 152. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid., 153. 22 Ibid., 152–53. 23 John Strugnell, “The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran – 4QShirot Olat HaShabbat,” Congress Volume Oxford, 1959, VTSup 7 (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 318–45.

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The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice are compositions for each of thirteen Sabbaths, which call on the angels to give praise and provide descriptive statements about the angels and their praise-giving.24 They do not give the words of the angels or cite any angelic hymns of praise. We are told that God “has established for himself priests of the inner sanctum, the holiest of the holy ones” (4Q400 fragment 1). They are also called “ministers of the presence in his glorious debir.” The angelic priests are depicted as divided into “seven priesthoods,” “seven councils,” and as occupying “seven precincts” (‫ )גבולים‬in the heavenly temple. The ninth to thirteenth songs appear to contain a systematic description of the heavenly temple that is based in part on Ezekiel 40–48. The heavenly temple is evidently imagined by analogy with the earthly temple, except that no attention is paid to any outer courts. The holy place is an ‘ulam, while the holy of holies is the debir, which contains the merkavah throne. The rest of heaven presumably corresponds to the outer courts of the terrestrial temple. Everything is sevenfold, so there are apparently seven temples.25 It is not clear how they relate to each other. The text gives no indication of their spatial relationship, and there is no reason to correlate them with seven heavens. The motif of seven heavens only becomes common after the turn of the era.26 The Songs are recited by the Maskil, in the presence of the community members, who are referred to as “we” in the second song, and whose priesthood is compared to that of the angels. In the words of Philip Alexander, we have here a public liturgy, in which a prayer-leader leads a congregation, who may join him in reciting in whole or in part the words of the hymns. That congregation exhorts the angels in heaven to perform their priestly duties in the celestial temple, and somehow through this liturgical act it feels drawn into union with the angels in worshipping God.27

24 Carol A. Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition, HSS 27 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985); eadem, “4QShirot ‘Olat HaShabbata,” in Qumran Cave 4. VI. Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 1, ed. Esther Eshel et al., DJD 11 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 173–401; James R. Davila, Liturgical Works, Eerdmans Commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 83–167; Alexander, Mystical Texts, 13–61. 25 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 53; Rachel Elior, The Three Temples. On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism (Oxford; Portland, OR: Littmann, 2004), 44. 26 Adela Yarbro Collins, “The Seven Heavens in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses,” in Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism, ed. Adela Yarbro Collins, JSJSup 50 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 21–54. 27 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 44. Alexander is following the interpretation proposed by Carol Newsom. Crispin Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea

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This does not require that the community members have ascended to heaven in a spatial sense. As Alexander has argued, “sophisticated Jews in the Second Temple period were perfectly capable of conceiving of heaven as ‘another dimension’ or a parallel universe’, and not literally as ‘up there.’28 Carol Newsom has argued that the Songs reflect the praxis of something like a communal mysticism. During the course of this thirteen week cycle, the community which recites the compositions is led through a lengthy preparation. The mysteries of the angelic priesthood are recounted, a hypnotic celebration of the sabbatical number seven produces an anticipatory climax at the center of the work, and the community is then gradually led through the spiritually animate heavenly temple until the worshippers experience the holiness of the merkabah and of the Sabbath sacrifice as it is conducted by the high priests of the angels.29

Others have gone farther in positing an analogy to the later Hekalot texts. Alexander notes that “the description of the Merkabah forms the obvious climax, but somewhat puzzlingly this is effectively completed in Song 12. Song 13 seems to have spent much time describing the celestial high priestly garments.”30 He suggests that the 13th song may have been added to fill out one quarter of the liturgical cycle. Alternatively, he suggests that the fragmentary references to priestly garments “could signify the transformation of the mystic: he dons the celestial priestly robes, and serves in the temple, and it is this enrobement that marks the climax of is experience.”31 Parallels to this idea can be found in in the transformation of Enoch, both in 2 Enoch (22:8–10) and 3 Enoch (9–13), where Enoch is divested of his earthly garments and transformed into a celestial being. Alexander grants, however, that “a mass transformation of the terrestrial congregation … into celestial high priests” is improbable.32 Against this line of interpretation, Schäfer denies that “liturgical communion” is implied. “The angels,” he writes, “perform a ritual, not the humans, and the humans participate in this celestial ritual by reading it during their worship.”33 Moreover, “there is nothing in the songs to suggest that they are meant to evoke the idea of a heavenly journey or an ascent of the community through the

Scrolls, STDJ 42 (Leiden: Brill 2002), 252–394, has argued that the exhortations are addressed not to angels but to “angelomorphic” humans. See the critique by Alexander, Mystical Texts, 45–7. 28 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 54. 29 Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, 19. Compare Christopher Morray-Jones, “The Temple Within,” in DeConick, Paradise Now, 145–78; here 166. 30 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 49. 31 Ibid., 50. 32 Ibid. 33 Schäfer, Origins, 144.

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seven “devirim” to the throne of God.”34 Finally, he notes the Songs are ultimately about sacrifice, which plays no role in the later Hekalot texts: whereas the members of the community can participate, to some degree, in the angelic praise by reciting the songs in their worship, they can longer offer the expiatory sacrifice. The sacrifice on earth has become corrupt, and it is only the angels in heaven who are still able to perform this ritual so crucial to the existence and well-being of the earthly community.35

There is wide agreement that in the context of the Scrolls, the contemplation of the heavenly liturgy serves as a substitute for the defiled cult on earth, as we shall see further below. Schäfer is also right that the Songs do not speak at all of heavenly ascent. His denial of communion with the angels, however, seems tendentious. At issue here is what kind of experience we think underlies the contemplation of the heavenly cult. The suggestion of Alexander that the human community is drawn into union with the angels is not unreasonable. This does not necessarily amount to a mystical union with the angels, but it is surely communion with them to some degree. Some scholars have argued that this kind of communion was already entailed in the traditional cult.36 To this day, the Catholic Mass calls on worshippers to join with the angels and archangels in reciting the Trishagion, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Perhaps we should say the Songs imply only a relatively low-grade mysticism or sense of communion with the heavenly world. This conclusion goes against the common belief that the Songs represent the high point of mysticism in the Scrolls, and qualifies Alexander’s claim of their importance for the genealogy of westerm mysticism. But the communion is not negligible, for all that. It is the foundation on which higher forms of mysticism attested by the Scrolls are built.

Fellowship with the Angels Many texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls appear to speak of fellowship with the angels as a present experience for members of the sect. So in 1QS 11:7–8 we read:

34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., 145. 36 Johann Maier, Vom Kultus zur Gnosis. Studien zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte der “jüdischen Gnosis.” Bundeslade, Gottesthron und Märkabah (Salzburg: Müller, 1964). Elior, Three Temples, also sees mysticism arising out of priestly traditions, especially when the temple was destroyed or the priests were displaced. See the critique of Elior by Martha Himmelfarb, “Merkavah Mysticism since Scholem: Rachel Elior’s The Three Temples,” in Wege Mystischer Gotteserfahrung: Judentum, Christentum und Islam/Mystical Approaches to God: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. Peter Schäfer (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2006), 19–36.

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To those whom God has selected he has given them as an everlasting possession; and he has given them an inheritance in the lot of the holy ones. He unites their assembly to the sons of the heavens in order (to form) the council of the community and a foundation of the building of holiness to be an everlasting plantation throughout all future ages.

Again, in 1QHa 11:19–21, the psalmist thanks the Lord because you saved my life from the pit, and from the Sheol of Abaddon have lifted me up an everlasting height, so that I can walk on a boundless plain. And I know that there is hope for someone you fashioned out of dust for an everlasting community. The depraved spirit you have purified from great offence so that he can take a place with the host of the holy ones, and can enter in communion with the congregation of the sons of heaven.

In these and other such passages the fellowship with the angels promised to the righteous after death in the Epistle of Enoch and Daniel is claimed for the members of the sectarian community. The question is whether, or to what extent, they can be said to live an angelic life in the present. The constant use of the perfect tense in these hymns suggests that the deliverance has already taken place.37 Émile Puech, however, has argued that the verbs should be read as “prophetic perfects” which bespeak a state that is assured but essentially in the future.38 It is certainly true that hymns in the Scrolls do not envision a world fully redeemed. But it is also apparent that they claim some measure of transformation as a present reality.39 The hymn at the end of the Community Rule says that God has given the elect “an inheritance in the lot of the holy ones” (1QS 11:7–8). The inheritance, in principle, could still be in the future. But the passage goes on to say that “He unites their assembly to the sons of the heavens into a council of the

37 See Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn, Enderwartung und gegenwärtiges Heil (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966); G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism, HTS 26 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 146–56; John J. Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Routledge, 1997), 117–23; Devorah Dimant, “Men as Angels: The Self-Image of the Qumran Community,” in Religion and Politics in the Ancient Near East, ed. Adele Berlin (Bethesda, MD: University of Maryland Press, 1996), 93–103. 38 Émile Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens en la vie future: immortalité, resurrection, vie éternelle?: histoire d’une croyance dans le judaïsme ancien (Paris: Gabalda, 1993), 335–419. Note that Kuhn, Enderwartung, 176, also insists that “die futurische Eschatologie nicht aufgehoben ist” even if it is “ganz in den Hintergrund.” 39 Compare Schäfer, Origin of Jewish Mysticism, 123. See now my essay, “Metaphor and Eschatology. Life Beyond Death in the Hodayot,” in Is There a Text in This Cave? Studies in the Textuality of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of George J. Brooke, ed. Ariel Feldman, Maria Cioata and Charlotte Hempel, STDJ 119 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 407–22.

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community and a foundation of the building of holiness to be an everlasting plantation throughout all future ages” (11:8). The phrase “council of the community” is the technical name for the sectarian community in the Community Rule. The word for community is ‫יחד‬, which means “union.”40 (Used adverbially, it means “together”). This passage suggests that togetherness with the angels is constitutive of the community or ‫ יחד‬on earth. The raison d’etre of the sectarian ‫ יחד‬is spelled out most fully in column 8 of the Community Rule: the council of the community shall be founded in truth to be an everlasting plantation, a holy house for Israel and the foundation of the holy of holies for Aaron . . . to atone for the land and to render to the wicked their retribution (1QS 8:5–6, cf. 9:3–6).

Then, when these have become a community in Israel in compliance with these arrangements, they are to be segregated from within the dwelling of the men of sin to go to the desert in order to prepare there the path of Him, as it is written, “In the desert prepare the way of *** . . .

It is apparent that the raison d’etre of the ‫ יחד‬is to substitute for the temple cult, which was rejected as defiled.41 The members of the ‫ יחד‬would atone for sin “without the flesh of burnt offerings and without the fats of sacrifice – the offering of the lips in compliance with the decree will be like the pleasant aroma of justice and the perfectness of behavior will be acceptable as a freewill offering” (1QS 9: 3–5). In the phrase found in the Florilegium, 4Q174 1.6, they would constitute a ‫מקדש ׁ אדם‬, a sanctuary consisting of men.42 The passage in 1QHa 11 adds to this profile the idea that fellowship with the angels would be a constitutive factor in establishing this purified worship.43

40 Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam, 90, suggests that the designation ‫ יחד‬may refer to communion with the angels. Alternatively, it may be borrowed from Deut 33:5, which refers to “the union of the tribes of Israel.” 41 See e.g. Georg Klinzing, Die Umdeutung des Kultus in der Qumrangemeinde und im Neuen Testament, SUNT 7 (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), 50–106; Lawrence H. Schiffman, “The Qumran Community’s Withdrawal from the Jerusalem Temple,” in Gemeinde ohne Tempel = Community without temple: zur Substituierung und Transformation des Jerusalemer Tempels und seines Kults im Alten Testament, antiken Judentum und frühen Christentum, ed. Beate Ego, Armin Lange, and Peter Pilhofer, in collaboration with Kathrin Ehlers (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 267–84. 42 The phrase may have more than one level of reference. See George Brooke, “Miqdash Adam, Eden, and the Qumran Community,” in Ego et al., Gemeinde ohne Tempel, 285–301. 43 The liturgical context of fellowship with the angels is explored at length by Bjorn Frennesson, “In a Common Rejoicing.” Liturgical Communion with Angels in Qumran, Acta

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Personal Transformation Like the Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice, the hymn at the end of the Community Rule is put on the lips of the Maskil.44 In addition to what it says about the ‫יחד‬, it makes some claims that have a more personal ring to them: As for me, to God belongs my judgment; in his hand is the perfection of my behavior with the uprightness of my heart; and with his just acts he cancels my iniquities. For from the source of his knowledge he has disclosed his light, and my eyes have observed his wonders, and the light of my heart the mystery that is to be (‫ )רז נהיה‬. . . From the spring of his justice is my judgment and from the wonderful mystery is the light of my heart. My eyes have gazed on that which is eternal, wisdom hidden from humankind, knowledge and prudent understanding (hidden) from the sons of man, fount of justice and well of strength and spring of glory (hidden) from the assembly of flesh (1QS 11:2–7).

The phrase raz nihyeh also occurs in 4QInstruction, a wisdom text that is not explicitly sectarian, and in 1Q/4QMysteries. It is variously translated as “the mystery that is to be” or “the mystery of Being/existence.”45 It entails comprehensive understanding, rather than specific information. It is probably to be understood as referring to the plan of God for the world, rather than to experiential knowledge of the divinity. (Compare 1QS 3:15: “from the God of knowledge comes all that is and shall be, ‫)כל היה ונהיה‬. The claim of enlightenment is offset by a selfdeprecatory passage, in verses 9–10: “I belong to evil humankind, to the assembly of unfaithful flesh . . . ” But this is the condition from which the speaker has been rescued, which serves only to underline the wonderful character of the transformation. Carol Newsom has argued, the placement of this hymn at the end of the Community Rule suggests that it represents the culmination of formation within the community. “The character constructed for the Maskil in the instructions and hymn is one that embodies the values of the sect in a particularly pronounced fashion.”46 The experience articulated in this hymn is paradigmatic for the community. Moreover, we are told that God has given such knowledge and understanding to the elect, whom he has united with the holy ones. Knowledge and understanding of heavenly realities is also entailed by fellowship with the angels.

Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Semitica Upsaliensia 14 (Uppsala: Uppsala University Press, 1999). Cf. Michael Mach, Entwicklungsstadien des jüdischen Engelglaubens in vorrabbinischer Zeit, TSAJ 34 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 216–40. 44 Carol A. Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space. Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran, STDJ 52 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 165–74. 45 Matthew J. Goff, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom of 4QInstruction, STDJ 50 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 51–79. 46 Newsom, Self as Symbolic Space, 173.

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Nonetheless, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the author of this hymn was an exceptional individual who had a mystical experience. There is also some dialectic between individual and communal experience in the Hodayot. One bloc of the hymns (cols. 10–17) is usually distinguished as “hymns of the Teacher,” while the remainder is classified as “hymns of the community.”47 The attribution to the Teacher is impossible to verify, and the tendency in recent scholarship has been to discount speculation about their authorship.48 At the least these hymns reflect a distinctive, individual voice. Nonetheless, they too were used in the community. Precisely how they were used is difficult to say. There is a long-standing debate as to whether they were primarily cultic or instructional in purpose.49 They are distinctly different from other liturgical compositions found at Qumran.50 They are not designated for specific occasions, and some are very long. As Daniel Falk has put it, “they are not functionally analogous to collections of prayers for specific occasions such as Daily Prayers and Words of the Luminaries.”51 Nonetheless, they contain some indications of cultic use, such as references to communal singing, first person plural speakers, calls for congregational response and references to the Maskil, who may have functioned as a liturgical leader.52 Even in cases where Hodayot reflect the experiences of an individual, they may have appropriated by the community through common recitation.53 Both the Hymns of the Teacher and the Community Hymns speak of fellowship with the angels. From the Teacher Hymns, we have already cited 1QHa 11:19–21: “I thank you Lord, because you saved my life from the pit, and from Sheol of Abaddon you have lifted me up to an everlasting height so that I can walk on a boundless plain.” The language here reflects the same understanding

47 Gerd Jeremias, Der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit, SUNT 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963), 168–267; Michael C. Douglas, “The Teacher Hymn Hypothesis Revisited: New Data for an Old Crux,” DSD 6 (1999): 239–66. 48 Newsom, Self as Symbolic Space, 287–352; Angela Kim Harkins, Reading with an ‘I’ to the Heavens. Looking at the Qumran Hodayot through the Lens of Visionary Traditions, Ekstasis 3 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 20–24. 49 Svend Holm-Nielsen, Hodayot. Psalms from Qumran, ATDan 2 (Aarhus: Universitetsvorlaget, 1960), 332–48. For bibliography on the debate see Daniel Falk, Daily, Sabbath, and Festival Prayers in the Dead Sea Scrolls, STDJ 27 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 103, n.18 50 Bilhah Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry, STDJ 12 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 324. 51 Falk, Daily, Sabbath, and Festival Prayers, 101. 52 For references see Russell C. D. Arnold, The Social Role of Liturgy in the Religion of the Qumran Community, STDJ 60 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 211. For the hymns of the Maskil, see Falk, Prayers, 100–103, citing 1QHa 20:4–11 and 1QHa 5. 53 Compare Arnold, Social Role of Liturgy, 214–21.

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of resurrection that we have seen in Dan 12, except that the deliverance is already effected. In this case, the hymnist shows an acute consciousness of an ongoing human condition: “But I, a creature of clay, what am I? . . . For I find myself at the boundary of wickedness and share the lot of the scoundrels” (1QHa 11:23–25).54 Nonetheless, he has been purified for admission into communion with the angels. Moreover, “you cast eternal destiny for man with the spirits of knowledge, so that he praises your name in the community of jubilation.” The hymnist, then, has a two-sided existence. On the one side, he is still beset by enemies (and the Teacher Hymns spend a good deal of time complaining of persecution and adversity). On the other side, he is set apart from all that and can join with the angels in praising God. Elsewhere in the Teacher Hymns we read that “those who walk in the way of your heart have listened to me; they have arrayed themselves for you in the assembly of the holy ones” (1QHa 12:24–25), and that “you have brought [your truth and]your [glo]ry to all the men of your council, and in a common lot (‫ )גרל יחד‬with the angels of the presence.” The themes of purification and knowledge are also prominent in 1QHa 19:3–14, a community hymn.55 This hymn thanks God for having done wonders with dust. In part, this is a matter of instruction: “you have taught me the basis of your truth and have instructed me in your wonderful works.”56 In part it is a matter of purification: For the sake of your glory you have purified man from offence so that he can make himself holy for you . . . to become united with the sons of your truth and in the lot with your holy ones . . . so that he can take his place in your presence with the perpetual host . . . and with those who know in a community of jubilation.

In another Community Hymn, 1QHa 7: 7 we read, “and we are gathered in the community (‫ )יחד‬with those who know . . . and we shall shout (for joy).” Schäfer regards it as probable that the sectarians regarded themselves as “standing together with the angels and intermingling with them in heaven.”57 “As such,” he writes, they are like the angels or even become angels.” In that case, the Hodayot would presuppose an ascent to heaven on the part of the community, although such an ascent is never described. Some scholars have found suggestions of ascent, in the allusive language of the Scrolls. 1QHa 16:4–26 refers to a garden with “trees of life” and a source that will make “a shoot grown

54 Whether this is in fact a Teacher hymn is disputed. See Puech, La Croyance, 366. Kuhn, Enderwartung, 65–66 denies that it can be attributed to the Teacher. 55 Kuhn, Enderwartung, 78–112. 56 On the motif of knowledge in these hymns, see Kuhn, Enderwartung, 113–75. 57 Schäfer, Origins of Jewish Mysticism, 151.

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in the everlasting plantation.” James Davila relates this passage to the later story of the Four Who Entered Paradise: The Hymn of the Garden in 1QHa 16:4–26 develops a metaphorical union of the Community (the ‘eternal planting,’ as in 1QS 8:4b-10 and 11:8) with the Garden of Eden. The Garden is in turn associated with the celestial temple in other Second Temple and Qumran literature . . . It is clear that the writer of the Hymn of the Garden regarded himself and his community as rightful inhabitants of the otherworld Garden of Eden on some level, even in the present.58

Again, “in 18:30–35 the writer moves from Edenic joy on high to terror and groaning as he hears God’s judgment of the angels in the Abyss and Sheol, almost as if he were summarizing a visionary tour of the universe like Enoch’s.”59 Angela Kim Harkins also finds echoes of Enoch in the Hodayot, but seeks to understand them as “part of the larger strategy that seeks to create a religious experience from the text . . . The emotions associated with these allusions to Enoch’s experiences, especially fear and terror, can help to generate within the reader the necessary state of mind that might facilitate his own religious experience.”60 None of this requires physical exaltation to heaven, although the Hodayot often speak of being “lifted up.”61 It remains possible that the sectarians imagined that the angels mingled with their community. This is explicitly the case in 1QSa and also in the War Scroll (admittedly in a different context). What is important is not the experience of ascent through the heavens, as we often find in apocalyptic texts, but the sense of communion and mingling with the heavenly world. As Davila has noted, “the writers of the Hodayot explicitly tie their experiences to visions.”62 The expression “men of your vision” (1QHa 6:7) is presumably a designation for the community, but the context is broken. Most striking is the passage in 1QHa 12:6: “like perfect dawn you have revealed yourself to me with per[fect] light,” which corresponds to the formulation in 1QS 11:2–7, and also in 1QHa 12:23, “you reveal yourself in me in your strength as perfect light.” The light is an illumination, which confers clarity and certainty. 1QHa 12:17–18 speaks of “the vision of knowledge,” which is rejected by the speaker’s enemies. In 1QHa

58 Davila, “Heavenly Ascents,” 476–77. Compare Kim Harkins, ‘I’ to the Heavens, 206–47. 59 Davila, “Heavenly Ascents,” 477. 60 Angela Kim Harkins, “Reading the Qumran Hodayot in Light of the Traditions Associated with Enoch,” Henoch 32 (2010): 359–400; here 399. 61 Kim Harkins, ‘I’ to the Heavens, 190, speaks of moving from Secondspace to Thirdspace experiences, but the spatial theory obscures as much as it clarifies in the discussion of the Hodayot. 62 Davila, “Heavenly Ascents,” 477.

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17:31–2 we read “from my youth you have shown yourself to me in the understanding (‫ )ׂשכל‬of your judgment and with certain truth you have supported me.” Yet this illumination is also a vision of God, in effect, a beatific vision. This may not quite be an unio mystica, but it bespeaks a higher level of mystical exaltation than is reflected in the other Hodayot. So while it true that there is no emphasis in the Scrolls on the description of God’s appearance, such as we find in later mystical texts, Schaefer’s claim that there is no emphasis on the vision of God can not be accepted.63 Neither can we accept that the union with the angels is always a communal experience, with the sole exception of the Self-Glorification Hymn, to which we turn shortly.64 The speaker in the Teacher Hymns, especially 1QHa 12, and in 1QS 11 speaks of the experience of an exceptional individual, a teacher, whether the Teacher or not: You have not covered in disgrace the face of all those sought by me, those who unite for your covenant. Those who walk on the path of your heart have listened to me, they have aligned themselves before you in the council of the holy ones . . . Through me you have enlightened the face of many.65

Kim Harkins proposes that the hymns “were performed by the maskil – an individual who reenacted the affective experiences described in the text,”66 and who would then serve as a model for the community. Be that as it may, the persona constructed in these hymns is that of a teacher, not that of the average sectarian.

The Self-Exaltation Hymn There is also a dialectic between individual and community in the so-called SelfExaltation Hymn, of which several very fragmentary copies have survived, at least one of which was part of a scroll of Hodayot.67 Two recensions may be

63 Schäfer, Origins, 152. 64 Pace Schäfer, Origins, 153. 65 1QHa 12:23–27. 66 Kim Harkins, ‘I’ to the Heavens, 109. 67 E. Eshel, “The Identification of the ‘Speaker’ of the Self-Glorification Hymn,” in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. D. W. Parry and E. Ulrich, STDJ 30 (Leiden: Brill, 1999) 619–35; M. O. Wise, “‫מי כמוני באלים‬: A Study of 4Q491c, 4Q471b, 4Q427 7 and 1QHa 25:35–26:10,” DSD 7 (2000): 173–219. The text is found in 4Q427 fragment 7, 4Q491c, 4Q471b, and in smaller fragments in 4Q431, which is part of the same manuscript as 4Q471b, and 1QHa

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distinguished, the shorter form in 4Q491c and the longer in 4Q427 7 and 4Q471b.68 The first part of this hymn refers to “a mighty throne in the congregation of the gods” on which the speaker apparently claims to have sat. He goes on to boast “I am reckoned with the gods, and my dwelling is in the holy congregation,” and “there is no teaching comparable [to my teaching].” He also asks “who suffers evil like me” and boasts that his glory is with the sons of the king (i.e. God). Other striking phrases are found in the other fragments. The speaker is “beloved of the king, companion of the holy ones,” and even asks “who is like me among the gods?” (4Q471b). In 4Q491c this self-exaltation hymn is marked off from the following “canticle of the righteous” by a large lamed, which has been taken to indicate a separate composition. The marker is not found in other copies of the text. The canticle is most fully preserved in 4Q427: “Sing a hymn, beloved ones, to the king . . . Exalt together with the eternal host, ascribe greatness to our God and glory to our King.” There is no consensus as to the identity of the speaker in this hymn. The original editor, Maurice Baillet, suggested the archangel Michael.69 That suggestion was dismissed decisively by Morton Smith.70 An archangel, Smith reasoned, would not need to boast. He had been created an archangel and doubtless took his throne in the heavens for granted. This parvenu not only boasts of his, but in doing so makes clear that he was not originally at home in the heavens. He was ‘reckoned’ with the ‘gods.’ Consequently, the speaker must be an exalted human being. The Teacher of Righteousness has inevitably been proposed, but the hymn conspicuously lacks the protestations of human unworthiness that we find in the Hodayot. On the contrary, the speaker boasts that his desire is not like that of flesh. Several other interpretations are possible: the hymn could have been

25:35–26:10. See now my essay, “The Self-Glorification Hymn from Qumran,” in Crossing Boundaries in Early Judaism and Christianity. Ambiguities, Complexities, and Half-Forgotten Adversaries: Essays in Honor of Alan F. Segal, ed. Kimberly B. Stratton and Andrea Lieber, JSJSup 177 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 25–40. 68 Florentino García Martínez, “Old Texts and Modern Mirages: The ‘I’ of Two Qumran Hymns,” in Qumranica Minora I. Qumran Origins and Apocalypticism, ed. Florentino García Martínez, STDJ 63 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 105–25; here 114–18. See also his longer treatment, “Ángel, hombre, Mesías, Maestro de Justicia? El Problemático ‘Yo’ de un Poema Qumránico,” in Plenitudo Temporis. Miscelánea Homenaje al Prof. Dr. Ramón Trevijano Etcheverría, ed. J. J. Fernández Sangrador and S. Guijarro Oporto, Bibliotheca Salmanticensis, Estudios 249 (Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia, 2002), 103–31. 69 M. Baillet, Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520, DJD 7 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 26–29 70 Morton Smith, “Ascent to the Heavens and Deification in 4QMa,” Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin, ed. in L. H. Schiffman, JSPSup 8;ASOR Monographs, Series 2 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 181–88; here 186.

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ascribed to the Teacher after his death,71 or it could be the work of a later teacher,72 or it might be put on the lips of an eschatological teacher or High Priest, the messiah of Aaron.73 Philip Alexander, who favors authorship by the Teacher, cautions that “we should probably not distinguish too sharply between historical and eschatological contexts here.”74 In effect, he tries to accommodate all the interpretations that have been proposed, except for Michael: If we assume that the original Self-Glorification Hymn was composed by the Teacher of Righteousness, who, in the manner of his ancestor Levi, established his priestly and prophetic credentials within the community by an ascent to heaven, then it would make sense to see each successive Maskil as reaffirming the Teacher’s experience, and as demonstrating in his own right his fitness to lead the community. And in doing so he would be anticipating the eschatological high priest who would finally and permanently achieve angelic priestly status in all its fullness at the end of days.75

Schäfer, jumbling several figures together, suggests, without any discernible basis, that as the Teacher redivivus “he was expected to return at the end of time as the priestly Messiah in order to lead the members of the community in the final battle.”76 (The leader in the final battle is always the royal messiah of Israel, not the priestly messiah).77 In the Hodayot recension, at least, the composition is designated as a ‫מזמור‬ for the ‫מׂשכיל‬. Even the 4Q491 manuscript indicates a hymnic context (“let the holy ones rejoice,” line 2). This hymnic context is strengthened in the Hodayot redaction, where the second composition is fused with the first one, so that the hymn both begins and ends with communal praise. Michael Wise draws a direct inference about the speaker in the first person section from the context of communal praise: “each individual member of the user group spoke of himself or herself. At least by the stage of the Hodayot redaction, they declaimed in unison and chanted, singing of their singular significance at the behest of a

71 Wise, “‫מי כמוני באלים‬,” 418, argues that the redactor who inserted this hymn into the Hodayot meant for the reader to think of the Teacher. 72 Israel Knohl, The Messiah Before Jesus: The Suffering Servant of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 52–55, suggests Menahem the Essene, who is mentioned by Josephus. 73 John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 148; Eshel, “Identification of the ‘Speaker,’” 635. 74 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 89. 75 Ibid. 76 Schäfer, Origins, 150. 77 See John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star. Messianism in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 52–78 on the royal messiah; 110–128 on the priestly.

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worship leader, the Maskil.”78 Angela Kim Harkins has argued that this hymn was the climax of the earliest form of the Hodayot, reflected in 4Q428, and that the composition was structured so as to create a religious experience from the text.79 She proposes that the collection was “organized purposefully toward a heavenly experience. The performative reading of the texts . . . functioned to simulate a journey for the one who prayed,” culminating in the heavens.80 It is true that the community would have appropriated the “I” of the speaker to some degree, but the identification need not be complete. The community could also give praise and thanks for the exaltation of a leader, whether historical or eschatological. As Philip Alexander argues, the speaker is “someone special. His experience is not something that anyone can achieve, though he can still lead others into a state of closer communion with the heavenly host.”81 Alexander, like Morton Smith, regards this hymn as evidence for the experience of ascent, on the assumption that the speaker has returned to earth. This assumption is not necessarily valid, however. It may be that the heavenly throne reflects a permanent or eschatological abode, and that the speaker is not the actual author of the hymn, but the exalted Teacher or an eschatological figure. There are some accounts of temporary ascents to heaven in the Dead Sea Scrolls (most notably those of Enoch and Levi).82 These are attributed to famous ancient, legendary, persons, not to members of the ‫ יחד‬or their contemporaries. A relevant precedent can be found in the claims of Hebrew prophets to have stood in the council of the Lord, and the ascent of Levi has paradigmatic relevance for later priests. Alexander interprets the supposed ascent in line with these precedents: “The ascent on the face of it functions as a prophetic commissioning: the speaker acquires heavenly knowledge, which, in accordance with the foreordained purposes of God, he brings back to his community.”83 But no Hebrew prophet claims to have a throne in heaven, or to be reckoned with the gods, and the self-exaltation hymn does not describe any act

78 Wise, “‫מי כמוני באלים‬,” 416. So also Arnold, Social Role of Liturgy, 221. Eileen Schuller, “Hodayot,” in Qumran Cave 4. XX. Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 2, ed. E. Chazon et al., DJD 2 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 102, writes “Whoever the referent may be in 4Q491 11 I, in the recension of this psalm that is found in the Hodayot manuscripts, the ‘I’ is to be understood in relationship to the ‘I’ voice we hear speaking in the other psalms, particularly the other Hymns of the Community.” 79 Kim Harkins, ‘I’ to the Heavens, 14–15; cf. eadem, “Reading the Qumran Hodayot,” 399. 80 Kim Harkins, ‘I’ to the Heavens, 15. See also Seth L. Sanders, “Performative Exegesis,” in DeConick, Paradise Now, 57–79. 81 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 88. 82 See Davila, “Heavenly Ascents.” 83 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 87.

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of commissioning. Rather, the focus is on the exaltation, even transformation, of the speaker. Moreover, it is not at all clear to me that the reference here is to a temporary sojourn in heaven. If the supposed speaker is indeed the Teacher, the reference may be to his exaltation after death. In that case, later teachers, or other members of the community, could only claim the experience proleptically. If the presumed speaker is the Teacher at the end of days, then the experience is entirely proleptic. The self-exaltation hymn implies a level of exaltation and glorification that goes beyond anything found elsewhere in the Hodayot. If we are correct in assuming that the speaker claims to sit on the “mighty throne in the congregation of the gods,” he is in select company. The paradigm case for the view that the visionary ascent had its goal in heavenly enthronement is provided by Enoch in Sefer Hekalot or 3 Enoch. Rabbi Ishmael relates that when he ascended on high to behold the vision of the chariot he was greeted by Metatron, who has several names, including Enoch son of Jared. Metatron tells him how he was taken up from the generation of the Flood, and how “the Holy One, blessed be he, made for me (Metatron) a throne like the throne of glory” (10:1). Sefer Hekalot, however, is several centuries later than the Dead Sea Scrolls. Even then, enthronement in heaven had its dangers. When Aher came to behold the chariot and saw Metatron he exclaimed “there are indeed two powers in heaven.” Then Metatron was given sixty lashes of fire and made to stand on his feet (16:1–5).84 There were, however, several older traditions in which people other than God were said to be enthroned in heaven. Most obvious is Ps 110, where the figure who is invited to sit on the Lord’s right hand is not only a king, but also a priest, after the order of Melchizedek. The one like a son of man in Dan 7 is not explicitly said to be enthroned, but since plural “thrones” are set it is reasonable to assume that one of them is meant for him. The “Son of Man,” or Elect One, in the Similitudes of Enoch is a heavenly, pre-existent figure, although he is also called “messiah.” He is repeatedly said to sit on the throne of glory (1 En. 62:5; 69:27, 29; compare 45:3; 47:3; 51:3; 55:4; 60:2; 61:8; 62:2–3). The Son of Man is similarly enthroned as judge in Matt 19:28; 25:31, and he is seated at the right hand of the Power in Mark 14:62. Jesus is seated at the right hand specifically qua High Priest in Heb 8:1. Occasionally, thrones are promised to the faithful on a less exclusive basis. In 1 En. 108:12, God will set each of the faithful on the throne of his honor. In the Gospels, the apostles are promised that they will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.85 Nearly all these cases are eschatological, and reflect

84 P. Alexander, “3 (Hebrew Apocalypse of) Enoch,” OTP 1.268. 85 Matt 19:28; Luke 22:30.

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permanent exaltation, even if the throne has a temporary function, such as judging. A rare case of enthronement which is not necessarily eschatological, is found in the dream of Moses in Ezekiel the tragedian. This takes place on the summit of Mt. Sinai, rather than in heaven, and is interpreted symbolically by Jethro, although it may reflect a tradition about the apotheosis of Moses.86 But in general, thrones connote permanent exaltation, rather than temporary ascent for the purpose of commissioning. The way the boasts of exaltation function in the self-exaltation hymn can be understood by analogy with such figures as the Son of Man in the Similitudes of Enoch or the exalted Christ in the New Testament. The righteous in the Similitudes take comfort from the fact that they have a heavenly counterpart, the Righteous One or Elect One, in heaven, who will eventually preside over the judgment of the kings and the mighty. They also hope that they will eventually dwell with him in heaven, without necessarily all sitting on the throne of glory.87 If we assume that the speaker in the Self-Exaltation Hymn was himself despised and subjected to grief, then the servant of Isaiah, or the exalted Christ would provide a closer analogy, insofar as he shared the experience of the human community. The Qumran texts do not suggest that the exalted figure atoned for his followers by his death, and so their use of the servant songs is different from what we find in the New Testament, but the analogy is interesting nonetheless.88 If the self-exaltation hymn does indeed refer to the Teacher, then it glorifies him to a far greater degree than is suggested anywhere else in the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is however continuity between the speaker in the so-called Teacher Hymns and the figure in the Self-Exaltation Hymn. The speaker in the Hodayot is also an exceptional figure, who claims to have had a vision of God as perfect light. That figure is still conscious of his lowly origins as a human being. We can understand, however, how his followers after his death might imagine him exalted in glory freed of the constraints of the flesh. They might hope to share in his exaltation, even if they did not expect to be enthroned in heaven in quite the same way.

86 See Wayne Meeks, “Moses as God and King,” in Religions in Antiquity. Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, ed. Jacob Neusner (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 354–71. 87 Cf. 1 En. 71:16–17. 88 See further my essay “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament. The Case of the Suffering Servant,” in my book, Scriptures and Sectarianism. Essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 257–71.

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Conclusion It does not seem to me that the self-exaltation hymn provides reliable evidence “that there was an active practice of ascent within the Qumran community,” as Smith and Alexander have claimed. While the text is fragmentary, and open to different interpretations, it does not seem to speak of a temporary sojourn in heaven, or of prophetic and/or priestly commissioning. Alexander is right, however, that “it involves transformation – angelification or apotheosis.”89 How far that transformation is paradigmatic for a whole community remains unclear; the individual envisioned is clearly exceptional. The individual who is said to have a throne in heaven in the Self-Exaltation Hymn is most probably a fictional person, whether the Teacher after death or the eschatological priestly messiah. We cannot conclude that anyone in the sect reflected in the Scrolls had experienced such exaltation. The author of this text, however, was clearly familiar with traditions that we might describe as mystical. These traditions are mainly attested with reference to legendary figures, such as Enoch or Levi, but they show that Jewish authors of the Second Temple period contemplated the possibility of heavenly ascent and enthronement. Whether the textual expression of this possibility could mediate mystical experience by performative exegesis, is an intriguing possibility, but ultimately impossible to demonstrate.

89 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 90. Schäfer, Origins, 150, writes: “In his ‘angelified’ status he would have anticipated what the earthly community fantasized regarding the communion with the angels, namely, the physical transformation into divine beings, the elim, who surround God and praise him forever.” He continues: “This is not ‘deification,’ as some scholars have it,” but he does not explain how “physical transformation into divine beings” is not “deification.”

Adela Yarbro Collins

Paul, Jewish Mysticism, and Spirit Possession In this paper I will consider whether and in what ways it is appropriate to speak about “Pauline mysticism.” I will begin with a discussion of what “mysticism” may mean in ancient contexts. In order to compare and contrast Pauline mysticism with ancient Jewish mysticism, I will discuss the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice from Qumran and give a brief overview of what Peter Schäfer has called the “macroforms” of the Hekhalot literature. Finally, I will argue that the letters of Paul reflect a mysticism as a particular type, which involves possession of and by the Spirit. For the purposes of this study I am not interested in tracing a linear history of ancient mysticism or pursuing questions of social or literary dependence. My purpose is to provide a set of lenses and a context for viewing the Pauline texts that seem to be related to works regarded as mystical.

Mysticism In attempting to formulate my own understanding of mysticism, I have found the work of three scholars especially helpful: Bernard McGinn, Philip Alexander, and Peter Schäfer.1 I agree with Schäfer that the term “mysticism” is an etic, not an emic one. In other words, in spite of its etymologiical roots in the Greek mystery cults, it is not an ancient concept but a modern scholarly construction.2 In Alexander’s words, mysticism “is no more and no less than a convenient label for a cluster of religious phenomena.”3 Alexander isolates “a number of abstract ideas [that] seem to be shared by different concrete mystical traditions.” The first of these is “the experience of a 1 Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, vol. 1 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (New York: Crossroad, 1991), xiii–xx; Philip Alexander, The Mystical Texts: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and Related Manuscripts, Library of Second Temple Studies 61 (London: T & T Clark International, 2006), 7–10; Peter Schäfer, The Origins of Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2009), 1–9. 2 Schäfer, Origins, 2; so also Alan F. Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 34. 3 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 7. Adela Yarbro Collins, Yale University https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110597264-004

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transcendent divine presence [that] stands behind the visible, material world.”4 McGinn, however, had already pointed out “that there can be no direct access to experience for the historian.” What historians have are written records.5 The same can be said for exegetes, interpreters of texts. Nevertheless, one of the three headings under which McGinn discusses the term “mysticism” is “as an attempt to express a direct consciousness of the presence of God.”6 The claim that individuals or communities had such an experience may be justified by some texts, for example, the passage from Teresa of Avila quoted by McGinn: “I used unexpectedly to experience a consciousness of the presence of God of such a kind that I could not possibly doubt that he was within me or that I was wholly engulfed in him.”7 With regard to Ezek 1 and the ascent apocalypses, Schäfer argues that scholarship has reached an impasse, with some scholars affirming that a prophetic or visionary experience lies behind the texts and others that they are expressions of a “thoroughly literary enterprise, in other words, . . . fiction.”8 The conflict over “the question of actual experience versus literary fiction” is even more intense in scholarship on the Hekhalot. Although he does not deny the possibility that experience lies behind the texts, he concludes that, “The practitioners of the ascent [described in these texts] and the sociohistorical grounding of their ‘experiences’ have largely eluded us.”9 With regard to the Hekhalot literature, Schäfer makes a suggestion that may be relevant for a wider range of texts: “Reading and reciting the experience of the ascent has become the ascent, or, to put it in terms of our dichotomy, reciting the literature is the experience.”10 Alexander’s principle, where there is no praxis there is no mysticism, is intuitively credible. I suggest that we think about “praxis” or “experience” in relation to mysticism as a spectrum involving ecstatic experience or altered states of consciousness at one end and imaginative, virtual experiences at the other. Private ritual practices, including prayer, and communal practices, such as liturgy, could give rise to either ecstatic experience or virtual experience. Prophetic texts, such as Ezek 1 and Dan 7, and the apocalyptic ascent texts 4 Ibid., 8. 5 McGinn, Foundations, xiv. The noun “mysticism” was created in seventeenth-century France; discussion of it began “in earnest” in the English-speaking world “toward the end of the nineteenth century” (ibid., 266–67). 6 Ibid., xv–xvi. 7 Ibid., xiii. 8 Schäfer, Origins, 337–39, quotation from 337. On the same issue with regard to the relevant texts from Qumran, see Alexander, Mystical Texts, 93–96. 9 Schäfer, Origins, 346–48, quotations from 346. 10 Ibid., 347.

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could be designed to construct virtual experiences for their audiences, and perhaps also for their authors. Where we place a particular text depends on whether it gives us any clues about experience and on any evidence we may have or can infer about its historical and social contexts. Another issue is cosmology and its role in mystical thought and practice. Most of the texts clearly express or presuppose a great distance, physically and spiritually, between earth and heaven. The gulf is especially clear in texts involving an ascent. A major goal is overcoming, bridging, or minimizing that gap. The one who ascends or the community long to travel to heaven or somehow to see and hear what goes on there.11 What is seen may be the form of God, God’s throne, or the angels who serve God. What is heard may be the words of God or the praises the angels sing to God. The mystic or mystical community longs for union or communion with God or with the angels of heaven.12 Paul does not speak about seeing God or angels but of seeing the risen Christ. In some Jewish ascent texts, the Messiah is also seen in heaven. The parade example is the Similitudes or Parables of Enoch. In one passage he is snatched up from earth to heaven by a whirlwind (1 En. 39:3). He sees the righteous with the angels (39:4–5) and then the Chosen One dwelling beneath the wings of the Lord of the Spirits. The Chosen One in the Similitudes is the Messiah.13 There is also a Hekhalot text, “the David apocalypse,” in which Rabbi Ishmael sees King David “taking his place of honor on a throne opposite the throne of God.” In Schäfer’s opinion, the figure of David here represents the Messiah. Although this passage appears in only two manuscripts and may be a late addition to Hekhalot Rabbati, its inclusion shows that for the editors at least, such a vision is not incompatible with the other Hekhalot traditions.14 Finally, with regard to mysticism in general, I agree with all three authors that the phenomenon, in Alexander’s words, “is always embedded in a particular religious and cultural matrix.”15 The purpose of the mystical texts or practices

11 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 8. 12 Schäfer has pointed out that the Hekhaolt literature, especially Hekhalot Rabbati, emphasizes God’s longing and love for the mystic and for Israel (Orgins, 344). 13 See the discussion in George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 37–82, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 113–23; they translate “Anointed One” rather than “Messiah.” See the discussion of 1 En. 39 in Ithamar Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 14 (Leiden: Brill, 1980), 38–39. 14 This may be the passage to which Gruenwald refers (Apocalyptic, 38 and note 47). Schäfer associates the additions with the viewpoint of the Hasidei Ashkenaz and thinks them to be uncharacteristic of the Hekhalot literature (Origins, 257–58). 15 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 7–8. See also McGinn, Foundations, xv–xvi; Schäfer, Origins, 1.

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varies. The bridging of the gulf between heaven and earth is sometimes an end in itself. Often, however, the mystic brings instruction or a message from heaven to earth. To these aims I would add that in some cases an important goal is to establish or reinforce the authority of the exemplary mystic.

The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice In determining whether to define this work as mystical, a number of questions should be addressed. The first is the issue of experience. It is generally agreed that the Songs is a liturgical work. Each of the thirteen songs apparently opened with the expression lmaskil. This could mean that a Maskil is the author of each of the songs: “by the Maskil.”16 Another possibility is that the preposition is a directive. In this case it would indicate that the Maskil was either to perform the Songs for the Community or to lead their singing.17 This may have been the case regardless of the authorship of the Songs. The role of the Maskil in leading the Songs seems to be supported by the statement or hymn of the Maskil in the Rule of the Community in which he promises to sing at times of the year with liturgical significance.18 The liturgical setting implies a performance of the text that could lead to a kind of mystical experience, perhaps a kind of “communal mysticism.”19 Carol Newsom has pointed out that the first two songs are “informational, almost didactic in places.” There is less description in them than in the sixth through thirteenth songs. The first song concerns the establishment of the angelic priesthood. The third through fifth songs are fragmentary, but “eschatological and predestinarian themes” can be discerned. The first two songs alone refer to the earthly priesthood and the worshipping community. She infers that

16 Carol Newsom translated in this way in her Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition, HSS 27 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), 3, 211. She later translated “For the Maskil” and took the preposition as a directive: Esther Eshel, Hanan Eshel, Carlol Newsom, Bilhah Nitzan, Eileen Schuller, and Ada Yardeni, eds., Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 1, vol. 6 of Qumran Cave 4, DJD 11 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 179. She concluded that the work was probably composed at Qumran (Critical Edition, 2). 17 Alexander infers that the Maskil would recite the songs in the presence of the community (Mystical Texts, 44). 18 1QS 10:6–9; Alexander, Mystical Texts, 99. 19 Newsom, Critical Edition, 19; Alexander, Mystical Texts, 109; Schäfer seems to accept something similar, by speaking of a unio liturgica or “liturgical (comm)union with the angels in heaven” in the majority of the relevant texts from Qumran (Origins, 153).

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the Songs “begin with a stronger consciousness of the human worshipping community [that] . . . increasingly becomes submerged in the concentration on the heavenly sanctuary in the latter part of the work.”20 The “change in style and content” in the sixth through eighth songs “with their repetitious, almost hypnotic quality, produces a change in mood.” She concludes that the repetition of the sevenfold sequences is particularly significant. Overall the “numinous” style is designed to “communicate an experience of the heavenly temple.” She calls the seventh song “ecstatic” and suggests that, “the sophisticated manipulation of religious emotion in the songs would seem to have increased the possibility of ecstatic experience among some worshippers.”21 Philip Alexander has come to similar conclusions: “the function of reciting these numinous songs was probably to induce visionary experience: through reciting them the worshipper on earth was transported to participate in the worship of the angels in heaven.”22 Also: “For the Qumran community words were immensely powerful: they believed that simply pronouncing them actually caused things to happen. All speech was for them performative. With such a belief it would not be surprising if they held that simply by chanting the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice they could transform themselves and enter into ecstatic union with the angels.”23 The basis for these inferences of ecstatic experience is the liturgical setting and the language of the text of the Sabbath Songs. It seems to me that the evidence is not strong enough to bear the inference. It seems reasonable, however, to infer that the text provided a vivid virtual experience of the heavenly temple and the liturgy carried out there by groups of angels. Next we turn to two other, closely related, questions about the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: what their major focus and purpose are. As noted earlier, the earthly priesthood is mentioned only in the first two Sabbath Songs. In the second song a human speaker asks: And how [will] our priesthood [be regarded] in [the] residences [of the angels (elim)]? And [our holiness] with their holiness? [What] is the offering of our tongue of dust (compared) with he knowledge of the [angels (elim)]?24

20 Newsom, Critical Edition, 14. 21 Ibid., 15–17. 22 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 96. 23 Ibid., 117. 24 4Q400 2 5–7; translation from Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1997–1998), 2.811 (slightly modified) with consultation of Schäfer, Origins, 132.

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This reticence or modesty may explain why the Sabbath Songs do not quote any of the many psalms and blessings that the angels are described as singing. The implied presence in heaven of the one who recites the songs on earth suggests that at least he could hear the words of the angels. His audience, and perhaps he himself as well, is, however, not worthy to speak or hear those actual words. How does this state of affairs relate to what other texts from Qumran say about communion with the angels?25 In the Thanksgiving Psalms (Hodayot) there is a passage often identified as a mark of at least partially realized eschatology.26 In this passage, the speaker thanks the Lord for rescuing him from the Pit, the netherworld of Abaddon, and lifting him up to an eternal height. That this statement refers to a limited anticipation of a future event is suggested already by what follows immediately: “And I know that there is hope for someone you fashioned out of dust for an everlasting community.”27 Then there seems to be a return to the recent past and the present: “The depraved spirit you have purified from great offence so that he can take a place with the host of the holy ones, and can enter in communion with the congregation of the sons of heaven.” The purification of persons is probably a result of entering the Community and living in accordance with Torah properly interpreted. Entering into communion with the angels seems to represent the (virtual) experience associated with the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifices. The destiny of the members of the Community is with “the spirits of knowledge,”28 but in the meantime, they are creatures of clay, vulnerable to wickedness and turmoil. Before their destiny is fulfilled, either death must come or the eschatological events described in the last part of this psalm.29 The focus of the Songs “is a description of the angels and their praise in the heavenly temple.”30 As with the psalms and the blessings of the angels, there is reticence about the appearance and speech of God. In the twelfth song there is a description of the chariot throne with language drawn from Ezek 1 and 10.

25 See the survey, including the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, by Björn Frennesson, “In a Common Rejoicing”: Liturgical Communion with Angels at Qumran, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Semitica 14 (Uppsala: Uppsala University Library, 1999). 26 1QHa 11:19–23; Alexander, Mystical Texts, 108; Schäfer, Origins, 123. 27 Lines 20–21; translation from García Martínez and Tigchelaar, Dead Sea Scrolls, 1.165. 28 Lines 22–23; ibid. 29 Lines 26–36; ibid., 167. This line of interpretation also fits the statement or hymn of the Maskil in 1QS 11:4–15. On the temporal aspect of the eschatology of the Dead Sea Scrolls, see Loren T. Stuckenbruch, “Overlapping Ages at Qumran and ‘Apocalyptic’ in Pauline Theology,” in Dead Sea Scrolls and Pauline Literature, ed. Jean-Sébastien Rey, George J. Brooke, and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar (Leiden: Brill, 2014) 309–26; here 323–25. 30 Newsom, Critical Edition, 52.

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Newsom has argued that this song includes a kind of theophany in the heavenly temple, when the angels who accompany it “settle” into place and a silence follows.31 If so, it is a remarkably hidden theophany, at least with regard to the description of it in the song. Unlike Ezekiel, the Songs do not describe the one seated on the throne. Schäfer takes the twelfth song as the climax of the work32 but emphasizes that the focus is not on God but on angels: “What Ezekiel encounters as a vision of God has been transferred to the angels . . . The angels move to center-stage; God’s physical appearance recedes into the background and is hardly mentioned at all. That which remains important is only his praise, not the vision of his shape.”33 Furthermore, unlike Ezekiel this song does not report a divine response to the angelic praise and no message is given to transmit.34 I agree with Newsom that the climax of the work is the thirteenth song: ”The climactic position in the series of songs is reserved for an account of the sacrifices performed by the angelic high priests and for a description of their magnificent appearance.”35 The sacrifice itself is not the central concern of this song, since the apparently brief account of the sacrifice is followed by a lengthy section describing the vestments of the high priestly angels who offer the sacrifice.36 Both Newsom and Schäfer explain the purpose of the Sabbath Songs in the social context of the Qumran Community. According to Newsom, the priests of that community saw themselves as the only valid priests. Yet they lacked authority in the Jerusalem temple and had possession neither of the sacred utensils nor the priestly vestments. They were desirous of legitimizing their priesthood, not just for outsiders but also for themselves. She concludes that the Songs were written to form the identity, authenticate, and glorify the priesthood of the priestly leaders of the Community. Support for this hypothesis lies “in the fact that the work does not find its climax in the description of the divine merkabah

31 Ibid., 55–56. 32 So also Christopher Morray-Jones, “Divine Names, Celestial Sanctuaries, and Visionary Ascents: Approaching the New Testament from the Perspective of Merkeva Traditions,” in Christopher Rowland and Christopher R. A. Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament, ed. Pieter Willem van der Horst and Peter J. Tomson, CRINT 3.12 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 321–22. 33 Schäfer, Origins, 137–38. 34 Ibid., 139. 35 11QShirSabb 8–7; 4Q405 23 ii; Newsom, Critical Edition, 53. 36 Newsom, Critical Edition, 57. Alexander is inclined to view the twelfth song as the climax but allows that the thirteenth may rather form the climax with its lengthy description of “the celestial high priestly garments” (Mystical Texts, 49–50).

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but rather in the glorious appearance of the celestial high priests in their ceremonial vestments, model and image of the Qumran priesthood.”37 Schäfer argues that, in the context of the Qumran community, the celestial sacrifices offered by the angelic priests “only make sense as substitutes for the sacrifices in the polluted earthly Temple.” The angelic sacrifices are offered on behalf of the members of the Qumran community.38 He explicitly takes a “Temple-critical approach” to the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice “with the angels in heaven officiating as the legitimate priests and high priests.39 These hypotheses concerning the purpose of the Songs are plausible, but there are other important considerations as well. It seems likely that this and other texts from Qumran attest to a shift in values. No longer is happiness or a desirable destiny expressed primarily in terms of comfortable means, a long life, and seeing one’s children’s children. A view has arisen according to which the human body is merely dust or clay mixed with water, and the human spirit finds itself at the boundary of wickedness.40 The desire and hope related to such a view is endowment with heavenly knowledge, fellowship with the angels, and eventually becoming angels or angel-like. As Alexander has argued, in the Sabbath Songs the “ultimate goal of mystical experience” is to acquire this heavenly knowledge (knowledge of God’s ultimate purposes and how to conform oneself to them; in effect, the heavenly Torah) and to rise to the level of divine illumination enjoyed by the angels.41 To achieve this goal, the Qumran Community “attempted in their liturgies to bring their worship on earth into alignment and union with the worship of the angels in heaven, and in this way to ‘ascend’ to the celestial temple.”42 Following Bilhah Nitzan and Esther Chazon, Alexander defines three types of union “with the transcendent reality,” all of which can be found in texts from Qumran. The result of the second type “is that the human worshippers not only pray with the angels but also come to pray like them. This type of joint praise would have engendered an experience of human-angelic liturgical communion and fostered a sense of a special association with the angels on high. Nevertheless, here the choirs remain separate.”43

37 Newsom, Critical Edition, 71–72. 38 Schäfer, Origins, 141–42. 39 Ibid., 350. 40 1QHa 11:21, 23–24. 41 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 60–61. 42 Ibid., 72. 43 Ibid., 103; italics Alexander’s following Chazon.

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In the third type, the angels and the humans form one congregation. According to Chazon, in this type the human worshippers “conceive of themselves as actually present with the angels, apparently experiencing a sense of elevation to angelic heights.” In some contexts, the focus is on the single, united congregation, whereas in others the meeting ground is the heavenly throne room.44 I suggest that the Songs represent a combination of types two and three. The choirs remain separate, but the earthly congregation participates in the heavenly worship in two ways. One way is in its repeated call for the angels and the living parts of the heavenly temple to praise God. These calls and the descriptions that follow are themselves acts of worship.45 The other way is precisely in a sense of elevation to angelic heights. The congregation, or at least the Maskil who ostensibly reports to them, sees and hears what is going on in the heavenly temple. Like the angels, the human community is divided into ranks of priests and of lay people. The latter seem to be represented by the “camps” of angels referred to in the Songs.46 The passages in the Hodayot and the Rule of the Community discussed above seem to imply that, either after death or in the eschatological age, the earthly community and the angels will form a single, united congregation for the everlasting worship of God.

The Hekhalot Literature The current consensus places “the formative stages in the development of Hekhalot literature in Byzantine Palestine and Sasanian or early Islamic Iraq between the fifth and the ninth centuries CE.”47 Recent scholarship has also emphasized “the complex and protracted literary processes that gave rise to the Hekhalot texts as we know them today.” The textual identities and boundaries have been fluid and a continuous process of redaction and thus reinterpretation

44 Ibid., 104; as examples of this type, Chazon cites 1 QHa 19:10–14 and the Self-Glorification Hymn. 45 Newsom, Critical Edition, 65. 46 Alexander, Mystical Texts, 56; cf. Newsom, Critical Edition, 31. 47 Ra’anan Boustan, “Introduction: Hekhalot Literature at the Intersection of Jewish Regional Cultures,” in Hekhalot Literature in Context: Between Byzantium and Babylonia, ed. Ra’anan Boustan, Martha Himmelfarb, and Peter Schäfer, TSAJ 153 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013) XI–XXIV; quotation from XI. He marks this as a “revisionist” position displacing Gershom Sholem’s dating of 70–400 CE (ibid.). See also Schäfer’s critique of Scholem (e.g., Origins, 5–12, 20–23).

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has occurred.48 A result of this new literary sensitivity is the calling into question of “earlier attempts to reconstruct the mystical experiences once presumed to be the aim of this literature and the source of its visionary descriptions of God, his divine chariot-throne (merkavah), and his angelic entourage.”49 Furthermore, the texts reflect a variety of ideological perspectives, and thus it seems impossible to define a single set of religious phenomena or to reconstruct a unitary social group that produced and used the texts.50 Recent research has also “stressed the deep affinities between” the ritual actions in Jewish magical literature and the Hekhalot texts.51 Peter Schäfer has shown that the Hekhalot literature consists of “individual sets of traditions and smaller literary units” that have “crystallized in various macroforms” that overlap with each other. Thus the larger “works” represent the end of a process rather than the beginning.52 The main macroforms of Hekhalot literature include Hekhalot Rabbati (“the Greater Palaces”), Hekhalot Zutarti (“the Lesser Palaces”), Ma’aseh Merkavah (“the Working of the Chariot”), Merkavah Rabbah (“the Great Chariot”), and the so-called third book of Enoch.53 In the rest of this section of my paper, I will describe aspects of the Hekhalot macroforms that seem interesting for comparison with the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and especially with the letters of Paul. The dominant conception of God in Hekhalot Rabbati is God as King upon his throne.54 The throne is personified and called upon to rejoice and to gladden its king and creator.55 God’s countenance (panim) is said to be beautiful. The angels cannot observe God’s countenance without serious injury. The one who descends to the chariot, however, the yored merkavah, can observe the countenance and will be punished if he does not report what he has seen and heard.56 No creature may view the royal garment without being burned, however, since it is covered with the divine tetragram.57

48 Boustan, “Introduction,” XIII. 49 Ibid., XII–XIV. 50 Ibid., XIV. 51 Ibid., XV. 52 Peter Schäfer, The Hidden and Manifest God: Some Major Themes in Early Jewish Mysticism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 6. 53 Ibid., 7. 54 Ibid., 11. 55 Ibid., 12–13. Cf. the call for the various parts of the temple structure to praise God in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. 56 Ibid., 16–18. 57 Ibid., 18–20.

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With regard to angels, the four holy creatures of Ezek 1, the hayyot ha-qodesh, occupy the top of the angelic hierarchy.58 “The most important task of all angels . . . is reciting the daily praise in front of God.” The praise is quoted; the worthy yored survives the danger inherent in hearing this praise, while the unworthy one is annihilated.59 The worthy yored merkavah is the one who has studied and abides by the entire written and oral Torah.60 At the same time and intertwined with the knowledge and practice of Torah are magical and theurgic elements.61 The gedullah (greatness) passages present the yored merkavah in exalted, even messianic terms. He cannot be harmed, but his opponents who strike or slander him are severely punished.62 The yored, however, is not an isolated individual but “the representative and emissary of Israel.”63 A typical textual unit is the magical and theurgic act of “adjuration.” As in rabbinic literature, the adept longs for the Torah and God is willing to give it. In rabbinic literature, however, Torah is acquired by toil (“with exertion and vexation”), whereas “the Merkavah mystic, with the help of magic aids, possesses it in a single act of perception.”64 The most common object of the adjuration is the Prince of the Torah, “with whom one ‘binds oneself,’ whose ‘Midrash’ one learns, and whose names one must know.”65 In the macrotext Hekhalot Zutarti seeing God is less important than the revelation of his names.66 Nevertheless there follows a revelation about God’s appearance, mediated by Rabbi Aqiva, the prototype of the yored merkavah: “God ‘so to speak’ looks like a man.” He is, however, of tremendous dimensions and therefore concealed from humanity. In any case, praising God is more important than seeing him.67 Two striking things are said about the worthy yored merkavah in this work: He is allowed to sit in front of the throne of glory. Secondly, he is even allowed to sit on God’s lap and make his request. Here the theurgic adjuration is directly related to the ascent.

58 Ibid., 23–24. 59 Ibid., 25. 60 Ibid., 39. 61 Ibid., 39–40. Following Scholem, Schäfer defines “theurgy” as “human kind also influencing the divine inner life” which ranges from mutual influence to the coercion of God, the latter having a strong magical component” (ibid., 4). 62 Ibid., 41–44. 63 Ibid., 45. 64 Ibid., 51. 65 Ibid., 52. 66 Ibid., 57–58. See also Morray-Jones, “Divine Names,” 265–301. 67 Schäfer, Hidden and Manifest God, 58–59.

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In the macroform called Ma’aseh Merkavah, as in Hekhalot Zutarti, the power of the divine name is a prominent theme.68 In the Ma’aseh Merkavah, there is a distinctive interest in the appearance of the heavenly world, which is largely made up of fire.69 As in most of the Hekhalot literature, the task of the angels is to praise God, especially the name of God. As in Hekhalot Rabbati, the personified throne of glory joins in the praise.70 The power of the divine name is a major theme in the macrotext Merkavah Rabbah as it is in the Hekhalot Zutarti and the Ma’aseh Merkavah. The countenance of God also plays a role, as in the Hekhalot Rabbati. New in the Merkavah Rabbah is the extensive textual unit on the measurements and dimensions of the divine body, the tradition of the Shiʿur Qomah.71 The role of the angels in this work is much less significant that in the other macroforms.72 The heavenly journey motif is also muted. The two passages in which it occurs connect the ascent tradition, “the classical heavenly journey,” with Rabbi Aqiva. The first of these passages contains two versions of the famous pardes story.73 In the second passage, when Aqiva was standing before the Lord enthroned on his throne of Glory, the Lord promises that even a non-Jew, who has converted to Judaism, adhered to the seven Noachide laws, and “binds himself to,” that is, adjures Metatron, will obtain knowledge of the Torah.74 Thus “the exclusive privilege of an elite group becomes accessible to ‘all of Israel,’ where Israel is understood in the widest sense possible including the gerim.”75 The main concern of the work is the revelation and transmission of a “mystery,” which appears to consist of the divine names.76 The “use” of the mystery is a magical action combined with other magical practices.77 In a few

68 Ibid., 78–79. 69 Ibid., 79–80. 70 Ibid., 81–83. 71 Ibid., 97–103. On this tradition, see also Christopher Morray-Jones, “The Body of Glory: Approaching the New Testament from the Perspective of Shiur Koma Traditions,” in Christopher Rowland and Christopher R. A. Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament, ed. Pieter Willem van der Horst and Peter J. Tomson, CRINT 3.12 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 501–79. 72 Schäfer, Hidden and Manifest God, 103. 73 Ibid., 117. These are also included in Hakhalot Zutarti (ibid., 117 and note 139). 74 Ibid., 118–21. 75 Ibid., 121. 76 Ibid., 107–8. Schäfer translates several terms (raz, middah, and sometimes davar) with the term “mystery,” taking the other two terms as synonyms for raz in the relevant passages (ibid., 107, note 75). 77 Ibid., 109–13.

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passages ethical qualities necessary for the use of the mystery are listed.78 The purpose of the use of the mystery is to master the Torah. The work also includes the practice of the adjuration of an angel in order to guard against forgetting the Torah that one has mastered.79 Other traditional terms for God are more common in 3 Enoch than the epithet “King.” Even so, the throne of God plays a more concrete role than the appearance of God or the Merkavah. A distinctive trait of this work is that Enoch has become Metatron, the greatest of all angels, who has a throne in heaven of his own.80 God is distant. He was once present on earth but has withdrawn because of sin. The metamorphosis of Enoch, however, “is meant precisely to show that God remains accessible, that man not only can reach God, but that he can become almost his equal.”81 Although the appearance of God on his throne in the seventh palace in the seventh heaven is not described, his Shekhinah (“dwelling” or “settling”) is said to be radiant and is reflected on the faces of those near it.82 No other text in the Hekhalot has as rich and systematized an angelology as 3 Enoch.83 Some angels are in charge of the heavenly books, and others are engaged in the divine court of law. The duty of the other angelic princes is “to impel their subordinate angels to praise God.”84 Following Philip Alexander, Schäfer places 3 Enoch “at the end of the literary production of the Hekhalot literature.” He infers from this “a noteworthy development.” The messianic-like self-consciousness of the one who descends to the chariot found in the “greatness” passages of Hekhalot Rabbati “has been transferred to the single and special man who has been transformed into an angel,” Enoch-Metatron.85

Mysticism in the Letters of Paul With regard to the cosmological and anthropological context, Paul envisages a stark contrast between the humble or material body of earthly human beings and the glorified body of the risen Christ, for example, in Phil 3:21. In the same

78 Ibid., 113. 79 Ibid., 115–17. 80 Ibid., 124–25, 133. 81 Ibid., 126. 82 Ibid., 127. 83 Ibid., 129–30. 84 Ibid., 130. 85 Ibid., 134.

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context, he associates the resurrection from the dead with the “upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”86 This “upward call” probably refers to the heavenly context of resurrected, glorified bodies. Similarly, he contrasts “the man of dust” with “the man from heaven” in 1 Cor 15:47. According to Rom 8, creation and the members of the eschatological people of God long to be “liberated” or “redeemed” from the bondage to decay that characterizes earthly life.87 This dichotomy between earthly and heavenly may be partially overcome in an anticipatory way by a mystical union, not directly with God or the angels, but with the risen Christ. As Albert Schweitzer already saw clearly, Paul’s mysticism is not a God-mysticism, but a Christ-mysticism.88 In the prose poem or hymn of Phil 2, Paul portrays the pre-existent Christ as being “in the form of God.”89 This phrase does not refer to being God or being divine in the fullest sense. Otherwise, the “hyper-exaltation” after his death on the cross would lose its rhetorical force.90 Thus “being in the form of God” is best understood as being a heavenly being, probably some sort of angel. The hyper-exalted state of Christ, historically interpreted, is best thought of as being the principal angel.91 The principal angel in some ancient Jewish texts is the angel who bears the name of God, such as Yahoel in the Apocalypse of Abraham,92 and is closest to and most like God. That the pre-existent Christ, who became the earthly Jesus, was transformed and became the highest angel is analogous to the transformation of the human Enoch into the exalted angel Metatron, whom God gives the name “The lesser YHWH.”93 Thus, when the bodies of Paul and the members of his communities are “conformed to his glorious body,”94 they will become like those of the angels. 86 Phil 3:10–14. 87 Rom 8:18–23. See also the affirmation that “our commonwealth is in heaven” in Phil 3:20 and that “the Jerusalem above is our mother” (Gal 4:26). 88 Albert Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, trans. William Montgomery (New York: Seabury, 1968), 5; trans. of Mystik des Apostels Paulus (Tübingen: Mohr, 1930). 89 Phil 2:6. 90 Phil 2:9. 91 Paul Holloway, Philippians: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017) commentary on 2:9–11. He argues that Paul envisions the exalted Christ as “the principal angel who now bears the divine name.” 92 Or Iaoel; Apoc. Ab. 10.3; Schäfer, Origins, 28, 88–89, 91–92. Schäfer sees a similarity between Yohoel and Metatron (92). See also ibid., 105 n. 74, 111. 93 3 En. 12:5; translation from Philip Alexander, “3 (Hebrew Apocalypse of) Enoch,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983) 223–315; quotation from 265. This transformation of Enoch into Metatron was perhaps anticipated by the transformation of Enoch into the Son of Man in the Similitudes or Parables of Enoch (1 En. 71:7–17). 94 Phil 3:21.

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Angels are “divine” in the sense that they share in the nature of God (as opposed to human nature) and are immortal.95 If the “gods” are “the immortals,”96 then the destiny of the elect is a kind of deification. Schweitzer made a concerted effort to make sense of a wide variety of passages in Paul’s letters and came to the conclusion that: The original and central idea of the Pauline Mysticism is therefore that the Elect share with one another and with Christ a corporeity which is in a special way susceptible to the action of the powers of death and resurrection, and in consequence capable of acquiring the resurrection state of existence before the general resurrection of the dead takes place.97

He also argued that “the being-in-Christ” does not come about by an act of faith or belief in Christ. It is not a subjective experience for Paul but something that happens in baptism.98 The hypothesis that the elect and Christ share a corporeity explains how Paul can speak of the union as both “Christ in us” and “we in Christ.”99 How does the sharing in this corporeity come about? Schweitzer’s explanation involves the Spirit. Since: God’s Spirit is poured out after the resurrection of Christ, that means that it is poured out in consequence of the resurrection. The Spirit of God is in [individual human beings] only since [humans] have been “in Christ Jesus,” and in union with his corporeity have also part in the Spirit of God by which this is animated.100

When Paul and the members of the communities he founded were baptized they became possessed by the Spirit of God, which is also the Spirit of Christ, since it is by the power of the Spirit that he was resurrected and given a new, heavenly life.101 If Christ now lives in Paul, the Spirit of God now lives in Christ and in those who are in union with him. Mystical union with Christ for Paul is possession of

95 Angels are often called “gods” (elim) in the Dead Sea Scrolls. 96 “The gods” and “the immortals” are typically synonyms in Greek literature. 97 Schweitzer, Mysticism, 115–16. 98 Schweitzer, Mysticism, 117. Gal 3:5 seems to be contrary evidence but probably is not, since Paul holds faith and baptism closely together and assumes that all members of his communities have been baptized; Rom 6:1–11; Gal 3:23–28. On baptism and union with Christ from Paul’s point of view, see now Grant Macaskill, Union with Christ in the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 195–97. 99 Ibid., 122. 100 Ibid., 165. 101 Rom 1:4.

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and by the Spirit.102 Paul can speak about individuals “having the Spirit of Christ” and about the Spirit dwelling in them.103 Recent anthropological studies have shown that mediums may be possessed by a variety of spirits at different times but may also be possessed over a whole lifetime by a primary spirit. This spirit may take over the mind, body, and speech of the medium on occasion but is present continuously in a relationship that may be called “cohabitation.”104 The likelihood that members of the Pauline community were possessed by various spirits at different times is shown by the need for the practice of discerning the spirits.105 Such an understanding of spirit possession fits the Pauline letters and explains how the mystical experience of being possessed by the Spirit can include both ecstatic and other particular practices, as well as involve a via mystica,106 a pattern of life that arises from long term cohabitation with the Spirit. The ecstatic experiences and practices include speaking in tongues and probably prophecy also, even though it involves intelligible speech.107 Healing and performing miracles (literally, “mighty deeds”) are also associated with possession by the Spirit.108 Analogously, the mediums of the bori tradition in West Africa are healers who are consulted even by Muslims in dire circumstances.109 Paul may refer to ecstatic prayer in connection with the cry “Abba! Father!” In any case, he states clearly that this prayer is enabled by the Spirit. Although the Spirit may replace the mind and voice of the individual in some situations, Paul implies that the members of the community, individually and communally, also have agency and participate in the activity: “the Spirit itself 102 On Paul’s communities as constituting a “spirit possession cult,” see Christopher Mount, “1 Corinthians 11:3–16: Spirit Possession and Authority in a non-Pauline Interpolation,” JBL 124 (2005): 313–40. I agree with much of what Mount says about spirit possession in Paul’s letters and communities, but disagree with his designation of the possessing spirit as “the spirit of Jesus” (316). It is rather the Spirit of God, which is also the Spirit of the risen Christ. 103 Rom 8:9. “Having the Spirit” here is synonymous with “the Spirit of God [dwelling] in you.” 104 Michael Lambek, “The Interpretation of Lives or Lives as Interpretation: Cohabiting with Spirits in the Malagasy World,” American Ethnologist 41 (2014): 491–503; here 483; Adeline Masquelier, “From Hostage to Host: Confessions of a Spirit Medium in Niger,” Ethos 30 (2002): 49–76; here 54. I am grateful to Giovanni Bazzana for bringing these studies to my attention. 105 1 Cor 12:10. 1 Thess 5:20–21 suggests that the words of the prophets had to be tested as well. 1 Cor 14:29 should probably be interpreted in the same way. 106 On the notion of a via mystica, see Alexander, Mystical Texts, 8–9. 107 Tongues: 1 Cor 12:10, 28, 30; 13:1, 8; throughout chapter 14; prophecy: Rom 12:6; 1 Cor 11:4–5; 12:10, 28, 29; 13:2, 8, 9; throughout chapter 14; 1 Thess 5:20. 108 1 Cor 12:6, 28; Gal 3:5; Rom 15:19. Cf. 1 Cor 2:4–5. 109 Masquelier, “From Hostage to Host,” 54.

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bears witness with our spirit” when we pray this prayer.110 Similarly he teaches that, “The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.”111 Paul also associates non-ecstatic gifts and activities with possession of or by the Spirit. These include teaching, assisting other members of the community, and administrative activities.112 Furthermore, he teaches that baptism and possession by the Spirit must involve ethical transformation. In Galatians he uses the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit to exhort his audience to leave behind the works of the flesh (sexual immorality, idolatry, etc.) and to recognize that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, etc.). In effect, he urges the Galatians to exercise their perception of what is obvious and their personal agency in cooperation with the Spirit to bring about the needed moral transformation.113 More profoundly, in Rom 7 and 8, Paul uses the popular notion of the conflict between the mind and the passions to characterize the life of the depraved sinner, who has suffered the death of the soul.114 The path to ethical transformation, for Gentiles especially, who have been handed over to their passions, is opened by the Spirit of God dwelling in them. The death and resurrection of Christ Jesus and the pouring out of the Spirit have enabled those in union with Christ and possessed by his Spirit to cease walking according to the flesh and to begin walking according to the Spirit.115 So according to Paul, in effect, the via mystica consists of the exercise of whatever spiritual gifts one has received in an individual and communal context of ethical transformation. There are two other experiences, whether ecstatic or not, that are related to the mysticism of Paul. Both are mentioned in the introduction to the ascent described in 2 Cor 12: visions and revelations.116 Turning to visions first, Paul asks his audience in a discussion of his rights as an apostle, “Have I not seen the Lord?”117 This remark probably refers to the same event Paul describes in the discussion of resurrection later in the letter: “Last of all, as it were to an untimely birth, he appeared to me.”118 The use of the term ὤφθη here makes clear that a vision of the risen Lord is meant. 110 Rom 8:15–16. 111 1 Cor 14:32. 112 1 Cor 12:28–29. 113 Gal 5:16–26. This kind of dialectical cooperation also takes place in a bori medium interacting with her principal possessing spirit (Masquelier, “From Hostage to Host,” 60). 114 Emma Wasserman, The Death of the Soul in Romans 7: Sin, Death, and the Law in Light of Hellenistic Moral Psychology, WUNT 2.256 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008). 115 Rom 7:7–8:14. 116 ἐλεύσομαι δὲ εἰς ὀτασίας καὶ ἀποκαλύψεις κυρίου (2 Cor 12:1). 117 1 Cor 9:1. 118 1 Cor 15:8.

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More often mentioned than visions is the experience of receiving or telling about a revelation. Two passages make clear that not just Paul, but also members of his communities, received and reported revelations. In 1 Cor 14, Paul asks, “If I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I speak to you either with a revelation, etc.”119 Here the “I” is not exclusive but representative. This interpretation is supported by a statement later in the same chapter: “When you come together, one has a psalm, another has a teaching, another has a revelation etc.”120 Although this term may include a visionary element, it seems to have a broader range than the term “vision.” A case in which a “vision” seems to be implied, the term “revelation” seems to entail more. In the first chapter of Galatians, Paul states, “For I did not receive [the gospel that I proclaim] from a human source and was not taught [it]; rather [I received it] through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”121 After describing his initial opposition to the church, he goes on to say, “But when the one who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me through his favor decided to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him to the Gentiles etc.”122 In light of Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians that he had “seen” the Lord, it is likely that “revelation” and “reveal” in this context have a visionary element. The claim that it was through this revelation that Paul received his gospel and was commissioned to proclaim the risen Christ to the Gentiles makes clear that there was more than a simple vision involved. Perhaps what he saw, for example, the glorious risen Jesus Christ enthroned or standing at the right hand of God’s throne, convinced him that Jesus was indeed the Messiah designate who had become a heavenly type of Messiah by his resurrection. There must have been something more, however, at least words of Christ or God that appointed him as an apostle to proclaim the risen Christ as Messiah to the Gentiles. Although the terms “reveal” or “revelation” are not used, passages in which Paul, in effect, reveals “a saying of the Lord,” “a mystery” or a “secret” to his audiences may belong to this category. In 1 Thess 4, he interprets “a saying of the Lord” to the effect that those who have died in Christ will taken up to meet the Lord at his parousia, along with those who are still alive at the time.123 In 1 Cor 2, Paul refers to his gospel of the crucified Christ as “the mystery of God,” which he

119 1 Cor 14:6. 120 1 Cor 14:26. 121 Gal 1:12. 122 Gal 1:15–16. 123 1 Thess 4:15–17. This is probably Paul’s interpretation of an oral saying attributed to Jesus and also reflected in Mark 13:26–27; see Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) on this passage.

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also describes as a secret, heavenly wisdom and as a gift of the Spirit.124 In the discussion of resurrection, he reveals the mystery or secret that those who are alive at the parousia will be changed so that they have an imperishable (spiritual) body, like those in Christ who have already died when they are raised.125 Finally, in his treatment of the role of Israel in God’s eschatological plan, he reveals that a temporary hardening has come upon Israel “until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”126 At times the referent of the term “revelation” seems to be similar to a prophetic or divine oracle. This is apparently the meaning of “revelation” in the passages in 1 Cor 14. It may have this sense in 2 Cor 12 as well, as I hope to show.127 I agree with the majority of scholars who take the description of the ascent as a first person account by Paul of his experience, in spite of the fact that he begins the account in the third person.128 Paul did not actually ascend to heaven but was “snatched up to the third heaven,” that is, into Paradise.129 It is striking that Paul does not describe what he sees in Paradise but only what he hears. What he hears is ἄρρητα ῥήματα. A common interpretation of this phrase is that what Paul heard was ineffable: he was not able to articulate and report it. The clause that follows, however, puts the emphasis rather on what is permitted: no human being is permitted to speak those words.130 This constraint is analogous to the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, in which the actual words of praise uttered by the angels are not repeated. The climax of Paul’s report is his dialogue with Christ. Just prior to that, Paul’s gives a back-story: because the revelations that he has received are so many or so extraordinary, he was given a “thorn in the flesh,” a messenger of Satan, to torment him and to keep him from being elated. He appealed to Christ three times that this “thorn” be removed from him. It is not clear whether all three requests occurred during a single sojourn in Paradise, but it seems likely that at

124 1 Cor 2:1–2, 6–7, 10, 12–13; cf. 4:1; 13:2. 125 1 Cor 15:51–53. 126 Rom 11:25. 127 On 2 Cor 12:2–4, see Rowland and Morray-Jones, Mystery of God, 137–41, 341–419. 128 E.g., Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, “Paul’s Rapture: 2 Corinthians 12:2–4 and the Language of the Mystics,” in Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Christianity, vol. 1 of Experientia, ed. Frances Flannery, Colleen Shantz, and Rodney A. Werline, SBLSymS 40 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2008), 159–76. He discusses both the majority and the minority views on 162–63. 129 2 Cor 12:3. I agree with those who conclude that the account speaks of one journey rather than two; Lietaert Peerbolte, “Paul’s Rapture,” 163–64. 130 2 Cor 12:4. Lietaert Peerbolte emphasized the ineffability of what Paul hears (“Paul’s Rapture,” 164–67).

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least one of them did. This feature gives the journey to Paradise the character of an oracle request. This oracle request is similar to the adjuration in the Hekhalot literature. In Hekhalot Zutarti, the yored merkavah sits on God’s lap and is invited to make his request. The yored begins with a lengthy “song of praise of God as king” and states his request at the end: that he find grace and favor “before the throne of glory,” be bound to all God’s servants, to do “this and that.”131 The refusal of Christ to remove the “thorn” and his response, “My power is brought to completion in weakness,” serve Paul’s rhetorical purpose well.132 He wishes to legitimate his apostolic authority over against the super-apostles who challenge it. They evidently boast of visions and revelations and represent an apostleship of glorifying power. Paul focuses on the cross, weakness, and suffering and is reluctant to boast. With this account, he has it both ways. His apostleship of suffering and weakness is validated by the risen Christ himself who granted Paul at least one journey to Paradise before his death.

Conclusion I have examined one text from Qumran, the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, and two bodies of literature, the macroforms of the Hekhalot literature and the undisputed letters of Paul. Each of the three reflects a particular type of mysticism. Of the three, the Pauline letters provide the greatest amount of evidence for a range of experiences and practices that may be regarded as mystical or as related to mystical thought and a way of life in accordance with it, a via mystica. Angels play a role, but a lesser one than in the other two. There is only one report of an ascent, but it is significant, given that it is a first-person account of a historical person and given the genre of the letters. A distinctive feature is the role that possession of and by the Spirit plays both in the mystical union with Christ and in the ethical transformation that is expected to follow from it. The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice are most likely rooted in liturgical forms and practices. They reflect a concerted effort to unite the heavenly and earthly worlds by means of a rich virtual experience on the part of human worshippers of the worship offered by the angels, both those encamped outside the heavenly temple and the priestly angels who minister within it. Its relation to other texts

131 Schäfer, Hidden and Manifest God, 74. The rich and detailed account of an ascent in the socalled Mithras Liturgy (in the Greek Magical Papyri) similarly has its climax when the one who ascends to the highest god, Mithras, presents him with a question or request. 132 2 Cor 12:9.

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from Qumran make it likely that this imaginative participation in heavenly worship and the communion with the angels anticipates a fuller union after death or in the eschatological future. This union at least involves the merging of the human and angelic choirs and perhaps also the angelification of the humans. The Hekhalot literature surprisingly provides the least evidence of the three for actual mystical experiences and practices. The experience involved is primarily one of imagination, reading, reciting, and transmitting the tradition of the heavenly temple and the worship that takes place there. The significant role played by magical traditions and the traditions regarding adjuration are the most likely to reflect actual practice. Angels and the ascent to heaven are major themes in all the macroforms of the Hekhalot literature with the exception of the Merkavah Rabbah.

Jörg Frey

“Mystical” Traditions in an Apocalyptic Text? The Throne Vision of Revelation 4 within the Context of Enochic and Merkavah Texts

Introduction: Apocalypticism and Mysticism as Contested Categories The boundaries between apocalypticism and mysticism often appear unclear or blurred. This is not only due to the observation of mystical elements in apocalyptic texts and of revelatory experiences within the context of mystical religion. It is, even more so, due to the fact that the two terms are scholarly categories subject to definition, and depending on their respective definitions, the group of texts or textual elements attributed to each category varies considerably. Furthermore, both terms have a long history of reception in Christian theology and biblical exegesis, and both have been intensely rejected by certain theological traditions. The modern history of research on apocalypticism (starting with Friedrich Lücke in the early 19th century)1 has suffered from a strong interest in rejecting or marginalizing those elements as “syncretistic” or foreign in New Testament thought. The majority of theological interpreters interested in the religious validity of the early Christian testimonies were more inclined to “rescue” Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles from the strange, speculative, or erroneous views of apocalypticism.2 But the study of mysticism suffered no less from the thorough rejection of the term by the dominant

1 Cf. Jörg Frey, “Jesus und die Apokalyptik,” in Von Jesus zur neutestamentlichen Theologie: Kleine Schrifen 2, ed. B. Schliesser, WUNT 368 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 85–158; here 89–117; see also idem, “Die Bedeutung der Qumrantexte für das Verständnis der Apokalyptik im Frühjudentum und im Urchristentum,” in Apokalyptik und Qumran, ed. J. Frey and M. Becker, Einblicke 10 (Paderborn: Bonifatius, 2007), 11–62; here 11–22. 2 See the famous phrase by Klaus Koch in his pamphlet, Ratlos vor der Apokalyptik: Eine Streitschrift über ein vernachlässigtes Gebiet der Bibelwissenschaft und die schädlichen Auswirkungen auf Theologie und Philosophie (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1970), 55: “das angestrengte Bemühen, Jesus vor der Apokalyptik zu retten.” Jörg Frey, Universität Zürich https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110597264-005

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tradition of Protestant theology in the early and mid 20th century, the “Dialectical Theology” for which mysticism was largely equal with the ungodly attempt at self-redemption.3 As a consequence, mystical elements in the theology of, e.g., Paul,4 were as strongly marginalized as were apocalyptic elements.5 Times have changed again, and pendulum has swung back6: Research in apocalyptic traditions has seen a strong revival since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the decline of the Bultmann school, and likewise, modern theology has developed a new enthusiasm for mysticism of various religious traditions, not least in the hope of overcoming religious struggles and diversities through the mystical idea of universal unity. In a postmodern context, “mysticism” sounds sympathetic while “apocalypticism” is still too easily linked with negative aspects such as fundamentalism, odd end-time speculation, and religious violence. The issue remains, however, to arrive at some clarity about what is meant by “apocalypticism” and “mysticism,” and the

3 Cf., programmatically, Emil Brunner, Die Mystik und das Wort: Der Gegensatz zwischen moderner Religionsauffassung und christlichem Glauben dargestellt an der Theologie Schleiermachers (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1924). 4 For the earlier view of the History-of-Religions school, see Kurt Deißner, Paulus und die Mystik seiner Zeit (Leipzig: Deichert, 1921) and Albert Schweitzer, Die Mystik des Apostels Paulus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1930). 5 Thus in the majority of the Bultmann school. Cf., in particular, Jörg Baumgarten, Paulus und die Apokalyptik: Die Auslegung apokalyptischer Überlieferungen in den echten Paulusbriefen, WMANT 44 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1975) and also – still skeptical – Hans-Heinrich Schade, Apokalyptische Christologie bei Paulus: Studien zum Zusammenhang von Christologie und Eschatologie in den Paulusbriefen, Göttinger Theologische Arbeiten 18 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981). For criticism, cf. Martin Hengel, “Paulus und die frühchristliche Apokalyptik,” in Paulus und Jakobus. Kleine Schriften 3, WUNT 141 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 302–417. 6 Even in Pauline studies, the storm-center of Protestant theology, the term “mysticism” has been reestablished, albeit with varying meanings: While many interpreters, especially in the line of the “New Perspective on Paul,” now characterize Paul’s participatory Christology as “Christ mysticism,” others see the mystical elements in the account of Paul’s visions, his heavenly journey, and other experiences of the Spirit. On the reconsideration of Paul’s religious experience and even Paul as a mystic, cf. Bernhard Heininger, Paulus als Visionär: Eine religionsgeschichtliche Studie, HBS 9 (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1996); Hans-Christoph Meier, Mystik bei Paulus: Zur Phänomenologie religiöser Erfahrung im Neuen Testament, TANZ 26 (Tübingen: Francke, 1998); more recently, see also Ulrich Luz, “Paul as Mystic,” in The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins: Essays in Honor of James D. G. Dunn, ed. G. Stanton, B. W. Longenecker and S. C. Barton (Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2004): 131–43; and G. Theissen, “Paulus und die Mystik: Der eine und einzige Gott und die Transformation des Menschen,” ZTK 110 (2013): 263–90.

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task is no easier in the context of the present enthusiasm than in the earlier context of theological rejection. With regard to “mysticism,” the warning in the new Encyclopedia Religion Past and Present should be noticed: the term which “is closely linked to the development of the history of religion in Europe . . . must not be taken and applied uncritically as a general term for a phenomenologically determined group of phenomena in other religions.”7 Likewise, with regard to “apocalypticism” – a term originally coined from the opening of the biblical book of Revelation8 and subsequently applied to the traditions behind a growing body of “similar” writings in Judaism, Christianity, and other religious traditions – the Uppsala conference came to the conclusion in 1979 that it is more appropriate to describe the phenomena and their development than to fix a coherent definition (“contra definitionem pro descriptione”).9 Therefore, in the present context, we will not discuss the problems of definition further, but rather enter a textual tradition which has always been linked with the idea of mysticism, the tradition of the vision of God or his heavenly throne. The most extensive biblical example for this tradition is the extended vision of the open heaven with the throne and, most significantly, the slaughtered Lamb in Revelation 4–5 which extensively draws on biblical – and also, as we will see – post-biblical traditions, thus providing a link to the continuous stream of tradition of the vision of the throne or the “merkavah” in early Judaism that flows from Ezekiel through the centuries into late Rabbinic and Hekhalot texts.10

7 Thus, M. von Brück, “Mysticism I. The Concept,” RPP 8 (2010): 656. 8 For the first usage of the term, see Friedrich Lücke, “Apokalyptische Studien und Kritiken,” ThStKr 2 (1829): 285–320; idem, Commentar über die Schriften des Evangelisten Johannes. Vierter Theil, erster Band: Versuch einer vollständigen Einleitung in die Offenbarung Johannis und in die gesammte apokalyptische Litteratur (Bonn: Weber, 1832). See also Frey, “Jesus und die Apokalyptik,” 90–91. 9 Thus David Hellholm, “Introduction,” in Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Ancient Near East, ed. David Hellholm (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), 1–6; here 2. For early Jewish apocalypticism, see the survey by John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination. 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016). 10 On the history of Jewish mysticism, cf. the still indispensable study by Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1941); on the impact, see Peter Schäfer and Joseph Dan, eds., Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism 50 Years After: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on the History of Jewish Mysticism (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993); furthermore, see Ithamar Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism, AGJU 14 (Leiden: Brill, 1980); and Peter Schäfer, The Origins of Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011).

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In interpreting Revelation, we will have to look primarily for intertextual relations in order to get hold of the traditions the author draws on and combines when crafting his own fresh imagery.11 Furthermore, we will have to discuss the function of the heavenly visions for the whole of Revelation and for conveying its distinctive message. From there, we can discuss how mystical elements are embedded in the work’s apocalyptic context.12

The Quest for the Making of Revelation’s Visions But is Revelation “apocalyptic?” Or is it, as the church tradition has maintained for centuries, a “prophetic” book? Does it primarily draw on and combine biblical, prophetic traditions, or does it go beyond those traditions, adopting the views and even textual elements of “post-biblical”13 apocalyptic texts? Recently, Jan Dochhorn has emphasized its prophetic character and rejected the history-of-religions approach, which is mostly based on extra-canonical apocalyptic literature. In Dochhorn’s view, Revelation is scripture-based prophecy, not an apocalyptic vision.14 The problem is, however, whether the categories are so clear-cut, and the question will be how prophetic texts and

11 On the making of Revelation’s imagery, see Jörg Frey, “Die Bildersprache der Johannesapokalypse,” ZTK 98 (2001): 161–85; on the composition and function of the heavenly scenes, see in particular Franz Tóth, Der himmlische Kult. Wirklichkeitskonstruktion und Sinnbildung in der Johannesoffenbarun, ABG 22 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2006). 12 The present investigation thus follows a line of research suggested by Gruenwald’s study Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism. Cf. also the extended 2nd edition (Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism, AJECS 90 [Leiden: Brill, 2014]). In contrast with Gruenwald, however, I will not presuppose that all the texts discussed actually are part of the tradition of Merkavah mysticism as attested in the late hekhalot texts, but rather reckon with steps of an open development which then resulted in the literary products of the hekhalot texts in late antiquity. Thus, following the criticism in D. E. Aune, Revelation 1–5, WBC 52 (Dallas: Word Publishers 1997), 279, I will not assume “a unity of tradition where none can be demonstrated.” 13 Of course, this category can only be used with great caution, in view of the fact that the “Bible” (as a closed collection of Hebrew or Greek writings) did not yet exist at the end of the 1st century. Furthermore, the origins and growth of apocalyptic traditions, e.g., in the Enochic corpus, begin before the composition of the last books of the Hebrew Bible (i.e., Daniel). The category “extra-biblical” is only slightly more useful. Though being independent from the date of the texts, it is also created from the anachronistic framework of the canon. 14 Jan Dochhorn, Schriftgelehrte Prophetie: Der eschatologische Teufelsfall in Apc Joh 12 und seine. Bedeutung für das Verständnis der Johannesoffenbarung, WUNT 268 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010). From the earlier commentaries, Heinrich Kraft, Die Offenbarung des Johannes, HNT 16a (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1974) took a similar position.

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apocalyptic visions, biblical images and their later reinterpretations fuse in the making of the visionary world of Revelation. It is clear that the last book of the Bible extensively draws on Israel’s scriptures, and whereas there is not one explicit citation from the scriptures in the whole of the book, it actually draws on the scriptures in an unprecedented density. The numerous allusions to and the formative influence of certain prophetic books (especially Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah)15 and the impact of the biblical plague tradition (which is also mediated through prophetic reception)16 have been thoroughly investigated in recent scholarship. But is this the only source of inspiration? It has widely been observed that the imagery of Revelation not only draws on biblical texts but also, to a considerable extent, on elements from the Hellenistic Roman world: Formulae, rituals, and practices known to the addressees from their daily life in the Hellenistic Roman world, from religious and political life, are also utilized in the imagery of the book,17 so that we can certainly not interpret the figurative world of Revelation as an enclosed scriptural reality. With regard to the enigmatic central image of the apocalyptic woman in chapter 12, for instance, scholars have observed that, although the text can be read as a web or mosaic almost completely composed from biblical phrases and elements,18 the resulting image is much closer to

15 Cf. generally Steve Moyise, The Old Testament in the Book of Revelation, JSNT 115 (Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1995) and Gregory K. Beale, John’s Use of the Old Testament in Revelation (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998). On Isaiah, see Jan Fekkes, Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions in the Book of Revelation: Visionary Antecedents and their Development, JSNTSup 93; Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1994). On Jeremiah, see Jörg Frey, “The Reception of Jeremiah and the Impact of Jeremianic Traditions in the New Testament: A Survey,” in Jeremiah’s Scriptures: Production, Reception, Interaction, and Transformation, ed. Hindy Najman and Konrad Schmid, JSJSup 173 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 497–522, and Adela Yarbro Collins, “Jeremiah in Revelation: A Response to Jörg Frey,” in Najman and Schmid, Jeremiah’s Scriptures, 523–31. On Ezekiel, see Beate Kowalski, Die Rezeption des Propheten Ezekiel in der Offenbarung des Johannes, SBB 52 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2004). On Daniel, see Gregory K. Beale, The Use of Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature and in the Revelation of John (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984). On Zechariah, see Marko Jauhiainen, The Use of Zechariah in Revelation, WUNT 2.199 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). 16 Cf. the lucid study by Michael Sommer, Der Tag der Plagen: Studien zur Verbindung der Rezeption von Ex 7–11 in den. Posaunen- und Schalenvisionen der Johannesoffenbarung und der Tag des Herrn-Tradition, WUNT 2.387 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015). 17 Cf. the observations by David E. Aune, “The Influence of the Roman Imperial Court Ceremonial on the Apocalypse of John,” BR 28 (1983): 5–26. 18 Cf. Michael Koch, Drachenkampf und Sonnenfrau. Zur Funktion des Mythischen in der Johannesapokalypse am Beispiel von Apk 12, WUNT 2.184 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 109ff. and the list on p. 304.

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Greco-Roman mythology than to any biblical text: The plot of a woman giving birth to a child, which is then threatened by a dragon or adversary, and saved in a hidden place, can easily remind readers of the narratives about the birth of Zeus or Apollo, and the woman giving birth, though inspired from biblical texts about Zion, is also a transparent image of the female mother goddesses of the ancient world, such as Isis or Artemis.19 Is there a method in utilizing biblical mosaic-stones to put together an image of a non-biblical form? Can such observations shed light on the creative technique of the author of Revelation? Apart from Rev 12, a promising example for such an inquiry is the fundamental throne vision in Rev 4(–5), which provides the point of departure for the seal, trumpet, and bowl visions and also for the sequence of heavenly cult scenes. Those heavenly scenes interrupt the visionary narration of earthly events, providing a kind of “counter-world” which corresponds to and finally questions the earthly realities, the values, and powers in the world of the addressees.20 Among those heavenly scenes, the vision of the throne in Rev 4–5 is the most diligently crafted key scene that sets the stage for the entire book. Here, we find the most extensive description of the Divine space and – at least in a veiled manner – a description of the invisible God, a feature that is unique in the New Testament. The question is, “How is biblical imagery utilized in the composition of the vision of the throne, and in what way have other elements, from the Enochic tradition, or from later apocalyptic and Jewish mystical traditions, inspired the visionary image or aid in understanding its shape?” The investigation is also important for understanding the image of God in Revelation.21 In a book in which almost everything is visual, it is a significant

19 Cf. Jörg Frey, “Die Himmelskönigin, die Sonnenfrau und die Johannesapokalypse,” Wiener Jahrbuch für Theologie 5 (2004): 95–112; here 105–110; see more extensively Harald Ulland, Die Vision als Radikalisierung der Wirklichkeit in der Apokalypse des Johannes, TANZ 21 (Tübingen: Francke, 1997); Craig R. Koester, Revelation, Anchor Yale Bible 38A (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 126: “the vision . . . follows a plot drawn primarily from extrabiblical stories. . . .” See also Adela Yarbro Collins, The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation, Harvard Dissertations in Religion 9 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976) 61-76. 20 Apart from the commissioning scene in Rev 1:10–20, these are the scenes in Rev 4–5; Rev 8:1–6; Rev 11:15–19; and Rev 14:14–15:8. On the heavenly cult scenes in Revelation, see the extensive study by Tóth, Der himmlische Kult. 21 On this, cf. the recent volume by Martin Stowasser, ed., Das Gottesbild in der Offenbarung des Johannes, WUNT 2.397 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015). See further Anton Vögtle, “Der Gott der Apokalypse. Wie redet die christliche Apokalypse von Gott?,” in La notion biblique de Dieu, ed. J. Coppens, BETL 41 (Gembloux and Leuven: Peeters, 1976), 377–98; T. Holtz, “Gott in der Apokalypse,” in L’Apocalypse johannique et l’Apocalyptique dans le Nouveau Testament, ed.

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question of how the image of the invisible God can be visualized. This is even more of a problem since Revelation stresses the distance between God and the world. God’s revelation is communicated by means of a long chain of figures (Rev 1:1): from God to Christ, from Christ to his angel, from the angel to the visionary, who finally writes down the vision into a book. This significant introduction points to the fundamental truth that God is basically invisible, and even within the visionary account, God, “sitting on the throne,” seems to be rather passive: There is no direct action of God, nor does he speak directly, at least before the final and climactic image in 21:3–5 where God opens his mouth for the very first time to pronounce his single direct word in the whole book: “I make all things new.”22 How is the realm of the distant God visualized?

The Throne Scene and Its Background The scene in Rev 4–5 is clearly structured. The author obviously intends to present a visually clear narrative image.23 After the vision of the open door in heaven and the call for the seer to “come up,”24 the visionary image first presents a throne in heaven (Rev 4:2), then the One sitting on the throne (4:3), and then

J. Lambrecht, BETL 53 (Gembloux and Leuven: Peeters, 1980), 247–65; Richard J. Bauckham, “God in the Book of Revelation,” Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association 18 (1995): 40–53; Thomas Söding, “Heilig, heilig, heilig. Zur politischen Theologie der Johannes-Apokalypse,” ZTK 96 (1999): 49–76; idem, “Gott und das Lamm. Theozentrik und Christologie in der Johannesapokalypse,” in Theologie als Vision. Studien zur Johannes-Offenbarung, ed. K. Backhaus, SBS 191 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2001), 77–120; here 77–86; Christoph G. Müller, “Gott wird alle Tränen abwischen – Offb 21,4. Anmerkungen zum Gottesbild der Apokalypse,” Theologie und Glaube 95 (2005): 275–97. 22 All other words and voices are either from Christ, the angel, or other heavenly voices, or (as in the introduction in 1:8) they are sayings in which the words of the almighty and the exalted Christ are somewhat blurred. 23 On the visual clarity of Revelation’s images, see the recent monograph by Nils Neumann, Hören und Sehen. Die Rhetorik der Anschaulichkeit in den Gottesthron-Szenen der Johannesoffenbarung, Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte 49 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2016). On Rev 4, see pp. 180–210. 24 Interestingly, it is not narrated that the seer did anything to follow the call to come up. It is mere stated that immediately after the call, he was “in the spirit.” This means the visionary is not actively seeking the vision, but it is presented to him while he is rather passive. The character of the revelation is not specified, but the language points to an ecstatic vision rather than to a bodily conceptualized heavenly journey. Nevertheless, in ch. 5, the seer participates in the heavenly scenery and even weeps (i.e., bodily reacts) about the unsolved problem.

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twenty-four thrones and the “elders” sitting upon them (4:4). After that, the area surrounding the throne is described (4:5–6), then the four living beings, “in the midst of the throne and around” (4:7), before finally the doxologies of the four beings and the twenty-four elders are presented (4:8–11). After this, in chapter 5, the sealed scroll and its problem are presented (5:1–5), before the Lamb is introduced as the one who can provide the “solution” to the problem (5:6). Then the Lamb receives the scroll (5:7), before it is venerated by the four beings and the 24 elders (5:8–10) and praised by a vast multitude of angels surrounding the throne (5:11–12) and by the whole cosmos (5:13). After this heavenly and cosmic “liturgy” is verbally quoted, it is concluded by the “Amen” and the worship of the beings and the elders around the throne (5:14). The clarity of the structure clearly aims at transforming the readers and listeners into eye- and earwitnesses who not only take notice of what happens but even get involved emotionally, thus becoming part of the otherworldly reality presented before their ears and eyes.25 Ultimately, they are thought to join the universal choir of praise of God and the Lamb, which is again confirmed by the “Amen” from the heavenly center. The vision aims at the whole universe but starts with the throne which marks the center of the whole vision. The throne motif is one of the most significant features in Revelation.26 It is used in a quite distinctive manner: Unlike in the Hebrew Bible, the term is never used for the thrones of human rulers, but only with reference to God (and Christ), with the one exception of the “throne of Satan” in Pergamum (Rev 2:13). The term is primarily used to describe God as the one “sitting on the throne.” Thus, Revelation creates a unique and very significant linguistic image that represents God and his eternal kingdom. But where is the image taken from, and what has inspired the author in his visionary image? When looking at the biblical tradition, there are four throne scenes which serve, to various extents, as sources for the visionary imagery in Rev 4.27 Without going into detail, we can mention the most important features of those visions and the similarities and differences in Revelation.

25 This is rightly stressed by Neumann, Hören und Sehen, 208–10. 26 The term is used forty-seven times in Revelation. In all other NT writings, there are only thirteen further passages using the word. Cf. Gottfried Schimanowski, Die himmlische Liturgie in der Apokalypse des Johannes. Die frühjüdischen Traditionen in Offenbarung 4–5 unter Einschluß der Hekhalotliteratur, WUNT 2.154 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 91. 27 For a brief overview, cf. Aune, Revelation 1–5, 276–78; for the heavenly courtroom material, see Meira Kensky, Trying Man, Trying God: The Divine Courtroom in Early Jewish and Christian Literature, WUNT 2.289 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010).

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Throne Visions in the Hebrew Bible (a) The first vision to consider is Isaiah’s temple vision in Isa 6:1–13. Before Isaiah is called and enabled to receive his message (vv. 4–10), he sees “the Lord” in his temple on a lofty throne with the train of his robe filling the Temple, and surrounded or rather overshadowed by six-winged flying beings called Seraphim singing the praise of the Trishagion. Revelation 4 is inspired by Isaiah’s depiction of living creatures around the throne: The creatures in Rev 4 also have six wings, and the praise of the living creatures quotes exactly Isaiah’s Trishagion (Rev 4:8; Isa 6:3). Isaiah also makes clear that God himself is basically inaccessible, even in the Temple, an aspect which is also adopted in later visions in various ways. (b) The second throne scene is the very brief note about Micaiah ben Imlah (2 Kgs 22:19), who claims to have seen the Lord sitting on his throne with the host of heaven standing on his right and on his left. In this heavenly throne scene (conceived of like a heavenly court), God’s throne is located in heaven, and God is surrounded by a heavenly host of angels. Decisions made in the courtroom are then communicated by the prophet to the earthly world. In Rev 4, there is also a heavenly host, a multitude of angels surrounding God’s throne, and in chapters 6–16, the visionary describes the interaction between the heavenly throne room and earthly history, thus proclaiming what he has been shown. (c) The third and perhaps most influential source is Ezekiel’s detailed throne vision in Ezek 1. Here, the heavens are opened, and the prophet sees “visions of God” (1:1). The appearance is linked with nature phenomena such as storm, a cloud, fire, lightening, and colors of glowing metal, or burning coals (Ezek 1:4, 13). Frequently, the author uses words of comparison (e.g., Hebrew ke), indicating that the imagery is an inadequate representation of the heavenly sphere. The vision presents four living creatures “in the midst” of the fire, each one with four different faces and four wings (1:5–6), but also four wheels full of eyes in order to move in all four directions, and their motion is accompanied by a loud noise (1:24). In Ezekiel, this “apparatus” of the four Cherubim with wheels functions to make God’s throne moveable so that his presence can depart from Zion and go to the people in their Babylonian exile. The firmament above the four beings is described as colored like crystal (1:22). Near the end of the vision, the throne is described above the firmament, colored like sapphire stone. On the throne sits a figure with the appearance of a man whose stature is described with the image of amber, fire, brightness (1:26–7), and with a rainbow expressing the kabod, the glory of the Lord (1:28).

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Here we find an almost systematic description. This vision goes beyond Isa 6, not only in its wealth of details but also in its attempt to describe the figure of the Lord on his throne (as a human-like figure with light, colors, and the rainbow expressing his glory). A number of elements are important for Rev 4, in particular the four beings and some details of their description, especially the eyes. The wheels, however, are not needed in Revelation, and since the living creatures in Revelation have six, not four wings, they appear to be blended with the Seraphim from Isa 6. Ezekiel’s vision also includes images of light and colored stones and a rainbow. (d) The fourth biblical pattern comes from Dan 7. After the vision of the four beasts which symbolize empires, thrones are set up, and God, called “the Ancient of Days,” takes his seat (7:9). Here we have a court scene rather than a description of God’s eternal kingdom. Nevertheless, the vision includes the most detailed image of God in the Old Testament, wherein his vesture, hair, and head are described. The appearance is characterized by white color and by flaming fire. As in Ezekiel, the throne has wheels of burning fire, and as in the vision of Michah ben Jimla, God’s throne is surrounded by myriads of angels. Moreover, the scene includes the opening of books, which provides at least a certain analogy to the mention of the book in Rev 5. We can see that the biblical tradition provides a great number of elements which are adopted and combined in Rev 4–5: heaven opening (Ezekiel), visions of the throne (Isaiah, 2 Kings, Ezekiel, Daniel), or a figure sitting on the throne (Ezekiel, Daniel), a host of angelic beings around the throne (2 Kings, Daniel), four particular beings next to the throne or carrying it (Ezekiel), with wings (Ezekiel, cf. Isaiah), radiance of light (Ezekiel, Daniel), white (Daniel) or shining colors (Ezekiel), a rainbow (Ezekiel), loud noise (Ezekiel), angelic praise (Isaiah), court scenes (2 Kings, Daniel), with books opened (Daniel), and the linguistic use of comparative particles (like; as) to indicate the inadequacy of the images (Ezekiel, Daniel). However, none of the biblical scenes combines all those elements. In Isaiah, the four creatures are missing, and there is no attempt to describe the appearance with colors or even to grant a glance at the figure of the Lord himself. In the short account in 2 Kings, there is no detailed description of the throne. The multitude of angels is unmentioned in Isaiah and Ezekiel, and the Trishagion is only quoted in Isaiah, though it is missing in all other biblical throne scenes. On the other hand, Revelation does not systematically combine the four biblical scenes but omits what is unimportant here, e.g., the wheels, and focuses on what the vision aims at, the Lamb and the universal veneration.

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The Throne Vision in 1 Enoch 14 There are, however, texts that demonstrate how other extra- or post-biblical ideas and descriptions could inspire such a combined visionary image of the heavenly throne. The most important visionary text which seems to go further toward a systematic vision of the heavenly world and thus show a more advanced development of the heavenly vision is Enoch’s throne vision in 1 En. 14:8–16:4 (in particular 14:8–23) in the Book of Watchers, probably from the 3rd century BCE, i.e., possibly even earlier than Dan 7.28 Here, we have a visionary ascent to the heavenly world and a systematic description of the throne area within the framework of a more extensive “biblical call narrative.”29 The visionary Enoch is taken up by clouds and winds and flashes (14:8), doors are opened (14:15), and in the end, after crossing a first “house,” the visionary sees the throne, guarded by Cherubim (14:18) with God, called the “Great Glory,” sitting upon the throne (14:20) and myriads of angels before him (14:22). Here, it is repeatedly said that the vision makes the visionary tremble, that he is physically unable to see the things shown to him (14:8, 13, 18, 21), and even no angel can approach the throne (14:21), except the holy ones of the watchers (14:23). The heavenly world is repeatedly described by frightening tongues of fire, flashes, shooting stars (14:9, 11, 17), and – at the same time – by snow or ice (14:10, 13). Thus, the vision is marked as a paradoxical image. At the climax, Enoch is addressed by the Lord himself and entrusted with a revelation, in answer to his petition on behalf of the watchers (14:24 – 16:4). Like Rev 4, the great throne vision in 1 En. 14:8–23 synthesizes elements of various biblical call scenes, in particular Ezek 1–2 and Dan 7.30 Although the focus is ultimately on the fate of the watchers, the vision – at the narrative climax of the tale about the watchers (1 En. 6–16) – presents Enoch as the paradigmatic visionary and the recipient of a heavenly revelation. He is granted the ability to ascend to God’s heavenly sanctuary and is finally commissioned to pronounce judgment against the watchers.

28 A date of the Book of Watchers in the 3rd century BCE is suggested by the discovery of the Aramaic manuscripts of all parts of 1 Enoch except the part of the Similitudes (ch. 37–71) in the library from Qumran. One of those manuscripts (4QEna ar) is paleographically dated to the first half of the 2nd century BCE (cf. J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: The Aramaic Fragments from Qumran [Oxford: Clarendon, 1976], 140; cf. also G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001], 9). 29 Thus Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 30. 30 See the synopsis ibid., 254–56.

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The vision is designed climactically, from earth to heaven, from the outside to the inside, around the sanctuary, which is structured like the earthly temple. Thus, Enoch moves from the outer wall and court into the holy room, to the door of the holy of holies where he can see the enthroned Deity.31 Various narrative elements, such as the spatial structure and size, the excess of superlative similes and negative expressions, the expression of fear, the mention of the human incapability to see the glory, or the paradoxical combination of elements such as fire and ice emphasize the transcendence of God and the “paradox of Enoch’s ascent into his presence.”32 From the biblical traditions adopted, the vision seems to build most strongly on Ezek 1–2, together with elements from Ezek 40–44 – a text which is also important for the book of Revelation.33 There are a number of important parallels34: (a) Both visions are “set by a stream of water.”35 (b) In both cases, “the narrative moves climactically inward toward the throne and to God,”36 who then addresses the visionary. (c) In both cases, “the narrative is introduced with reference to cloud(s) and wind(s)”37 (Ezek 1:4; 1 En. 14:8). (d) The throne and its surroundings “have the following elements in common: ice/hailstones and snow, fire, lightning, wheels, cherubim.”38 (e) The motif of God’s “glory” is common to both (Ezek 1:28; 1 En. 14:20, where God is called “the Great Glory”), and (f) “the reactions of the two seers and their restoration parallel one another point for point. Only in his reference to the “lofty” throne of God does Enoch break with Ezekiel and agree with Isaiah”39 (cf. 1 En. 14:18). (g) Furthermore, the paradox of fire and ice may be created from the mention of fire and the crystal firmament in Ezek 1:13, 22. But the Enochic vision also differs from Ezekiel in various aspects40: (a) The seer is actively carried to heaven, whereas in Ezekiel the chariot

31 Ibid., 259. 32 Ibid. 33 Ezekiel 40–48 is structurally important for Rev 21:1–22:5, and the measurement of the Temple in Ezek 40:3 42:20 and 43:13, 17 is particularly adopted in Rev 11:1–14; cf. Kowalski, Die Rezeption des Propheten Ezechiel, 345–58 and 408–26. See also Nickelsburg 1 Enoch 1: In Ezekiel 40–44, “the prophet is taken in a vision to Jerusalem, where an angel accompanies him on a tour of the temple premises.” 34 See the list in Ibid., 256. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Cf. Ibid., 259.

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approaches the prophet, and all the activities take place on earth, at the river Chebar. (b) In this vision, the seer is much more personally involved; he is moved, frightened, prostrates himself, and finally has to write. He does not merely see, but rather experiences the heavenly world. (c) Enoch not only contemplates the throne, the Cherubim, and a humanlike figure, but he is much more clearly granted a vision of the Deity and its glory. He is even addressed by God himself. Thus, in spite of the awareness of the ultimate invisibility of God, we have the most detailed description of God and his glory, which even goes beyond the somewhat later, shorter vision in Dan 7. This access to the transcendent Deity is granted to an exceptional figure. Historically, 1 En. 14 marks the transition from the older prophetic (or Ezechielic) tradition to the later Merkavah texts41 in which – based on this tradition – visions of the throne are frequently mentioned, hymns and praise of heavenly beings are reported, or – as in the later Hekhalot Rabbati – the throne itself can become a symbolic replacement of God himself. The tendency of systematically describing the heavenly realm, the excess of images, and the strong involvement of the visionary, including his reactions and emotions, are common features of Rev 4–5 and 1 En. 14 which go beyond the biblical throne visions. And in the quotation of heavenly praise, using a language that creates an impression rather than conveys rational information, Rev 4 comes close to later texts of the Enochic and Hekhalot tradition. Thus, Revelation appears to be inspired by tendencies in the tradition that go beyond the biblical throne visions and can be observed for the first time in 1 En. 14. But Revelation 4 also differs from 1 En. 14 in various aspects: The heavenly realm in this vision does not have a sanctuary structure (although elements of the sanctuary are supplemented in later heavenly visions of Revelation), and the vision is not from the outside to the inside but from the center around the throne outwards toward the whole universe. And of course, the vision in Revelation has a different climax: While 1 En. 14 is focused on Enoch’s vision of the invisible God and finally on his commissioning, Rev 4–5 aims at the climax of the presentation of the Lamb, the exalted Christ. Can we also consider this next example to be a parallel between both texts: the commissioning of Enoch to proclaim the judgment on the Watchers and the installation of the Lamb, the exalted Christ, to open the seals and to initiate acts of “judgment” over the earth? In any case, Revelation’s focus on the enthroned Christ goes beyond all parallels from the biblical and Jewish tradition.

41 Ibid.; cf. also Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism, 32–40.

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Other Throne Visions in the Enochic Tradition Apart from 1 En. 14, there are other throne visions that deserve to be briefly discussed42: (a) An important continuation of the tradition of throne visions can be found in the latest part of the Enochic “Pentateuch” (1 Enoch), the Similitudes (1 En. 37–72). Here we can find an interesting development of the Danielic Son of Man tradition according to which this figure, as an “individual,” is considered an eschatological agent, the Chosen One who will sit on the throne of glory (1 En. 45:3), who is endowed with particular judicial functions (1 En. 49:3; 51:2–3).43 The texts are clearly dependent on the earlier Enochic tradition and thus presuppose the Watchers episode and the throne vision from 1 En. 14. In 1 En. 47:3, there is a brief “Merkavah-like”44 vision in which the visionary (Enoch) contemplates God (called “the Ancient of Days”; cf. Dan 7:9–10) taking “his seat on the throne of his glory, and the books of the living were opened in his presence, and all his host which was in the heights of heaven, and his court, were standing in his presence.”45 The brief vision combines elements from Dan 7 and 1 Kgs 22; it presents a courtroom scene, in which there is a brief reminiscence on the visions of Dan 7 and 1 Kgs 22 that contain a courtroom scene, the presence of a heavenly host around the throne of glory, and the opening of books. In a previous vision 1 En. 46:3, Enoch is shown “the Son of Man” in the presence of the Lord of Spirits. Such a scenario comes close to the vision in Revelation with the throne, the various groups of heavenly

42 The text is adopted in Levi’s vision of the heavenly temple in T. Levi 2–5 and also in the Greek Additions to Esther (LXX Esth 15); see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 256. 43 Cf. Kensky, Trying Man, 133. There is no need to discuss here whether these ideas were already in the background of Jesus’s usage of the term “Son of Man.” The Enochic Similitudes are certainly not a Christian text, and they do not adopt the Jesus tradition. Rather, they can show the possibilities of development within a Jewish context and thus provide an illuminating analogy for the early development of the Jesus tradition, cf. Daniel Boyarin, “How Enoch Can Teach Us about Jesus,” EC 2 (2011): 51–76. Regardless of their date in the late 1st century BCE or the early decades of the 1st century CE (cf. George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 37–82, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012], 62–63), they probably existed at the time of the composition of Revelation, and it is also likely that, e.g., the author of Matthew knew the Similitudes (cf. Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, 72). On Revelation and Enoch, see also Loren T. Stuckenbruck and Mark D. Mathews, “The Apocalypse of John, 1 Enoch, and the Question of Influence,” in Die Johannesapokalypse: Kontexte – Konzepte – Rezeption, ed. J. Frey, J. A. Kelhoffer, and F. Tóth, WUNT 287 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 191–234. 44 Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism. 2nd ed., 80. 45 Translation according to Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, 162.

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beings, the opening of a book, and the enthroned Messiah in the image of the Lamb. In 1 En. 60:1–4, there is another vision with the Ancient of Days sitting on the throne of his glory with angels standing around the throne,46 but now the visionary is afraid and trembles before he falls on his face and is raised by one of the angels. (b) The most impressive vision of the throne, however, is presented in the climactic part of the Similitudes, with the enthronization of the “Son of Man” (1 En. 69:26–29), Enoch’s journey to the Paradise (1 En. 70) and his ascent to heaven (1 En. 71).47 Here, we come even closer to the world of Revelation. There is joy in heaven about the fact that the name of the Son of Man Messiah is revealed (1 En. 69:26), he takes a seat on the throne of glory, and the judgment is given to him (cf. Dan 7:22). Then Enoch, the visionary, is lifted up on the chariots of the wind (in analogy with Elijah) and ascends to heaven to see the heavenly secrets (1 En. 71:4). He even ascends to the heaven of heavens, the house of fire, encircled by Seraphim and Cherubim and Ophanim, who do not sleep but guard the throne of glory, and by myriads of angels. Finally, in the vision of the Ancient of Days, Enoch is directly addressed by God and identified as “the Son of Man who was born for righteousness” (1 En. 71:14). Here, Enoch, as the Son of Man, arrives in an elevated eschatological or “Messianic” function, which provides the closest parallel to the views of the exaltation of the Messiah Jesus on the throne of glory in the early post-Easter Jesus movement.48 This ultimate throne vision of 1 Enoch summarizes and intensifies elements from 1 Enoch 14 and from the body of the Book of Similitudes.49 The imagery of the heavenly temple encircled by an immense multitude of various heavenly beings, the paradox of fire and snow (or ice), lightening like precious stones, the vision of God being described as “indescribable” (1 En. 70:11) though adopting elements from Dan 7, and the transfiguration of the visionary (or rather: his identification with the Son of Man) present a visionary world that comes close to Revelation 4–5. (c) The motif of the heavenly throne and the ascent to the heavenly throne is even further developed in 2 Enoch where the pattern of seven heavens is presupposed, and Enoch, as visionary, is enabled to reach the presence of God even

46 The majority of manuscripts read “angels and the righteous,” which would make a further analogy with Revelation 4–5 (thus Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism. 2nd ed., 81), but cf. Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, 236. 47 Cf. also Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism, 1. 48 Cf. Martin Hengel, “‘Sit at My Right Hand!’: The Enthronement of Christ at the Right Hand of God and Psalm 110:1,” in Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 119–225. 49 Cf. the lists in Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, 323, 325.

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before his transfiguration (2 En. 22:6).50 Much more extensively than the earlier tradition, 2 Enoch describes the seven heavens and Enoch’s ascent through them until he arrives in the seventh heaven (2 En. 3–20). Enoch sees Paradise in the third heaven (2 En. 8–9),51 which is already said to be guarded by many angels “with incessant sweet singing and never silent voices” (2 En. 8:8).52 When Enoch arrives at the seventh heaven, he becomes afraid and trembles, he then sees the Lord from afar, sitting on a high throne (2 En. 20:3). The world around the throne is clearly structured, with immeasurable light and fiery armies of various groups of angels that cause Enoch to fear and tremble. Cherubim and Seraphim, six-winged and many-eyed beings, steadily stand in front of the Lord continually singing the Trishagion (2 En. 21:1; cf. Isa 6:3). Here, we are again close to the world of Revelation 4–5. More than in 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch presents lengthy and repetitive descriptions with numerous nouns or adjectives – a style which resembles that of Rev 4–5, in particular in the hymnic praise of the various groups of beings.

Other Merkavah Texts Another text discussed by Gruenwald as an example of Merkavah mysticism within apocalyptic traditions is the throne vision of Apoc. Ab. 9–19, a retelling of the story of the making of the covenant in Gen 15.53 When preparing his pure sacrifice to God, Abraham is called to ascetic practices, then his spirit is amazed, his soul flees from him, and he falls on the ground (Apoc. Ab. 10:2–3). Then, the angel Iaoel addresses him, his body is like a sapphire, his face like a chrysolite, and his hair like snow (Apoc. Ab. 11:2).54 Abraham is taken to the holy mountain, where he has to recite a song taught to him, a very long hymn with almost endless predications (Apoc. Ab. 17). Under the fire, he sees a throne of fire, with manyeyed beings round about, and under the throne four fiery living creatures (cf. Ezek 1) with four heads, sixteen faces and, as in Isa 6:2, six wings each (Apoc. Ab. 18:5–6). Abraham realizes that he is on the seventh firmament (Apoc. Ab. 19:4),

50 Cf. Christfried Böttrich, Das slavische Henochuch, JSHRZ 5,7 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher, 1995), 815. In 2 En. 22:1, there is mention of a tenth heaven, but according to Böttrich (ibid., 890), this is a secondary change, dependent on a probably interpolated section on the eighth and ninth heaven (1 En. 21:6). 51 Cf. also Apoc. Mos. 38:4 and 2 Cor 12:2–4. 52 Cf. Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism, 50. 53 Cf. Ibid., 50–57. 54 Cf. also Rev 1:12–20.

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then he receives an extensive apocalyptic prophecy with which the book comes to an end. It is obvious that this vision is closely related to Ezekiel, but differs in that it connects elements from Ezekiel with the six wings of the Seraphim from Isaiah and focuses on a very extended song of praise. With these elements, the throne vision is also closer to Revelation 4 than the biblical throne visions. A similar vision of an ascent to the seventh heaven is presented in the Ascension of Isaiah. Here, Isaiah hears “a door which had opened and the voice of the Holy Spirit” (Ascen. Isa. 6:6; cf. Rev 4:1). As Isaiah falls into a trance, an angel, who does not reveal his name, comes from the seventh heaven and shows him a vision in which he ascends through the heavens, each of which is equipped with a throne. In the seventh heaven, Isaiah sees the righteous, stripped of their garments of the flesh (Ascen. Isa. 9:9). He himself is transformed into an angel, hears the celestial songs of praise, but does not see God himself. Instead, he sees the descent and ascent of the Messiah, which makes it clear that this writing is a Christian text that makes extensive use of Merkavah traditions. There are more apocalyptic texts that could be mentioned here. A description of the Great Glory dwelling in the highest heaven with the archangels, thrones, and authorities is also given in the Testament of Levi (T. Levi 3:4–9); an ascent to five heavens is described in the whole Greek book of Baruch (3 Baruch); and the Ladder of Jacob (Lad. Jac. 2:7–22) provides a hymnic prayer venerating God sitting above the cherubim on the fiery throne of glory. Of course, the texts assembled under the name 3 Enoch or Sefer Hekhalot are much later in their present literary form, and many of their literary features differ strongly from the earlier apocalyptic tradition. However, in the vision of the throne of Glory, they build upon the traditions described here, and thus 3 En. 28:7–10 (= § 45 Schäfer)55 presents the impressive image of the Holy One sitting on the throne of judgment, with white garments, hair like pure wool (Dan 7:9), and the watchers and holy ones standing before him. Another description uttered by the angel Metatron, Prince of the Divine Presence, mentions fire and flames as the means of judgement (3 En. 32:1–2 = §50 Schäfer), and a further passage describes the myriads of myriads of angels with faces of lightning and fire and the sound of a multitude (3 En. 35:1–2 = §54 Schäfer.) The description ends with a repeated mention of a thousand thousands (3 En. 35:6 = §54 Schäfer) as a means of presenting the uncountable multitude in the most impressive way. We can skip the texts here, as they cannot provide an immediate background for understanding

55 For the editions of 3 Enoch, see Philip Alexander, “3 (Hebrew Apocalypse of) Enoch,” in OTP 1.223–315; and Peter Schäfer and Klaus Herrmann, eds., Übersetzung der Hekhalot-Literatur 1: § 1–80, TSAJ 46 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), with a new numbering of the parts of the text.

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Revelation, although a number of motifs still provide interesting parallels and confirm that Rev 4–5 is a part of a Merkavah tradition that finally leads to texts such as the Hekhalot literature.56

Revelation 4 and post-Biblical Traditions Against the background of the development from the biblical throne visions to the more extensive visionary descriptions in 1 En. 14 and the later apocalyptic traditions, the combination of various elements from the biblical texts, and the inclusion of some kind of “mystical” material calling for the emotional participation of the readers and thus the evocation of some kind of “experience,” we can now discuss a few exemplary elements in Revelation 4. We will see how this section of Revelation goes beyond the biblical traditions and seems to be inspired by or at least in line with some of the post-biblical developments sketched above.

The Opening of Heaven and the Emotional Involvement of the Visionary The setting of Rev 4 already goes beyond every biblical tradition. A door is opened (cf. Ezek 1:1), and the visionary is called to come up. Although the setting of the biblical throne visions (especially of the brief vision of Micaiah) is not altogether clear, none of the biblical prophets ascend to heaven. Here, 1 En. 14 marks a change, as the first text of a longer tradition of heavenly or cosmic journeys in which the visionary himself is transferred to an otherworldly space. From all the various examples, some of which also antedate Revelation, 1 En. 14 is the only text in which the narrative elements of an open door as a passageway to heaven (1 En. 14:15) and a sound from above encouraging the visionary to come (1 En. 14:8) are directly linked.57 However, Revelation’s rapture ἐν πνεύματι (Rev 4:2) is even unparalleled in 1 Enoch and also differs from the tendencies of later Hekhalot texts: Whereas Enoch and most of the later visionaries have to undertake a frightening and painful journey to approach the presence of God, the visionary of Revelation is immediately transported to the throne, and there is no mention of difficult steps or frightening borders.

56 Cf. the thorough investigation by Schimanowski, Die himmlische Liturgie, passim. 57 Thus, Stuckenbruck and Mathews, “The Apocalypse of John, 1 Enoch, and the Question of Influence,” 204. Cf. also T. Levi 2:5–6 and the Aramaic Levi Document 4Q213a 2.16–18.

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In this context, it is also noteworthy that Revelation does not adopt the idea of three or seven heavenly spheres, although it is quite plausible that the author was aware of those ideas, as was Paul (2 Cor 12:2–3). There is no particular interest in the architecture of the heavens, nor in the difficulty of the ascent which is so characteristic for later Hekhalot texts. Thus, there is no particular interest in the experience of the human visionary (or his followers), although some knowledge about such experiences might be concluded from the text, instead, the only focus is on the revelation the seer is called to communicate.

The Presentation of the Throne, and the Background of the Colored Stones Most interesting is the presentation of the throne. Whereas the primary focus is on the chariot and its wheels in Ezekiel, and 1 En. 14 presents the throne’s appearance in great detail, Rev 4:2 only briefly mentions the throne and then quickly passes on to the One sitting on the throne. But in its presentation of God, Revelation fully respects the invisibility of God. Unlike in Ezekiel, Daniel, and the majority of the Merkavah visions, the figure of the One sitting on the throne is not described, not even in the pattern of the angelic appearance (cf. Dan 10) used in Rev 1:13–16.58 He is only compared with phenomena of shining colors of some stones: “The one seated there was like jasper and carnelia in appearance.” However, the use of precious stones as metaphors for God’s throne or even for God himself are not very common in Jewish apocalypses. Ezekiel 1 mentions chrysolite and sapphire (Ezek 1:16, 26) as the appearance of the wheels and the throne, and the Testament of Abraham describes the throne by “the appearance of terrifying crystal” (T. Ab. A 12:4).59 The most extensive description of the throne with precious stones is found in the late text Hekhalot Rabbati §166.60 But the description of God himself by the appearance of colors of precious stones departs from Ezekiel and is closer to 1 En. 14, where God’s glory is also symbolized by an appearance of colors, namely a rainbow.61

58 On the description in Rev 1:13–16, see Frey, “Die Bildersprache der Johannesapokalypse,” 170–74. 59 Aune, Revelation 1–5, 285. 60 See Schimanowski, Die himmlische Liturgie, 98, 101. 61 This might also be an argument for the textual originality of ἶρις in Rev 4:3, but cf. the undecided considerations in Martin Karrer, Johannesoffenbarung (Offb 1,1 – 5,14), EKK 24/1 (Ostfildern: Patmos, 2017), 415–18.

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The precious stones here correspond to the stones in the description of the New Jerusalem (Rev 2:10–11, 18–19; 22:1). With regard to the New Jerusalem, there is a precedent in Isa 54:11–12 (which is also adopted in the Pesher 4QpIsad from Qumran) and in Tobit 13:16–7.62 But the colors of precious stones in the appearance of God also have a precedent in the Enochic literature: In 1 En. 18:6–9, in the course of Enoch’s cosmic journey, mountains are compared with colored stones, and the middle one of them, which is said to be like the throne of God, is described by reference to a precious stone, and the peak of the throne is – according to the Greek text – like sapphire (18:8).63 From the description of the throne of God as a blue shining sapphire in Ezek 1:26 and 1 En. 18:8, it is only a small step to the cautious comparison of the appearance of the Deity itself in a rainbow (1 En. 14) or in shining colors of precious stones (Rev 4:3).

The Cherubim-Beings The most interesting combination of elements can be found in the description of the four living creatures. They ultimately draw on the Cherubim that overshadowed the ark of the covenant in the Jerusalem Temple, which is adopted in the hymnic expression about God sitting upon a throne above the Cherubim (Ps 80:1; 99:1; Isa 37:16). From a decorative object in the Temple, the Cherubim developed into a part of the throne, bearing the throne (2 Bar. 51:11). If the presence of God is about to move – as in Ezekiel – they are even developed into a technical apparatus that allows a movement into all four directions, with wheels, different faces facing every direction, and an abundance of eyes all around, which is probably a symbol of their permanent alertness in God’s realm. In Ezek 10:20 and then also in Apoc. Ab. 10:9, the “living beings (chayyot)” are explicitly identified as Cherubim.64 But these two ideas are not fused in all texts. Some texts prefer or limit themselves to one of the terms, thus the Qumran Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice only mention the Cherubim, whereas the chayyot are unmentioned or not considered a part of the lively heavenly liturgy. Revelation, on the contrary, only uses the term ζῷα, a rendering of Hebrew chayyot, but never mentions Cherubim in the heavenly realm. In contrast with those texts, the later hekhalot literature still keeps the two traditions distinguished within their “system” of angels, and apart from the Seraphim and 62 Cf. David E. Aune, Revelation 17–22, WBC 52C (Nashville: Nelson, 1998), 1164. 63 The Ethiopic text reads here “Lapis Lazuli.” Cf. Schimanowski, Die himmlische Liturgie, 100; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 286. 64 Aune, Revelation 1–5, 297.

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Cherubim, even the Ophanim (originally the Hebrew term for “wheels”) are considered a separate class of angels.65 In Revelation, the wheels can be omitted since there is no need to keep the mobility of the throne from Ezekiel, but with the omission of the wheels the eyes “in front and behind” (Rev 4:6) become an immediate feature of the living creatures or ζῷα. Most interestingly, the number of wings is changed: In contrast with the four-winged chayyot from Ezekiel, the ζῷα in Revelation now have six wings (Rev 4:8), which shows that the Cherubim-beings adopted further features from Isaiah’s Seraphim (Isa 6:2). This is confirmed by the fact that the four beings are now said to sing the steady praise, day and night: “Holy, holy, holy . . . ” – as do the Seraphim in Isa 6:3. Thus, Cherubim and Seraphim are merged in the four beings of Revelation, as they are in the Apocalypse of Abraham. The spatial arrangement, however, provides difficulties: The ζῷα are said to be “in the midst of the throne and round about the throne.” This is logically problematic, as it is unclear how beings that are around the throne might, at the same time, be “in the midst of the throne.” It is possible that this is not merely sloppiness or a mistake of the author but an intentional hint at the “surrealistic” character of the description.66 The expression seems to convey a greatest closeness to the throne, a closeness which is only surpassed by the intimacy which is expressed for the Lamb, the exalted Christ, “in the midst of the throne and the four living beings” (Rev 5:6).67 But while the Lamb is presented as a companion of God, even on the throne, the ζῷα are considered vivid parts of the throne of glory. Most significantly, the four ζῷα do not have separate thrones, unlike the twenty-four elders sitting around the throne. A finally feature of the beings deserves consideration. Whereas in Ezekiel each one of the four beings has four different faces, Revelation simplifies the image slightly with the result that there are four different beings, each one having a different face. But while the appearances of human, lion, ox, and eagle are frequently adopted, their sequence changes. Revelation has the sequence lion, ox, human, eagle, and other texts present even more varied sequences, such as the Pseudo-Ezekiel text from Qumran (4Q385 frg. 4:5–9) with the sequence lion, eagle, ox, human. A Hexapla-Version mentioned by Origen even replaces the ox by a cherub, so that the sequence is cherub, human, lion, eagle. Later, Hekhalot 65 Cf. Ibid., 297. 66 Cf. Frey, “Die Bildersprache der Johannesapokalypse,” 176. 67 On this, see Martin Hengel, “Die Throngemeinschaft des Lammes mit Gott in der Johannesapokalypse,” ThBeitr 27 (1996): 159–75.

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texts push the human to the end (lion, ox, eagle, human).68 Thus, Revelation adopts the tradition from Ezekiel but shares the variability of the series in the post-biblical period. Again, it is clear that Revelation not only combines the Cherubim or chayyot from Ezekiel and the Seraphim from Isaiah, but that it is part of a vivid tradition of combining and variegating elements as is evident from a great number of postbiblical Jewish texts.

The Praise of All the Heavenly Beings The closest step towards the later Hekhalot literature can be seen with regard to the hymns of the heavenly beings quoted in Rev 4–5. These hymns provide the climax of the vision, starting with the Trishagion of the beings in Rev 4:8, through the praise of the twenty-four elders in Rev 4:9–11, until the universal praise of the Lamb at the end of chapter five. Apart from the Trishagion, all the hymns are formed as “worthy” acclamations,69 introduced by ἄξιος (Rev 4:11; 5:9, 12), and the praise of the enthroned Christ in 5:9–12 (“Worthy is the Lamb . . . ”) clearly marks the climax of the whole scene. These hymns – giving “glory, honor, and thanks” (Rev 4:9) first to the creator God and then likewise to the Lamb – are shaped by growing length and repetitive terms and are formally unique in the New Testament. The earliest roots of this praise are most probably in the doxologies of the Temple liturgy.70 This is shown in the quotation of the Trishagion or qedusha in Isa 6:3, which “may have been part of a hymn regularly chanted in the temple liturgy or at least a cultic liturgical formula.”71 But the history of the Trishagion and its usage is complicated.72 As a part of Jewish liturgy,

68 Thus also Midrash Tanchuma §16 on Lev 22:27 (Tanchuma ed. Buber, Emor §23); see Schimanowski, Die himmlische Liturgie, 124-25. 69 Cf. Klaus Berger, Formgeschichte des Neuen Testaments (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1984), 242; Gerhard Delling, “Zum gottesdienstlichen Stil der Johannesapokalypse,” in Studien zum Neuen Testament und zum hellenistischen Judentum. Gesammelte Aufzätze 1950–1968, ed. Ferdinand Hahn (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 425–50; here 426, 428, uses the term “Würdig-Rufe” or “Würdig-Akklamationen.” 70 Cf. Reinhard Deichgräber, Gotteshymnus und Christushymnus in der frühen Christenheit. Untersuchungen zu Form, Sprache und Stil der frühchristlichen Hymnen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967), 50. 71 Thus Aune, Revelation 1–5, 303. 72 Cf. the overview in Pierre Prigent, Apocalypse et liturgie, Cahiers Théologiques 52 (Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1964), 56ff.

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it is not explicitly mentioned before in the late Tannaitic period (t. Ber. 1.9).73 So we cannot presuppose that Revelation draws on an already established Jewish liturgical usage, although the early appearance of the Trishagion in Christian texts (as in 1 Clem. 34:6, roughly contemporary with Revelation) might also point to such a background.74 As part of the heavenly praise, however, the qedusha is mentioned in a number of texts from the Second Temple period, e.g., in Par. Jer. 9:3–4 and, most importantly, in the opening of the Parables of Enoch (1 En. 39:12). This passage is even more important since the idea of a continuous praise around the heavenly throne is not mentioned in the biblical throne visions, neither in Isaiah nor in Ezekiel. Such an “uninterrupted continuity of worship” (as stated in Rev 7:15 and 14:11) is only attested in the Enochic literature, where a group of angelic beings, distinguished from the four Cherubim (1 En. 40:2), steadily says, “Holy, holy, holy!” (1 En. 39:12).75 The idea that “myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands” (Rev 5:11) stand around the throne is also most distinctively presented in 1 Enoch, where first only “myriads of myriads” are mentioned (1 En. 14:22), but in the later parts of the book the full expression is also used (1 En. 40:1 and 78:1), with further parallels in Daniel (7:10 Theod.), the Book of Giants (4Q530 2 ii + 6–7 i + 8– 12 lines 16–20), and the Apocalypse of Zephaniah (4:1; 8:1).76 Without entering the wide field of the doxologies, I will just focus on one last point, the address Ἄξιος εἶ (Rev 4:11; 5:9; cf. 5:12 Ἄξιόν ἐστιν τὸ ἀρνίον), which is quite unusual.77 The only parallel in Greek is, according to Klaus-Peter Jörns, a later Greek hymn which is probably dependent on Revelation.78 Since the History of Religions School, scholars have often tried to explain the axios-acclamations from the situation of Hellenistic plebiscites or later Christian elections of bishops.79 Eusebius thus mentions that the Roman bishop Fabianus was elected

73 Aune, Revelation 1–5, 303; cf. Joseph Heinemann, Prayer in the Talmud, SJ 9 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1977), 230–32. 74 Cf. also the Martyrdom of Perpetua (12:1), the Apostolic Constitutions (7.35.3), and Tertullian (De oratione 3). The qedusha is very frequent, then, in the prayers of hekhalot literature, e.g., 3 En. 1:12 (§2 Schäfer). 75 Stuckenbruck and Mathews, “Apocalypse of John,” 204–5. 76 Ibid., 205; cf. also Schimanowski, Die himmlische Liturgie, 149–50. 77 Cf. Schimanowski, Die himmlische Liturgie, 162; Delling, “Zum gottesdienstlichen Stil,” 431. 78 Klaus-Peter Jörns, Das hymnische Evangelium: Untersuchungen zu Aufbau, Funktion und Herkunft der hymnischen Stücke in der Johannesoffenbarung (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1971), 34–35, mentions the Hymnos Epilychnios 3:9–10. Cf. ibid., 56–73. 79 Erik Peterson, ΕΙΣ ΘΕΟΣ: Epigraphische, formgeschichtliche und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, FRLANT 24 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1926), 176–80, 313, 318;

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by all the people shouting axios.80 Other scholars explain the wording merely from the opposition to the acclamations in the ruler cult81 or from the responses in the Eucharistic liturgy “axion kai dikaion,”82 while again others dismiss these proposals and suggest that the author has formed his axios-acclamations freely for his own purposes.83 But again it is helpful to look at the Enochic literature. R. H. Charles had already pointed to a number of doxologies in 1 Enoch, e.g., 1 En. 9:4f., “You are the God of gods and Lord of Lords and King of kings and God of the ages . . ., for you have made all things . . ., ” which can explain the structure and language of the angelic praise. So it might be interesting also to look for parallels to the axios-acclamation in the Enochic tradition. Following a hint by Martin Hengel, we can look to the later texts from the Hekhalot literature where we do find parallels in the usage of the Hebrew “raui,” which is quite frequent in Jewish mystical texts but unattested in the Hebrew Bible and in Qumran.84 The “worthy”-acclamations in those texts may not account for the acclamation of God but for the use in Rev 5:2, 4 with reference to the Lamb, i.e., to Christ, who is found “worthy” to open the book. As in Rev 5, the later Hekhalot texts mention figures who are tested and found “worthy” to ascend to the heavenly realm, to contemplate the Merkava. Enoch is found “worthy to contemplate the Merkavah” (3 En. 2:4), as well as Rabbi Aqiva in Hekkhalot Zutarti (§346) of whom God himself says, “He is worthy to contemplate my glory.” Of course, the aspect of the dangerous ascent, so prominent in the Hekhalot texts, is absent from Revelation, as Christ’s enthronement is presupposed from the very beginning. But the acclamation of Christ being “worthy” to open the book and to receive heavenly veneration comes quite close to the wording of later hekhalot texts.85 In spite of the late date of those texts, they should not be dismissed for the understanding of the image of heavenly praise of God and the Lamb in Rev 4–5.

Ernst Lohmeyer, Die Offenbarung des Johannes, HNT 16 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1926), 50. Cf. also Berger, Formgeschichte des Neuen Testaments, 231: the acclamation “worthy” is a “Kennwort aus dem Abstimmungsverfahren der hellenistishen Volksversammlung.” 80 Eus. Hist. eccl. 6.29.4; cf. Thomas Klausner, “Akklamation,” RAC 1 (1950): 216–233; here 225; see also Schimanowski, Die himmlische LIturgie, 163. 81 Thus Jürgen Roloff, Die Offenbarung des Johannes. ZBK 18 (Zürich: TVZ, 2001), 70. 82 Pierre Prigent, L’Apocalypse de Saint Jean, CNT 14 (Lausanne: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1981), 90–1. 83 Thus Ulrich B. Müller, Die Offenbarung des Johannes, ÖTBK 19 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1984), 157, and Kraft, Die Offenbarung des Johannes, 102. 84 Hengel, “Die Throngemeinschaft Gottes,” 164 n. 19. For the following see Schimanowski, Die himmlische Liturgie, 243–46. 85 Schimanowski, Die himmlische Liturgie, 245.

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Conclusion This brief and necessarily superficial survey can be concluded by a few insights concerning Revelation’s method of composition. 1. Revelation neither simply adopts a biblical image in its entirety nor creates a “typical” Merkavah scene in the form of the later Hekhalot literature.86 The making of the visionary images are, instead, an active combination of various biblical and post-biblical elements in order to create effective images that serve their own theological purposes. In particular, the focus on the exalted Christ and the universal praise marks a difference from all the earlier Jewish throne visions. 2. It has been shown that, apart from the biblical accounts, texts from the Enochic tradition, especially 1 En. 14, but also texts from the Parables of Enoch and other apocalyptic texts about the throne of God, can help to explain the combination of traditional motifs. Revelation thus appears to be inspired from a multifaceted tradition of throne visions. It shares tendencies in interpretation which cannot be found in the biblical writings but only in the traditions of Jewish apocalypticism from the late Second Temple period or even later. 3. Revelation 4–5 can hardly be considered an example of Merkavah mysticism.87 Its features, however, point in the direction of those later texts. Thus Revelation can be considered part of a developing tradition about the Divine throne and the heavenly world. Whether this development of traditions is called mysticism or merely apocalypticism is a matter of definition. Attributing the “correct” category is, perhaps, less important than understanding the merging and growth of tradition.

86 Cf. Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism, 62–72, and Aune, Revelation 1–5, 278–79, where the differences are discussed. 87 Thus Aune, Revelation 1–5, 279, in his critical evaluation of Gruenwald’s approach.

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Ascent and Inspiration in the Writings of Philo Judaeus In his masterful study of ascent in Antiquity, Alan Segal writes, “Philo is a logical place to begin tracing the history of the Jewish traditions, not because he is the earliest Jew to deal with these ideas but because, in giving the ideas philosophical clarity, he achieved a brilliant synthesis of Greek thought and native Hebrew tradition.”1 Whether or not the writings of Philo are a more logical place to start than, for example, the Enoch cycle of literature, need hardly be debated.2 Nor can it be said with certainty that Philo’s synthesis of putatively Greek and Hebrew elements is brilliant. What Segal points out, without a doubt, is that ascent is an essential ingredient of Philo’s thought.3 The conception of ascent, however, is not uniform in Philo’s writings.4 Little is. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to establish central elements of ascent through an analysis of On the Creation of

1 Alan Segal, “Heavenly Ascent in Hellenistic Judaism, Early Christianity and their Environment,” ANRW 23.2 (1980): 1333–94, 1354. 2 This study expands my published work on the spirit, especially The Spirit in First Century Judaism, AGAJU 29 (Leiden: Brill, 1997) and “Inspiration and the Divine Spirit in the Writings of Philo Judaeus,” JSJ 26 (1995): 271–323. 3 The title of Greg Sterling’s article in this volume, “Dancing with the Stars: The Ascent of the Mind in Philo of Alexandria,” offers colorful entrée to the notion of the ascent of the mind – with the stars – in the writings of Philo Judaeus. The occurrence of the word, “journeys,” alongside a reference to the book of Revelation, with its heavenly visions, in the title of Paul Decock’s article, “Journeys toward Fullness of Life: A Comparison between Philo and the Apocalypse of John,” offers another signal of the centrality of ascent for Philo. 4 For a sketch of the variety of ascents in Philo, see Peder Borgen, “Heavenly Ascent in Philo: An Examination of Selected Passages,” in The Pseudepigrapha and Early Biblical Interpretation, JSP 14; SSEJC 2 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993), 246–68. For studies of ascent in Antiquity more generally, see (in chronological order): William Bousset, “Die Himmelreise der Seele,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft IV (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1901): 136–69 and 229–73; Alan Segal, “Heavenly Ascent,” 1333–94; Miriam Dean-Otting, Heavenly Journeys: A Study of the Motif in Hellenistic Jewish Literature (Frankfurt: Lang, 1984); James Tabor, Things Unutterable: Paul’s Ascent to Paradise in its Greco-Roman, Judaic, and Early Christian Context (Landham, MD: University Press of America, 1986); Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); John J. Collins, “A Throne in the Heavens: Apotheosis in Pre-Christian Judaism,” in Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys, ed., John J. Collins and Michael Fishbane (Albany: State University of New York, 1995). Jack Levison, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110597264-006

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the World [Opif.] 69–71 – Philo’s first reference to ascent in his oeuvre – as well as Concerning Noah’s Work as a Planter [Plant.] 18–26, On the Giants [Gig.] 29–31 and 53–55, and On the Special Laws [Spec.] 3.1–6.5

The Composite Human and the Ascent of the Mind in Opif. 69–71 The possibility of ascent preoccupies Philo Judaeus almost from the start of his exegetical work. A reference to God’s image and likeness as early as Gen 1:26–27 becomes the jumping-off point for describing in relative detail the ascent of the mind. “After all these other creatures, as has been stated, he [Moses] says that the human being has come into existence after God’s image and after his likeness.” Philo continues: This is most excellently said, for nothing earthborn bears a closer resemblance to God than the human being. But no one should infer this likeness from the characteristics of the body, for God does not have a human shape and the human body is not God-like. The term image has been used here with regard to the director of the soul, the intellect. On that single intellect of the universe, as on an archetype, the intellect in each individual human being was modelled. In a sense it is a god of the person who carries it and bears it around as a divine image. For it would seem that the same position that the Great Director holds in the entire cosmos is held by the human intellect in the human being. It is itself invisible, yet it sees all things. Its own nature is unclear, yet it comprehends the natures of other things. By means of the arts and sciences it opens up a vast network of paths, all of them highways, and passes through land and sea, investigating what is present in both realms. Next it is lifted on high and, after exploring the air and the phenomena that occur in it, it is borne further upwards towards the ether and the revolutions of heaven. Then, after being carried around in the dances of the planets and fixed stars in accordance with the laws of perfect music, and following the guidance of its love of wisdom, it peers beyond the whole of senseperceptible reality and desires to attain the intelligible realm. And when the intellect has observed in that realm the models and forms of the sense-perceptive reality things which it had seen here, objects of overwhelming beauty, it then, possessed by a sober drunkenness, becomes enthused like the Corybants. Filled with another longing and a higher form of desire, which has propelled it to the utmost vault of the intelligibles, it

5 First references to a Philonic text contain the entire title in English, according to the Loeb Classical Library edition. Subsequent references, with numbered, and other classical texts, paragraphs, contain abbreviations. Unless otherwise indicated, translations of Philo’s writings are from the Loeb Classical Library.

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thinks it is heading towards the Great King himself. But as it strains to see, pure and unmixed beams of concentrated light pour forth like a torrent, so that the eye of the mind, overwhelmed by the brightness, suffers from vertigo.6

Several dimensions of Philo’s thought emerge from this interpretation of imago dei. First, Philo’s thought is grounded in exegesis of the Septuagint. Philo’s paraphrase of Gen 1:26, if not slavish, is certainly faithful to the text itself, particularly the tandem elements of image and likeness. His adherence to the text notwithstanding, Philo is expansive in his interpretation of the image of God. The sheer amount of lines he devotes to it indicates this. Yet he does not fail to interpret the likeness, as well, though it plays a subordinate role in his thought. The element of likeness, though not as vaunted a term as image, still communicates for Philo the accuracy of the impression made upon humankind by God: “Since, however, not every single image resembles its archetypal model, but many are dissimilar, he added to the words after the image as an extra indication the words ‘after his likeness,’ in order to emphasize that it is an accurate and clearly marked casting” (Opif. 71). A second central characteristic of Opif. 69–71 is the composite character of human beings: the mind, not the body, comprises the imago dei, and only the mind is able to ascend.7 The composite nature of human beings comes to the fore in the paragraphs that follow Opif. 69–71, where Philo solves the conundrum of why God required helpers – let us make – to create humankind. With the help of Plato’s Timaeus [Tim.] 41–42, in which the demiurge creates the immortal part of a human being and the subordinates create the mortal parts, Philo argues that God created the portion of human beings that possess virtue, while God’s helpers created the portion that produces vice. Anthropologically and ethically, human beings are divided between immortal and mortal, between virtue and vice, between imago dei and physical body. Only the immortal, virtuous imago dei is able to ascend. Third, the ability to ascend is fundamental to Philo’s interpretation of the human mind. David Runia documents five stages of “the human quest for knowledge and wisdom,” in which ascent plays a pivotal role: (1) exploration of the earthly region by land and sea; (2) turning upward, the mind explores the air and

6 Translation from David Runia, On the Creation of the Cosmos: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2001) 64. 7 This is Philo’s predominant view of the imago dei. See J. Jervell, Imago Dei. Gen 1, 26 f. im Spätjudentum, in der Gnosis und in den paulinischen Briefen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960), 56–58; Friedrich Wilhelm Eltester, Eikon im Neuen Testament (Berlin: Töppelmann, 1958), 50–51; David Jobling, “‘And Have Dominion … ’ The Interpretation of Genesis 1, 28 in Philo Judaeus,” JSJ 8 (1977): 52–55.

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meteorological phenomena; (3) farther along, the mind reaches heaven, where it joins heavenly bodies in celestial motion; (4) guided by wisdom, the mind contemplates the world of ideas; (5) with further yearning, the mind longs to see the great king, although it cannot, overwhelmed as it is by radiating beams of light that cause it to experience vertigo.8 Fourth, integral to Philo’s exegesis is his Greco-Roman literary milieu. It is difficult to sift through this, so that an interpreter is left to ask whether Philo taps into Plato or later Middle-Platonic interpretations of Plato, often with a heavy dose of Stoicism. Nevertheless, the impact of Plato’s Phaedrus is apparent through Philo’s exegesis of Gen 1:26–27. Without the impetus of Plato’s Phaedrus, certainly without the substance of Phaedr. 246A-53C, Philo could not derive the ascent of the mind from Gen 1:26–27.9 For example, though the conception of wings is widespread, Philo’s description of the mind’s upward flight is reminiscent of Plato’s “pair of winged horses and a charioteer” (Phaedr. 246A), the “natural function of the wing … to soar upwards” (246D), and the person who “feels his wings growing” (249D). The concluding reference in Opif. 69–71, to love as what directs the soul in its upward journey, crystallizes another dominant theme in Plato’s Phaedrus: All my [Socrates] discourse so far has been about the fourth kind of madness, which causes him to be regarded as mad, who, when he sees the beauty on earth, remembering the true beauty, feels his wings growing and longs to stretch them for an upward flight, but cannot do so, and, like a bird, gazes upward and neglects the things below. My discourse has shown that this is, of all inspirations, the best and of the highest origin to him who has it or who shares in it, and that he who loves the beautiful, partaking in this madness is called a lover. (Phaedr. 249D–E)

Opif. 69–71 also evinces some striking similarities of vocabulary with Plato’s Phaedr. 246–53. Philo’s description of God as ὁ μέγας ἡγεμὼν, the great ruler, matches Plato’s description of Zeus in Phaedr. 246E. The notion of peering beyond, over the edge (ὑπερκύψας), mirrors ανακύψας in Phaedr. 249C. As Runia notes, the difference between these verbs is a matter of perspective: “Philo replaces it with the other verb because he is primarily interested in the view ‘outwards,’ i.e. of the intelligible realm.”10 The highest

8 Runia, On the Creation, 222–23. 9 See the detailed analysis on Philo’s writings in A. Méasson, Du char ailé de Zeus à l’Arche d’Alliance: images et mythes platoniciens chez Philon d’Alexandrie (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1986), 377–402. 10 Runia, On the Creation, 231. For other allusions to Plato’s Phaedrus, along with other texts in Philo (e.g., Det. 79–90; Praem. 37; Mut. 179–180), see Runia, On the Creation of the Cosmos, 222–235.

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arc of realities perceptible to the mind, which mirrors Phaedr. 247B, Philo describes as ἁψίς.11 Opif. 69–71 is a studied amalgamation – perhaps concoction is a better way of phrasing it – of several elements: exegesis; Greco-Roman conceptions, particularly from the Phaedrus and its interpreters; a clear anthropology, in which body and soul, mind and matter, are readily distinguishable; and a view of human learning that has as its goal an ascent toward God. This is a good bit more than a casual ancient reader might have been prone to discover in Gen 1:26–27, but Philo Judaeus was far from a casual ancient reader. Therefore, in Opif. 69–71, he ably sets up a template for the ascent of the human mind.

Ephemeral and Enduring Ascent in On the Giants In Opif. 69–71, Philo’s depiction of the grandeur of the human mind renders external aid superfluous. What separates Opif. 69–71 from some other descriptions of the mind’s ascent, such as Plant. 18–26 and Gig. 19–55, is the ingredient of an external impulse, which prompts an ascent to the heavenly world of sun and stars12 or beyond this heavenly world to the outer arc of heaven and the world of ideas.13 In Plant. 18–26 and Gig. 19–55, that impulse is the divine spirit, which functions as part of a sophisticated polemical strategy by which Philo adopts Greco-Roman conceptions of ascent while simultaneously calling them into question. The inclusion of the spirit into the process of ascent even calls into question the ability of the human mind to ascend unaided. In Gig. 29–31, after asserting that the chief cause of ignorance, even beyond the preoccupation of worldly responsibilities, is the flesh, Philo claims that Souls that are free from flesh and body spend their days in the theatre of the universe and with a joy that none can hinder see and hear things divine, which they have desired with love insatiable. But those which bear the burden of the flesh, oppressed by the grievous load, cannot look up to the heavens as they revolve, but with necks bowed downwards are constrained to stand rooted to the ground like four-footed beasts. (Gig. 31)

Philo arrives at this point through a series of exegetical moves, each one leading farther from the literal meaning of Gen 6:3, which reads, “My spirit shall 11 Borgen, (“Heavenly Ascent in Philo,” 246–68) identifies a variety of early Jewish texts in order to counter a tendency to what he perceives to be an over-emphasis upon the Greco-Roman character of Philo in studies by Bousset, Dean-Otting, and Tabor. See n. 2 above. 12 See also Spec. 1.37, 207; Praem. 121–22. 13 Opif. 69–71; Mut. 179–80; Praem. 30; Legat. 5.

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not abide for ever among men, because they are flesh”. The obvious literal meaning of Gen 6:3 is that the spirit is what men and women possess from birth to death; in Philo’s parlance, this might be the soul. Yet Philo does not opt for this interpretation. Instead, he moves away from a literal interpretation of the text, beginning first with the contention “that souls and demons and angels are but different names for the same one underlying object” (Gig. 16). A patently Greco-Roman identification of daemons with souls proves essential to Philo’s interpretation of Gen 6:2–3. He identifies angels with what “other philosophers call demons (or spirits) … ” (Gig. 6). He assumes that these daemons are “souls that is which fly and hover in the air” (Gig. 6), and he further identifies these souls with stars, for “the stars are souls divine and without blemish throughout” (Gig. 8). No longer in the orbit of the literal meaning of Gen 6:3, Philo delineates three sorts of souls: those that are pure and free from the flesh, which “have never deigned to be brought into union with any of the parts of the earth;” those that escape and become free from the flesh, that is, “the souls of those who have given themselves to genuine philosophy;” and those that remain entangled in the flesh, “souls which have sunk beneath the stream … ” (Gig. 13–15).14 This division of souls allows Philo another opportunity to loop farther away from the literal interpretation of Gen 6:3. The angels of Gen 6:1–4, understood from the perspective of this three-fold classification of souls, represent the incorrigible class of people among whom the spirit cannot dwell: “Among such as these then it is impossible that the spirit of God should dwell and make for ever its habitation, as also the Lawgiver himself shows clearly. For (so it runs) ‘the Lord God said, My spirit shall not abide for ever among men, because they are flesh’” (Gig. 19). According to Philo, then, the effect of this spirit is not life itself, which is apportioned equally to the entirety of humankind for only 120 years, as in Gen

14 Philo’s distinction between stars, daemons, and souls may be indebted to the myth of Timarchus, who entered into a crypt and received a vision of the cosmos (On the Genius of Socrates [Gen. Socr.] 589F-592F). In the course of this vision, Timarchus observes the movement of the universe, including sun, moon, and stars. Timarchus’ daemon explains what Timarchus sees: some souls ascend to the moon and are rescued from the cycle of rebirth; other souls are forbidden by the moon to approach and so must descend into the cycle of rebirth. After identifying these as daemons (Gen. Socr. 591D), Timarchus’ daemon describes three classes of daemons: (1) stars that are extinguished are souls that have sunk entirely into their body and become distracted by their passions; (2) stars that are lit again, reappearing from below, are souls that free themselves from the body and participate with understanding, like a buoy that keeps the soul from being entirely submerged in the body; (3) stars that move about “on high” are daemons.

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6:1–4. Philo interprets the spirit in quite another way to mean, not the breath which all possess, but the spirit that infrequently grants a vision of God to the mass of humankind: The spirit sometimes stays awhile, but it does not abide for ever among us, the mass of men. Who indeed is so lacking in reason or soul that he never either with or without his will receives a conception of the best? Nay, even over the reprobate hovers often of a sudden the vision of the excellent, but to grasp it and keep it for their own they have not the strength. In a moment it is gone … (Gig. 20)

Having made this point, Philo then turns to Exod 31:3, in which God called up Bezalel and “filled him with the divine spirit, with wisdom, understanding, and knowledge to devise in every work.”15 Philo is satisfied that “in these words we have suggested to us a definition of what the spirit of God is” (Gig. 23). What is it? The knowledge that sages possess. This definition is apparently inadequate, so Philo shifts from Exod 31:3 to Num 11:17: “I will take of the spirit that is on thee and lay it upon the seventy elders.” God must do this because the seventy elders “cannot be in real truth even elders, if they have not received a portion of that spirit of perfect wisdom” (Gig. 24). With these shifts from Gen 6:3 to Exod 31:3 to Num 11:17, Philo clarifies that the divine spirit consists essentially of wisdom. Philo draws from Numbers 11 the lesson that this spirit matures when imparted to disciples, bringing about “the perfect consummation of knowledge” (Gig. 26).16 On the basis of Num 11, interpreted in association with Gen 6:3 and Exod 31:3, Philo claims: If, then, it were Moses’ own spirit, or the spirit of some other created being, which was according to God’s purpose to be distributed to that great number of disciples, it would indeed be shredded into so many pieces and thus lessened. But as it is, the spirit which is on him is the wise, the divine, the excellent spirit, susceptible of neither severance nor division, diffused in its fullness everywhere and through all things, the spirit which helps, but suffers no hurt, which though it be shared with others or added to others suffers no diminution in understanding and knowledge and wisdom. And so though the divine spirit may stay awhile in the soul it cannot abide there, as we have said. (Gig. 26–28)

With this definition, Philo treads the path of Alexandrian Jewish exegesis, if the Wisdom of Solomon is an exemplar of such exegesis. The first reference to the spirit in the Wisdom of Solomon attributes similar cosmic qualities to the spirit: 15 Philo mentions but dismisses Gen 1:2 in Gig. 22 because πνεῦμα, he suggests, means only “air.” 16 In citations of Numbers 11 in this context, Philo deletes references to prophesying, which he elsewhere regards as an ecstatic activity (e.g., Her. 264–66; Spec. 1.65; 4.49).

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“Because the spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together knows what is said … ” (1:7). Such an affirmation is similar to Philo’s belief that the spirit is “diffused in its fullness everywhere and through all things … ” (Gig. 27). The Stoic underpinning of this point of view is unmistakable. Chrysippus, for example, espoused the view that “the whole material world is unified by a spirit [πνεῦμα] which wholly pervades it and by which the universe is made coherent and kept together and is made intercommunicating.”17 Despite embracing these Stoic qualities of πνεῦμα, Philo is clear on one point: the divine spirit of Gen 6:3 is not the human soul. In this way, he takes the very text he interprets, in which God’s spirit remains 120 years, to the breaking point. “And so though the divine spirit may stay awhile in the soul,” he concludes, “it cannot abide there, as we have said” (Gig. 28). The spirit and the soul are not one and the same. The spirit is not the locus of human life or virtue. This interpretation has much in common with Opif. 69–71, not least the belief that humans are composite beings. “But nothing thwarts its growth so much as our fleshly nature,” observes Philo, “for on it ignorance and scorn of learning rest” (Gig. 30). It is, in fact, the flesh that keeps the spirit from staying awhile in the soul. “The chief cause of ignorance is the flesh, and the tie which binds us so closely to the flesh.” This observation leads Philo to quote again Gen 6:3: “And Moses himself affirms this when he says that ‘because they are flesh’ the divine spirit cannot abide’” (Gig. 29). What stalls inspiration, beyond worldly responsibilities such as marriage and child-rearing, is the flesh, the source of ignorance. If the flesh breeds ignorance, what happens to souls that are able to rise above the flesh? Naturally, they ascend. “For souls that are free from flesh and body spend their days in the theatre of the universe and with a joy that none can hinder see and hear things divine, which they have desired with love insatiable.” In contrast, “those which bear the burden of the flesh, oppressed by the grievous load,” Philo contends, “cannot look up to the heavens as they revolve, but with necks bowed downwards are constrained to stand rooted to the ground like fourfooted beasts” (Gig. 30–31). Ascent is not physical, of course, a corporeal rapture to paradise and parts unknown; those burdened by the flesh cannot even look upward. Nor is ascent mystical in the sense that it takes a person out of body into a world of ecstatic rapture. Ascent here may mean little more than the respite that learning and knowledge bring, looking around and up at matters of wisdom that elude the average human being. This, of course, is no small feat. The ability to deflect

17 De mixtione 216, lines 14–17.

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human obligations and to live free of the weight of flesh, so as to float joyfully in the theatre of the universe, is a keen reward for a love of the divine. If ascent does not lead to a mystical encounter with fiery chariots or a vision of postmortem realities, this is no matter; for Philo, freedom to bask in the theatre of the universe is joy enough. Ascent does not take place, however, because the mind is well-suited to it or because the human spirit is a fragment of aether or the cosmic spirit and, as a consequence, is naturally drawn above to the theatre of the universe. In Gig. 19–31, the human soul is not in itself capable of producing an uninterrupted life of virtue, beset as it is by daily cares and, in the case of most, mired in the flesh. The soul needs the aid of the spirit and the wisdom the spirit imparts. Even the reprobate can experience the abiding of the spirit, however fleetingly. Still, the unfortunate reality is that “though the divine spirit may stay awhile in the soul it cannot abide there.” With one exception: Moses. Toward the end of his commentary on Gen 6:3, in Gig. 53–54, Philo returns to the familiar theme that with those “who have set before them many ends in life, the divine spirit does not abide, even though it sojourn there for a while.” By way of exception, Moses, and others like him, “who, having disrobed themselves of all created things and of the innermost veil and wrapping of mere opinion, with mind unhampered and naked will come to God.” Moses “pitched his own tent outside the camp and the whole array of bodily things … and entering the darkness, the invisible region, abides there while he learns the secrets of the most holy mysteries.” The biblical text, Exod 33:7, in which Moses enters the tent outside the camp, prompts Philo to talk less of ascent than of entry; Moses, “entering the darkness, the invisible region, abides there while he learns the secrets of the most holy mysteries.” Entry borders ascent. This is apparent in two ways. First, earlier in On the Giants, the occasional presence of the spirit, though it cannot remain permanently, led those free of the flesh to a flight in the theatre of the universe. If Philo’s discussion of Moses is of a piece with that discussion earlier in On the Giants – as it seems to be, since both are part of the same interpretative trajectory rooted in Gen 6:3 – then Moses becomes exhibit A for the possibility, and reality, of ascent. Only the language of Exodus – Moses’ entry into the tent – keeps Philo from making the connection explicit. The second reason for seeing entry as an alternative depiction of ascent lies in the close parallels between Gig. 53–55 and Spec. 3.1–6, which we shall interpret later in more detail. In that bit of autobiographical reflection, Philo adopts vocabulary similar to Gig. 53–55 to describe his own ascent. First, the objects of contemplation are “holy” in both texts. Second, in both, Philo distinguishes the one – himself or Moses – from the many. Third, Moses and Philo are both teachers of mysteries and revelations. Moses is “the

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teacher of the divine rites, which he will impart to those whose ears are purified.” Philo is able to “unfold and reveal what is not known to the multitude.” Fourth, as we will see, Phaedr. 246–253 underlies the conception of ascent in Philo’s depiction of Moses’ experience, as well as his own. In On the Giants, this characterization of a mystical Moses leads, through many exegetical twists and turns, straight – and surprisingly, perhaps – back to Gen 6:3: “He then has ever the divine spirit at his side, taking the lead in every journey of righteousness, but from those others, as I have said, it quickly separates itself, from these to whose span of life he has also set a term of a hundred and twenty years, for he says, ‘their days shall be a hundred and twenty years’” (Gig. 55).

The Philosopher and Ascent in On the Planting of Noah In Plant. 18–26, Philo interprets Gen 9:20: “Noah began to be a husbandman tilling the ground, and he planted a vineyard.” His interpretation begins with an exegetical leap from the earth to the universe: “It is incumbent on one, who is going to discourse on the work of planters and husbandmen as carried on in this or that place, to begin by marking well the plants set in the universe, those most perfect of all plants, and their great Planter and Overseer” (Plant. 2). The exegetical leap from the ground to the universe requires that Philo identify God as planter par excellence and the world as a plant (2). Such an interpretation of this simple text is hardly due to straightforward inference. It arises rather from introducing “an old saying” into his discussion of Gen 9:20, that a human being is “a plant not earthly but heavenly” (Plant. 17). This “old saying” is a reference to Plato’s Tim. 90A. It is, then, Plato’s Timaeus, rather than Gen 9:20, that permits Philo to transfer the discussion from Noah as tiller in his garden to humankind as stargazers in the “field of the universe” (Plant. 28). Philo observes that plants and irrational animals are fashioned analogously with their roots and heads downward. Humans alone gaze upward: “But the build allotted to man was distinguished above that of other living creatures. For by turning the eyes of the others downwards He made them incline to the earth beneath them. The eyes of man, on the contrary, He set high up that he might gaze on heaven, for man, as the old saying says, is a plant not earthly but heavenly” (17). It is not so much the uncomplicated text of Gen 9:20 as the Platonic depiction of human beings as a heavenly plant, therefore, that sets up Philo’s discussion of the mind’s ascent in

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Plant. 18–26. This text is essential to understanding ascent in Philo’s writings and, consequently, worthy of full citation: Now while others, by asserting that our human mind is a particle of the ethereal substance have claimed for man a kinship with the upper air; our great Moses likened the fashion of the reasonable soul to no created thing, but averred it to be a genuine coinage of that dread Spirit, the Divine and Invisible One, signed and impressed by the seal of God, the stamp of which is the Eternal Word. His words are ‘God in-breathed into his face a breath of Life”; so that it cannot but be that he that receives is made in the likeness of Him Who sends forth the breath. Accordingly we also read that man has been made after the Image of God (Gen i.27), not however after the image of anything created. It followed then, as a natural consequence of man’s soul having been made after the image of the Archetype, the Word of the First Cause, that his body also was made erect, and could lift up its eyes to heaven, the purest portion of our universe, that by means of that which he could see man might clearly apprehend that which he could not see. Since, then, it was impossible for any to discern how the understanding tends towards the Existent One, save those only who had been drawn by Him – for each one of us knows what he has himself experienced as no other can know it – He endows the bodily eyes with the power of taking the direction of the upper air, and so makes them a distinct representation of the invisible eye. For, seeing that the eyes formed out of perishable matter obtained so great reach as to travel from the earthly region to heaven, that is so far away, and to touch its bounds, how vast must we deem the flight in all directions of the eyes of the soul? The strong yearning to perceive the Existent One gives them wings to attain not only to the furthest region of the upper air, but to overpass the very bounds of the entire universe and speed away toward the Uncreated. This is why those who crave for wisdom and knowledge with insatiable persistence are said in the Sacred Oracles to have been called upwards; for it accords with God’s ways that those who have received His down-breathing should be called up to Him. For when trees are whirled up, roots and all, into the air by hurricanes and tornadoes, and heavily laden ships of large tonnage are snatched up out of mid-oceans, as though objects of very little weight, and lakes and river are borne aloft, and earth’s hollows are left empty by the water as it is drawn up by a tangle of violently eddying winds, it is strange if a light substance like the mind is not rendered buoyant and raised to the utmost height by the native force of the Divine spirit, overcoming as it does in its boundless might all powers that are here below. Above all is it strange if this is not so with the mind of the genuine philosopher. Such a one suffers from no weight of downward pressure toward the objects dear to the body and to earth. From these he has ever made an earnest effort to sever and estrange himself. So he is borne upward insatiably enamoured of all holy happy natures that dwell on high. Accordingly Moses, the keeper and guardian of the mysteries of the Existent One, will be one called above; for it is said in the Book of Leviticus, ‘He called Moses up above’ (Lev. i.1). One called up above will Bezeleel also be, held worthy of a place in the second rank. For him also does God call up above for the construction and overseeing of the sacred works.

In Gig. 19–55, Philo’s relationship to Stoicism appeared to be ambivalent. In Plant. 18–26, it is more adversarial: “Now while others, by asserting that our human mind is a particle of the ethereal substance, have claimed for man a kinship with the upper air; our great Moses likened the fashion of the reasonable

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soul to no created thing … ”18 Humankind is made after God’s image, “not however after the image of anything created.” Philo interprets the breath of life from Gen 2:7 in similar terms as an uncreated element: “The body, then, has been formed out of earth, but the soul is of the upper air, a particle detached from the Deity: ‘for God breathed into his face a breath of life, and the human became a living soul.’ … the soul being a portion of an ethereal nature has on the contrary ethereal and divine food … ” (Leg. 3.161). Elsewhere in his writings, in Spec. 4.123, Philo supplements this interpretation of Gen 2:7 with his own suggestion that the rational portion of the soul is composed of something better than aether: For the essence or substance of that other soul is divine spirit, a truth vouched for by Moses especially, who in his story of the creation says that God breathed a breath of life upon the first human, the founder of our race, into the lordliest part of his body, the face … And clearly what was then thus breathed was ethereal spirit, or something if such there be better than ethereal spirit, even an effulgence of the blessed, thrice blessed nature of the Godhead.

In Plant. 18–19, where the polemical edge is sharper, Philo’s conception of the spirit neither affirms a Stoic point of view, as in Opif. 135, nor qualifies Stoicism, as in Spec. 4.123; here he tends to refute Stoicism: Now while others, by asserting that our human mind is a particle of the ethereal substance, have claimed for man a kinship with the upper air; our great Moses likened the fashion of the reasonable soul to no created thing, but averred it to be a genuine coinage of that dread [unseen] Spirit, the Divine and Invisible One, signed and impressed by the seal of God, the stamp of which is the Eternal Word.

The human spirit is not a particle of aether but a part of the unseen, divine spirit. Otherwise prone to eclecticism, Philo stakes his own claim over against the Stoics. The dominant influence upon Philo’s view of the ascent of the mind in Plant. 18–26 lies, not surprisingly, elsewhere – in Plato’s Phaedr. 246–253, as it does for his conception of creation (Opif. 69–71), his allegorical interpretation

18 Plant. 18. Greek, ἀλλ᾽ οἱ μὲν ἄλλοι τῆϛ αἰθερίου ϕύσεωϛ τὸν ἡμέτερον νοῦν μοῖραν εἰπόντεϛ εἶναι συγγένειαν ἀνθρώπῳ πρὸϛ αἰθέρα συνῆψαν. Diogenes Laertius, in the context of a summary of Stoics (7.143), including Chrysippus, Zeno, Apollodorus, and Posidonius, attributes to Stoicism the view that the world is “a living being, rational, animate and intelligent,” which is “endowed with soul, as is clear from our several souls being each a fragment of it.” Cicero, quoting Chrysippus, describes the human being as “a small fragment of that which is perfect” (Nat. Deor. 2.38. Epictetus views human souls as “parts and portions” of God’s being (Diatr. 1.14.6).

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of the ascent of Moses (Gig. 50–55) and, as we shall soon see, his own experience (Spec. 3.1–6). Plant. 22, for example, is rife with Platonic vocabulary: “The strong yearning to perceive the Existent One gives them [the eyes of the soul] wings to attain not only to the furthest region of the upper air, but to overpass the very bounds of the entire universe and speed away toward the Uncreated.”19 This description recalls Socrates’ description of the fourth sort of madness, philosophical love of beauty, which drives the philosopher’s soul to sprout wings and to ascend beyond the heavenly regions. There is more than a general reflection of the Phaedrus myth in Plant. 18–26. The association of the growth of wings with the soul’s “yearning” mirrors Socrates’ reference to yearning after beauty, which provides the impulse toward a growth of wings (Phaedr. 251C, E). The image of wings, moreover, is fundamental to the Phaedrus myth, which begins by comparing the soul to “a pair of winged horses and a charioteer” (246A), continues with the observation that the “natural function of the wing is to soar upwards” (246D), and is summarized with a description of the person who “feels his wings growing” (249D). Philo’s contention that “strong yearning” gives the “eyes” of the soul “wings” is, therefore, a shorthand way of recollecting Socrates’ contention that beauty comes through the eyes, bringing with it a yearning that causes the hardened parts, which will eventually become wings, to be moistened and warmed and to fill the soul with joy. The winged soul’s ability to pass beyond the heavenly region corresponds to Socrates’ contention that immortal souls, “when they reach the top, pass outside and take their place on the outer surface of the heaven, and when they have taken their stand, the revolution carries them round and they behold the things outside of the heaven” (Phaedr. 247B-C). Finally, this description applies exclusively to the philosopher. Philo writes, “Above all it is strange if this [ascent] is not so with the mind of the genuine philosopher. Such a one … has ever made an earnest effort to sever and estrange himself from objects dear to the body” (Plant. 24–25). Similarly, Socrates explains, “And therefore it is just that the mind of the philosopher only has wings … he separates himself from human interests and turns his attention toward the divine … ” (Phaedr. 249C). Philo, of course, is in good company in his dependence upon the Phaedrus for his understanding of the ascent of the mind. Plutarch, in Platonicae

19 Greek, ἅπερ ὑπὸ πολλοῦ τοῦ τὸ ὂν κατιδεῖν τηλαυγῶϛ ἱμέρου πτερωθέντα οὐ μόνον πρὸϛ τὸν ἔσχατον αἰθέρα τείνεται, παραμειψάμενα δὲ καὶ παντὸϛ τοῦ κόσμου τοὺϛ ὅρουϛ ἐπείγεται πρὸϛ τὸν ἀγένητον.

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questiones 6, asks why the soul is closely akin to the divine. He responds: “ … while there are a good many faculties of the soul concerned with the body, the faculty of reason or thought, whose objects he has said are things divine and celestial, is most closely akin to the divine. This faculty he not inappropriately called a pinion because it bears the soul up and away from the things that are base and mortal.” Although other philosophers were influenced by Plato’s Phaedrus, Maximus of Tyre’s discussion of the topic, “the mind sees and the mind hears,” provides a clear example of the sort of philosophical milieu that indelibly shaped Philo’s Plant. 18–26. Maximus of Tyre writes: … and the soul maintains its sovereignty by means of true reason and healthy yearning. … And to the one who puts away things below, always the distinct and the brightest things and the preliminary nature of God are before him. And as it proceeds further, it hears the nature of God, and mounting higher it sees. The end of the journey is not heaven, nor the bodies which are in heaven. These are indeed beautiful and marvelous, as they are the genuine descendants and the offspring of that one and suited to what is most beautiful. But it is necessary to go beyond these, and to look over (the border of) heaven at the true place and the calm (sea) which is there … 20

The mind intact, the overcoming of things below, ascent, yearning, the need to peer over the boundaries of the created world – these characterize Philo’s description of the ascent of the mind in Plant. 18–26.21 Philo then infers: “This is why those who crave for wisdom and knowledge with insatiable persistence are said in the Sacred Oracles to have been called

20 My translation, based upon Maximi Tyrii: Philosophumena, ed. H. Hobein (Leipzig: Teubner, 1910), 140–41. Prior to this passage comes the question and initial answer, “How therefore does the mind see? And how does it hear? With a healthy and true soul, looking straight toward that pure light, and not dizzied, nor descending to the earth. But it stops the ears and turns the eyes and the other senses toward the self. And the things below – mourning, sighing, pleasure, opinion, honor and dishonor – it utterly forgets …” 21 Third century CE Neo-Platonic philosopher, Plotinus, in his Enneads, begins by describing the preparation which is requisite to ascent, which elsewhere he identifies as mathematics and dialectics, for “gaining footholds in the intelligible and settling ourselves firmly there and feasting on its contents” (Ennead 6.7.36). This preparation, however, is only a precursor to the vision of the intelligible world, where “one lets all study go; up to a point one has been led along and settled firmly in beauty and as far as this one thinks that in which one is, but is carried out of it by the surge of the wave of Intellect itself and lifted on high by a kind of swell and sees suddenly, not seeing how, but the vision fills his eyes with light and does not make him see something else by it, but the light itself is what he sees” (Ennead 6.7.36). This description is similar to Philo’s writings, with preparation through knowledge (Opif. 69; Spec. 3.1–6) and a final vision of light (Opif. 69; Spec. 3.6).

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upwards; for it accords with God’s ways that those who have received His downbreathing should be called up to Him” (Plant. 23). Although all people presumably receive God’s down-breathing (Gen 2:7), only philosophers, who crave for wisdom and knowledge, are those most likely to be called up (based upon Lev 1:1) to God. A philosopher’s mind is one which “suffers from no weight of downward pressure towards the objects dear to the body and to earth” (Gig. 25).22 To follow the Phaedrus fully, Philo need only refer to recollection. By recollecting the true nature of beauty which he knew prior to being embodied (Phaedr. 254B), the philosopher’s mind takes wings in heavenward flight. But Philo does not take this tack, as natural as it may have seemed to him. Instead of introducing the notion of recollection, Philo re-introduces the spirit (Plant. 24). According to Plato, Plutarch, and Maximus of Tyre, the philosophical mind ascends to a vision of the ideal world. Philo appears to opt wholeheartedly for this view, not only with Platonic allusions and elements, but also by describing the mind as a copy of the breath and logos and locating its origin in the downbreathing of God. Although the character of the mind should be sufficient to raise it to the heights, as in Opif. 69–71, in Plant. 18–26, Philo introduces the spirit as the sole power that is able to lift the mind upwards. The mind is raised, rendered buoyant, not by recollection but by the spirit. Philo’s references to the spirit in Plant. 18–26 and Gig. 19–55 are altogether different from one another, though neither is rooted in any obvious way to the biblical text. In Plant. 18–26, the spirit is introduced into a discussion of the “field of the universe,” which is tied tenuously to a description of Noah’s farming in Gen 9:20. In Gig. 19–55, in contrast, a single biblical text, Gen 6:3, is the topic of interpretation. Nevertheless, Philo departs from the literal meaning of the biblical text, with the result that the spirit becomes the source of the vision of God, which comes infrequently to the majority of humankind, rather than the source of physical life for 120 years. In neither case, therefore, does the literal meaning of the biblical text tether Philo’s exegetical imagination. Though attached tenuously to biblical texts, this spirit, according to Philo, exhibits enormous power. Like a hurricane or tornado, it is capable of lifting heavy substances into the air. The scope of its power includes all things below; no human concern can resist its uplifting force. How much more can the spirit lift the featherweight philosophical mind, which is already poised to ascend? The extent to which the spirit lifts a philosopher may vary. Some it lifts only to a place within the created world; this sort of philosopher is represented by

22 Plotinus would later write, “But the philosopher – he is the one who is by nature ready to respond and ‘winged,’ we may say, and in no need of separation like the others” (Ennead 1.3.3).

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Bezalel, whose name means, according to Philo, “making in shadows.” Moses, in contrast, is lifted up into the intelligible world, a world of archetypes and not copies, a world which yields “a clearer, more radiant vision, as though in unclouded sunshine” (Plant. 27). This accent upon the uniqueness of Moses’ ascent brings us again to Philo’s discussion in On the Giants. In Gig. 55, Philo describes the ascent of Moses with direct reference to Gen 6:3: “He then has ever the divine spirit at his side, taking the lead in every journey of righteousness, but from those others, as I have said, it quickly separates itself, from these to whose span of life he has also set a term of a hundred and twenty years, for he says ‘their days shall be a hundred and twenty years.’” As in Plant. 18–26, in which the spirit is the source of the mind’s ascent, the spirit cannot be identified with the soul. The image of accompaniment in Gig. 55 excludes that possibility. Once again, then, ascent requires a finely-tuned philosophical mind, but that mind cannot ascend by its own means, by recollection, by a yearning for beauty. On the contrary, the philosophical mind may be prepared by such attributes but is lifted only by the divine spirit, which takes the lead in every journey of righteousness and overcomes in its boundless might all powers that are below.

Ascent and the Interpretation of Torah in On the Special Laws Philo regards himself first and foremost as an interpreter of scripture. His enthusiasm about the interpretation of Torah preoccupies him in Spec. 3.1–6, where he puts the famed language of the ascent of the soul from Plato’s Phaedrus to another use: to describe his exceptional ability to interpret scripture. When on occasion Philo is able to “obtain a spell of fine weather and a calm from civil turmoils,” he is able to “open the soul’s eyes,” to be wafted on the winds of knowledge, and to become “irradiated by the light of wisdom.” During these rare moments of respite, Philo finds himself “daring, not only to read the sacred pages of Moses, but also in my love of knowledge to peer into each of them and unfold and reveal what is not known to the multitude.” This sort of experience is the exception rather than the rule for Philo. In Spec. 3.1–6, Philo recalls wistfully: There was a time when I had leisure for philosophy and for the contemplation of the universe and its contents, when I made its spirit my own in all its beauty and loveliness

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and true blessedness, when my constant companions were divine themes and verities, wherein I rejoiced with a joy that never cloyed or sated. I had no base or abject thoughts nor grovelled in search of reputation or of wealth or bodily comforts, but seemed always to be borne aloft into the heights with a soul possessed by some God-sent inspiration, a fellow-traveller with the sun and moon and the whole heaven and universe. Ah then I gazed down from the upper air … But, as it proved, my steps were dogged by the deadliest of mischiefs, the hater of the good, envy, which suddenly set upon me and ceased not to pull me down with violence till it had plunged me in the ocean of civil cares … Yet amid my groans I hold my own, for, planted in my soul from my earliest days I keep the yearning for culture which ever has pity and compassion for me, lifts me up and relieves my pain. To this I owe it that sometimes I raise my head and with soul’s eyes – dimly indeed because the mist of extraneous affairs has clouded their clear vision … And if unexpectedly I obtain a spell of fine weather and a calm from civil turmoils, I get me wings and ride the waves and almost tread the lower air, wafted by the breezes of knowledge which often urges me to come to spend my days with her, a truant as it were from merciless masters in the shape not only of men but of affairs, which pour in upon me like a torrent from different sides. Yet it is well for me to give thanks to God even for this, that though submerged I am not sucked down into the depths, but can also open the soul’s eyes, which in my despair of comforting hope I thought had now lost their sight, and am irradiated by the light of wisdom, and am not given over to lifelong darkness. So behold me daring, not only to read the sacred pages of Moses, but also in my love of knowledge to peer into each of them and unfold and reveal what is not known to the multitude.

Philo in this autobiographical reflection characterizes himself as a philosopher. The first words in Spec. 3.1–6, “There was a time when I had leisure for philosophy … ” provide the context of inspiration. Philo intends to recount his experiences of inspiration as a philosopher. He peppers this description of his occasional experience with allusions to Plato’s description of philosophical inspiration. His definition of philosophy as “the contemplation of the universe and its contents” and his subsequent description of becoming a “fellow traveller with the sun and moon and the whole heaven and universe” recall the words of Pindar in Plato’s Theaetetus 173C–174A, which Socrates quotes: “ … his mind … is borne in all directions.” These include below the earth, the surface of the earth, and “above the sky,” where the philosopher studies the stars and investigates the nature of everything that is. Philo supports his depiction of himself as a philosopher through allusions to Plato’s Phaedr. 246A 253C. These allusions reinforce that his own ascent is that of the philosopher, for Socrates contends that “it is just that the mind of the philosopher only has wings” (249C). More specifically, Philo’s description of his experience as a fellow traveller with heavenly bodies sharpens the allusions to Phaedr. 246B, in which the soul “traverses the whole heaven … ” and 248A, in which the soul “is carried round in the revolution … ” Finally, Philo’s slightly odd

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mention of jealousy, which plunges him again into civil cares, may recall Phaedr. 247A, in which “jealousy is excluded from the celestial band.”23 Philo’s self-depiction as a philosopher is only one side of the coin in Spec. 3.1–6. His reflection contains a striking correspondence between the ascent of the philosopher’s mind and the discernment of an interpreter’s mind. The passage begins with philosophical ascent and possession (3.1–2), is interrupted by a plunge into the ocean of civil cares (3.3–4), and concludes with an ascent on the winds of knowledge to interpret Torah (3.5–6). Within this structure, the initial ascent to contemplate the upper air corresponds to the final ascent to interpret Torah. Philo reinforces this correlation between philosopher and interpreter by employing the same verb, “to stoop,” to describe the experiences of ascent and interpretation. The words, “Ah then I stooped [gazed down] from the upper air … ” (3.2) correspond to “Behold me daring … to stoop [peer] into each of them [the sacred messages of Moses] and unfold … ” (3.6).24 In those rare moments, Philo experiences what he calls possession or enthusiasm. The nuances of this word are not entirely clear. Elsewhere, Philo uses this term to describe prophetic inspiration, though only vaguely so. In Who Is the Heir, it has the suggestion of ecstatic rapture: Therefore, my soul, if thou feelest any yearning to inherit the good things of God, leave not only thy land, that is the body, thy kinsfolk, that is the senses, thy father’s house (Gen. xii.1), that is speech, but be a fugitive from thyself also and issue forth from thyself. Like persons possessed and corybants, be filled with inspired frenzy, even as the prophets are inspired. (Her. 69)

This description continues with ascent: For it is the mind which is under the divine afflatus, and no longer in its own keeping, but is stirred to its depths and maddened by heavenward yearning, drawn by the truly existent and pulled upward thereto, with truth to lead the way and remove all obstacles before its feet, that its path may be smooth to tread – such is the mind, which has this inheritance. (Her. 70)

In this description, then, Philo is able to combine ecstatic rapture with the ascent of the mind.

23 See also Tim. 29E and the analysis of Méasson, Du char, 234. On Philo’s use of Plato’s Phaedrus in general in Spec 3.1–6, see Méasson, Du char, 231–41. 24 My translation, based upon the Loeb edition. The correlation between Philo as an inspired interpreter and Moses as an inspired teacher is evident in Cher. 48, which includes what is implicit in Spec. 3.6. For further analysis, see my Filled with the Spirit, 194 n. 29.

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Even if the precise nature of inspiration is elusive, Philo is certain that the experience of being a philosopher cum interpreter arises from intense learning. While prophets speak when they fall under the power of ecstasy and divine possession, when “the mind is evicted at the arrival of the divine Spirit,”25 philosophers like Philo prepare through learning. As a result, they are able, even momentarily, to wrest themselves from civil responsibilities. The result is that the philosopher-interpreter’s mind becomes more alert, not less, as his ability to interpret Torah intensifies rather than diminishes. The correspondence between philosophical ascent and the interpretation of scripture gives Spec. 3.1–6 a distinctive ring in the writings of Philo. In reality, ascent may at times prove to be little more than an escape from worldly cares that gives him time to pore over the writings of Moses. In short, the mind of a philosopher, like Philo, takes wing – to adopt the language of Phaedrus – when he drops his or her nose into the depths of Torah. The ascent of the mind, in other words, is simultaneously a plunge into the depths of an inspired literary corpus.

Conclusion If, as Alan Segal proposes, Philo is the starting point for the study of ascent in the Jewish tradition, then it is important, if not indispensable, to outline the central elements in Philo’s conception of ascent. These can be encapsulated in five questions. First, what ascends? Second, who ascends? Third, what precedes ascent? Fourth, to where does ascent lead? Fifth, what propels ascent?

What Ascends? For Philo, there can be no question that only the mind ascends.26 The mind alone is suited to ascent. The mind alone is the image and likeness of God, “a god to him who carries and enshrines it as an object of reverence” (Opif. 69). The mind is a particle of something even purer than aether – “a genuine coinage of that dread

25 Philo Judaeus, Her. 265. 26 Philo can also say the soul ascends, by which he means the upper or rational portion of the soul, that is, the mind.

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Spirit, the Divine and Invisible One, signed and impressed by the seal of God, the stamp of which is the Eternal Word” (Plant. 18); this Philo can say on the basis of his interpretation of both the inbreathing of Gen 2:7 and the image of Gen 1:27. The deftness of the human mind is evident in Philo’s interpretation of Gen 15:4, 6, in which Abraham “said in his mind.” This prompts Philo to praise the mind, “which none of the creatures whose swiftness of foot we admire can outrun … ” (Mut. 178). The confidence with which Philo states his belief that the mind alone, apart from – or perhaps despite – the body, ascends separates his conception of ascent from others’, such as the apostle Paul’s, who claims, “I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows – was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat” (2 Cor 12:2–4). Paul cannot say whether this experience took place in his body or out of body; Philo evinces no such ambivalence. The mind ascends despite the pull of the body downward. Those who ascend, in fact, suffer “no weight of downward pressure towards the objects dear to the body and to earth” (Plant. 25).

Who Ascends? The philosopher. Time and again, Philo claims that only people of philosophical bent, immersed in the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, have minds capable of ascent. Philo praises the impossible but not fruitless pursuit of God’s ineffable essence: As for the divine essence, though in fact it is hard to track and to apprehend, it still calls for all the inquiry possible. For nothing is better than to search for the true God, even if the discovery of Him eludes human capacity, since the very wish to learn, if earnestly entertained, produces untold joys and pleasures. (Spec. 1.36)

Who bears testimony to the benefit of this pursuit? Philosophers, whose ascent leads them as far upward as is humanly possible. We have the testimony of those who have not taken a mere sip of philosophy but have feasted more abundantly on its reasonings and conclusions. For with them the reason soars away from the earth into the heights, travels through the upper air and accompanies the revolutions of the sun and moon and the whole heaven and in its desire to see all that is there finds its powers of sight blurred, for so pure and vast is the radiance that pours therefrom that the soul’s eye is dizzied by the flashing of the rays. (Spec. 1.37)

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In Gig. 13–14, we may recall, Philo delineates three types of souls. Those in the middle, in the body but striving to be detached from it, “are the souls of those who have given themselves to genuine philosophy, who from first to last study to die to the life in the body, that a higher existence immortal and incorporeal, in the presence of Him who is Himself immortal and uncreated, may be their portion.” These souls have alternately descended into the body – philosophers are mortal, after all – and “at other times have been able to stem the current, have risen to the surface and then soared upwards back to the place from whence they came.” Elsewhere, in a discussion of the perils of pleasure, Philo returns to this theme: “But the roads of sound-sense and self-mastery and of the other virtues, if not untrodden, are at all events unworn; for scanty is the number of those that tread them, that have genuinely devoted themselves to the pursuit of wisdom … ” (Agr. 104). In an effort to encourage his readers to pursue knowledge of God, however unattainable it is, Philo attributes the work of asking the two essential questions – whether the Deity exists and what the deity consists of – to the genuine philosopher. There is an intensity to this adverb, “genuinely,” ἀνόθως, which Philo often associates with the philosophical task.27 When, then, Philo adopts this word in Plant. 24 to describe the one who is called up, he invests the task of the philosopher with a stirring impulse. It is not just the professional philosopher whose mind can ascend. Philo’s love of learning encompasses the world of practiced virtue, as well, so that he can write, “For the soul of the lover of God does in truth leap from earth to heaven and wing its way on high, eager to take its place in the ranks and share the ordered march of sun and moon and the all-holy, all-harmonious host of the other stars … ” (Spec. 1.207).

What Precedes Ascent? Though ascent may involve rapture or ecstasy, it begins with learning and a yearning for knowledge. Repeatedly, including in his autobiographical narrative of ascent, Philo understands the bedrock of ascent to be the relentless pursuit of knowledge, wisdom, and the presence of God. The mind, made in God’s image, “opens by arts and sciences roads branching in many directions” (Opif. 69). In Plant. 23–25, philosophers must sever themselves from earthly cares. They must “crave for wisdom and knowledge with insatiable persistence” to be called upwards. In Gig. 30, Philo claims that wisdom is thwarted by ignorance and

27 On this adverb, see also Migr. 86, Virt. 185 and Prob. 99.

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lack of learning, implying the need for knowledge and education. Similarly, according to Spec. 3.1–6, Philo recalls that inspiration overtook him when his constant companions were divine words and truths, when he had no interest in status or wealth or bodily comforts. In his treatise on rewards and punishments, Philo comments on a trinity consisting of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who together reject vanity. In On Rewards and Punishments [Praem.] 25–26, the person who rejects vanity “cannot be contained by the whole compass of the earth but reaches to Heaven, possessed with an intense longing to contemplate and for ever be in the company of things divine.” This trinity consists of: Abraham. who is taught to believe in God and is rewarded with faith (Praem. 28–30); Isaac, self-taught, who comes by nature to God and is rewarded with joy (31–35); and Jacob, who practices and is rewarded with a vision, in which he is named Israel (36–46). Jacob’s vision is borne of the effort to see beyond the material world. “In his former years the eyes of his soul had been closed, but by means of continuous striving he began though slowly to open them and to break up and throw off the mist which overshadowed him” (37). In a moment of magnanimity, Philo even concedes that those outside his tradition are able to ascend in visionary rapture. These must be people of peculiar virtue: All who practice wisdom, either in Grecian or barbarian lands, and live a blameless and irreproachable life, choosing neither to inflict nor retaliate injustice, avoid the gathering of busybodies and abjure the scenes which they haunt, such as law-courts, council-chambers, markets, congregations and in general any gathering or assemblage of careless men. Their own aspirations are for a life of peace, free from warring. They are the closest observers of nature and all that it contains; earth, sea, air and heaven and the various forms of being which inhabit them are food for their research, as in mind and thought they share the ranging of the moon and sun and the ordered march of the other stars fixed and planetary. While their bodies are firmly planted on the land they provide their souls with wings, so that they may traverse the upper air and gain full contemplation of the powers which dwell there, as behoves true ‘cosmopolitans’ who have recognized the world to be a city having for its citizens the associates of wisdom, registered as such by virtue to whom is entrusted the headship of the universal commonwealth. (Spec. 2.44–45)

Even parents are charged with inculcating the sort of learning that leads, at least for the few, to a vision beyond the perceptible world. The building blocks of education – music and math, literature and philosophy – become the steppingstones to ascent: Further, who could be more truly called benefactors than parents in relation to their children? First, they have brought them out of non-existence; then, again, they have held them entitled to nurture and later to education of body and soul, so that they may have not

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only life, but a good life. They have benefited the body by means of the gymnasium and the training there given, through which it gains muscular vigor and good condition and the power to bear itself and move with an ease marked by gracefulness and elegance. They have done the same for the soul by means of letters and arithmetic and geometry and music and philosophy as a whole which lifts on high the mind lodged within the mortal body and escorts it to the very heaven and shews it the blessed and happy beings that dwell therein, and creates in it an eager longing for the unswerving ever-harmonious order which they never forsake because they obey their captain and marshal. (Spec. 2.229–30)

To Where Does Ascent Lead? At the most basic level, ascent offers an escape from worldly cares. This is the gist of Philo’s autobiographical narrative, in which he recalls, from the standpoint of a civic leader, that time in life when he “seemed always to be borne aloft into the heights with a soul possessed by some God-sent inspiration, a fellow-traveller with the sun and moon and the whole heaven and universe. Ah then I gazed down from the upper air” (Spec. 3.1–2). Occasionally, he ascends in the midst of civil cares. Where does he find this respite? In the study of Torah, as he interprets for others “the sacred messages of Moses” (Spec. 3.6). Philo seems to have something similar in mind in Praem. 121–22, where he describes “the mind, the initiate of the holy mysteries, the fellow traveler of the heavenly bodies as they revolve in ordered march.” Such a mind lives in quiet contemplation, provided it exists in a healthy body, which allows it to pursue wisdom and to feast “on holy thoughts and doctrines.” This autobiographical narrative does not encompass the geography of ascent. Early in his oeuvre, in his commentary on Gen 1:26, Philo lays out the various layers of ascent. First, the mind explores, through the arts and sciences “a vast network of paths, all of them highways, and passes through land and sea, investigating what is present in both realms” (Opif. 69). Second, the mind probes the atmosphere (70). Third, higher still are the planets and stars (70). Fourth and farther in ascent, the mind contemplates the Platonic world of ideas, “the intelligible world,” with its “sights of surpassing loveliness,” which fill the mind with inspiration and Corybantic frenzy (71). Now, at “the topmost arch of the things perceptible to the mind,” it is “on its way to the Great King,” whom the mind cannot see (71). This is the fifth and final stage of ascent. Philo puts this more succinctly in Questions and Answers on Exodus 2.40. To explain the meaning of the words, “Come up to Me to the mountain and be there” in Exod 24:12, Philo writes, “This signifies that a holy soul is divinized by ascending not to the air or to the ether or to heaven (which is) higher than all but to (a region) above the heavens. And beyond the world there is no place but God.”

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There is no place for the world of ideas in this response, but the geography of ascent is nonetheless clear. Unfortunately, notes Philo, most people will not experience such an ascent, “for those who have a quickly satiated passion for reflexion fly upward for only a short distance under divine inspiration and then they immediately return. They do not fly so much as they are drawn downward, I mean, to the depths of Tartarus. But those who do not return from the holy and divine city, to which they have migrated, have God as their chief leader in the migration.” A similar, if truncated, geography of ascent is apparent in Philo’s depiction of the speed with which the mind travels: “For the mind moves at the same moment to many things material and immaterial with indescribable rapidity and reaches at once the boundaries of land and sea … At the same time it leaps so high from the earth that it passes through the lower to the upper air and scarcely comes to a stop even when it reaches the furthermost sphere of the fixed stars.” Still, the mind travels swiftly farther, “across wide spaces outside the limits of all this world of sense to the world framed from the ideas to which it feels itself akin (Mut. 180). The mind, in short, travels from the earth to the stars to the world of ideas: the first, second, third, and fourth regions delineated in Opif. 69–71 – but not the fifth. The philosopher’s mind travels similarly, according to Spec. 1.37: “For with them the reason soars away from the earth into the heights, travels through the upper air and accompanies the revolutions of the sun and moon and the whole heaven and in its desire to see all that is there finds its powers of sight blurred, for so pure and vast is the radiance that pours therefrom that the soul’s eye is dizzied by the flashing of the rays.” These minds cannot pass, it seems, from the heavenly realm to the world of ideas, at least in this passage. The lover of God, too, reaches “the ordered march of sun and moon and the all-holy, allharmonious host of the other stars” (Spec. 1.207). In Noah’s Work as a Planter, Philo speaks more generally of the upward call, though the limits of ascent seem to lie among the stars. He conjectures that, if “the eyes formed out of perishable matter obtained so great reach as to travel from the earthly region to heaven,” then “the strong yearning to perceive the Existent One gives them wings to attain not only to the furthest region of the upper air, but to overpass the very bounds of the entire universe and speed away toward the Uncreated” (Plant. 22–23). “This is why,” explains Philo, “those who crave for wisdom and knowledge with insatiable persistence are said in the Sacred Oracles to have been called upwards.” Though the mind speeds toward God, where does it stop? Philo says little specifically about the geography of ascent except perhaps when he says that someone can be “borne upward insatiably enamoured of all holy happy natures that dwell on high” (Plant. 25). These happy natures are probably souls that now dwell as stars in the heavenly realm.

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Those Greeks and Barbarians whom Philo praises experience similar limits, according to Spec. 2.46. They observe nature (level one in Opif. 69–71), beings in the atmosphere (level two), and the moon, stars, and planets (level three). Philo does not say that their ascent reaches to the world of ideas or to God. Similarly, parents educate their children so that their minds can be lifted to heaven, where they see “the blessed and happy beings that dwell therein” (Spec. 2.230). As in Plant. 25, these are probably souls whom God now marshals as stars, moon, and planets. It is possible to ascend farther, though barely so. Jacob, symbol of the person of practice, is led by a charioteer to the world of ideas, where he is blinded by “beams of undiluted light” (level four in Opif. 69–71, though in Opif. 69–71, light occurs at the fifth and final level). God pities the person of practice and grants a vision of God – not what God is but only that God is. Still, this vision leads higher than most others, which tend to end at the planetary sphere (Praem. 39). Philo is circumspect even about Moses’ experience of God.28 In On the Giants, Philo suggests that souls free from flesh and body “spend their days in the theatre of the universe,” that is, in the company of the stars, moon, and planets (Gig. 31). This accords with many other of Philo’s depictions of ascent. Moses, however, free of conjecture and the physicality of the flesh, enters the darkness – in the tent outside the camp, according to Exod 33:7 – the “invisible region,” where “he learns the secrets of the most holy mysteries. There he becomes not only one of the congregation of the initiated, but also the hierophant and teacher of divine rites, which he will impart to those whose ears are purified” (Gig. 53–54). Others travel in the theatre of the universe, among the sun, the planets, the moon, and the stars, but Moses enters beyond the blinding light into the darkness. This is unique, a realm reserved for Moses alone. Except, perhaps, for Philo, who, like Moses, contemplates holy matters. Yet even Philo, claims and confidence notwithstanding, sees the difference. Moses learns and teaches what he has completed – the holiest rituals – while Philo studies and teaches only the holy matters of Moses (Spec. 3.6).

What Propels Ascent? Why is Moses able to ascend to where others cannot? There are, of course, countless reasons, to which Philo can appeal. In Gig. 55, he selects but one:

28 For further analysis of Moses in Philo, see the classic study by Wayne Meeks, The ProphetKing: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology, SNT 14 (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 102–131, esp. 122–25.

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“He then has ever the divine spirit at his side, taking the lead in every journey of righteousness … ” This is not typical for Philo. More often than not, the character of the mind is the cause for ascent. This is an understandable state of affairs, given how dependent Philo is on Plato’s Phaedrus for his accounts of ascent. In the course of this study, we have carefully plotted ample allusions to the Phaedrus in Philo’s writings, which set him in a trajectory of interpreters for whom the Phaedrus is the impetus for portrayals of ascent, including Plutarch’s Platonic Questions, Maximus of Tyre’s Philosophumena, and Plotinus’ Enneads. Given the inexorable impact of the Phaedrus on Philo’s thought, it is striking that he does not choose to attribute the mind’s ascent to recollection. Given the impact of Platonism and Stoicism more generally, it is also arresting to note that he deviates from the belief that the mind is naturally drawn to the upper realms, since the mind is, in Stoic terms, a particle of the divine realm, understood as aether. Philo, in short, has no need even to nod to the divine spirit in his depictions of ascent; he has enough fodder for the ascent of the mind in the imago dei of Gen 1:26–27 and the divine inbreathing of Gen 2:7. Yet he does, at least occasionally, attribute the ascent of the mind to the divine spirit – implicitly in Spec. 3.1–6 and explicitly in Plant. 18–26 and Gig. 29–31. This is a fusion of Platonic and biblical elements, and it stems, not from an intellectual process alone, but from Philo’s experience, if his claims may be trusted. His autobiographical account in Spec. 3.1–6 reveals that Philo attributes the occasional and ephemeral ascent of his mind to the divine spirit, with its powerful surge, which draws the mind upward. The spirit is a hurricane’s gale, a tornado’s gust, with the power to draw well-tended philosophical minds in its train. Ultimately, it is not recollection, and it may not be a pure intellect, that propels the mind upward but the violent impulse of the spirit, which severs the mind from its earthly home, its corporeal shell, and leads it to its true home. For Philo, at least, that home is scripture, the sacred oracles of Moses. The mind travels so far only to alight on the inspired page.

Gregory E. Sterling

Dancing with the Stars: The Ascent of the Mind in Philo of Alexandria During the first century BCE, Platonism went through a significant shift in orientation from the skepticism of the New Academy to the dogmatism of Middle Platonism.1 The understanding of Plato and the tradition he spawned also changed as Platonists took into account other philosophical developments. The most important for our purposes was the acceptance of the Neopythagorean concept of transcendence for the First Principle. Eudorus of Alexandria is the first we know who embraced a transcendent First Principle, a concept that led to significant realignments within Platonism.2 We can grasp some of the dynamics of the changing landscape by comparing the formulations of the telos of philosophy by Antiochus of Ascalon (b. ca. 130 BCE),3 a transitional figure who broke with the skeptical approach of his teacher Philo of Larissa (159/158–84/83 BCE), the last undisputed head of the Academy, and Eudorus (fl. ca. 25 BCE), the first figure whom we may securely call a Middle Platonist.4 Antiochus defined the telos of philosophy as “living in accordance with human nature, complete and lacking nothing,”5 a formulation that is strikingly Stoic. Eudorus drew from Plato’s Theaetetus to offer a significantly different telos. He wrote: “Socrates and Plato say the same thing as Pythagoras that the telos is ‘likeness to God’ (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ). Plato defined this more clearly by adding: ‘according as it is possible’ (κατὰ τὸ δύνατον),

1 The classic treatment of this is still John M. Dillon, The Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to A.D. 220, 2nd ed (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996). 2 Mauro Bonazzi, “Towards Transcendence: Philo and the Renewal of Platonism in the Early Imperial Age,” in Philo of Alexandria and Post-Aristotelian Philosophy, ed. Francesca Alesse, SPhA 5 (Leiden;Boston: Brill, 2008), 233–51. 3 On Antiochus see John Glucker, Antiochus and the Late Academy (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978) and David Sedley, ed., The Philosophy of Antiochus (Cambridge;New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 4 On Eudorus see Claudio Mazzarelli, “Raccolta e interpretatzione delle testimonianze e dei frammenti del Medioplatonica Euroro di Alessandria,” Rivista di Filosfia Ne-Stoiastica 77 (1985): 197–209, 535–55. 5 See Cicero, Fin. 5.26. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. Gregory E. Sterling, Yale University https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110597264-007

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and this is only possible by prudence (φρόνωσις), that is to say, to live by virtue.”6 Philo of Alexandria knew the text from Plato’s Theaetetus and cited or alluded to it at least twice in his commentaries.7 More importantly, he made this telos the orientation of his understanding of humanity. The Jewish interpreter wrote: “The telos of happiness is the approach of affinity to God, that completely fills the entire soul with his incorporeal and eternal light.” A little further on in the same text he stated the obverse, “there is no greater punishment for the soul than to be rejected by God … for the soul to be separated from reflection on the Perfect is the greatest evil.”8 This orientation dominates Philo’s writings. But how did he understand “the presence of God” and “the contemplation of the Existent One”? Does it include the visio Dei or does it extend to embrace a unio mystica as it would for Plotinus and Neoplatonists? Philo’s relation to mysticism has been a point of dispute. Some have argued that Philo was not a mystic. Edward Caird famously wrote that it was impossible “for a pious Jew like Philo to be a mystic or a pantheist and so to reduce the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to an absolute substance, in whom all the reality of the world is merged.”9 Others have argued that Philo embraced mystical theology.10 Some, like David Winston, have qualified this by stopping short of arguing that Philo attests mystical union.11 Yet others

6 Eudorus in Stobaeus, Anth. 2.7.3 (Wachsmuth 49.8 = Mazzaarelli, “Raccolta e interpretatzione delle tesitmoniznnze e dei frammenti del Medioplatonica Eudoro di Alessandria,” 537 [frg. 25]). The reference to Plato is to Theaet. 176B. 7 Philo, Fug. 63; Spec. 4.188. 8 Philo, QG 4.4. 9 Edward Caird, The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, 2 vols, The Gifford Lectures 1900–1901 and 1901–1902 (Glasgow: MacLehose and Sons, 1904), 2:210. 10 For an overview of Philo as a mystic see Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, vol. 1 of The Presence of God: A History of Christian Mysticism (New York; London: Crossroad, 1991), 35–41. 11 David Winston, Logos and Mystical Theology in Philo of Alexandria (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1985), 53: “There are a series of passages, however, that go well beyond a merely spirited religiosity, revealing instead what constitutes at the very least an intellectual or theoretical form of mysticism but which may well represent a genuine inner experience that envelops Philo’s psyche and fills it with the thrill of God’s nearness. Whether we can go further and attribute to him mystical happenings involving union with the Divine Mind must remain uncertain in view of the absence of anything more than vague descriptions of personal psychic states that are at best only incipient forms of mystical experience.” See also idem, “Was Philo a Mystic?” Society of Biblical 1978 Literature Seminar Papers, SBLSP 13 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1978): 1:161–180; reprinted in The Ancestral Philosophy: Hellenistic Philosophy in Second

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have argued that Philo made the full journey and cultivated the unio mystica.12 I would like to enter one aspect of this discussion by considering Philo’s understanding of the visio Dei. While this will not include consideration of mystical union, it will enable us to ask whether this leading Jew of Alexandria understood the vision to involve an experience of God. I propose to do this by examining two of the most important texts where the commentator discussed the vision of God.

De opificio mundi 69–71 The first of these comes from the opening treatise in the Exposition of the Law, probably the third commentary series that Philo wrote. It was likely intended for a broad audience that consisted of not only students in his school, but guests who might have been interested in hearing him offer a lecture.13 The work covers the entire Pentateuch from creation to the final speech in Deuteronomy. The first text appears in De opificio mundi or Philo’s treatment of Gen 1:1–2:5. In his explanation of what it means to be created in the “image of God,”14 Philo wrote: “The image refers to the ruler of the soul, the mind (κατὰ τὸν τῆς

Temple Judaism. Essays of David Winston, ed. Gregory E. Sterling; BJS 331;SPhMS 4 (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2001), 151–170; and idem, “Philo’s Mysticism,” SPhiloA 8 (1996): 74–82, esp. 74. 12 Adam Afterman, “From Philo to Plotinus: The Emergence of Mystical Union,” JR (2013): 177–96. 13 On the function of the Exposition in Philo’s school see Gregory E. Sterling, “The School of Moses in Alexandria: An Attempt to Reconstruct the School of Philo,” in Second Temple Jewish Paideia in Context, ed. Jason M. Zurawski and Gabriele Boccaccini, BZNW 228 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 141–66, esp. 161–62. Recent treatments of the broader audience include Ellen Birnbaum, The Place of Judaism in Philo’s Thought: Israel, Jews, and Proselytes, BJS 290;SPhiloM 2 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 19–20, 55–56, 89–90, 122, 144, 159, 210, 216, 221–22; Martina Böhm, Rezeption und Funktion der Vätererzählungen bei Philo von Alexnadrien: Zum Zussammenhang von Kontext, Hermeneutik und Exegese im frühen Judentum, BZNW 128 (Berlin;New York: de Gruyter, 2005), 116–238; and Maren R. Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 169–85, esp. 170–77. Cf. also Erwin R. Goodenough, “Philo’s Exposition of the Law and his De vita Mosis,” HTR 26 (1933): 109–25, who argued that the Exposition, in contrast to Philo’s other works, addressed a broader audience–including non-Jews. 14 On the image of God in Philo see Gregory E. Sterling, “Different Traditions or Emphases? The Image of God in Philo’s De opificio mundi,” in New Approaches to the Study of Biblical Interpretation in Judaism of the Second Temple Period and in Early Christianity: Proceedings of

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ψυχῆς ἡγενόνα νοῦν). The mind in each individual was modeled on that one mind of the universe as its archetype, since it is in a certain way god of the one who carries it and carries it around as a divine image.” He explained: “For the role the Great Ruler (ὁ μέγας ἡγεμών) has in the universe,15 this, it seems, the human mind has in the human.”16 In this statement Philo identifies the mind with the “image of God.” He underscored this through a wordplay on “ruler” (ἡγεμών) that he applied to both the human mind and God. It is, however, surprising that he omitted any reference to the Logos. Normally he argues that the Logos is the “image of God” and humanity was created “in” (κατά) the image of God’s Image.17 The omission could be the result of Philo’s use of an earlier exegetical tradition that lacked a reference to the Logos18 or a simple telescoping of the details of the text.19 Philo explained how the mind of a human corresponds to God: “For the role the Great Ruler has in the universe, this, it seems, the human mind has in the human. It is itself invisible, yet sees all things; it has an unclear substance yet grasps the substances of other creatures.”20 The analogy between the microcosm (mind in a human) and the macrocosm (God’s role in the universe) is Stoic in its origin, but Philo offered a distinctive twist.21 He suggested that the mind corresponded to God in two ways. In both cases he probably reasoned from his understanding of God back to the human counterpart: God is invisible so the mind must be22; God is unknowable in substance so the mind must be.23 In spite of these limits the mind “sees all things” and “grasps the substances of other creatures.” It is the function of the mind that “sees all things” and “grasps the substances of other creatures” that sets up the famous “flight of the mind” text that

the Eleventh International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, Jointly Sponsored by the Hebrew University Center for the Study of Christianity, 9–11 January, 2007, ed. Gary A. Anderson, Ruth A. Clements, and David Satran, STDJ 106 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 41–56. 15 Cf. Plato, Phaedr. 246E, where he calls Zeus ὁ μέγας ἡγεμών. 16 Philo, Opif. 69. 17 E.g., Ibid., 25. 18 Thomas H. Tobin, The Creation of Man: Philo and the History of Interpretation, CBQMS 14 (Washington, DC: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1983), 51. 19 David T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria On the Creation of the Cosmos according to Moses: Introduction, Translation and Commentary, PACS 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 225. 20 Philo, Opif. 69. 21 E.g., Seneca, Ep. 65.24. 22 Cf. Philo, Det. 87. 23 Cf. Philo, Leg. 1.91; Mut. 10.

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follows. The text is unambiguously indebted to the myth of the chariot and winged horses in Plato’s Phaedrus, a debt signaled both by the echo of specific vocabulary and by the Platonic framework.24 Philo was fond of the myth and used it throughout his corpus.25 In five other texts in the Exposition of the Law, he incorporates “the flight of the mind.”26 Our text represents his fullest treatment of the motif. In virtually each case, he offered his own distinctive take on it. In De opificio mundi, he reversed Plato’s explanation of how the soul can lose its wings and portrayed the ascent of the mind through five stages. While there are variations in what he says about each stage, each stage has at least three things in common: Philo specified where the mind is, indicated its mode of perception, and stated the objects it perceives or attempts to perceive. I have summarized them in the table below.

Stage

First

Second

Third

Fourth

Fifth

Realm

Earth & Sea

Atmosphere

Ether

Intelligible Realm

Highest Vault

Mode of Perception

Examine

Reconnoitre

Peered over

See

Strives to see

Objects

The things

Phenomena

Entirety of senseperceptible substance

Forms and Ideas

The Great King Himself

Philo treated the first two stages cursorily. He made a direct allusion to the Phaedrus myth when he introduced the second with the phrase “having taken

24 Plato, Phaedr. 246A-249D. Philo cited or alluded to this Platonic text in Opif. 70 (a flight of the mind text); Leg. 1.61; Sacr. 49; Det. 87–90 (a flight of the mind text); Gig. 13, 31; Ebr. 146; Her. 301; Fug. 62; Somn. 1.138; 2.294; Spec. 1.37–40 (a flight of the mind text), 207 (a flight of the mind text), 321; 2.44–45 (a flight of the mind text), 244; 3.1–6 (a flight of the mind text); Praem. 36–48 (a flight of the mind text); Prob. 13; Legat. 5 (a flight of the mind text); QG 3.3. 25 For a detailed treatment see Anita Méasson, Du char ailé de Zeus à l’arche d’alliance: Images et mythes platoiciens chez Philon d’Alexandrie (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1986). See also Michael Cover, “The Sun and the Chariot: The Republic and the Phaedrus as Sources for Rival Platonic Paradigms of Psychic Vision in Philo’s Biblical Commentaries,” SPhiloA 26 (2014): 151–67, who argues that the Platonic myth contributes to some of the inconsistencies within Philo’s statements about the vision of God. 26 Philo, Spec. 1.37–40, 207; 2.44–45; 3.1–6; Praem. 36–48. For summaries see below. He also incorporated the flight of the mind in Legat. 5.

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wings” (πτηνὸς ἀρθείς), a reference to the wings of the horses and then to the wings of the soul in Plato’s myth.27 His real attention is to the third through the fifth stages. He described the third stage as follows: “After it has joined in the dances of the planets and stars in keeping with the laws of perfect music, it follows the love of wisdom as a guide. When the mind has peered over and seen the entirety of sense-perceptible substance, it next desires the intelligible.”28 From its lofty position in the ether, the mind “dances with the stars” and looks down on the entire sense-perceptible realm. It is drawn by its love of wisdom (ἔρως σοφίας) to ascend even higher, a love that is echoed by its desire for the intelligible. This appears to be Philo’s bow to Plato’s references to the striving of souls to ascend.29 The fourth stage is unmistakably Platonic, the intelligible world. Philo described it in these words: “When the mind in that realm has seen objects of exquisite beauty, the forms and the ideas of the sense-perceptible things that it saw below, it is possessed by sober intoxication and is inspired just like those with Corybantic frenzy.”30 Plato had offered a description of the intelligible world in his myth. The Athenian said that “those who are called immortal, when they reach the pinnacle, go outside and take their stand on surface of heaven, and when the orbit has situated them, it carries them around and they see the things outside of heaven.”31 Plato went on to describe this realm: “For the colorless, formless, and intangible, really existing substance concerning which the category of true knowledge is occupied, is visible only to the mind, the pilot of the soul.”32 The Athenian then described the impact of this perception on the soul privileged to experience it: “having seen reality (τὸ ὄν) for a period of time, it is pleased and by looking at reality is nourished and made happy, until the orbit brings it back to the same place.”33 Philo drew from Plato, but used different imagery: the mind “is possessed by sober intoxication and is inspired just like those with Corybantic frenzy.”34 The phrase “sober intoxication” (μέθη νηφαλίος) is an important expression in Philo to describe the 27 Phlio, Opif. 70. 28 Ibid., 70. 29 Plato, Phaedr. 248A, “the other souls follow, all striving for (γλιχόμεναι) the upper region.” Philo uses the same verb for the desire to see God in stage five. On the desire of souls to ascend see also Phaedr. 248B. 30 Philo, Opif. 71. 31 Plato, Phaedr. 247B-C. 32 Ibid., 247C. 33 Ibid., 247D. 34 Philo, Opif. 71.

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intellect when it has lost a sense of itself and entered a state of ecstatic inspiration,35 a state that he compares to those who dance themselves into a frenzy in the cult of Dionysus36 or Cybele.37 The surprising aspect of Philo’s description is – as we noted above – the absence of the Logos that Philo had earlier identified as the location of the intelligible world.38 The fifth stage is Philonic. Unlike many Platonists, Philo made a distinction between the intelligible world and the transcendent God. He used the same image that Plato had used for the highest level of the universe. The Athenian wrote: “when they (the gods) go to a banquet and a feast, they go up to the highest point under the heavenly vault … ”39 In Plato’s myth, this is the place the gods ascend before they go outside and see the intelligible world. Philo transferred the highest point of the universe to the highest point of the intelligible world: “Filled with another desire and higher longing by which it is propelled to the highest vault of the intelligible realm (ὑφ᾽ οὗ πρὸς τὴν ἄκραν ἁψῖδα παραπεμφθεὶς τῶν νοητῶν), it seems to be headed for the Great King himself.”40 We now wonder whether Philo will inform us that the mind can perceive God. He continued: “As the mind strives to see, pure and unmixed beams of dense light pour in like a winter torrent so that the eye of the intellect becomes dizzy by the flashes.”41 The mind knows that God is present, but is blinded by the flashes of light. This description fits Philo’s apophatic theology in which he insists that humans can know that God exists, but cannot know God’s essence.42 Yet it moves beyond a merely negative stance by affirming that the mind sees the light that is associated with God. The same tension exists in Philo’s description of Jacob’s experience at Bethel (Gen 28:10–17) in the final treatise of the Exposition.43 The text is another ascent

35 Philo used the expression 3x: Opif. 71; Mos. 1.187; Prob. 13. On the term see Hans Lewy, Sobrietas ebrietas: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der antiken Mystik, BZNW 9 (Giessen: Töpelmann, 1929). 36 Strabo 10.3.11. 37 Diodorus Siculus 5.49. 38 Philo, Opif. 20. See §§17–25, for the full discussion, esp. 20 and 25. 39 Plato, Phaedr. 247A-B. 40 Philo, Opif. 71. 41 Ibid., 71. 42 On Philo’s apophaticism see the recent treatments of Deirdre Carabine, The Unknown God: Negative Theology in the Platonic Tradition: Plato to Eriugena, Louvain Theological & Pastoral Monographs 19 (Louvain: Peeters; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 191–221; Peter Frick, Divine Providence in Philo of Alexandria, TSAJ 77 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 32–43; and Christian Noak, Gottesbewusstein: Exegetische Studien zur Soteriologie und Mystik bei Philo von Alexandria, WUNT 2.116 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), esp. 63–67. 43 See Philo, Praem. 36–48, esp. 37–46.

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or flight of the mind text that moves from the intelligible realm to God. Philo described the intelligible world in these words: “For suddenly an incorporeal beam of light purer than ether shone around him and revealed the intelligible world ruled by the charioteer.”44 He continued: “the charioteer, brightly encircled with a pure ray of light was hard to see and hard to surmise since his (Jacob’s) eyesight was limited by the flashes.”45 Still he tried. God recognized this and in an act of mercy, “gave strength to the penetration of his eyesight and did not begrudge him the vision of himself to the extent that it was possible for created and mortal nature to have it – a vision not of what he is but that he is.” The reason for the limitation is that “it is permitted only to God himself to be perceived by himself.”46 Philo concluded the entire discussion with the statement best known today through its adoption in the Nicene Creed: “Those who follow the truth imagine God by God, light by light.”47 I understand these two texts from the Exposition of the Law to affirm the same thing. While the negative aspect or limit is more pronounced in De praemiis and the positive is more accentuated in De opificio mundi, both note the tension between the possibility of seeing God but the limit of perceiving God as God is. The pattern evident in these two texts is also clear in the other four texts in the Exposition that present “the flight of the mind,” although they do not develop it as fully.48

Legum allegoriae 3.100–103 What did Philo do with the visio dei in the Allegorical Commentary, his magnum opus? Unlike the Exposition of the Law that covers the entire Pentateuch and uses summaries of the biblical text as a basis for the commentary, the Allegorical Commentary works through the text of Gen 2:1–18:2 sequentially – although

44 Ibid., 37. 45 Ibid., 38. 46 Ibid., 39. 47 Ibid., 46. 48 All four of these are in De specialibus legibus. De specialibus legibus 1.37–40, has three realms: earth, the upper air, and the vision of God. Philo transferred what he said about the blinding flashes in the fifth realm in Opif. 71 to the third realm or the upper air/ether in this text. He again denied that we can see what God is, but urged readers to continue the quest. In the next two texts, Spec. 1.207 and 2.44–45, there are only two realms: earth and the upper air. The final text, Spec. 3.1–6, is autobiographical and has the first three realms: earth, the lower air/atmosphere, and the upper air. We will return to this autobiographical text in our conclusions.

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there are gaps – by citing a biblical lemma and then explaining it. The explanations are almost exclusively focused on allegorical interpretations and routinely incorporate secondary and tertiary lemmata. This was probably the second major commentary that Philo wrote and was intended for use by students in his school.49 Philo offered the same “flight of the mind” analysis in at least one text within the Allegorical Commentary50; however, the locus classicus for the visio Dei in the Allegorical Commentary is in a secondary lemma that interprets the image of God from a different perspective. The passage occurs in the Legum allegoriae or Philo’s allegorical interpretation of Gen 2:1–3:23. More specifically it occurs in the midst of Philo’s interpretation of Gen 3:14–15.51 The commentator offered a list of examples of nine individuals whom God recognized at birth before they did anything good. The ninth example was Bezalel who was given wisdom and knowledge and summoned to be the chief builder of the Tabernacle before he is credited with any noteworthy accomplishment.52 Using an etymological onomasticon, Philo understood the name of Bezalel to mean “in the shadow of God” (ἐν σκιᾷ θεοῦ).53 The exegete then identified the shadow with the Logos, the Image of God according to (κατά) which humanity was created.54 In a slightly tortured line of reasoning that identified creation with the shadow, Philo argued that humans “comprehend God through the shadow, understanding the Creator through his works.”55 This set up the contrast between Bezalel who knew God from the shadow and “a mind more perfect and more purified that has been initiated into the great mysteries,” a mind “that knows the First Cause not from created things, as one 49 For the proposed use in his school see Sterling, “School of Moses,” 159–60. 50 Philo, Det. 87–90. This is a close parallel to Opif. 69–71. It takes its point d’appui from Gen 2:7 and argues that God breathed the divine image into man, i.e., the mind. It incorporates four of the five realms: the earth, the atmosphere, the heavens, and the vision of God; it does not have the intelligible world. The key statement is: “When it has reached the limits not only of the earth and sea but of the atmosphere and heaven, it did not stand there since it considered the cosmos to be a restrictive boundary of its continuous and ceaseless course, but desires to proceed further (προσωτέρω δὲ χωρῆσαι γλιχόμενος) to apprehend, if possible, the incomprehensible – apart from the fact that he is – nature of God (τὴν ἀκατάληπτον θεοῦ φύσιν, ὅτι μὴ πρὸς τὸ εἶναι μόνον, καταλαβεῖν, ἢν δύνηται).” 51 Philo, Leg. 3.65–106. 52 Ibid., 3.95–106. 53 On Philo’s use of a gnomologion see Lester L. Grabbe, Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation: The Hebrew Names in Philo, BJS 115 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 143–144 no. 35. 54 Philo, Leg. 3.96. 55 Ibid., 3.97–99.

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would grasp the enduring from the shadow, but having peered above the created receives a clear vision of the Uncreated so that it grasps both Him and his shadow from himself, that was both the Logos and the universe.”56 This mind is, of course, Moses. Philo introduced a tertiary lemma to make his point. He understood Exod 33:13, “show me yourself that I may see you with comprehension,” to mean: “Do not show me through heaven or earth or water or air or any other thing in creation.” Rather, he continued, “I would not see your being reflected in any other thing than in you God (μηδὲ κατοπτρισαίμην ἐν ἄλλῳ τινὶ τὴ σὴν ἰδέαν ἢ ἐν σοὶ τῷ θεῷ). For the visions in created things dissolve, but those in the Uncreated are enduring, secure, and eternal.”57 It is this that separated Moses from Bezalel: “the one received the vision of God from the First Cause himself, the other the Creator of what has come into existence, as if from a shadow, perceiving from a process of reasoning.”58 This conclusion led Philo to cite another tertiary lemma, Exod 35:40, “According to the forms that have been shown to you on the mount, make all these things.”59 This text served as Philo’s biblical warrant for the intelligible world.60 Moses saw the Ideas, while Bezalel received his instructions from Moses. In this case, it appears that Moses saw more than the Ideas, Moses saw God by means of God. Moses had a unique place, even distinct from that of Aaron and Miriam who were reminded of his uniqueness when they rebelled against him. In a third tertiary lemma, Philo reminds us that “’if a prophet arises for the Lord, God will be known to him in a vision’ and in a shadow, not clearly; but Moses, who is ‘faithful in all the house, he will speak mouth to mouth, in his form and not through enigmatic speeches’” (Num 12:6–8).61 What did Moses see? This passage suggests that Moses saw more than the created world, he saw the Uncreated. Were these the Ideas or did he perceive God? It appears to me that Philo has understood Exodus 33 and Num 12 to mean that Moses had more than a theophany of the Intelligible world on Sinai, Moses in some way saw God. Philo did not expand this nor should we have expected him to do so. It was Moses’s experience, not Philo’s. Philo’s apophatic theology could only be stretched to allow Moses the experience, not to explain it. This may help us understand the account of Moses’s death at the conclusion of De vita Moysis. Philo thought that Moses became pure mind. He wrote: “At a

56 Ibid., 3.100. 57 Ibid., 3.101. 58 Ibid., 3.102. 59 Ibid., 3.102. 60 See Gregory E. Sterling, “Ontology versus Eschatology: Tensions between Author and Community in Hebrews,” SPhiloA 13 (2001): 199–202. 61 Philo, Leg. 3.103.

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later time when he was about to set out on his pilgrimage from here to heaven by leaving this mortal life to become immortal, he was summoned by the Father who was completely transforming him from existing in two natures, body and soul, into the nature of one without elements (εἰς μονάδος ἀνεστοιχείου φύσιν), into mind as bright as sunlight …”62 The resolution of Moses into pure mind was his apotheosis, an apotheosis that he was granted as a result of his unique character and experience.63

Conclusions We are now ready to attempt some conclusions. How did Philo understand the visio Dei? It appears that he understood that it was a real experience, not simply a literary conceit or a psychological state. At least three factors suggest this. First, Philo offered the “flight of the mind” text in an anthropological context. He appears to have understood that every human had the potential to experience a heavenly ascent; otherwise, why would he provide the account in an anthropological connection.64 Second, he applied this flight to himself in the famous autobiographical text that appears to lament his involvement in the embassy to Gaius and the restrictions this imposed on his intellectual life.65 He described his former life when “I seemed always to be borne aloft into the heights by inspiration in my soul and danced with the sun, moon, the whole heaven, and universe.”66 Now he has been weighed down and dragged “into the great ocean of civil cares.”67 Yet occasionally he gets a break and “takes wings and rides the waves and all but walks in the air.”68 In these moments he took up his task and wrote his commentaries, presumably the Exposition of the Law.69 This description appears to reflect real experiences for Philo: they are his means of explaining how he wrote. Third, his explanation of Moses’s experience on Sinai suggests that he understood that Moses had an

62 Philo, Mos. 2.288. 63 The deification of Moses in Philo is a disputed topic. For a recent treatment with bibliography see David Litwa, “The Deification of Moses in Philo of Alexandria,” SPhiloA 26 (2014): 1–27. 64 So also Runia, Philo of Alexandria, 230. 65 Philo, Spec. 3.1–6. See also Migr. 34–35. 66 Ibid., 3.1. 67 Ibid., 3.3. 68 Ibid., 3.5. 69 Ibid., 3.6.

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experience of God. Philo routinely accepted the literal meaning of the text and there is no reason to think that he would not in this instance. This, however, leads us to ask what the relationship is between Moses’s experience and the experiences of other human beings. For Philo Moses was unique and his experiences were not those of every human. He was after all the lawgiver and had unique experiences at and on Sinai that others did not have. How then do we square Moses’s uniqueness with our initial observation that the “flight of the mind” was a possibility for all? For Philo, the “flight of the mind” was de jure possible for all; however, de facto it was a reality for Moses. Philo claims that he had “danced with the sun, moon, the whole heaven, and universe,” an option that he thought was open for others as well. This did not, however, mean that he had ascended “to the highest vault of the intelligible realm” as Moses had. For Philo, it was sufficient to have danced with the stars.

Paul B. Decock

Journeys towards Fullness of Life: A Comparison between Philo and the Apocalypse of John Different Approaches to the Study of Mystical Texts While it is common in the study of mystical texts to focus on the occasional spiritual experiences of the writers,1 the approach opted for in this paper is to explore the kind of transformation Philo and John aimed at in the lives of their audience.2 Transformation of the addressees is a central concern of apocalyptic writings (and the Apocalypse of John in particular) and of the exegetical works of Philo. Apocalyptic writings have as aim “to influence both the understanding and the behaviour of the audience by means of divine authority.”3 We intend to explore the kind of transformation the Apocalypse of John was aiming at. Philo, like many philosophers of his time, viewed his philosophical explorations of the Scriptures as a practical subject, which aimed at educating and transforming his readers.4 He considered moral transformation as the ultimate aim of philosophy.5 1 One could explore what was meant by ‘being in the Spirit’ (Rev 1:10; 4:2; 21:10). With regard to Philo, one could explore what kind of experience he was referring to in Migr. 35 or in Cher. 19. Such experiences have been explored in anthropological and cultural studies; see, for instance, Pieter F. Craffert, “Jesus and the Shamanic Complex: First Steps in Utilising a Social Type Model,” Neot 33 (1999): 321–42 and idem, “Heavenly Journeys as Neurocultural Experiences: Social-Scientific Interpretation as a Challenge for Traditional Scholarship,” Neot 48 (2014): 387– 403; see also James R. Davila, “Hekhalot Literature and Shamanism,” Society of Biblical Literature 1994 Seminar Papers, SBLSPS 33 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), 767–89. 2 Another approach would be to explore the reception of Philo or the Apocalypse in the later spiritual literature. One could study for instance the reception by Origen of Rev 3:20. 3 This was added to the Semeia 14 definition of the apocalyptic genre: “intended to interpret present, earthly circumstances in light of the supernatural world and of the future, and to influence both the understanding and the behaviour of the audience by means of divine authority” (Adela Yarbro Collins, “Introduction,” Semeia 36 [1986]: 7). 4 See Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life. Edited and with an Introduction by Arnold I. Davidson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995). 5 “At all events, men say, that the ancients compared the principles of philosophy, as being threefold, to a field; likening natural philosophy to trees and plants, and moral philosophy to Paul B. Decock, University of KwaZulu-Natal & St. Joseph’s Theological Institute, Cedara https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110597264-008

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This paper will argue that the transformation envisaged by both the Apocalypse and Philo is a deeper communion with God based on a moral or virtuous life and expressed in expressed in worship. Mystical awareness has its roots in this process of transformation and is one of its fruits.6 Philo and the Apocalypse do not aim primarily to describe this awareness but to stimulate the entire process.7

Eschatology and Mysticism in Philo and the Apocalypse of John The understanding of spirituality and mysticism depends on the views on fullness of life in a particular tradition. In the Jewish and Christian traditions life in fullness is at its core the fruit of active openness to God, the source of all life.8 As we will see, both Philo and the Apocalypse understand the fulfilment of human life in terms of becoming more completely attuned and willingly dependent on God.9 Spirituality and mysticism have, therefore, an eschatological dimension in

fruits, for the sake of which the plants are planted; and logical philosophy to the hedge or fence” (Agr. 14). Note: for all quotations from the works of Philo I have used the translation by Charles Duke Yonge as available on Bibleworks 9. I have compared it each time with the text and translation by F H. Colson in the Loeb Classical Library. At times I have inserted words or phrases of the Greek text into the English quotations where it could be helpful. 6 See the description of mysticism offered by Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, vol. 1 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (New York: Crossroad, 1991), xvii: “Thus we can say that the mystical element in Christianity is that part of its beliefs and practices that concerns the preparation for, the consciousness of, and the reaction to what can be described as the immediate or direct presence of God.” 7 According to Kees Waaijman, Spirituality: Forms, Foundations, Methods, Studies in Spirituality Supplements 8 (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 70, “When mystical writers speak about the mystical way, they do not do that in order to display their mystical knowledge or in order to rationalize their experiences, not even in order to express in words what is filling their hearts. The most important reason is: they want to help others by articulating and clarifying their developing mystical experience (mystagogics).” 8 Psalm 1 is one example. 9 John Meyendorff, “Preface,” in Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses, ed. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson (New York: Paulist, 1978), xi–xii: “To the Western mind, mysticism is associated with forms of subjective, individual and necessarily esoteric knowledge, which, by definition, cannot be communicated to all. In early Christian and Byzantine Greek meanwhile, the term ‘mystical’ is applied to forms of perception related to the Christian “mystery”; the text of the Eucharistic Prayer, for example, is frequently described as ‘mystical.’ Whereas saints possess this ‘mystical’ perception in an eminent way because they have attuned themselves to

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the sense that they guide people towards the goal or end established by God for human beings. Furthermore, spiritual and mystical texts aim at praxis; their focus is on the lived experience of the journey of life not on mere theory or on isolated esoteric experiences. Philo, like Hellenistic philosophy, expected that philosophy should touch the philosophers’ lives and that of their followers.10 Likewise, in the Apocalypse, the letters to the seven churches clearly show that the aim of the visions is practical, namely, to guide, to challenge and to encourage so that they may reach the expected goal. With regard to Philo, David Winston in 1979 raised the question whether Philo was a mystic.11 He concluded that “it becomes abundantly clear that Philo was at least a ‘mystical theorist’ (if not a ‘practising mystic’) in the very core of his being and that his philosophical writings cannot be adequately understood if this signal fact is in any way obscured.”12 Apocalyptic literature has been related to Jewish mysticism in various ways. It has been seen as the source for the later Hekhalot or Merkavah mysticism.13 From the other side of the historical perspective, Martin Hengel saw the birth of apocalyptic literature as related to the Jewish encounter with Hellenistic mysticism and the mystery religions.14 the gift of grace, all Christians are equally the recipients of the grace itself and are therefore called, by imitating the saints, to acquire and develop the ‘mystical knowledge.’” 10 Werner Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), 120: “For the Greeks in general the perfect philosopher is the man who not only possesses true knowledge but who makes practical application of it in his life.” Compare Philo, Congr. 53. 11 David Winston, “Was Philo a Mystic?” in The Ancestral Philosophy: Hellenistic Philosophy in Second Temple Judaism: Essays of David Winston, ed. Gregory E. Sterling. BJS 331; SPhilo Monographs 4 (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2001): 151–70. 12 Winston, “Was Philo a Mystic?,” 170. 13 The views of Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1974) are relevant as he considered the Hekhalot or Merkavah mysticism as the heir of the ‘suppressed’ Jewish apocalyptic literature (see Michael Mach, “From Apocalypticism to Early Jewish Mysticism?” in The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity, vol. 1 of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, ed. John J. Collins [New York: Continuum, 1999], 230). The main purpose of this early Jewish literature was defined by Scholem and his followers as the mystic’s passing through the (seven) heavenly palaces in order to gain a vision of God enthroned on his chariot. “Thus the apocalyptic ascent stories have been considered the direct soil that nurtured the later mystical ascents” (Mach, “From Apocalypticism to Early Jewish Mysticism?,” 231). 14 “The great significance of apocalyptic is that it formed a Jewish pendant, based on the historical thought of the Old Testament, to Hellenistic mysticism and the mystery religions” (Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974], 1.253). Hengel saw this as a reaction against the rationalism of Hellenism and the scepticism of Qohelet and the traditionalism of Sirach. It was a

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Philo: “Ascent” from Vice to Virtue, from the Sensible to Intelligible, from Self-Love to Love of God Philo’s eschatology, as his mysticism, is not focused on a cosmic salvation,15 but rather on the spiritual progress of the individual person in God’s universe. Philo reflected on the Scriptures from the perspective of his Jewish heritage, his philosophical education, and his personal stance. This complex ideo-theological position directs his approach to the biblical texts.16 Philo appears to be particularly concerned to explore and promote the understanding of the human journey towards the goal for which people have been created. One concise statement about this journey is inspired by Gen 12:1, which he interprets as a divine call to move beyond the body, beyond the senses, beyond language, and beyond the self,17 towards the real beauty of God, of which nature, speech and philosophies are only the signs, the shadows or the models.18 Philo’s basic conviction is that for a human being to be alive consists in loving submission to God. Physical existence without virtuous living is death. For instance, Philo wondered about the tautology in Exod 21:12: “the striker shall die the death.” In answer to this question he was advised by a wise woman, Consideration,

vindication of the irrational dimension of life and culture against the absolute claims of rationalism. On the search for revealed wisdom (Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 1.212). 15 As Schenck expresses it: “Philo’s thought was clearly more ‘vertical’ than ‘horizontal.’ That is to say, his writings are more preoccupied with the relationship between earth and heaven, humanity and God, body and soul, than with the direction of history or with some specific destiny for Israel. His primary teachings relate to issues such as attaining a vision of God, gaining wisdom and virtue, and eliminating one’s passions” (Kenneth Schenck, A Brief Guide to Philo [Westminster: John Knox, 2005], 38). 16 A crucial issue in Philo’s ideo-theological position is ‘Philo’s enigmatic strategy in combining the Greek philosophical tradition with the Jewish scriptural tradition’ (Isidoros Katsos, “Why Study Philo Today?: A Hundred Years of Philonic Scholarship in Retrospect and Prospect,” Reviews in Religion & Theology (2017), http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ journal/10/1111). Winston holds “that Philo’s primary education was Hellenic, as a result of which he was transformed into an ardent Platonist, but that at some stage in his career he decided to make a grand effort to obtain as detailed a knowledge of his Jewish heritage as he could manage, and that subsequently he resolved to concentrate all his energies on the task of harmonizing his ancestral faith with his philosophical world view” (David Winston, “Philo and the Contemplative Life,” in Jewish Spirituality from the Bible through the Middle Ages, ed. Arthur Green, World Spirituality 13 [New York: Crossroad, 1988], 199). It is significant that Philo chose the literary genre of scriptural commentary instead of philosophical dialogue or systematic exposition. 17 Philo, Migr. 1–13; Leg. 3.41. 18 Philo, Migr. 12.

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that some persons who are living are dead, and that some who are dead still live: she pronounced that the wicked, even if they arrive at the latest period of old age, are only dead, inasmuch as they are deprived of life according to virtue; but that the good, even if they are separated from all union with the body, live for ever, inasmuch as they have received an immortal portion.19

For Philo, being alive means above all developing the virtue of piety, of the right relationship with God, of “cleaving to Lord,”20 which includes the practice of all the other virtues.21 Virtue and love of God are combined in the next paragraph of the text quoted above recalling Moses’ exhortation about the two ways: “And in another passage we read, ‘This is thy life, and thy length of days, to love the Lord thy God’ [Deut 30: 20]. This is the most admirable definition of immortal life, to be occupied by a love and affection for God unembarrassed by any connection with the flesh or with the body.”22 The ‘ascent’ Philo has in mind is that of transcending the flesh and abandoning vice in order to grow in virtue and so be similar and near to God. In order to understand a core issue of Philo’s approach to the spiritual and mystical journey, one needs to appreciate Philo’s basic conviction that all that is positive in a person’s life is to be attributed to God and not claimed as his or her own achievement. Because humans are much inclined towards pride and self-sufficiency, and even believe that they are the measure of all things,23 Philo stresses the absolute dependence of the human person on God. He uses an image from agriculture to illustrate how the whole of human progress, beginning and end, is God’s work, with an important but very limited contribution by the farmer: The beginning of a plant is the seed, and the end is the fruit, each of them being the work, not of husbandry, but of nature. Again, of knowledge the beginning is nature, as has been shown, but the end can never reach mankind, for no man is perfect in any branch of study whatever; but it is a plain truth, that all excellence and perfection belong to one Being alone; we therefore are borne on, for the future, on the confines of beginning and end,

19 Philo, Fug. 55. 20 Philo recalls here in Fug. 56 Deut 4:4: “You who cleave unto the Lord your God are all alive to this day.” 21 See Fug. 56. In Spec. 4.135, the four principal virtues are not those of the philosophical tradition, but εὐσεβείας καὶ ὁσιότητος, ἔτι δὲ καὶ φρονήσεως καὶ σωφροσύνης; the traditional set of four was φρόνησις, σωφροσύνη, ἀνδρεία, δικαιοσύνη (Leg. 1.63) (see Carlos Lévy, “Philo’s Ethics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Philo, ed. Adam Kamesar [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009], 151–52). 22 Philo, Fug. 58. 23 For Philo, Cain is the ancient representative of this teaching of Protagoras: Post. 35–42.

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learning, teaching, tilling the ground, . . . that the creature also may seem to be doing something.24

This emphasis on the absolute dependence of the human person on God’s saving action shapes his understanding of human freedom and his reading of Moses’ challenge to choose in Deut 30:15 and 19. The mystical journey requires first of all that people learn to understand and accept their own nothingness before God and their total dependence on God as created beings.25 The human creature is not free in an absolute sense, but as a created being is predetermined by the Creator to find true fulfilment only in a right relationship to God. Furthermore, it is God who establishes this right relationship in the creature, but in order for this relationship to be genuinely human the human person has to understand, consent and be actively receptive.26 Philo rejects the kind of impersonal or fatalistic determinism that he connects with astrology and with the land of the Chaldaeans. Therefore, Abraham’s first move in his spiritual journey was to leave the land of the Chaldaeans, viz., to abandon the view that human beings are under the rule of fate and necessity by the stars.27 According to Philo, we are under the rule of a free, beneficent and punishing Creator,28 who has bestowed some share of that freedom on human beings: “But man, who has had bestowed on him a voluntary and self-impelling intellect, and who for the most part puts forth his energies in accordance with deliberate purpose, very properly receives blame for the offenses which he designedly commits,

24 Philo, Her. 121. 25 David Winston quotes from a fragment of Philo’s lost fourth book of his Legum Allegoriae, commenting on the famous text of Deut 30:15 and 19: “It is a happy thing for the soul to choose the better of two choices put forward by the Creator, but it is happier not for the soul to choose but for the Creator to bring it over to himself and improve it. . . . But when he affirms the first and better principle, namely, that God acts not as man, he ascribes the powers and causes of all things to God, leaving no work for a created being but showing it to be inactive and passive” (David Winston, “Freedom and Determinism in Philo of Alexandria,” in The Ancestral Philosophy: Hellenistic Philosophy in Second Temple Judaism: Essays of David Winston, ed. Gregory E. Sterling. BJS 331 – SPhilo Monographs 4 [Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2001], 145). See also Cher. 77–83. 26 Philo does not understand this right relationship merely in terms of forgiveness of sins but also positively as the development in the human person of humility, piety, devotion, gratitude and love (see Her. 123). The study by Laporte on the importance of gratitude towards God highlights a crucial dimension of the ideal relationship to God (Jean Laporte, La Doctrine Eucharistique chez Philon d’Alexandrie, Théologie Historique 16 [Paris: Beauchesne, 1972]). 27 Philo, Migr. 177–182: “. . . that it is the periodical revolutions of the sun, the moon, and others stars, which distribute good and evil to all existing beings” (Migr. 179). 28 See Philo, Spec. 1.307.

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and praise for the good actions which he intentionally performs.”29 The goal of the mystical journey is to let this human freedom grow in the direction of an ever more willing participation in the divine mind and in the divine virtues. Winston interprets this in a deterministic way: as an “all-penetrating divine Logos that reaches into each person’s mind, thus converting it into an extension of the divine mind, albeit a very fragmentary one.”30 However, this divine penetration and this consenting receptivity and participation on the part of the mind are the core of the mystical life.31 Spiritual progress is therefore not an ascent in the sense of an ego-trip, but more fundamentally a process of human receptivity to a divine descent which sparks off in the soul the desire for an ascent in the sense of a release from vice, from being limited by the sensible reality, and from being enslaved by the self. Philo is very careful to point to God as the main actor in this whole process and to the soul as the assistant, and not the other way around.32 While human beings are incapable of seeing God by their own powers, it was by God’s concern for human happiness that the “divine nature stamped her own impression in an invisible manner on the invisible soul, in order that even the earth might not be destitute of the image of God.”33 Furthermore, God stirs the souls towards piety, holiness and willing worship by means of divine ἔρως or πόθος or προθυμία and so propels them beyond their limits.34 While the “penetration of the divine Logos” in each individual soul can be seen as “predetermined by God’s infinite wisdom,”35 we also have to appreciate

29 Philo, Deus 47. The text continues and points out that the power of voluntary motion is one of the gifts which make the soul God-like: “But the soul of man, being the only one which has received from God the power of voluntary motion, and which in this respect has been made to resemble God, and being as far as possible emancipated from the authority of that grievous and severe mistress, necessity, may rightly be visited with reproach if she does not pay due honor to the being who has emancipated her” (Deus 1.48). The rational souls are therefore different, for instance, from plants. 30 “It would thus appear that the general tone of Philo’s ethical thought is evidently deterministic, inasmuch as it seems to be tied to the notion of an all-penetrating divine Logos that reaches into each person’s mind, thus converting it into an extension of the divine mind, albeit a very fragmentary one” (Winston, “Freedom and Determinism,” 149). 31 Compare Paul’s statement, in 1 Cor 2:16 and 12 about “having the mind of Christ” and in Gal 2:20, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” 32 See Cher. 125–130. 33 Philo, Det. 86. 34 See Her. 123; also Opif. 70–71: ἑπόμενος ἔρωτι σοφίας; ὥσπερ οἱ κορυβαντιῶντες ἐνθουσιᾷ, ἑτέρου γεμισθεὶς ἱμέρου καὶ πόθου βελτίονος; γλιχομένου δ᾽ ἰδεῖν. 35 Winston, “Freedom and Determinism,” 147. Indeed, the soul depends totally on God’s graciousness, see Migr. 34–35.

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the complexity of Philo’s attention to human receptivity.36 While it is God who plants and works all this out in human beings,37 the ascent to God, which involves an intellectual and moral transformation of the soul, obviously does not happen unknowingly and unwillingly.38 The soul has to learn to become receptive to this divine penetration and therefore God takes time with people, and transformation therefore becomes a process of learning to assent. Philo does not imagine that persons upon reaching the age of reason will immediately live reasonable lives; he realistically accepts that at first they will tend to go astray.39 He draws on the image of conception and birth to express this receptivity while he points to self-love as one the great obstacles.40 Leaving the self, in the sense of surrendering self-love, is a fundamental task of the ascent so that the soul may become focused on God in thanksgiving and obedience.41 For the soul to be capable of responding to God’s stirring there must be some likeness between the soul and God. In other words, according to the principle

36 Compare Cher. 79: “But man cooperates with the barber, and puts himself in the proper attitude, and makes himself convenient, mingling the characters of the subject and the agent [ἀνακιρνὰς τῷ πάσχειν τὸ ποιεῖν].” See also Cher. 82 (cooperation by endurance); Plant. 23 (response by ardent desire); Gig. 13–14 (by means of firm dedication to philosophical meditation); Her. 253; Leg. 3:18 (the spiritual exercises stimulating moral and intellectual progress). See Scott D. Mackie, “Seeing God in Philo of Alexandria: Means, Methods, and Mysticism,” JSJ 43 (2012): 153–58, 178. 37 See Philo, Cher. 71; Leg. 1.52. 38 This issue is also discussed by Clement of Alexandria in Quis dives salvetur 21: “to save the unwilling is characteristic of a violent person, but the willing is characteristic of a gracious one.” Clement was a faithful reader of Philo although the exact extent of the influence is still under discussion (David T. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey [Assen: Van Gorcum, 1993], 132–56). 39 See for instance: “Therefore, ten years after our departure to settle in the land of the Canaanites let us marry Hagar, since from the first moment that we become rational beings, we seek for ignorance and a deficiency of knowledge which is pernicious in its own nature; but at a subsequent period, and at a perfect number, namely, the legal number of the decade, we come to feel a desire for that instruction which is able to benefit us” (Congr. 88). 40 See Philo, Migr. 33–35; Congr. 130: “but those who look upon themselves as now conceiving, admit that they have of themselves nothing which they can call peculiarly their own, but they receive the seed and the prospects of posterity which are showered upon them from without, and they admire him who bestows it, and repel the greatest of evils, namely self-love [φιλαυτίαν], by that perfect good, piety towards the gods [θεοσεβείᾳ].” 41 “If therefore we discard forgetfulness and ingratitude, and self-love, and the present wickedness of all these things, namely, self-opinion, we shall not longer through our delay miss attaining the genuine worship of God, but outrunning and bounding on beyond all created beings, before we embrace any mortal thing we shall meet our master himself, having prepared ourselves to do the things which he commands us.” (Sacr. 1.58). See also Somn. 1.60; Sacr. 55.

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‘like knows like’ a certain likeness to God has to have developed in the soul for it to be capable of appreciating the things of God.42 The basic likeness is that of the mind, which by God’s mercy has been stamped with the image of God. The more the mind progresses in likeness to God through knowledge and virtue the more it becomes susceptible to God’s impulse43: And this is the order of things according to nature, when the mind, being entirely occupied with divine love (ὅταν μὲν ἐξ ἔρωτος θείου κατασχεθεὶς ὁ νοῦς), bends its course towards the temple of God, and approaches it with all possible earnestness and zeal, it becomes inspired,44 and forgets all other things, and forgets itself also. It remembers him alone, and depends on him alone, who is attended by it as by a body-guard, and who receives its ministrations, to whom it consecrates and offers up the sacred and untainted virtues.45

As virtue develops so does the soul’s likeness to God and its capability for connatural knowledge.46 For Philo genuine knowledge is a knowledge that fosters virtue: “For, as among physicians that which is called theoretical medical skill, is a long way from doing any good to those that are sick – for diseases are cured by medicines, and by operations, and by regimen, and not by discussions or theories; so also in philosophy . . . ”47 Intellectual conversion is stimulated when persons follow the path of the Greek paideia: the encyclical branches, philosophy, and finally the practice of wisdom.48 This wisdom is most perfectly

42 On “knowledge of like by like” see Philo, Gig. 9; Det. 164. Philo expresses this also, for instance, in the following text: ‘But God replied, “I receive, indeed, your eagerness, inasmuch as it is praiseworthy; but the request which you make is not fitting to be granted to any created being. And I only bestow such gifts as are appropriate to him who receives them; for it is not possible for a man to receive all that it is easy for me to give. On which account I give to him who is deserving of my favor [τῷ χάριτος ἀξίῳ] all the gifts which he is able to receive.” (Spec. 1.43). 43 For texts on imitating God, see Fug. 63; Decal. 99–101; QG 4.188. 44 A better translation for θεοφορούμενος is found in LCL: “under the divine impelling force it forgets . . .” 45 Philo, Somn. 2.232. 46 On knowledge by likeness, or connatural knowledge, in the tradition of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, see Taki Suto, “Virtue and Knowledge: Connatural Knowledge according to Thomas Aquinas,” The Review of Metaphysics (2004): 61–79. 47 Philo, Congr. 53. 48 See Ibid., 79. According to Philo, Congr., Abraham was barren and could only generate the promised offspring after he had intercourse with Hagar, that is, after he had interacted with the “encyclical arts.” A person needs to become capable or worthy to receive the divine gifts: “And I only bestow such gifts as are appropriate to him who receives them; for it is not possible for a man to receive all that it is easy for me to give. On which account I give to him who is deserving of my favor all the gifts which he is able to receive’ (Spec. 1.43). Isaac is the model of the person who is beyond the stage instruction (Abraham) and beyond the stage of exercise (Jacob); he receives from God “that most requisite benefit of knowledge” (Congr. 36). Human reason is only firm and

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expressed in the lives of the Patriarchs as recorded in the Law of Moses (Abr. 4–5).49 The biblical story of Abraham allows Philo to elaborate on the process of intellectual conversion. First of all, Abraham moved away from the land of the Chaldeans to Haran.50 Instead of investigating the stars and believing that these determine the fate of humans, people should be satisfied with searching to know themselves and understand from this that just as their mind holds authority in their own make up so also the universe is ruled by God. Furthermore, coming to Haran is progress; it is the place of sensation, and the senses are necessary to observe the sensible reality in which people live.51 However, Haran also needs to be left behind because the senses must be transcended in order to move from the visible to the invisible, from the created reality to the Creator, from human language and philosophies about God towards the very reality of God.52 This ‘transcendence’ takes place by means of dreams, meditation and contemplation.53 With regard to the moral transformation, Philo sees it as a journey by which people learn to move away from Egypt, which represents human life at the level of the child, subject to the passions, towards Canaan, which represents the human wickedness of the young adult, who is able to distinguish between good and evil but nevertheless chooses evil.54 At this stage people find themselves faced with the option between the two ways. However, reaching a point where one is able to make a choice for the good requires time and education. Abraham married Hagar after ten years, which means that one needs some maturity before one is ready to desire and appreciate the educational process.55 Ultimately moral transformation aims at likeness to God: to be righteous and holy

secure when it recognizes its dependence on God and participates in God’s knowledge; compare Praem. 30. 49 See Adam Kamesar, “Biblical Interpretation in Philo,” in The Cambridge Companion to Philo, ed. Adam Kamesar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 85–91, on the biblical figures as examples or even exemplars of virtue. On Philo’s understanding of the embodiment of the law of nature in the lives of the biblical sages, see Hindy Najman, “A Written Copy of the Law of Nature: An Unthinkable Paradox?” The Studia Philonica Annual 15 (2003): 54–63. 50 Philo, Migr. 177–186. 51 Compare Philo, Spec. 3.185–194. 52 See the reference above to Philo’s interpretation of Gen 12:1, as a divine challenge to move beyond the body, beyond the senses, beyond language, and beyond the self (see Migr. 1–13; Leg. 3.41), towards the real beauty of God, of which speech and philosophies are only the signs, the shadows or the models (Migr. 12). 53 Philo, Migr. 190–197. See Jacques Cazeaux, De Migratione Abrahami: Introduction, Traduction et Notes, Les Oeuvres de Philon d’Alexandrie 14 (Paris: Cerf, 1965), 217, n. 3. 54 See Philo, Congr. 84. 55 See Ibid., 86–88.

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with prudence. The highest virtue is εὐσέβεια and this includes all knowledge and virtue. Ascent to God is a process of moral and intellectual transformation that reaches its full aim in a relationship with God characterized by love and thanksgiving. In conclusion, the statement by Schenck that ‘the ascent of which Philo spoke was primarily a rational one’ will need some qualification if by rational we understand discursive.56 It may be better to call it intellectual; the quality of the soul’s mind and its intelligence depends on its participation in God’s understanding and not on autonomous human reasoning. For Philo knowledge and virtue go hand in hand, which means that the ascent is neither purely theoretical nor purely rational. Philo is concerned about φρόνησις, prudence, which he calls the sight of the soul.57 Furthermore, Philo’s initial ‘rational’ discourse eventually leads him to the point where the senses and articulated knowledge (including philosophical doctrines) are transcended in order to move towards a knowledge of the divine beauty beyond words. God lights the fire of this knowledge in the soul, and the soul will get on fire to the extent that she has become God-like in a process of moral and intellectual transformation. For Philo the mystical journey is first of all an emptying of self-love [φιλαυτία] to let God’s action and qualities ‘descend’ and lift up the soul with the divine gifts of φρόνησις, thankfulness, justice, holiness and love [θεοσεβεία].58 In other words, the human mind shares more and more in the divine mind and sees “God from God, light from light.”59 Philo does not see this as identification with the mind of God but rather as dedication to God, even as a libation.60

56 Schenck, Brief Guide to Philo, 6. 57 See Philo, Abr. 1:57; also Fug. 63, where φρόνησις is part of being similar to God. On Aristotle’s understanding of φρόνησις see Waaijman, Spirituality, 523–34. This corresponds to what later will be called knowledge ‘per connaturalitatem’ by Thomas Aquinas, who draws his inspiration from Aristotle (see Suto, “Virtue and Knowledge,” 61–79. Suto quotes and discusses a passage from the Summa Theologica, II-II,q.45,a.2: ‘Accordingly it belongs to the wisdom that is an intellectual virtue to form a right judgment about divine things through the inquiry by reason, but it belongs to wisdom as a gift of the Holy Spirit to form a right judgment about them on account of a kind of connaturality with them . . . Now this sympathy or connaturality for divine things is the result of charity, which unites us to God’ (Suto, “Virtue and Knowledge,” 75–76). 58 See Philo, Fug. 63. 59 See Philo, Praem. 46. “Though surely the intellect is receiving and processing this revelatory visual information, Philo’s cryptic “light by light” formulation perhaps signals his own conviction of the experience’s ultimate ineffability, as well as its possible transcendence of the limitations of human cognitive activity” (Mackie, “Seeing God,” 173). 60 See Philo, Ebr. 151–152. The mind is set free from “all the empty anxieties of mortal life” to worship God.

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The Apocalypse of John: Openness to God’s Works and Faithful Endurance John draws on symbolic discourse to move his addressees.61 In spite of the differences in literary genres it will be helpful to reflect on the spiritual journey as called for by the Apocalypse in the light of our insights from Philo. This comparison will in the process shed some additional light on aspects of Philo’s thought.

Revelatory Experiences of Prophetic Figures as Guides to Fullness of Life Both Philo and John are prophetic figures whose spiritual experiences and resulting knowledge are meant to guide the communities towards fuller communion with God.62 The reports of John’s visions are obviously the fruit of a charismatic actualization of the Scriptures so that his “being in the spirit” cannot be separated from study and contemplation of the Scriptures, whether he had the scrolls before him or they were present in his memory.63 Philo’s allegorical reading of the Scriptures is a spiritual experience which enables him to draw from the texts guidance for the spiritual way of his readers.64 For instance, the exegetical

61 See Ugo Vanni, “Linguaggio, simboli ed esperienza mistica nel libro dell’ Apocalisse,” Gregorianum 79 (1998): 5–28, 461–506; Paul B. Decock, “The Transformative Potential of the Apocalypse of John,” Acta Theologica Supplement 15 (2011): 183–99. 62 The Apocalypse can be seen as a representative of Early Christian prophecy (see David E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983], 205–8); we are reminded in 1 Cor 14 that one of the central aims of prophecy was to build up the community and not merely to provide information. In reading the Apocalypse it will be important, therefore, to pay special attention to the pragmatic dimension of the text (Waaijman, Spirituality, 751–52). Clearly, one of the major concerns of the Apocalypse was to instill in the addressees an enthusiastic understanding of God’s promises, and therefore a radical commitment to God’s rule expressed in a moral life and in faithful worship (Rev 14:7). Philo can also be seen as a prophetic figure, but as a representative of Hellenistic sapiential prophecy (Aune, Prophecy, 147–52). 63 For an overview of John’s relationship to the Scriptures, see Paul B. Decock, “The Scriptures in the Book of Revelation,” Neot 33 (1999): 373–410. On Philo’s awareness of his dependence on God’s enlightenment in the study of the Scriptures, see Migr. 33–35. 64 “Moses’ writings reflect his noetic experience, and those who read them may in turn experience the same heavenly, noetic vision” (Mackie, “Seeing God,” 166).

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experience described in Cher. 27–29 results in an insight that the two cherubim of Gen 3 can be understood as the two powers of God, goodness and authority. He then finds an educational application in this insight: it should lead the addressees to an attitude of both love and awe before God so that in times of prosperity they may not fall into arrogance but will recall the great authority of God, while in times of misfortune they may not fall into hopelessness but will be able to rely on God’s great goodness. Similarly, John’s visions in Rev 4–22 unveil for the addressees God’s commitment to creation, equally revealing God’s great goodness and authority. Each of the letters in Rev 2–3 in typically prophetic style encourages and challenges the communities and ends with a promise that those who conquer will share in the blessings displayed in the visions.65 Rev 21:7 summarizes all these promises again by stating that: Ὁ νικῶν κληρονομήσει ταῦτα, καὶ ἔσομαι αὐτῷ θεός, καὶ αὐτὸς ἔσται μοι υἱός. John is not simply wishing that his addressees will have the same experience as he had, i.e., to be in the spirit66; besides wishing that they will appropriate the perspective on life expressed in these visions, he wishes that they will walk the path that he indicates so they will have a share in the New Jerusalem. The same applies to the insights gained by Philo in the experience mentioned above. He is sharing his spiritual experiences as divine guidance on the way to final communion with God. However, in order to be such instruments of divine revelation the prophetic figures should have themselves already progressed on the way. Philo could call Moses “the greatest and most perfect man that ever lived.”67 In Rev 1:9 John, on the other hand, humbly situates himself among his addressees as their brother and companion on the way: in the trials, the kingdom and the perseverance.

The Journey Towards Fullness of Life: Cosmic, Socio-political and Personal Philo is very sparing in his description of the final state of blessedness; his focus is on the earthly journey towards that blessedness. He thinks exclusively in terms of individual eschatology and holds that the fulfilment comes only after death, when the soul is released from the body.68 John’s vision of the final state is much

65 For a recent study on the promises, see Matthijs den Dulk, “The promises of the conquerors in the book of Revelation,” Biblica 87 (2006): 516–22. 66 Rev 1:10; 4:2; 19:3; 21:10. 67 Philo, Mos. 1.1; Wis 7:27 associates prophets with holiness and with being friends of God. 68 See Philo, Mut. 36. That those who have not advanced sufficiently in this present life will be given another opportunity in a re-incarnation is a view which has been argued recently by Sami

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more expansive with his vision of God’s cosmic victory that brings the whole of creation, together with human beings, to its true fulfilment in the New Jerusalem as part of a New Heaven and the New Earth. John does not share Philo’s views on the body but he expects a resurrection as victory over death.69 Philo thinks in terms of a static universe within which the individual person is called to discover God as the highest treasure by rising from the sensible world, the realm of evil,70 to the intelligible world in order to become attuned to God. John also sees creation as threatened by evil but he sees the fullness of life of the individual as inextricably related to the transformation of the socio-political and cosmic realm.71 The martyrs in heaven (6:9–11) cannot be satisfied until matters on earth are set right, until Babylon, the symbol of the destructive influence in creation, is judged.72 For both Philo and John, however, the core of this final state is the relationship of the individual person with God.73

God is Acting; the Challenge of the Communities is to Be Patiently Receptive In response to Babylon’s destructive power at work in the world (19:2; 11:18), also symbolized in the Dragon (12:3–18), John unveils God’s plan to establish the reign of God on earth, the new creation in the sense of the final victory over these forces of chaos.

Yli-Karjanmaa, Reincarnation in Philo of Alexandria, Studia Philonica Monographs 7 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015). 69 Death, particularly the second death, is the enemy to be overcome: 1:8; 6:8; 20:6, 14; 21:4, 8. 70 See Philo, Fug. 63. 71 For the Apocalypse fullness of life requires therefore also the gift of a ‘city’ resplendent with the presence of God and of the Lamb, in which the followers of the Lamb can thrive (21:27; 22:14–15). Furthermore, a new heaven and a new earth, creation freed from all evil, is the necessary cosmic space for this mystical fulfilment. 72 Note the use of the two verbs from the prayer of the martyrs in the heavenly prayer after the destruction of Babylon: ὅτι ἔκρινεν . . . καὶ ἐξεδίκησεν (19:2). On the function of 6:9–11 in the structure of the Apocalypse, see Jean-Bosco Matand Bulembat, “Cri et attente des martyrs: place et sens d’Ap 6,9–11 dans l’Apocalypse de Jean,” in ‘New Heaven and New Earth’ (Rev 21:1): Relevance of the Book of Revelation for the Church in Africa, ed. Jean-Bosco Matand Bulembat (Kinshasa: Panafrican Association of Catholic Exegetes, 2004), 67–83. 73 See Rev 3:20; 21:7; see also the emphasis on judgment according to their deeds: 14:13; 20:12–13; 22:12.

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It is all God’s work.74 There is a correspondence here with one of Philo’s fundamental positions, that all action belongs to God and that the creature is passive, and called to be willingly receptive. John presents the active and dominant role of God by means of the various descending movements in the book, the descent of the New Jerusalem being the most striking one. Another descent from heaven is that of God’s royal rule: it descends from the throne of God through the Lamb to the faithful: they already share (1:9) and will share (5:10; 22:5) in that royal rule. Still another descent can be seen in the marvellous works of God (15:3) that are operative in the works of Jesus (2:26) and are meant to descend into the communities and become the works of the faithful.75 Everything comes from above, together with the New Heaven and the New Earth, as the work of the Creator, ὁ παντοκράτωρ.76 The image of Jesus standing at the door knocking (3:20) beautifully expresses the situation of the communities: God is acting; the challenge of the members of the communities is to be receptive.77 An important challenge for the spiritual journey on which Philo and John agree, and which is related to the theme of receptivity, is that of ὑπομονή. It appears seven times in the Apocalypse.78 In Philo it expresses the basic attitude of humble but trusting submission to God, the response of the intelligent creature who recognizes his or her nothingness before God and accepts with patient but hopeful endurance whatever calamity comes his or her way (Cher. 78–82). In the Apocalypse that same hopeful endurance expresses itself in faithfulness even unto death.79 Such endurance makes sense because all is God’s work and the human task is one of utter surrender. This way of understanding the human situation is often expressed in the New Testament by

74 ἰδοὺ καινὰ ποιῶ πάντα (21:5); the same verb is used for God’s original creative work (14:7) and God’s saving work (1:6; 3:9, 12; 5:10). 75 In 1:1–2 we also see a descending chain of revelation: from God, through Christ, through an angel to John. 76 This title is used for God throughout the whole Apocalypse: 1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7, 14; 19:6, 15; 21:22. 77 The invitation is not for the eschatological banquet but for an encounter in the present (possibly referring to the eucharist) in order to empower each and every one of the addressees to conquer with Jesus so that they may be granted to reign with him (3:21). See David E. Aune, Revelation 1–5, WBC 52A (Dallas: Word Books, 1997), 250–54: “the initiative completely in the hands of the risen Jesus replacing the worshiper to the role of respondent” (254); compare with Luke 22: 28–30. 78 Rev 1:9; 2:2, 3, 19; 3:10; 13:10; 14:12. 79 In Rev 1:9 it occurs together with trials and kingly rule: ἐν τῇ θλίψει καὶ βασιλείᾳ καὶ ὑπομονῇ ἐν Ἰησοῦ. Acts 14:22 offers an interesting parallel: παρακαλοῦντες ἐμμένειν τῇ πίστει καὶ ὅτι διὰ πολλῶν θλίψεων δεῖ ἡμᾶς εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ.

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means of the image of agriculture, as also in Philo, where the farmers have to wait for nature to run its course. They plough and water, but it is God who gives the increase.80

The Divine Struggle against Evil While for Philo the battle is most clearly against the chaos within the person: the body, vice, love of self instead of love for God, John’s situates the struggle in the broader social and even cosmic context. For John, the struggle is to side with the right camp in the cosmic and socio-political battle.81 Two camps are presented as radically opposed to each other: on the one side, the Dragon with its Beast and the False Prophet, and on the opposite side, God with the Lamb and the prophetic churches; Babylon and Jerusalem. Instead of participating in the worship of the Beast (Rev 13), the addressees are called upon to attune themselves to God’s wondrous and righteous works (15:3–4) and to worship God.82 Worship is one of the foundations of the spiritual journey; it corresponds to the theme of thanksgiving in Philo.83 By fearing God and giving glory to God (14:7) the faithful share in God’s rule and in the works Jesus.84 Doing the works of Jesus includes being faithful even unto death, like the Lamb who has already conquered (5:5)85 so that they may also share in that

80 See Mark 4:26–29; 1 Cor 3:5–9; James 5:7–8. 81 John presents this challenge in the tradition of the two ways (Deut 30:15–20; Ps 1; Did. 1–6; Barn. 18–21): the addressees are put before the choice to accept the divine gift of the New Jerusalem and of the New Creation or to perish with Babylon. In the Letters to the seven churches (Rev 2–3) the risen Jesus also puts the readers before the option either to persevere in doing the works of Jesus (2:26) or to remain stuck in the works of death (3:1). 82 In 1:6; 5:10; and 20:6 the gift of the priesthood to the faithful is each time associated with royal rule. By worshiping God as King they are granted a share in God’s reign. Reigning with God obviously means conquering the Dragon and his camp (12:11); the worship and the conquest are a moral and spiritual undertaking (14:5: ἄμωμοί εἰσιν together with 14:7: φοβήθητε τὸν θεὸν). 83 See Laporte, Doctrine eucharistique. 84 The faithful do not merely imitate the works of Jesus, but rather to participate in the works of Jesus. See Klaus Scholtissek, “Mitteilhaber an der Bedrängnis, der Königsherrschaft und der Ausdauer in Jesus (Offb 1,9),” in Theologie als Vision: Studien zur Johannesoffenbarung, ed. Knut Backhaus, Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 191 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2001), 172–207; see also Paul B. Decock, “The Works of God, of Christ, and of the Faithful in the Apocalypse of John.” Neot 41(2007): 53. 85 Each one of the seven letters to the churches makes a promise to those who conquer: 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21.

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victory (12:11).86 More precisely, doing the works of Jesus involves a moral commitment that reflects the holiness of God. While Philo articulates this moral commitment to God in terms of the Hellenistic vocabulary of ‘virtue’ and ‘vice,’ the Apocalypse preserves the biblical terminology: keeping the commandments (12:17; 14:12); unrighteous and righteous, filthy and holy (22:10); faithfulness (17:14; 2:13) as opposed to whoredom (2:14, 21).87 As in Philo, the way to true life is a life of hopeful waiting on the Creator, of endurance in trials, of worship of God. True life transcends physical death,88 as it is graphically illustrated in the image of the “Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered” (5:6) and the story of the martyrdom and vindication of the two witnesses (11:3–14). Readiness for martyrdom becomes for John an essential requirement of the spiritual journey.89

Worship and Anticipation of Fulfilment The scenes of divine worship and the exhortations to worship God are very prominent in the Apocalypse. Together with the whole of the visions they aim to shape the way of seeing God and of looking at reality: God as the truly living one (4:9–10), as the Creator of all (14:7), as the Judge (15:4) and Lord of all (seven

86 The sacrifice of the Lamb, the blood of the Lamb has overcome sin: 1:5; 5:9; 7:14. The Lamb has fulfilled the call of every human being to worship God, even by accepting a violent death as a special form of worship. Therefore, the souls of those who have been martyred are under the heavenly altar as a sign of the sacrificial value of their death (6:9–11). 87 In 21:7–8 those who conquer are contrasted with ‘the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars.’ We find a similar contrast in 22:14–15. In 2:19 the works of faithfulness are specified as love, faithfulness, service, endurance. 88 What should be feared is the second death (20:6, 14; 21:8; 2:11), not the first death. The first death will be abolished for those worthy to dwell in Jerusalem (21:4). The Apocalypse contrasts appearance (mere physical life) with reality (a life lived in righteousness); true life is marked by fulfilling the works required by God (3:1–2); where this is absent one is approaching death. The Apocalypse warns against mere appearance: contrast between appearance and reality can be seen also in 2:9 and 3:17–18. The greatness of Babylon is ultimately shown as mere appearance and therefore illusory: 18:2, 7–8, 10, 16–17, 19. 89 See Rev 6:9–11; 11:3–12; 2:10,13; 12:11; it is a question of radical faithfulness to God, even unto death, as in Dan 1–6, 13–14, a work that has inspired the Apocalypse. In Daniel the faithful are rescued from physical death, but 4 Maccabees presents us with dramatic scenes of martyrdom; the relationship to God which is called for by 4 Maccabees is already more philosophical in its language. For Philo radical self-surrender is the abandonment of proud but useless selfreliance and the adoption of an attitude of radical openness to God joined to humble praise.

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times: 1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7; 19:6; 21:22). Worship is the joyful of reception of God’s royal rule. The worship of the community is one of the important ways in which the awareness of “immediate or direct presence of God”90 is evoked and maintained among the addressees, and by which the expectation of its fulfilment is sustained. John draws on the biblical imagery of the covenant relationship between God and Israel to visualize this divine presence.91 The expected future is dramatically anticipated towards the end of the book by means of the imagery of the marriage ceremony between the Bride and the Lamb: in 19:6–10, the preparatory stage for the wedding, we hear how the bride has prepared himself by receiving and putting on the robe of δικαιώματα τῶν ἁγίων, the works of Jesus (2:26). This robe could be identified with the heavenly Jerusalem as this name is written on those who overcome.92 Rev 21:2–8, a further stage in the wedding ceremony, is the wedding procession of the Bride ready to enter for the banquet, while 21:9–22:5 is the encounter. Whatever the exact interpretation, the scenes anticipating the expected wedding and the repeated promise by the Bridegroom that he is coming soon (22:7, 12) arouse an ardent response from the communities, the Bride inspired by the spirit (22:17). The first two imperatives in 22:17, ἔρχου, are calling upon Christ to come, but the third imperative, ἐρχέσθω, together with λαβέτω, calls community to let desire like a thirst move them to come to him right now. While in 3:20 the Lord stands at the door and knocks, here they call on him to come, and he moves them by desire to come to him: we see here a play of mutual interaction in which God leads and draws. As another instance of this mutual interaction we can point to 19:8, καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῇ ἵνα περιβάληται βύσσινον λαμπρὸν καθαρόν· τὸ γὰρ βύσσινον τὰ δικαιώματα τῶν ἁγίων ἐστίν. The divine gift of the righteous works becomes the human response.

Conclusion Philo and John shared a common mystagogical concern, viz., to guide their audience on the way to a lasting encounter with God. They did so by drawing

90 McGinn, Foundations of Mysticism, xvii. 91 The covenant formula (21:3) finds a climax in seeing of God’s face (22:4); God’s presence is no longer mediated by the sanctuary, the sun or the moon (21:22–23); God’s throne has come among them in the New Jerusalem (22:3–5). 92 See 3:12, according to Donal A. McIlraith, “‘For the Fine Linen Is the Righteous Deeds of the Saints’: Works and Wife in Revelation 19:8,” CBQ 61 (1999): 529.

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on their temporary mystical experiences while on their own spiritual journey. Both saw this journey is God’s work93 and therefore they saw the human response as radical openness to God’s work. This receptivity demanded a morally worthy life reflecting God’s own qualities. Both call for a hopefilled endurance in all difficulties and for a victorious struggle94 in order to acquire and maintain practical wisdom.95 For Philo wise living guided by φρονήσις, the conqueror of illusory reasoning, is a crucial requirement to see God. In the Apocalypse the New Jerusalem embodies this wise living and leads to life in communion with God while Babylon represents illusion and ends in destruction. John appeals to his addressees to leave Babylon (18:4) and to participate in the New Jerusalem (3:12). The mystical experiences of Philo and John are best seen in line with the experiences of the biblical prophets in their task to guide their audiences on the mystical journey.96 Their authority is drawn from their inspired understanding of the Scriptures. Philo’s inspired reading of the Scriptures expresses itself in his allegorical exegesis; he expresses these insights in language drawn from the philosophies of his time as guidance for the journey to which he himself is committed. John draws on his experience of the Scriptures to construct a “sacred canopy” of meaning and he sees himself on the way together with the communities (1:9). The spiritual journey marked out by Philo and the Apocalypse is a complex process of interaction between God and human beings, some kind of synergism, God and humans working at different levels. John expresses this by means of images like the one knocking on the door in 3:20 or the play with the image of coming.97 Philo draws on the language of desire to indicate that kind of synergism: God instills desire in human beings and they desire.98

93 This is a point which Philo stressed particularly when addressing the more advanced, who might be tempted to attribute the progress to themselves; for beginners he stressed the need for strenuous effort, see Mackie, “Seeing God,” 157–58. 94 For Philo, see Mut. 81; for John, see the challenges to conquer in the Letters. 95 Philo, Mut. 81 speaks of τοὺς φρονήσεως ἄθλους against opposing ways of reasoning. John present a similar opposition between Jerusalem, which represents wise living and Babylon, which represents living in illusion and wickedness. 96 As McGinn (Foundations of Mysticism, xvi) has observed, “Isolation of the goal from the process and the effect has led to much misunderstanding of the nature of mysticism.” It also implies that the mystical writings of Philo and John must not be isolated from the mystical journey and its goal. 97 The announcement of the Bridegroom that he is coming soon (22:7, 12, 20); the longing for his coming (22:17, 20) and the invitation of those who thirst to come (22:17). 98 ἔρως or πόθος or προθυμία: Her. 70; Somn. 1.232. See McGinn, Foundations of Mysticism, 39.

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While John imagines the full union with God according to the model of human interpersonal communion, Philo is more attentive to the implications of God’s transcendence and the soul’s radical dependence so that full communion involves the recognition of one’s nothingness and a renouncing of oneself.99 However, radical renouncing is also important for John in the form of martyrdom.100 Ultimately, for both the existential depth of their desire for God determines all renunciations and is the source of their “vision” of God.101

99 Philo, Somn. 1.60; Her. 30, 99. We find here one of the sources of the language of selfnegating in the Christian mystical tradition. 100 Rev 12:11. The motivation for martyrdom is not one’s nothingness but the demand of radical commitment to God and the Lamb. In the Synoptic Gospels there is the tradition of renouncing oneself and taking up one’s cross (Mark 8:34). Paul writes about dying with Christ in order to rise and live with Christ (Rom 6:1–11), about Christ living in him while he himself no longer lives (Gal 2:20). 101 Compare Migr. 13 (συνοικεῖν γὰρ ἀμήχανον τὸν ἀσωμάτων καὶ ἀφθάρτων ἔρωτι κατεσχημένον τῷ πρὸς τὰ αἰσθητὰ καὶ θνητὰ ῥέποντι) with Rev 12:11 (οὐκ ἠγάπησαν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτῶν ἄχρι θανάτου). Compare also Phil 3:8 (ἡγοῦμαι πάντα ζημίαν εἶναι διὰ τὸ ὑπερέχον τῆς γνώσεως Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ κυρίου μου).

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Sterling, Gregory E. “The School of Moses in Alexandria: An Attempt to Reconstruct the School of Philo.” Pages 141–66 in Second Temple Jewish Paideia in Context. Edited by Jason M. Zurawski and Gabriele Boccaccini. BZNW 228. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017. Stoeber, Michael, “The Comparative Study of Mysticism.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, 2015. http://religion.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/ 9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-93?rskey=B1rabE&result=3. Stone, Michael E. “Apocalyptic – Vision or Hallucination?” Milla wa-Milla 14 (1974): 47–56. Stone, Michael E. “List of revealed things in apocalyptic literature.” Pages 389–413 in Magnalia Dei. The Mighty Acts of God. Essays on the Bible and Archaeology. Edited by G.R. Wright, Frank Moore Cross, Werner E. Lemke, and Patrick D. Miller. New York: Doubleday, 1976. Stone, Michael E. “A Reconsideration of Apocalyptic Visions.” HTR 96 (2003): 167–180. Stone, Michael E. Scriptures, Sects, and Visions: A Profile of Judaism from Ezra to the Jewish Revolts. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2007. Stowasser, Martin, ed. Das Gottesbild in der Offenbarung des Johannes. WUNT 2.397. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015. Strawn, Brent A. The Old Testament is Dying. A Diagnosis and Recommended Treatment. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017. Strugnell, John. “The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran – 4QShirot Olat HaShabbat.” Pages 318–45 in Congress Volume Oxford, 1959. VTSup 7. Leiden: Brill, 1960. Strydom, Johan M. “Vernuwing in die bestudering van religie en religieë.” LitNet Akademies 13 (2016): 536–54. Stuckenbruch, Loren T. “Overlapping Ages at Qumran and ‘Apocalyptic’ in Pauline Theology.” Pages 309–26 in Dead Sea Scrolls and Pauline Literature. Edited by Jean-Sébastien Rey, George J. Brooke, and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Stuckenbruck, Loren T., and Mark D. Mathews. “The Apocalypse of John, 1 Enoch, and the Question of Influence.” Pages 191–234 in Die Johannesapokalypse: Kontexte – Konzepte – Rezeption. Edited by J. Frey, J. A. Kelhoffer, and F. Tóth. WUNT 287. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012. Suto, Taki. “Virtue and Knowledge: Connatural Knowledge according to Thomas Aquinas.” The Review of Metaphysics 58 (2004): 61–79. Tabor, James. Things Unutterable: Paul’s Ascent to Paradise in its Greco-Roman, Judaic, and Early Christian Context. Landham, MD: University Press of America, 1986. Theissen, G. “Paulus und die Mystik: Der eine und einzige Gott und die Transformation des Menschen.” ZTK 110 (2013): 263–90. Thomas, Samuel. “Philip S. Alexander, The Mystical Texts: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and Related Manuscripts.” RBL 4 (2008): 292–96. Tobin, Thomas H. The Creation of Man: Philo and the History of Interpretation. CBQMS 14. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1983. Tóth, Franz. Der himmlische Kult. Wirklichkeitskonstruktion und Sinnbildung in der Johannesoffenbarun. ABG 22. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2006. Ulland, Harald. Die Vision als Radikalisierung der Wirklichkeit in der Apokalypse des Johannes. TANZ 21. Tübingen: Francke, 1997. Vanni, Ugo. “Linguaggio, simboli ed esperienza mistica nel libro dell’ Apocalisse.” Gregorianum 79 (1998): 5–28, 461–506. Vielhauer. Philipp. “Einleitung.” In Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung, II. Band: Apostolisches, Apokalypsen und Verwandtes. Edited by W. Schneemelcher. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1964.

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Index Afterman, Adam 157 Alexander, Philip 4, 48–49, 54, 63, 65–67, 76–78, 80–89, 93–94, 96, 119 Astley, Jeff 51 Arnold, Russell C. D. 71, 77, 167 Auberlen, Carl August 15 Aune, David E. 106–107, 110, 121–122, 124–125, 127, 178, 181 Backus, Irena 11 Baillet, M. 75 Balthasar, Hans Urs von 12, 34 Barrett, Charles Kingsley 17 Bauckham, Richard 12, 17, 109 Baumgarten, Jörg 104 Beale, Gregory K. 107 Becker, Michael 9, 15, 19, 103 Berger, Klaus 124, 126 Betz, Hans-Dieter 22–23, 29 Birnbaum, Ellen 157 Böhm, Martina 157 Bonazzi, Mauro 155 Borgen, Peder 129, 133 Böttrich, Christfried 118 Bousset, William 129, 133 Boustan, Ra’anan 4, 34, 38, 41–43, 47, 49, 52, 62, 89 Box, George Herbert 36 Boyarin, Daniel 116 Brooke, George 68–69, 86 Brück, M. von 105 Brunner, Emil 104 Buber, Martin 18, 44, 124 Caird, Edward 156 Carabine, Deirdre 161 Cazeaux, Jacques 176 Charles, Robert Henry 17–18, 126, 168 Christophersen, Alf 15 Ciurtin, Eugen 23 Cocksworth, Ashley 34 Collins, John J. 2–4, 10, 22, 27–29, 34, 46, 61–80, 105. 129, 169 Cover, Michael 159 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110597264-010

Craffert, Pieter F. 167 Crawford, Sidnie White 29 Dahl, Nils A. 33 Dan, Joseph 2–3, 33, 37–38, 72, 78, 82, 105, 112–113, 115–117, 119, 121 Davila, James R. 12, 17, 63–65, 73, 77, 167 Deane, William John 16 Dean-Otting, Miriam 129, 133 Decock, Paul B. 5–6, 167–186 DeConick, April 34, 48, 52–53, 58, 61, 66, 77 Deichgräber, Reinhard 124 Deißner, Kurt 104 Delling, Gerhard 124–125 Dillon, John M. 155 Dimant, D. 68 DiTommaso, Lorenzo 29 Dobroruka, Vicente 61 Dochhorn, Jan 106 Douglas, Michael C. 71 Dulk, Matthijs den 179 Dunn, James D. G. 9, 33, 104 Ego, Beate 69, 173 Ehlers, Kathrin 69 Elior, Rachel 40, 53, 61, 65, 67 Eltester, Friedrich Wilhelm 131 Erdmann, Martin 9 Eshel, Esther 65, 84 Eshel, Hanan 84 Fabricius, Johann Albert 12–13, 17 Falk, Daniel 71 Fekkes, Jan 107 Fletcher-Louis, Crispin 53, 65, 69 Frennesson, Björn 69, 86 Frey, Jörg 2, 103–127 Frick, Peter 161 García Martínez, Florentino 75, 85–86 Geertz, Armin W. 23 Gibbons, Patricia 61 Gilhus, Ingvild Saelid 23 Ginzberg, Louis 18

206

Index

Glucker, John 155 Goff, Matthew J. 70 Goodenough, Erwin R. 79, 157 Grabbe, Lester L. 163 Green, Arthur 49, 170 Gruenwald, Ithamar 31, 38–40, 43, 54, 83, 105–106, 115–118, 127 Hadot, Pierre 167 Halperin, David J. 49, 52–53 Harnack, Adolf 18 Heinemann, Joseph 125 Heininger, Bernhard 104 Hellholm, David 22–26, 105 Hengel, Martin 22, 29, 104, 117, 123, 126, 169–170 Henze, Matthias 13, 19 Hernández Jr., Juan 19 Herrmann, Klaus 119 Hessayon, Ariel 11–12 Hilgenfeld, Adolf 15–16 Himmelfarb, Martha 3, 41, 52, 67, 89, 129 Hobein, H. 142 Holloway, Paul 94 Holm-Nielsen, Svend 71 Holtz, T. 108 Hughes, Aaron W. 49

Kensky, Meira 110, 116 Kim Harkins, Angela 71, 73–74, 77 Klausner, Thomas 126 Klinzing, Georg 69 Knohl, I. 76 Koch, Klaus 7, 15–16, 20–22, 27, 103 Koch, Michael 107 Koester, Craig R. 108 Kowalski, Beate 107, 114 Kraft, Heinrich 106, 126 Kraft, Robert 19 Kuhn, Heinz-Wolfgang 68, 72 Kvanvig, Helge S. 15 Lambek, Michael 96 Lamm, Julia A. 35 Lange, Armin 69 Laporte, Jean 172, 182 Laurence, Richard 13–14 Levison, Jack 5–6, 129–154 Lévy, Carlos 171 Lewy, Hans 161 Lietaert Peerbolte, Bert Jan 99 Lindbeck, George A. 45–46 Litwa, David 165 Lohmeyer, Ernst 126 Lücke, Friedrich 15, 103, 105, 155 Luz, Ulrich 104

Idel, Moshe 36, 39, 43–48, 52, 56, 107, 124 Jacobsen, Knut A. 23 Jaeger, Werner 169 James, Montague Rhodes 17 Jauhiainen, Marko 107 Jeremias, Gerd 71 Jervell, J. 131 Jobling, David 131 Jörns, Klaus-Peter 125 Kamesar, Adam 171, 176 Kanagaraj, J. J. 34 Karrer, Martin 121 Käsemann, Ernst 20, 22 Katsos, Isidoros 170 Kautzsch, Emil 17 Keene, Nicholas 12

Macaskill, Grant 95 Mach, Michael 54, 70, 104, 169 Mackie, Scott D. 174, 177–178, 185 Maier, Johann 67 Margolin, Ron 43–45, 47 Masquelier, Adeline 96–97 Matand Bulembat, Jean-Bosco 180 Matthews, Mark D. 116 Mazzarelli, Claudio 155 McCutcheon, Russell T. 23 McDonald, Lee Martin 8 McGinn, Bernard 1, 34–36, 43, 50–51, 62, 81–83, 156, 168, 184–185 McIlraith, Donal A. 184 Méasson, Anita 132, 146, 159 Meeks, Wayne 25, 33, 79, 153 Meier, Hans-Christoph 104

Index

Meyendorff, John 168 Michael, M. G. 27 Milik, J. T. 113 Momigliano, Arnaldo 9 Morgan, Robert 18 Morray-Jones, Christopher 32–33, 49–50, 66, 87, 91–92, 99 Mount, Christopher 96 Moyise, Steve 107 Müller, Christoph G. 109 Müller, Ulrich B. 126 Myers, David N. 37 Najman, Hindy 107, 176 Neumann, Nils 109–110 Newsom, Carol 28, 57, 65–66, 70–71, 84–89 Nickelsburg, G. W. E. 2, 68, 83, 113–114, 116–117, 122 Niehoff, Maren R. 157 Nitzan, Bilhah 61, 63, 71, 84, 88 Noak, Christian 161 Odeberg, Hugo 33, 36 Oegema, Gerbern S. 10 Oepke, Albrecht 34 Oesterley, William O.E. 36 Öhler, Markus 9, 15, 19 Orlov, Andrei A. 4, 37, 41, 43, 53–54, 61, 63 Peterson, Erik 125 Pilhofer, Peter 69 Pike, N. 62 Prigent, Pierre 124, 126 Puech, Émile 68, 72 Reed, Annette Yoshiko 8, 11–13, 18 Reynolds III, Bennie H. 15 Robinson, James M. 20 Roloff, Jürgen 126 Rossing, Barbara 10 Rowland, Christopher 31–33, 50, 53, 61, 87, 92, 99 Rudolph, Kurt 24 Runia, David T. 131–132, 158, 165, 174

207

Sanders, Seth L. 77 Schade, Hans-Heinrich 104 Schäfer, Peter 32, 36–38, 40–41, 45–48, 50, 52–53, 55, 57, 61, 63–64, 66–68, 72, 74, 76, 80–94, 100, 105, 119, 125 Schenck, Kenneth 170, 177 Schiffman, Lawrence H. 69, 75 Schimanowski, Gottfried 110, 120–122, 124–126 Schmid, Konrad 107 Schmidt, Johann Michael 7, 15 Schmitt, John J. 9 Schneemelcher, Wilhelm 17–18 Scholem, Gershom 4, 31–32, 36–40, 42–45, 47, 52, 54, 57, 62, 67, 89, 91, 105, 169 Scholtissek, Klaus 182 Schuller, Eileen 77, 84 Schweitzer, Albert 94–95, 104 Sheldrake, Philip 34 Sedley, David 155 Segal, Alan 61, 75, 81, 129, 147 Smith, Morton 25–26, 75, 77, 80 Söding, Thomas 109 Sommer, Michael 107 Stayer, James M. 10 Sterling, Gregory E. 5, 129, 155–166, 169, 172 Stoeber, Michael 55 Stone, Michael E. 3–4, 24, 30–31 Stowasser, Martin 108 Strawn, Brent A. 18 Strugnell, John 64 Strydom, Johan M. 8 Stuckenbruck, Loren T. 116, 120, 125 Suto, Taki 175, 177 Tabor, James 129, 133 Theissen, G. 104 Thomas, Samuel 48 Tobin, Thomas H. 158 Tóth, Franz 106, 108, 116 Ulland, Harald 108 VanderKam, James C. 64, 83, 116–117 Vanni, Ugo 178 Vielhauer, Philipp 18

208

Index

Villiers, Pieter G.R. de 6–59 Vögtle, Anton 108 Waaijman, Kees 34, 55–58, 168, 177–178 Wassen, Cecilia 29 Wasserman, Emma 97 Webster, John 8 Widengren, Geo 23 Winston, David 156–157, 169–170, 172–173

Wise, M. O. 74, 76–77 Wolfson, Elliott 37–38, 49–50, 53, 62–63 Yarbro Collins, Adela 4, 27, 46, 65, 81–101, 107–108, 167 Yardeni, Ada 84 Yli-Karjanmaa, Sami 180 Zahn, Molly M. 19

Index of Ancient Writings A. Biblical Gen ,33 1:1–2:5 157 1:2 135 1:26 131, 151 1:26–27 130, 132, 133, 154 1:27 148 2:1–3:23 163 2:1–18:2 162 2:7 140, 143, 148, 154, 163, 182, 184, 185 3 179 3:14–15 163 6:1–4 134–135 6:2–3 134 6:3 134–138, 143–144 9:20 138, 143 12:1 170, 176 15 118 15:4 148 15:6 148 28:10–17 161 Exod 19:3 1 21:12 170 24:1 1 24:12 151 31:3 135 33 164 33:7 137, 153 33:13 164 33:20 1 35:40 164 Lev 1:1 143 22:27 124 Num 11 135 11:17 135 12 164 12:6–8 164

Deut 4:4 171 30:15 172 30:15–20 171, 182 30:19 172 30:20 171, 182 33:5 69 1 Kgs 22 116 22:19 2 2 Kgs 22:19 119 Ps 1 182 80:1 122 99:1 122 110 78 119:18 50 Isa 5:6 110, 123 6 112 6:1 111 6:2 118, 123 6:1–3 6:3 111, 118, 123–124 24–27 37:16 127 54:11–12 122 61:1–13 Ezek 1 33, 50, 82, 86, 90, 111, 118 1–2 113–114 1:1 120 1:4 111, 114 1:5–6 111 1:13 111, 114 1:16 121 1:22 111 1:24 111 1:26 122

210

Index of Ancient Writings

1:26–27 32 1:28 2, 114 3:12 39 3:14 39 8:3 39 10 86 10:20 121–122 40–44 114 40–48 65, 114 40:3 114 42:20 114 43:13 114 43:17 114 Dan 1–6 183 7 78, 82, 112, 115, 116–117 7:9 33, 119 7:9–10 33, 116 7:10 125 7:22 117 10 121 10:3 2 12 3, 72 12:3 3 13–14 183 Zeph 4:1 125 8:1 125 Zech 9–14 16 Matt 19:28 78 25:31 78 Mark 4:26–29 182 8:34 186 13 16 13:26–27 98 14:62 78 Luke 22:30 78

Acts 14:22 181 Rom 1:4 95 6:1–11 95, 186 7 97 7:7–8:14 97 8 94 8:9 96 8:18–23 94 8:18–25 6 8:15–16 97 8:15–17 6 8:21–23 6 11:25 99 12:6 96 1 Cor 2 98 2:1–2 99 2:4–5 96 2:6–7 99 2:10 99 2:12 99 2:12–13 99 2:16 173 3:5–9 182 4:1 99 9:1 97 11:4–5 96 12:1 97 12:6 96 12:10 96 12:28 97 12:28–29 97 12:29 97 12:30 96 13:1 96 13:2 96 13:8 96 13:9 96 14 98 14:6 98 14:26 98 14:29 96

Index of Ancient Writings

14:32 97 15:8 97 15:19 96 15:23–28 6 15:47 94 15:51–53 99 2 Cor 12 97 12:2–3 121 12:2–4 99, 118, 148 12:3 17 12:4 99 12:9 100 Gal 1:12 98 1:15–16 98 2:20 173 3:5 95–96 3:23–28 95 4:26 94, 97 5:16–26 97 Phil 2 94 2:6 94 2:9 94 2:9–11 94 3:8 186 3:10–14 94 3:20 94 3:20–21 6 3:21 93, 94 1 Thess 4 98 4:15–17 98 5:20 96 5:20–21 96 Heb 8:1 78 Jas 5:7–8 182

211

Rev 1:1 109 1:1–2 1:5 106, 110, 122, 124–125, 127, 181, 183 1:6 181–182 1:8 109, 180–181, 184 1:9 179, 181 1:10 167, 179 1:10–20 108 1:12–16 1:12–20 118 1:13–16 121 2–3 179 2:2 181 2:3 182 2:7 182 2:9 183 2:10–11 122 2:10 122, 183 2:11 183 2:13 110, 183 2:14 183 2:17 183 2:18–19 122 2:19 183 2:21 2:26 181–182, 184 3:1 182 3:1–2 183 3:5 182 3:9 181 3:10 181 3:12 184 3:17–18 183 3:20 167, 180 3:21 181 4 109–113, 115, 119–120 4–5 115, 118, 120, 124 4–22 179 4:1 119 4:2 109, 120–121, 167, 179 4:3 121–122 4:4 110 4:5–6 105, 108–109, 112, 115, 117–118, 120, 124, 126–127 4:6 123

212

Index of Ancient Writings

4:7 110 4:8 111, 123–124, 181, 184 4:8–11 110 4:9 124 4:9–10 183 4:9–11 124 4:11 125 5 112, 126 5:1–5 110 5:6 110, 123, 183 5:2 126 5:4 126 5:5 182 5:6 123 5:7 110 5:8–10 110 5:9 124, 183 5:9–12 124 5:10 181–182 5:11 125 5:11–12 110 5:12 125 5:13 110 5:14 110 6–16 111 6:8 180 6:9–11 183 7:14 181, 183 7:15 125 8:1–6 108 11:1–14 114 11:3–12 183 11:3–14 183 11:15–19 108 11:17 181, 184 11:18 180 12 108 12:3–18 12:11 183, 186 12:17 183 13 182 13:10 181 14:5 182 14:7 178, 182–183 14:11 125 14:12 181

14:13 180 14:14–15:8 108 15:2 15:3 181, 184 15:3–4 182 15:4 183 16:7 181, 184 16:14 181 17:14 183 18:2 183 18:4 185 18:7–8 183 18:16–17 183 18:19 183 19:2 180 19:3 179 19:6 181, 184 19:6–10 184 19:8 184 19:15 181 20:6 180, 182–183 20:12–13 180 20:14 183 21:1–22:5 114, 180 21:2–8 184 21:3 184 21:3–5 109 21:4 180, 183 21:5 181 21:7 179–180, 183 21:7–8 183 21:8 183 21:9–22:5 21:10 167, 179 21:22 181, 184 21:22–23 21:27 180 22:1 12 22:3–5 184 22:4 184 22:5 114 22:7 184–185 22:10 183 22:12 180, 185 22:14–15 180, 183 22:17 184–185 22:20 180

Index of Ancient Writings

B. Deuterocanonical Tob 13:16–17 122 Add Esth 15 116 Wis 1:7 7:27 179 2 Esd 9:26 3 14:39 3 C. Pseudepigrapha Apoc. Ab. 9–19 118 10:2–3 118 10:3 94 10:9 122 11:2 118 17 118 18 41 18:5–6 118 19:4 118 Apoc. Mos. 38:4 118 Ascen. Isa. 6:6 119 9:9 119 2 Bar. 51:11 122 3 Bar. 2:2 17 1 En. 6–16 113 9:4 126

13:7 3 14 2, 115–116, 120–122, 127 14:8 113–114, 120 14:8–23 113 14:8–16:4 14:9 113 14:10 113 14:11 125 14:13 113 14:15 120 14:17 113 14:18 114 14:20 2, 114 14:21 113 14:22 125 14:23 113 14:24–16:4 18:6–9 122 18:8 122 37–71 113 37–72 116 39 83 39:3 17, 83 39:4–5 83 39:12 125 40:1 125 40:2 125 45:3 78, 116 46:3 116 47:3 78, 116 49:3 116 51:2–3 116 51:3 78 55:4 78 60 41 60:1–4 117 60:2 78 61:8 78 62:2–3 78 62:5 78 69:26 117 69:26–29 117 69:27 78 69:29 78 70 117 70:11 117

213

214

Index of Ancient Writings

71 41, 117 71:4 117 71:14 117 71:7–17 94 71:16–17 79 78:1 125 104:2 3 104:6 3 108:12 78 2 En. 3–20 118 7:1 8–9 118 8:8 118 20:3 118 21:1 118 21:6 118 22:6 118 22:8–10 3 3 En. 1:10 4 1:12 125 2:4 126 4:3 4 9–13 66 10:1 78 12:5 94 16 4 16:1–5 78 28:7–10 119 32:1–2 119 35:1–2 119 35:6 119 Lad. Jac. 2:7–22 119 T. Ab. 12:4 121 T. Levi 2–5 116 2:5–6 120 3:4–9 119 5 41

D. Dead Sea Scrolls 1QS 3:15 70 8:4b–10 73 8:5–6 69 9:3–5 69 9:3–6 10:6–9 84 11 74 11:2–7 70, 73 11:7–8 67–68 11:8 1QHa 6:7 73 7:7 72 11 69 11:4–15 11:19–21 68, 71 11:19–23 86 11:20–21 86 11:21 88 11:22–23 11:23–24 88 11:23–25 72 11:26–36 12 74 12:6 73 12:17–18 73 12:23 73 12:23–27 74 12:24–25 72 16:4–26 72–73 17:31–32 74 18:30–35 19:3–14 72 19:10–14 25:35–26:10 74 4Q174 1:6 69 4Q213a 2.16–18 120

Index of Ancient Writings

4Q385 4:5–9 123 4Q400 1 65 4Q400 2 5–7, 85 4Q405 23 2, 87 4Q427 7 74–75 4Q428 77

77–83 172 78–82 181 79 174 82 174 125–130 173 Congr. 36 175 53 169, 175 79 175 84 176 86–88 88 174 130 174 Decal. 99–101 175

4Q431 74 4Q471b 74–75 4Q491 11 77 4Q530 2 ii + 6–7 i + 8–12 lines 16–20, 125 11QShirSabb 8–7 87 E. Philo Abr. 1.57 177 4–5 176 14 Agr. 104 149 Cher. 19 167 27–29 179 48 146 71 174

Det. 79–90 132 86 173 87 158 87–90 159, 163 164 175 Deus 1.48 173 Ebr. 146 159 151–152 177 Fug. 55 171 56 171 58 171 62 159 63 156, 177, 180 75–76 177 Gig. 6 134 8 134 9 175 13 159 13–14 149, 174

215

216

Index of Ancient Writings

13–15 134 16 134 19 134 19–31 137 19–55 133, 139, 143 20 135 22 135 23 135 24 135 25 143 26 135 26–28 135 27 136 28 136 29 136 29–31 130, 133, 154 30 136, 149 30–31 136 31 133, 153 50–55 141 53–54 137, 153 53–55 137 55 138, 144, 153 Her. 30 186 69 146 70 146, 185 99 186 121 172 123 172–173 253 174 264–266 135 265 147 301 159 Leg. 1.52 174 1.61 159 1.63 171 1.91 158 3.18 174 3.41 170, 176 3.65–106 163 3.96 163 3.97–99

3.100 164 3.100–103 162–165 3.101 164 3.102 164 3.103 164 3.161 140 Legat. 5 133, 159 Migr. 1–13 170, 176 12 170, 176 13 186 33–35 174, 178 34–35 165, 173 35 167 86 149 177–182 172 177–186 176 179 172 190–197 176 Mos. 1.1 179 1.187 161 2.288 165 Mut. 10 158 36 179 81 185 178 148 179–180 132–133 180 152 Opif. 17–25 20 161 25 158 69 142, 147 149, 151, 158 69–71 130–133, 136, 140, 143, 152–153, 163 70 159–160 70–71 173 71 131, 151, 161–162 135 140

Index of Ancient Writings

Plant. 2 138 17 138 18 140, 148 18–26 130, 133, 138–144, 154 22 141 22–23 149, 152 23 143, 174 24 149 24–25 141 25 148–149, 152–153 27 144 28 138 Post. 35–42 171 Praem. 25–26 150 28–30 150 30 133, 176 31–35 150 36–46 150 36–48 159, 161 37 132 38 162 39 153 46 177 121–122 133, 151 Prob. 13 159 99 149 QE 2.40 151 QG 3.3 159 4.4 156 4.188 175 Sacr. 1.58 174 49 159 55 174

217

Somn. 1.60 174, 186 1.138 159 1.232 185 2.232 175 2.294 159 Spec. 1.36 148 1.37 133, 148, 152, 159 1.37–40 159, 162 1.43 175 1.65 135 1.207 149, 152, 162 1.307 172 1.32 2.44–45 150, 159, 162 2.46 153 2.229–30 151 2.230 153 2.244 159 3.1 145, 150 3.1–2 151 3.1–6 130, 137, 141, 144–147, 150, 154, 159, 162, 165 3.2 146 3.3 165 3.3–4 146 3.5 165 3.5–6 146 3.6 142, 146, 151, 153 3.185–194 176 4.49 4.123 140 4.135 171 4.188 156 Virt. 185 149 F. Talmud and Rabbinic b. Hag. 14b 4 t. Ber. 1.9 125

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Index of Ancient Writings

Tanḥ. 16 124 Hekhalot Rabbati 166 121 Hekhalot Zutarti 346 126 G. Apostolic Fathers Barn. 18–21 182 Did. 1–6 182 1 Clem. 34:6 125 H. Other Ancient Writings Alexander of Aphrodisias, Mixt. 216.14–17 136 Apos. Con. 7.35.3 125 Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II,q.45,a.2 177 Cicero, Fin. 5.26 155 Clement of Alexandria, Quis div 21 174 Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5.49 161 Diogenes Laertius, Nat. Deor. 2.38 140 Epictetus, Diatr. 1.14.6 140

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.28.1–2 10 5.16–7.25 10 6.29.4 126 Plato, Phaedr. 246–253 138 246A-249D 246A-253 C 132, 145 246A 132, 141, 145, 159 246B 145 246D 132, 151 246E 132, 158 247A 146 247A-B 161 247B 133, 141 247B-C 141, 160 247 C 160 247D 160 248A 145, 160 248B 160 249 C 132, 141, 145 249D 132, 141 249D–E 132 251 C, E 141 253 C 145 254B 143 Plato Theaet. 74A 145 173 C 145 176B 156 Plato, Tim. 29E 146 41–42 131 90A 138 Plotinus Enn. 1.3.3 143 6.7.36 142 Plutarch, Gen. Socr. 589 F-592 F 134 591D 134

Index of Ancient Writings

Plutarch, Quaest. plat. 6 142

Strabo, Geogr. 10.3.11 161

Seneca, Ep. 65.24 158

Tertullian, Or. 3 125

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